This new feature may still be in its beta testing phase. But, it’s showing signs of becoming the next great tool to improve digital marketing.
What is Amazon Brand Lift?
How do you use this new data-collecting tool? Let’s jump in.
What is Amazon Brand Lift?
Amazon Brand Lift is Amazon’s newest beta feature. It collects data to be used to gauge the impact that your ads have on your customers and their perception of your brand.
Amazon Brand Lift beta is a new function that is available for free to brands who are currently running DSP campaigns for at least 30 days with a budget of at least $50,000. To ensure that the tool has access to enough samples to provide accurate data to the marketer, Amazon also strongly recommends that all ad campaigns have a total of 2,000,000 impressions.
This new feature is accessible through the Amazon DSP console. Amazon Brand Lift collects data by surveying two groups: an ad-exposed audience and an unexposed control group. This data will provide feedback and information on how your audience views your brand and how your ads affect that view.
Amazon Brand Lift can collect results for as many as 7 days and the results are ready a week after the last day of the survey.
How to Use Amazon Brand Lift
You can access Amazon Brand Lift Beta through your Amazon DSP console. If you’re already advertising through Amazon, you’re probably familiar with this platform.
Creating a Study
Once you’re inside of your console, select Create Study.
Once on the Create Study page, look for the drop-down menu under Brand Lift, then select Continue.
Under Orders, select Choose Orders. Here, you can search for orders featuring the same brand or product that you would like to include in your study. You can choose up to 10 orders for each study. All upcoming or active US ad campaigns in the Amazon DSP console qualify for inclusion in an Amazon Brand Lift study. This includes streaming TV campaigns too.
Once you find the orders you want to feature, click add next to each of them to add them to your selected list. Verify that your total budget and campaign durations meet the requirements for an Amazon Brand Lift study.
Once you’ve selected the orders you want to include, click Apply Changes in the bottom right of the order selection window.
Adding Details to Your Study
Once you’ve selected which campaigns you want to study, you’ll need to add details to your Amazon Brand Lift study.
Under Settings, you can name your study. Choose something memorable and relative to the data you’re collecting.
Next, you need to select a benchmark category. This is used to calculate benchmark norms that Amazon Brand Lift will compare your campaign’s performance with.
Your benchmark category will not show up in the survey text. These norms will be available at the conclusion of the study and will be reported in aggregate.
The next step is to enter a brand or product name. Keep this name consistent with the one promoted in the orders you’ve selected for your study.
After that, enter a brand or product category that is most relevant to your brand or product’s peer set, such as “salty snacks”, “home insurers”, or “new release movies.”
Finally, enter between 2 and 4 peer brands or product names into the Peers field. These are brands or products that panelists are most likely to consider along with yours. Amazon Brand Lift beta uses your entries under Peers as response options in the Preferences question, if you choose to include it.
Adding Questions to Your Study
Next, it’s time to add in your questions.
First, you’ll choose an Awareness question. Awareness will always be the objective of Question 1 to help prevent study bias. Relevant inputs from Settings will populate in the Preview. You can revise your inputs in Settings, if necessary.
After you choose your awareness question, you can add up to 3 more questions. For each additional question, you will need to choose an objective.
Completing the Final Steps of Your Study
After you’ve entered all of the information necessary, you’ll submit your study for review.
Usually, most studies will be reviewed within one week of submission. You can check the status column in the Studies dashboard for your current status at any time.
During the approval process, you are able to make changes to your study. Keep in mind, though, that any changes will increase the time it takes for your study to be approved.
Once your Amazon Brand Lift study is approved, you can no longer make changes.
If your study is approved, it will begin running once feasibility has been met. This can take more than 30 days depending on how quickly your campaign starts to deliver impressions.
If your study is not approved, check the status column for the reason why. You can always make the requested changes and re-submit your study for review again.
Increase Your Chances of Approval of Your Amazon Brand Lift Study
While this program is still new, Amazon has given us a lot of information to use when preparing a study for approval.
Best Practices for a Successful Amazon Brand Lift Study
When preparing your study, you should follow these best practices to ensure accurate results.
- Keep the Order Impression Frequency between 4 and 9. Amazon has found that the studies that stay between this frequency tend to produce better results.
- Use orders with upper-funnel goals. All orders should have an Awareness, Consideration, or Engagement goal. Orders with a Conversion goal should be avoided.
- Do not include remarketing campaigns. The audiences of remarketing campaigns tend to be biassed towards a brand or product and will likely not produce good results.
- All included orders should be advertising the same brand or product and have consistent messaging. To receive the best results, keep it simple. Orders that advertise many products but are part of the same brand are permitted. If you want to run a study on many brands or products, break them up into separate Amazon Brand Lift studies to get the best, and most accurate, results.
- Only run 1 active study for each brand or product. Running multiple studies for the same brand or product could unintentionally lead to biased study results.
- Higher estimated impressions and longer campaigns usually yield more statistically significant results. While 30 days is the minimum campaign length, the longer a study, the more significant your results. This gives the program a greater chance to distribute enough surveys to ad-exposed panelists. This will generate results you can be confident in.
Methodologies Involved in Creating an Amazon Brand Lift Study
Amazon Brand Lift surveys at least 1,000 participants in both groups to ensure statistically significant and accurate results.
While one group is exposed to the selected ads, the other group will contain panelists who have not been exposed to the ad. However, these groups will share similar demographic information.
To select these participants, Amazon Brand Lift looks at the following demographic information.
- Population. This is determined within Amazon DSP based on the customers who saw the ad.
- Estimate distribution of population’s attributes. Amazon estimates the population’s representation in various groups, including things like age, gender identity, and annual household income range. They also consider things like shopping behaviors.
- Create an ad-exposed audience. To determine which ad-exposed individuals should participate in this study, Amazon uses stratified sampling, a technique that will randomly select the participants.
- Create a control group. Once the ad-exposed group is selected, Amazon Brand Lift uses propensity score matching to create the control group. This makes it so that the demographics and behaviors of both groups match.
Over the next 30 days, Amazon Brand Lift studies measure impressions delivered. Once enough impressions have been collected within that period, Amazon will sample panelists from both groups.
Surveys are sent within the Amazon Shopper Panel and participants have 7 days to respond.
This process is completed over rolling 30-day periods so that longer campaigns will receive results multiple times over the duration of their study.
Once the results have been collected, results are automatically calculated and a report is produced.
The following graphic shows an Amazon Brand Lift study that could be run mid-flight:
Locate the Results of Your Amazon Brand Lift Study
Once the results are calculated and a report is generated, you’ll be able to find them within your Amazon DSP console.
To locate and view your report, click on Studies. Locate your study on the dashboard and scroll to the Results column.
Once in the Results column, you’ll be able to download results if your report is ready.
Interpret the Results of Your Amazon Brand Lift Study
Your report will show you how effective, or ineffective, your ad campaigns are compared to your competitors’.
After your results report is downloaded, look at the Summary tab.
Under this tab, you’ll see a single chart that displays the absolute lift between the two groups of participants. To have a successful ad campaign, you should aim for a statistically significant life in your objects.
To achieve a statistically significant lift, it depends on two things:
- The size of the absolutelift (Ad-exposed Response % – Control Response %)
- The sample size of the brand lift study
Any objectives with a negative lift or slight positive lift will show as “no lift detected”. If you see this noted in your report, you should adjust your campaign accordingly in order to increase the positive results.
If your report notes that you have achieved a positive, statistically significant absolute lift, you can rest assured that your campaigns were successful.
Wrapping Up with Amazon Brand Lift
A lot of time, attention, and resources are poured into digital marketing. It’s a great idea to make sure that you’re achieving the highest return on investment possible.
That’s why using tools such as Amazon Brand Lift is so important!
Periodically reviewing and assessing your advertising campaigns and their performance will only lead to better advertising and an increased bottom line.
While Amazon Brand Lift is only in a beta model right now, I encourage you to try it out if you meet the current requirements.
For smaller businesses, keep an ear open for when Amazon Brand Lift opens its doors for you! It will improve your marketing and help you achieve better results.
FAQs about Amazon Brand Lift
1. What is Amazon Brand Lift?
Amazon Brand Lift is a new beta program that evaluates how a brand’s ads impact its customers’ perceptions.
2. Is Amazon Brand Lift available to everyone?
Not yet. In order to use Amazon Brand Lift, you must be running a DSP campaign with a minimum budget of $50,000 and a minimum length of 30 days.
3. Is Amazon Brand Lift expensive?
Nope! In fact, it’s completely free. All you have to do is put some time and energy into setting up your study and analyzing the results.
4. How many participants are included in Amazon Brand Lift studies?
Amazon Brand Lift surveys a minimum of 1,000 participants in both groups to ensure statistically significant and accurate results.
5. How do participants receive Amazon Brand Lift studies?
The survey requests are sent to panelists through the Amazon Shopper Panel. This app consists of Amazon users who have opted into receiving survey requests in exchange for rewards.
6. I’m overwhelmed by all of this! Can anyone help me with the Amazon Brand Lift process?
While it is still new, digital marketing firms, like Ignite Visibility, see the huge potential in Amazon Brand Lift studies and are already perfecting the process!
