Macarta’s 2021 Amazon Trends & Predictions

Macarta’s 2021 Amazon Trends & Predictions

It’s no secret that 2020 saw big changes in consumer spending. With Covid-19 upending everyday life and confining people to their homes, a massive growth occurred in online spending, landing Amazon with even more market share and sales volume. 

As the dust settles into 2021, there’s no turning back. FBA Help predicts that the shift in ecommerce will continue into the new year, with online sales of physical goods topping $476 billion by 2024. 

As we saw in 2020, major events are extremely likely to impact consumer behavior, and this fact isn’t likely to change with the new year. Here at Macarta we are gearing up for an uncertain, yet successful 2021. With our ear to the ground, we’re studying up on dominant Amazon trends in order to help our clients best prepare for what 2021 has in store. In this blog post, we present a list of things to look out for, from our very own Amazon experts.

Amazon Trends in Advertising

Building brand and product visibility is more important than ever before, especially since more retailers have shifted their focus to online advertising in order to accommodate the massive surge in ecommerce over the past year.

Luckily, Amazon has created a limited-risk way to expand beyond a brand’s obvious core consumer base. With the data they provide advertisers, we can learn more about customer demographics, and more importantly, where they are spending their time and money on Amazon. Dissecting these audience insights opens up opportunities to expand a brand’s reach and prove (or disprove) whether there’s an adjacent customer segment where their brand is relevant. The sheer volume of Amazon’s product offering makes brand loyalty harder to achieve. This presents a challenge to incumbent brands, but affords accessible market share to emerging brands in an environment where a variety of options are available at nearly every price point. 

Demand-Side Platform (DSP)

Amazon DSP is a full funnel marketing tactic that can target the right people at the right time. With Amazon’s behavioral targeting data feature, brands can capture and segment users at various stages of awareness and intent. Additionally, these ads serve both on and off Amazon, which can help maximize marketing reach and efficiency on a wide array of online sites and apps. Using the DSP in conjunction with other advertising types not only increases conversion, but can help brands better understand their audience through exclusive customer insights and attribution modeling.

Interactive Marketing

In 2020, Amazon released multiple marketing initiatives with immersive experiences, such as Amazon Live, Amazon Explore, Amazon Posts, and Sponsored Brands video. Our experts predict that we will see more of these interactive product types from Amazon in 2021 — especially in regards to video marketing — as they invest in the future of shopping.

Our Search Marketing Manager Rene Crandall and Digital Marketing Strategist Stevie Hash predict that 2021 will see massive growth in video advertising, as Amazon opens up more placements and video creation opportunities. Video ads have a high impact and resonate with consumers, leading to increased engagements, consideration, and ultimately, conversions. Both display and video ads track new to brand metrics, making them the perfect vehicle to track brand growth.

Amazon has consistently released new advertising opportunities and beta programs. Committing advertising dollars to these ventures can provide invaluable brand or product awareness in an oversaturated market place.

Amazon Trends in Content 

At the onset of the pandemic, many brands were forced to decrease their ad budgets and lean into alternative tactics. With store closures and Amazon traffic spikes, brands flocked to the platform. The need for a content strategy became increasingly apparent and the focus shifted to creative opportunities like Amazon Posts, product video, A+ content, and the brand store experiences. Although ad budgets are on the upswing, brands are still advised to maintain that momentum by utilizing the (free) tools that Amazon offers to deliver a seamless customer experience. 

This year, Amazon will continue to prioritize customer experience through new creative betas and better accessibility to brand specific content. We have already seen an increase in brand store access points through paid search and the PDP, with murmurs of additional placements coming soon.

Creative Initiatives to look out for on Amazon in 2021:

  • We foresee that Sponsored Brand capabilities will expand. Amazon might allow for more creative customization such as lifestyle in SB text overlay.
  • Recently, Amazon incorporated a “follow” button on both Amazon Posts and Brand Stores. We are guessing that Amazon will expand on the social network elements of recent betas. 
  • Video content is on the rise. In 2020, Amazon released new uses for video and those opportunities will only grow in 2021. When in doubt — use video.
  • Amazon Live will make an impact in 2021. Last year many brands utilized the platform for testing and saw great success in new to brand customer engagement and an increase in sales on featured products. We expect Amazon Live to take off in 2021 through more viewership, exposure, and the roll out additional functions and advertising.

Key Takeaways

Though 2020 threw many challenges at the retail industry, it brought massive growth and change to Amazon. The retail giant became more brand-focused and began offering more interactive shopping experiences, which will continue into 2021.

“As we make our way forward into the new year, Amazon will continue to be more than a place to buy things — it is a platform to launch brands, grow existing brands, and gain new customers. Brand stores, Posts, audio ads, Twitch, and dynamic display advertising are all experiencing routine facelifts with one goal in mind — more time spent on Amazon’s growing list of sites.”

  — Stephen Reagan, VP of Strategy & Client Services

The world has become digitally-driven. Amazon will not hesitate to pursue new opportunities to grow and will refine what is already working. In order to remain competitive in a crowded Amazon landscape, brands need to find ways to stand out. As our Digital Marketing Strategist pointed out, building your brand and increasing your product visibility is more important than ever before.




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