5 takeaways from AdCon 2020

September 30, 2020

Today, businesses across the US are joining us virtually for AdCon 2020—our second annual conference where they’ll hear from Amazon Ads leaders, partners, and customers with advice and recommendations to help grow their brands.

In advance of AdCon, we asked the same question to five Amazon Ads leaders who will be talking with customers from the AdCon “stage” ...

“If advertisers remember one thing from AdCon, what would you want that to be?”

"Experiment. To truly be focused on business growth, you must be open to embracing change and exploring new ways to reach your goals. This may manifest in different forms—evolving your strategy to incorporate new types of advertising products; embracing an expanded set of metrics by which you measure your advertising success; or getting more comfortable testing, iterating, and learning as you go."

— Jamie Lomas, Director, Global Emerging Account Sales

"Use insights to uncover opportunities. By regularly reviewing insights, we can assess new opportunities, reduce your blind spots, and work together to evolve your strategies. For example, insights can tell you more about your current audience and identify opportunities to increase their engagement with your brand, tell you the total number of customers that are new to your brand, and help you determine additional audiences to engage through your marketing strategies. Taking an insights-driven approach will arm you with knowledge to find opportunities, refine and adapt your strategy, and most importantly, grow your brand."

— Rachel McKitrick, Principal Product Manager, Insights & Analytics

“OTT is affordable, measurable, and gives advertisers scale. Historically, linear TV was king, and those ads required significant budgets, which wasn’t an option for many brands. The consistent rise in OTT viewing has changed the advertising landscape. Brands can now communicate their narrative the same way they would on a traditional broadcast network, but without the significant spend required of linear television.

"Plus, OTT delivers better relevancy because we’re able to reach audiences based on shopping/viewing signals versus buying on demos, or dayparts. OTT, and services delivering premium content like IMDb TV, captures the attention of viewers in a TV-quality ad-viewing experience, without the TV budgets and with measurable results.


— Mark Eamer, VP, IMDb TV

"Brand discovery is important to customers. In 2020, we’ve seen an uptick in customers exploring, trying, and shopping for new brands. On Amazon, for example, we’ve found a 22% increase in new-to-brand customers for ad campaigns run since March 1 compared to the previous six months. Shoppers have an appetite to uncover their new favorite brand or product, and this presents an exciting opportunity for brands to create their next fans. Brand awareness tactics—Posts, Stores, Follow, and Amazon Live—help businesses tell their story. By coupling them with products like Sponsored Brands video and Streaming TV ads, businesses can extend that story to new customers and create brand loyalists."

— Colleen Aubrey, VP, Performance Advertising

"Think long-term. It’s tempting to focus only on the immediate returns that products like Sponsored Products bring you. Effective brand building requires paying attention to the long term. Reach the right audience, grow awareness, and deliver your brand message with upper-funnel products like display, audio, and video advertising. You may not see the same click to conversion as you do with performance products, but you’re building interest and loyalty that will pay dividends over time.

"So as you plan out your strategy for 2021, look towards those relationship-building experiences anyhwere customers spend their time.”


— Paul Kotas, Senior Vice President, Advertising, Music and IMDb

If you have questions about how Amazon Ads can help you build your brand, reach out to your account executive or visit the Amazon Ads home page to learn more.