Spotlight on the 2024 Amazon Ads Partner Awards

At Amazon Ads, many moving parts work harmoniously behind the scenes to create a seamless operation. Key to the effectiveness of advertising on Amazon and beyond the Amazon store are the Amazon Ads Partners which support advertisers to get the most out of their business tasks and strategies - helping identify new audiences, unlock insights, and expand reach.

A special partnership

These partners are media and creative agencies and AdTech providers; companies that have an in-depth understanding of Amazon Ads offerings and can use this to create innovative growth strategies for brands. All partners are vetted by Amazon in order to be part of the Amazon Ads Partner Network. They offer expertise regionally and globally across Amazon Ads products in categories including: media planning and buying; retail; creative and brand experience; and measurement.

Amazon Ads Partners act as an extension of advertisers' internal teams, providing a depth as well as breadth of experience in specialist areas of expertise, which is often different or complementary to that of their clients. Where they often make the most impact is in providing relevant insights, being where customers are at the right time, helping advertisers bring their brand narratives to life to drive results on Amazon and beyond.

From behind-the-scenes to center stage

Operating behind the scenes, Amazon Ads Partners have been the unsung heroes of brands’ success stories. Amazon wanted to change this; to recognise and celebrate the central role they can play across a range of diverse advertising strategies. In 2021, the Amazon Ads Partner Awards were introduced, putting the spotlight on the innovation and imagination at the heart of these campaigns. Starting initially in the UK and then expanding to the US, last year the awards went global.

This year, judges were handed the tricky task of picking 10 winning, and 31 finalist campaigns, from more than 350 entries submitted into six awards by partners from 24 countries. 

To be considered, partners completed an entry form explaining how they achieved advertising success for a client (advertiser), from concept to implementation. Judges were both independent industry experts and Amazon specialists and were briefed to focus on entries that were detailed, innovative, inspiring, impactful, and effective.

THE AWARDS CATEGORIES:

Beyond the Funnel Award: For excellence in optimizing brands' media strategies, both on and beyond Amazon, to drive significant results across the entire customer journey, from awareness to conversion.

Challenger Award: For excellence in delivering exceptional results, using creativity and innovation, in the face of significant resource challenges.

Creative Effectiveness: For excellence in optimizing campaigns through the use of interactivity, personalisation, and bespoke insights to engage audiences and achieve impressive return on investment for their clients.

Global Expansion: For excellence in driving international expansion for brands, of all sizes, so they secure growth across multiple regions.

Technology Innovation: For excellence in overcoming specific advertising challenges via innovative, automated, scalable tech solutions.

New Brand Architect: For excellence in the use of segmentation, measurement and analysis tools to access new audiences on behalf of advertisers which haven't used Amazon Ads before.

Attention to detail

Brands in the Americas face many challenges: gaining traction in noisy, saturated markets; encouraging loyalty when there is so much choice; achieving stand-out, especially as a new launch, in an abundant space; being able to tap into the small insights that will lead to big gains over competitors, and overcoming these challenges on very tight budgets.

It’s also a market where brands are closely scrutinized and often subject to many advertising restrictions, especially in sensitive categories like beauty, so advertisers need to do their research thoroughly. 

Key to success here are tools that allow brands to get granular with insights, in order to precisely and effectively target smart consumers, especially ones new to a brand.  Other tools which repeatedly cropped up in entries as being fundamental to success included those which optimize creative content and employ strategic budget allocation to maximize return on investment.

In general, finalists displayed a huge range of innovative strategies to overcome their challenges such as full-funnel video ad campaigns, multi-channel approaches combining Amazon DSP and Streaming TV ads, and AI-powered automation tools. These tactics allowed brands to reach new audiences, improve customer engagement and drive sales growth.

The results speak for themselves showing significant increases in detail page views, branded search terms, and new-to-brand purchases, as well as overall sales revenue.

The 2024 Amazon Ads Partner Awards Winners

See below for the varied examples of how Amazon Ads Partners have helped advertisers to build their brands and maximize the return on their advertising budgets.

The 10 best-in-class Amazon Ads Partner campaigns

Beyond the funnel innovation award

Region: AMER

Winner: Xmars

Advertiser: Greenworks

Challenges faced: To educate shoppers about its diverse product range since the brand was struggling to connect with customers and drive sales, and its video ads were underperforming.

Strategic approach: revitalized Greenworks’ video ads strategy and created a new full funnel campaign by tapping into insights, analyzing product performance, optimizing customer behavior and increasing ad reach.

Amazon Ads solution: Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Sponsored Brands, Streaming TV, video ads

Results: Lifted detail page views by more than 17%, increased branded search terms by more than 20%, and new-to-brand (NTB) purchases rose by more than 10% over a four-month period.

Region: EMEA

Winner: Havas Market

Advertiser: Viatris CB12

Challenges faced: The mouthwash brand needed to shift its sales strategy from off-line to online and to do so while also increasing brand awareness and market share, all in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape.

Strategic approach: Optimized pay-per-click campaigns, remarketed to competitor product detail pages and high performing search terms, reached new competitor audiences, leveraged proprietary audience insights.

Amazon Ads solution: Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Sponsored Products, Prime Video Ads, Streaming TV.

Results: A 147% year-over-year (YoY) uplift in Amazon sales, uplift of more than 87% in PPC sales vs projected revenue, upwards of 1m impressions via Prime Video ads (42% above forecast). All over an eight month period.

Region: APAC
Winner: Atom11
Advertiser: Kreo

Challenges faced: Despite increased ad spend, Kreo had low visibility and stagnant sales growth in a fiercely competitive, brand-conscious market.

Strategic approach: Leveraged deep customer insights to enhance video effectiveness and drive consideration; engaged gamers in India to raise awareness through remarketing; used lower funnel ads to convert the new audiences gained in the upper funnel.

Amazon Ads solution: Sponsor Brand video, Brand Stores, Amazon DSP, miniTV

Results: Increased brand search frequency rank by more than 93%, increased revenue by 566% and improved ROAS by more than 95%, over an 11 month period.Beyond the funnel innovation award

Region: AMER

Winner: Xmars

Advertiser: Greenworks

Challenges faced: To educate shoppers about its diverse product range since the brand was struggling to connect with customers and drive sales, and its video ads were underperforming.
Strategic approach: revitalized Greenworks’ video ads strategy and created a new full funnel campaign by tapping into insights, analyzing product performance, optimizing customer behavior and increasing ad reach.

Amazon Ads solution: Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Sponsored Brands, Streaming TV, video ads

Results: Lifted detail page views by more than 17%, increased branded search terms by more than 20%, and new-to-brand (NTB) purchases rose by more than 10% over a four-month period.

Region: EMEA

Winner: Havas Market

Advertiser: Viatris CB12

Challenges faced: The mouthwash brand needed to shift its sales strategy from off-line to online and to do so while also increasing brand awareness and market share, all in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape.

Strategic approach: Optimized pay-per-click campaigns, remarketed to competitor product detail pages and high performing search terms, reached new competitor audiences, leveraged proprietary audience insights.

Amazon Ads solution: Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Sponsored Products, Prime Video Ads, Streaming TV.

Results: A 147% year-over-year (YoY) uplift in Amazon sales, uplift of more than 87% in PPC sales vs projected revenue, upwards of 1m impressions via Prime Video ads (42% above forecast). All over an eight month period.

Region: APAC

Winner: Atom11

Advertiser: Kreo

Challenges faced: Despite increased ad spend, Kreo had low visibility and stagnant sales growth in a fiercely competitive, brand-conscious market.

Strategic approach: Leveraged deep customer insights to enhance video effectiveness and drive consideration; engaged gamers in India to raise awareness through remarketing; used lower funnel ads to convert the new audiences gained in the upper funnel.

Amazon Ads solution: Sponsor Brand video, Brand Stores, Amazon DSP, miniTV

Results: Increased brand search frequency rank by more than 93%, increased revenue by 566% and improved ROAS by more than 95%, over an 11 month period.

Challenger award

Region: AMER

Winner: Flywheel

Advertiser: Megababe

Challenges faced: How to address “taboo” body issues on a shoestring budget and in a highly sensitive and competitive marketplace which also has many advertising restrictions.

Strategic approach: Amplified brand awareness, reached new customers and drove sales using customized creative executions, along with a strategic keyword approach identifying key category terms and leveraging the power of maximizing budgets on Prime Day. It also optimized daily budget allocation by shifting spend to peak shopping hours, all within a tight budget.

Amazon Ads solution: Amazon DSP, Streaming TV, Sponsored Brand video, Sponsored Display, Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, video ads, Customer Ads, Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Amazon API, Amazon Marketing Stream.

Results: More than 533% increase in attributed sales, more than 24% increase in new-to-brand purchases and more than 51% increase in ROAS YoY, over a 12 month period.

Region: EMEA

Winner: Tambo

Advertiser: Curél

Challenges faced: How the Japanese skincare brand could enter the fiercely competitive UK market with only limited awareness and less than 0.5% marketshare, and a similarly limited budget.

Strategic approach: Created a strategy around the brand’s key strength - exceptional customer reviews - by leveraging them to build trust. It focused on Fire TV and creating premium placements on contextual sites, as well as allocating budget strategically during key events like Prime Day and Black Friday.

Amazon Ads solution: Amazon Publisher Direct, Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), video ads, Amazon Ads API, Sponsored Products, Amazon DSP, Rapid Retail Analytics, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Brand video, Sponsored Display.

Results: More than 52% YoY sales growth, more than 190% increase in core brand term searches, 15m+ impressions, over a three month period.

Region: APAC

Winner:Commercify360

Advertiser: SkinInspired

Challenges faced: A struggle to reach new customers in a highly competitive Indian beauty market and a lack of insights, technology and resources.

Strategic approach: Used insights to understand the importance of premium positioning and improve the brand’s product listings, employed AI to optimize bids and target peak shopping times to boost awareness, drive sales and retain customers.

Amazon Ads solution: Amazon Ads API, Brand Analytics, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Sponsored Products, Stores (shopping experience solution), video ads, Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Amazon Marketing Stream (AMS), Posts (shopping experience solution), Follow (shopping experience solution), Rapid Retail Analytics, Amazon sampling program.

Results: More than 1,000 new customers via sampling, more than 667% spike in total sales, more than 596% increase in clicks, and more than 290% improvement in new-to-brand customers, over a seven month period.

Technology innovation award

Winner: Xmars

Advertiser: Goal Zero

Challenges faced: Difficulties with attribution tracking and identifying valuable custom audiences while trying to regain lost market share and improve key metrics.

Strategic approach: Created an approach which gave access to valuable, comprehensive attribution insights and led to high-converting audiences, without the need for in depth technical expertise.

Amazon Ads solution: Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Amazon Ads API, video ads, Amazon DSP, Amazon Marketing Stream (AMS).

Results: More than 30% YoY Amazon sales growth, more than 20% improvement in total advertising cost of sale, a 16%+ increase in Amazon shopper reach.

Creative effectiveness award

Winner: Flywheel

Advertiser: ZOA Energy

Challenges faced: As a new beverage brand, ZOA Energy had to quickly raise awareness and attract new customers with a compelling brand story and arresting creative execution.

Strategic approach: to scale upper funnel tactics while maintaining efficiency and ensuring continuous optimization. It did this via the brand’s “Big Dwayne Energy” concept, featuring celebrity Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, which consisted of two 15 second spots, including one aimed at working mothers.

Amazon Ads solution: Prime Video ads, Streaming TV, Sponsored Brand Video, Amazon DSP, Sponsored Video, Custom Ads, Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC).

Results: More than 162.8% increase in impressions, more than 102.6% increase in conversion rate, a 72.4%+ increase in brand searches, over a two month period.

New brand architect award

Winner: Marshall

Advertiser: Kenmore

Challenges faced: To rebuild the brand’s presence on Amazon (after its longtime retailer declared bankruptcy) by establishing a new customer base while re-engaging loyalists, in the highly competitive appliance market.

Strategic approach: Ensured the brand was present wherever the target audience was shopping, on Amazon or beyond. Aggressively pursued competitive conquesting and contextual marketing, ensured that ads were seen at the most valuable times and that its delivery service leveraged Amazon’s seamless service.

Amazon Ads solution: Sponsored Product, Sponsored Brands, Stores (shopping experience solution), Posts (shopping experience solution), Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Amazon Ads API, Amazon DSP, Amazon Marketing Stream (AMS).

Results: More than 720% YoY increase in total sales in just a month, 61m+ impressions and more than 75% of sales new-to-brand over a six month period.

Flexible and specialist

Many brand budgets are stretched in the current economic climate. But, as these winning campaigns demonstrate, exceptional results are possible with Amazon Ad Partners, even on the tightest of budgets and in the toughest of markets. Not only that, solutions are flexible and partners can optimize campaigns regardless of whether an advertiser is a dominant market leader, an ambitious challenger, or anything in between.

From planning and creative to execution or optimization, there is an Amazon Ad Partner with the in-depth technical expertise to take brands’ digital advertising to the next level.

Find out more about Amazon Ads Partners and see all the 2024 Amazon Ads Partner Awards winners and finalists here.