Month: October 2018

Is Amazon the Next Great Advertising Platform?

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Amazon continues to experience spectacular growth in advertising revenues, so it’s worth it for marketers to look into this option. Now, that task is even easier. Last week Amazon released its inaugural 2019 Advertising Forecast, which published the results of a survey of 681 digital marketers and advertisers to better understand the challenges and opportunities that Amazon advertising products present.

Here are highlights from the report that I think are worth sharing.

44 percent of Amazon advertisers plan to add campaign automation tools in 2019. While the report shows that currently larger companies with revenue greater than $25 million are using Amazon ad automation tools more so than smaller businesses (under $10 million), both categories are equal in their intentions to use automation tools in 2019.

The tools they intend to use include ones from Kenshoo, Splitly, Sellics, Seller Labs, Prestozon, Pacvue, PPC Scope, Helium 10, Adlucent, Jungle Scout and Ignite, as well as proprietary tools.

Marketers will benefit from keeping top of mind thatAmazon purchases are “bottom of funnel,” which means shoppers log on with a specific purchase in mind. There’s an opportunity to capture some market with “similar products” with an Amazon ad that Kenshoo supports.

Recognizing the potential on Amazon, there are an increasing number of tools being developed specifically for Amazon to help marketers. For example, Teikametrics offers a retail optimization platform that optimizes Amazon search term bids, product keywords and other search parameters, and also supports the deployment of Sponsored Brand ads. Teikametrics takes advantage of the fact Amazon is often both the inventory advertiser as well as the order fulfillment center. Using this tool, sellers can zero in on important metrics like how many ads to run if inventory is low, or whether it is better to increase advertising or lower prices.

As Amazon continues to invest in its advertising offerings, marketers are looking for tools that will enable them to effectively scale and automate their campaign management. Amazon’s 2019 Advertising Forecast signals there is a substantial opportunity for new tools to help marketers do just that and that we’ll likely see ongoing innovation in this area as vendors work to meet growing marketer demand.

 

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Three Primary Challenges Facing Marketing Executives Today

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Platespinning-homepageToday’s marketing executives live in a very dynamic business environment and face new and complex challenges.  Among these challenges, there are three that I believe are most prevalent. The primary challenges facing sales and marketing executives today are digital integration, meeting marketing ROI objectives, and customer experience.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s involved with each challenge.

Challenge #1: Digital Integration

The reason digital integration is such a challenge is because marketing operations leaders are often not up to speed on the technology needed to fully bring their organizations into an optimized digital environment. Digital transformation is a necessity for B2B marketing operations and requires multiple marketing technologies.

Challenge #2: Meeting Business ROI

There is often a critical gap in business accountability when it comes to marketing operations. However, with increasing availability of financial metrics accountability, the position of the marketing executive has now become more and more relevant in the boardroom. We’ve moved from marketing being viewed as a nicety line item on the budget to a powerful and far more respected driver and supporter of the company’s revenue growth strategy. Marketing is now considered a must-have for overall business success.

Challenge #3: Customer Experience

Marketers’ new battleground is customer experience. Businesses are now required to pay attention to the experience they are delivering to their customers and would-be customers. The reason? Good customer experience pays in a major, major way. Nothing matches the success of a good customer relationship, and today’s technology gives customers ownership over their experiences. So, smart businesses are responding by becoming far more customer-centric. This means their marketing operations are driven by corporate strategy and operationalized by people, data and technology. This combination delivers a customer-centric approach that delivers real business results.

To be a successful marketing executive, these three primary challenges must be faced head on. This will enable you to transform your marketing operations into a strategic one that is primed to meet today’s challenges with forward-thinking, effective solutions.