It's almost 2023. And if you're not already feeling the effects of 2022 on your Amazon sales, you may be in for a rude awakening.
The reality is that digital sales are no longer Amazon-exclusive. This doesn't mean that Amazon is obsolete. Quite the contrary.
What it means is that there's no small number of marketing channels available to the average Amazon store. But consolidating and tracking those channels through one centralized location can seem like a Herculean task.
Despite Amazon outranking Google as the primary search engine consumers use when planning a purchase, customers discover products from any number of sources. And if you're leveraging an off-Amazon paid campaign, you need to make absolutely certain your returns are going to justify the cost.
Amazon ads may be effective. But they can come at a cost.
Why Amazon Advertising Matters
With $22.5 Billion in annual sales and over 10 percent of the US digital ad market in 2020, Amazon's advertising segment is rapidly becoming one of the leading go-to solutions for enterprise businesses of all sizes.
It's not hard to see why Amazon advertising is commanding so much attention. It's innovative, highly scalable, adaptive—and above all, effective.
As early as 2015, data from Kantar/Millward Brown Digital found that the average Amazon conversion rate from paid advertising was as high as 13 percent, reaching all the way up to 74 percent for Prime customers.
But you can't rely solely on Amazon to increase conversions. There may be over 300 million active Amazon users worldwide, but there's an entire segment of potential customers off of the platform you need to take into consideration as well.
Measuring your success as a result of off-Amazon marketing campaigns isn't just time-consuming. Without the right metrics and the most up-to-date solutions in place, it can be virtually impossible.
While new developments are being released virtually every week, Amazon Attribution remains one of the most reliable and effective tools for gaining insight into the efficacy of all your online campaigns—including all your off-Amazon marketing efforts.
Amazon launched its Amazon Attribution program in 2018 to help sellers manage off-site traffic and campaign performance reporting.
While currently in beta, the Amazon Attribution tool was reportedly responsible for quarterly sales growth of up to 83 percent for some brands.
And it can save you countless hours of second-guessing in managing the efficacy of your external marketing campaigns.
What is Amazon Attribution?
Amazon Attribution is an analytics solution allowing you a direct understanding of how non-Amazon marketing channels are directly impacting your performance on Amazon.
Designed for active sellers, Amazon Attribution measures email, search, social, video, and display activity from off-site sources for a keen insight into the factors affecting your bottom line.
Paid ads and sponsored ads on Amazon may be effective. But the overall cost of Amazon ads has skyrocketed over the past two years, with some recent estimates indicating an increase of over 50 percent.
Any effective digital marketing strategy needs to weigh RoAS from all sources. But for many sellers, relying strictly on onsite Amazon marketing campaigns may no longer be enough.
Profitable campaigns demand actionable performance metrics backed by verifiable insight, particularly when you need to track off Amazon traffic.
And insight is precisely what Amazon Attribution offers. With comprehensive on-demand reporting of external traffic sources, sellers and brands can see exactly what channels are contributing to their success and help refine their campaigns for much better conversions.
What Are the Key Benefits of Amazon Attribution?
Some of the key benefits of Amazon Attribution include:
Customizable tracking for specific campaign metrics, including Google ad campaigns, email marketing, social media campaigns, and display ads.
Measurement at every stage of your sales funnel, from awareness to purchase.
Accessibility through both self-service consoles and Amazon API developer tools.
Increasing sales velocity and search rankings on Amazon through engagement measurement.
Detailed analysis of click-throughs, impressions, page views, purchase rates, total sales and Add to Cart results from virtually any paid advertising channel, including rich media and social media campaigns.
Accurate audience segment data for campaign planning strategies.
Increasing customer engagement through DSP retargeting.
Product launch support and measurement during product launches and A/B tests.
Comprehensive understanding and optimization of your current and future ROI.
How Much Does Amazon Attribution Cost?
Amazon Attribution is currently a free service requiring registration either through a vendor form. Requests are reviewed regularly, with the average turnaround time for approval being two weeks.
Not everyone is eligible for Attribution Attribution, however. Attribution is currently only available in North America, the UK, and the EU. To qualify, sellers must be active US Amazon vendors with an up-to-date vendor code or a professional seller or brand-registered business.
How to Use Amazon Attribution
What are Attribution tags?
You can select campaigns by creating an Amazon Attribution tag to track the history of each product search in a channel. This will generate a unique slug within a parameterized URL on Amazon.
By pasting the URL in a separate campaign monitoring dashboard, Attribution data can be generated for periods anywhere from the last 30 - 90 days.
To create an Amazon Attribution tag:
Sign into your Amazon Attribution dashboard.
Click “New order.”
If creating a tag for Instagram, Facebook, or Google ad campaigns, click “Upload file to create order and tags.” For other campaigns, click “Manually create order and tags.”
Add your product listings.
Scroll down to “Order settings” to name your Attribution tag or create an external ID for multiple tags.
Click “Continue to line items” and choose from the list of advertising platforms.
Can I use Amazon Attribution for Facebook ads?
Amazon Attribution now supports bulk Facebook ads by automatically generating up to 8,500 separate tags. They've also optimized social measurement capabilities by allowing sellers to create an Attribution tag for mobile clicks separately for both Instagram and Facebook ad campaigns during the past 14 days, allowing direct comparison of click-through rates between the Amazon Shopping app and Facebook's mobile app.
How do I track Google ads through Amazon Attribution?
You can optimize Amazon Attribution for your Google ad campaigns by enabling auto-tagging in Google Analytics to track your Google Click Identifiers (GLCID):
Click on Settings > Account Settings in your Google Ads account. Navigate to the ‘Auto Tagging’ option and select the check box.
Upload your GLCID data to Amazon Attribution.
Amazon will automatically create ad groups which you can assign an Amazon Attribution tag for once traffic is generated. The parameterized tracking URL of your campaigns should match the values given by Google Ads auto tagging.
A unique name can be assigned to each Google ad campaign through your Amazon Ads dashboard.
Understand Your Customers Before You Understand Your Campaign
Few can deny that digital commerce is by and large an Amazon-centric medium. But Amazon isn't just a success story. They themselves have become a standard of measurement.
That's because success on Amazon ultimately means your success in eCommerce.
But Amazon's strength is the same as any business: its customers. And those same customers can come from any source.
Without a thorough understanding of when, who and what is driving your traffic on Amazon, you can't have a thorough understanding of your campaign. That includes your external traffic. Amazon Attribution gives you the means to measure all three with on-demand reporting customizable to fit any-sized business.
It's not a question of “why?” It's a question of “what's next?”
Color More Lines can help your brand maximize its visibility on and off Amazon. Find out more at Color More Lines.