What is the Amazon Posts program and should I try it?
Most people recognize Amazon as a behemoth in the e-commerce and web services worlds, but many fail to recognize the scale to which Amazon has grown its influence in the digital advertising world. The third largest ad platform, behind Google and Facebook, Amazon has made impressive ground not just in total platform spend but in the tools, services, and ad opportunities that it provides for its users.
But what may be equally impressive, are the repeated attempts by Amaon to grow a “seamlessly integrated” social media platform into its retail network.
The first failure, Amazon Spark, launched under the premise of integrating user-uploaded photos and stories with a product overlay. Amazon’s goal was to create a shoppable feed you could get from your friends, family, or influencers. Customers largely avoided the idea, and Spark was laid to rest in June 2019 (but it did give birth to the “buff bezos” movement).
The bones of Spark were repurposed into the #FoundItonAmazon page, catering solely to Women’s Fashion and Home Décor shoppers. #FounditonAmazon has grown slowly but still remains a niche program with modest usership.
Not two months later, Amazon has subtly promoted a new mobile-only program: Amazon Posts. Eerily similar to an Instagram post, these lifestyle images have a square aspect ratio and a description below, along with a product feed. But this attempt may just succeed - let’s dive into the program as it stands now.
What makes Amazon Posts different?
Amazon markets Posts as an opportunity to “Use curated photos to inspire shoppers to engage with your brand and products on Amazon.”
Each post is slotted into a carousel right above customer questions on product detail pages. Each post links directly to the advertised product as well as category tags which customers can explore for related items.
Posts will show up on similar products, related brands, and category feeds, generating opportunities for discovery, browsing, and most certainly – shopping.
What makes Amazon Posts different?
What makes the Posts program different than the Spark platform or #FounditonAmazon– is that Amazon is not trying to camouflage a shopping feed under the guise of food and travel pictures. The Posts program is brand-centric. The platform is tailored specifically to businesses looking to generate awareness and connectivity among the products in their assortment.
The biggest selling point is that it is entirely free. There is no cost-per-click attribution, no merchandising fees, and no program cost.
What brands are eligible?
As with all new Amazon programs, there are eligibility requirements, but the bar is relatively low.
Currently in beta, it is exclusive to Vendors, but the Posts team is moving to expand to Sellers soon. In Seller Central under user permissions, “Posts” has become a toggle that administrators can select – but no functionality has been implemented
Brands wishing to create posts must also have active storefronts and ensure their brand byline (the brand name hyperlink listed underneath product titles) is linked. Once a brand has been accepted into the program, they have complete access to the portal and need to create a minimum of three posts to go live.
Brands receive traffic data for their posts to gauge interest and adoption - but no retail sales attribution is provided.
Weighing the opportunity.
While the posts program is enticing with a no-cost model and attractive UI – brands need to consider the opportunity cost of your time and whether this program will create any meaningful impacts to your Amazon retail business.
Benefits:
The immediate benefits of the program are the access to traffic metrics – brands can measure the impressions, clicks, and CTR% for every post – and dissect data through customizable time frames.
While not specifically eluded to, its apparent that brands can also replicate social media posts from other platforms and determine the customer engagement. Using the same image and caption from a Pinterest or Instagram post, brands can tie in the product ASIN and transform their content into a shoppable feed.
Posts aren’t deprecated after a specific window so generating a breadth of content is more approachable for businesses looking to test this awareness driver.
Amazon is also testing the use of Posts in mobile search results - which would be enticing to advertisers to garner free traffic.
Drawbacks:
Lack of sales attribution. Amazon does not provide revenue metrics to brands through the program.
Traffic source is not provided, so while brands can identify total pageviews they are unable to generate tags or view traffic origins of their customer traffic.
Brands seeking to submit gifs and/or video will be disappointed – this functionality has yet to be rolled out (but this is on the roadmap for the Posts team).
What Is the future of Amazon Posts?
The Posts program is still in its infancy – and the team behind it is rapidly expanding the scope and capabilities of the platform. With Q4 on the horizon, major updates are unlikely to be launch until Q1 2020, but the Beta will give the development team valuable feedback on fine-tuning the program to maximize brand engagement.
Closing thoughts.
Brands seeking a low-cost opportunity to gauge interest in the type of content they’re putting out could stand to benefit from the click-through metrics that Amazon displays for each post, and generating free traffic to your detail page is an opportunity that every brand should consider seriously.
Brands should adopt with caution and continually evaluate their performance to help answer the question: “Will customers engage with this platform?”
Curious to learn more or want to know how to take your brand's marketing strategy to the next level? Our team of Amazonian experts are here to help.