Laura Meyer is the founder and CEO of Envision Horizons, an Amazon Solutions company specializing in working with high-growth brands.
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In today’s digital landscape, Amazon advertising has become imperative for brands seeking to maximize their visibility, drive sales and foster brand loyalty among Gen Z shoppers on the platform. With a wide range of advertising options and advanced targeting capabilities, Amazon offers powerful ways for brands to reach and resonate with Gen Zers.
My company surveyed 266 Gen Zers who shop on Amazon, and 65% of them expressed a willingness to purchase products from Amazon ads. It’s evident that Amazon’s advertising platform holds significant potential for driving sales and conversions.
Let’s explore some effective advertising strategies for winning with Gen Z on Amazon.
Understand Your Audience Using Amazon Brand Analytics
Understanding the preferences and behaviors of Gen Z consumers is crucial for targeting them effectively on Amazon. But how can you tell what portion of your Amazon audience is Gen Z? This demographic is currently between the ages 12 to 27, although for advertising purposes, we’ll focus on those 18 and older. To find the breakdown of your audience demographics by age, head to Amazon Seller Central and review your demographics report. You’ll find this within the Brand Analytics tab, under Consumer Behavior Analytics.
Regularly using this report allows you to easily monitor and analyze Gen Z-specific metrics to optimize your performance.
Target Effectively
Now that you know your audience, how can you target them effectively? Forty-two percent of our survey respondents told us they spend several days researching products under $25 before making a purchase decision, indicating that even for small purchases, Gen Z takes time to evaluate options. This emphasizes the need to provide detailed product information and a compelling value proposition in your listings. Furthermore, with Gen Zers being digital natives, social proof and compatibility with their online lifestyle are key. Highlight positive reviews, influencer collaborations, device integration, etc.
Additionally, it is important to invest in retargeting strategies for Gen Z regardless of the product price point. A single ad impression is often not enough to break through the noise and drive an immediate purchase, especially for Gen Z consumers bombarded with marketing messages. Multiple sequenced touchpoints become necessary to effectively guide consumers through the sales funnel to a conversion. This will impact your customer acquisition costs, but with thoughtful optimization, you can make your marketing dollars go further to effectively reach Gen Z during their lengthy consideration period.
According to Statista, the online shopping cart abandonment rate reached 70% in 2023. By closely analyzing cart abandonment rates across your catalog, you can identify potential pain points causing shoppers to abandon their purchases. Then you can implement retargeting strategies to entice these high-intent shoppers to complete their orders.
A great way to take your retargeting to the next level is through Amazon Marketing Cloud, using the new Flexible Shopping Insights feature. With Flexible Shopping Insights, you can target customers who have organically added products to their cart but have not yet made a purchase, a significant advancement from the previous capabilities, which only allowed targeting of customers who had organically viewed product detail pages.
By leveraging valuable data insights and targeting options available through Amazon advertising, you can tailor your campaigns to reach Gen Z shoppers at the right time and with the right message.
Craft Compelling Ad Creative On And Off Amazon
According to IAB U.K., Gen Z has an average attention span of only eight seconds, and we found that 14% of our survey respondents don’t even notice Amazon ads. This means that to reach Gen Z, you need to craft compelling ad creative that resonates with their preferences and interests.
How can you do this? Make sure you use bold, visually appealing graphics to capture their attention. Colorful, eye-catching imagery and intriguing headlines can help your ads stand out on the search results page.
In addition, lean into social media advertising to reach Gen Z where they’re already engaged. Seventy-two percent of Gen Zers say they are open to seeing ads in their social media feeds.
Simply running the same ads across popular channels like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat is often not enough to convert customers. You must create native content that blends seamlessly into the experience and tone of each platform to add value through your ads rather than disrupt people’s feeds.
On TikTok, that means embracing authenticity, humor and aesthetics, as well as collaborating with genuine influencers and participating in viral video trends. On Instagram, it calls for beautifully composed imagery and compelling storytelling through photos and Reels. For Snapchat, ads are often just a few seconds long and include punchy copy and visuals. You can also test different Snapchat ad formats like Snap Ads, Story Ads, filters and lenses. The key is understanding the nuances of each social channel and tailoring the creative to match Gen Z’s expectations and mindset within that environment.
Test And Optimize Ad Bidding Strategies
Investing in advertising on Amazon is a fast track to understanding your product’s market appeal. With its high-intent traffic, Amazon is a gold mine for e-commerce companies. However, it’s crucial to strategically test your target audience’s response before ramping up your ad spend.
Testing different strategies, including reducing top-of-search bids for terms that may indicate browsing behavior, can help you achieve optimal placement and visibility while optimizing advertising spend. Experiment with various bidding tactics and analyze your performance metrics; then refine your approach to drive better results.
Conclusion
Winning with Gen Z on Amazon requires strategic advertising approaches that leverage the platform’s capabilities and cater to the preferences of this demographic. By crafting compelling ad creative, targeting effectively, and testing and optimizing bidding strategies, you can effectively engage Gen Z consumers and drive success on Amazon’s advertising platform.
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