As marketers, we are the stewards of our brands. We are the authors of how we stay connected to consumers through our brand storytelling. And during times of uncertainty, there’s a critical balance to maintaining the stability of our brand voice while also adapting in a rapidly changing environment.
At Amazon Ads, this always begins by working backwards from the customer– and those customer needs have been evolving. According to Amazon Ads global 2022 Higher Impact report, 77% of consumer respondents stated they are increasingly re-evaluating their needs to shop more effectively. Meeting these customer needs means being as close to your advertising campaign metrics as possible, and having the ability to adapt with their needs in mind. In this dynamic landscape, marketers can be scrappy, move quickly, and be efficient with their time to maximize their outputs. Your advertising should be able to do the same.
Instead of primarily focusing on immediate, short-term wins, marketers need to be able to understand the full value of their efforts and investments over the long term. To make their marketing budget count it’s paramount to be able to measure success through all stages of the marketing funnel. As marketers seek to further optimize their advertising strategy and relative spend, they need to delve into their analytics and look at what’s resonating with customers: has their messaging become more or less relevant in the last month? What buying signals are being triggered from customer ad engagements? Has there been a shift in the customer omni-channel shopping journey? Shopping journeys are no longer linear, the ability to adapt with your customers is vital to the customer experience and the effectiveness of your ad strategy.
Many brands struggle with having an effective measurement strategy and the analytics to drive it. According to BCG, inaccurate measurement can yield a 65% higher cost of acquisition and on the opposite end, brands with seasoned measurement strategy can see a sales lift of as much as 60% and a ten-fold increase in return on ad spend (ROAS). Focusing on the customer journey, removing any friction from their experience, and investing in content that inspires action can help drive purchase intent and ROI. Building out your strategy for connecting your content to commerce can have significant downstream impacts, and by using a solution like Amazon Marketing Cloud, advertisers can bring together Amazon Ads signals with signals from non-Amazon channels, so they can analyze a campaign more holistically. This can give advertisers a better grasp over what’s moving the performance needle and where to scale successful campaigns and/or innovate to try something new. One thing we can always expect as marketers is more change. And in order to work better for customers as their needs evolve, we can use measurement and storytelling together to reach them where it matters the most.
