Partner spotlight: How to approach digital video advertising with Channel Bakers

August 25, 2021

Channel Bakers' group of retail strategists, marketers, and creatives help brands grow globally. Channel Bakers, an e-commerce agency, uses insight-driven strategies with paid search, DSP, or streaming TV and creative services to empower clients with real, outcome-driven solutions to build brands on Amazon and beyond. We sat down with Joshua Kreitzer, Founder and CEO of Channel Bakers, to discuss Channel Bakers’ approach to digital video advertising.

Tell us about Channel Bakers’ story; how was it founded, where are you now, and what’s ahead?

I was a beta-tester for sponsored ads back in early 2013 while at GoPro when I was managing the Amazon relationship. That sparked the idea to launch an agency squarely focused on Amazon Advertising. From the moment I logged in, I was hooked, and I've been passionate about innovating new strategies and tactics to help brands squeeze every ounce of value out of each Amazon Advertising product. We work hard with brands so that they can more effectively leverage Amazon Advertising’s ability to grow their audience.

We’ve been early adopters of everything that the Amazon Advertising product teams have developed. We’re ready to tinker, test, learn, and execute new strategies with whatever Amazon launches next.

Tell us about Channel Bakers’ approach to advertising with digital video advertising.

At Channel Bakers we’ve seen digital video advertising be a catalyst for branded growth that over-indexes with just about every key metric, from click-through rates to new-to-brand sales, conversion rates, return on spend, and more.

Over the past year we've been talking with brands about their connected home media strategy. It’s important to meet shoppers where they are. For the past year, that’s been primarily at home. From a connected home media strategy standpoint, Amazon can help brands have multiple digital video touchpoint advertising opportunities that drive awareness with online video ads (OLV) and streaming TV video advertising on any device in the home. Brands can then further connect with shoppers in a meaningful way through Sponsored Brands video placements that lead the shopper down the funnel to help them choose the right product.

We always recommend brands take advantage of every effective tool available that connects them with shoppers. Digital video is a powerful tool that often gets overlooked when it comes to selling online. Not only does it grab the attention of shoppers, but it also helps products stand out over others.

This level of customer engagement is unique for two key reasons. First, it creates an immediate emotional attachment to a brand’s story and their values. Digital video also makes it easy for shoppers to educate themselves about each product’s differentiating value proposition. If done well, a digital video, whether it be ad creative or product page, can fast-track the shopper’s purchase decision.

For example, we repurposed Amazon’s unused footage of a pet food client into 26 additional videos that were then leveraged for Sponsored Brands video campaigns, doubling their return on ad spend (ROAS) as a result.

What’s your recommendation for an advertiser who is getting started with digital video advertising?

When it comes to digital video advertising, it’s critical to have compelling, fresh video assets, and more than just one asset. Try not to repurpose old videos or even the current videos that weren’t intended for advertising.

We recommend that you start with a basic sentiment analysis by looking at your reviews, peer brand reviews, and Amazon Best Seller product reviews to explore the key differentiators of your product. If there are any unique specifications and/or features to your product that your peer brands do not have, we layer those insights into video storyboards to create multiple videos across the funnel that are more relevant to what shoppers are talking about and buying. The goal here is to be relevant with video assets and reaching the right customers so that your campaigns can get the best performance by being relevant to each audience and their expected outcome.

Our approach includes test performance when driving traffic to both the brand store and product detail pages. General videos showcasing your brand with lifestyle messaging or general product portfolios should yield better results for brand awareness and discovery purposes. Videos that contain specifics about a product are more relevant when leading to a detail page with the objective of closing the sale for that product.

For example, with one of our consumer electronics brands, we implemented a full-funnel strategy with Amazon Streaming TV ads covering the very top of the funnel to drive awareness in preparation for holiday traffic. This included a top-heavy investment in connected TV ads and use of in-market DSP video ads. Our client’s campaign contributed to approximately 75% of its focus ASINs sales during this period, while driving 53% of its product detail page views.

Are there best practices you follow when it comes to campaign set up for digital video advertising?

We audit the advertiser’s overall Amazon Advertising combined with retail performance to identify which products, audiences, and placements have the best opportunities to connect with shoppers. We also include closed captions and subtitles since autoplay videos generally do not play with sound. This ensures that a brand can share its message with its potential customers, at a glance, more effectively than just the video by itself.

If budgets allow, be sure to run all three video placements in order to maximize the reach of your content.

What are three tips for using digital video advertising that you want the reader to walk away with?

  1. Consistent messaging
  2. Have consistent creative content and artwork across multiple channels, including streaming TV and traditional television. This is the most effective way to help drive easily recognizable brand imaging and messaging.

  3. Apply learnings quickly
  4. Leverage existing metrics and insights in order to engage customers strategically. For example, take your brand’s key learnings from performance metrics like Paid Search, Sponsored Display, and Retail in order to customize your Sponsored Brands video, streaming TV, and OLV strategies to your brand’s needs.

  5. Accurate measurement every time
  6. Set consistent KPIs like Branded Search Uplift, Increase in Glance Views and/or Page Views, and Video Completion Rate across the different advertising products in order to help accurately measure success rate.