Learn. Create. Transform. A guide to help your brand stand out from the crowd
Discover how to deliver consistent shopping experiences with high-quality creative content.
Here are the themes we’ll cover in this guide
Chapter 1
Chapter 5
Why is creative important?
Creatives keep your brand relevant
In today’s world, brands need to keep their edge and stay competitive. Customers are eager to discover and shop with brands that speak to their needs, wants, and values. Instilling that trust in shoppers can be done in a myriad of ways: one is through the use of rich media.
So, what exactly are rich media assets? Let’s find out.
What are rich media assets?
Any custom copy you use, like the text of a headline that conveys your brand’s unique selling proposition.
"Capture the moments that matter, in HD."
Images and videos that show your product attributes or how it is used
Your unique branding elements, like your logo
Using rich media assets is important
Here's how they can help your brand:
- Differentiate your business
- Build customer trust
- Communicate your brand’s values
- Evoke positive sentiment with shoppers
- Build lasting connections
- Enable brand storytelling
- Help improve marketing campaign performance
Creating an optimal shopping experience
Keep your unique selling proposition (USP) in mind
It’s important to think about how your brand’s USP can impact your visual identity. Bringing this together with your creative assets can facilitate a better shopping experience for customers, making your brand’s values and product offerings clear and engaging.
Take a look at two USPs below, and guess which one could be the most effective:
- Option 1: Brand A offers a wide selection of wild prints and ornate frames, which can take the bare walls of your home from ordinary to extraordinary.
- Option 2: Brand A is a photo print and frame company that sells products for your home.
Did you guess Option 1?
This text tells shoppers exactly what the brand is selling and what benefit they get from purchasing a product from them. While Option 2 tells shoppers what the brand is selling, it’s hard for a customer to understand why their product offering is different from the rest. Lots of companies sell fun, affordable products for homes, so why is this one different? Always remember to focus on what your customers value, and use confident, memorable language.
Keep reading to get key tips on how to make your creatives more impactful.
Logos help customers identify you, connect audiences to your brand, and drive engagement
Positioning your logo in a clear, fresh way in your creative assets can help drive brand awareness and encourage brand loyalty among customers. Think of a well-known logo: Why is it memorable to you? Chances are, it’s because you’ve seen the brand advertise frequently, with the logo at the forefront of the message. Remember this tip when building new assets.
Make sure to include your logo when using these Amazon Ads products:
- Sponsored Brands
- Sponsored Display (Optional)
- Stores
- Posts (Optional)
Remember to:
- Fill all available space
- Use a font that’s easy to read
- Apply your logo to a white background
Avoid:
- Uploading a product image or lifestyle image as your logo
- Complicating the logo by using it as an extension of a headline, or adding additional text
- Adding elements to the logo that may cause confusion or add clutter
- Merging separate logos together
Imagery helps you highlight core aspects of your brand and products across your marketing
Lifestyle imagery is a genre of photography that captures shots of people or products in real-life situations, portraying the art of the “everyday.”
Using these images within your brand identity can help shoppers understand your product features and functionalities, and can be a good way to drive conversion and increase sales.
Top tip:
We recommend using branded imagery in your ads, even when it’s optional, as this can help you highlight your products in action and serve as a reflection of your brand, helping drive engagement with shoppers.
Remember to:
- Use the highest image resolution possible
- Use images that paint your brand and products in a positive light
- Highlight inclusivity: Make sure your creatives show that your brand is inclusive for everyone
Avoid:
- Using your default product image, or a product shown on a solid or transparent background
- Adding additional text to the imagery
- Using crowded or poorly cropped imagery
Imagery helps you highlight core aspects of your brand and products across your marketing
Remember to include imagery when working with these Amazon Ads products:
- Sponsored Brands
- Sponsored Display (Optional)
- Stores (Optional)
- Posts
Check out how enhanced imagery can help improve the visual presence of your ad campaigns:
Sponsored Brands campaigns (Desktop)
Desktop: Top of search without image
Desktop: Top of search with image
Sponsored Brands campaigns (Mobile)
Mobile: Top of search without image
Mobile: Top of search with image
Check out how enhanced imagery can help improve the visual presence of your ad campaigns
Sponsored Display campaigns (Desktop)
Billboard without image
Billboard with image
Sponsored Display campaigns (Mobile)
Mobile: Top of search without image
Mobile: Top of search with image
Creative tips for promotions and key events
Remember to:
- Align your savings campaigns start and end dates to reflect the duration of the offer or the saving period
- Set up your campaigns in advance of the event, and set them to end within 24 hours after the event has ended
- Modify your ad copy for evergreen campaigns by removing the promotional messaging that no longer applies
- Advertise your active Amazon deals only
Don’t:
- Overpromise with language like “Huge savings” or “Gigantic discounts”
- Reference specific pricing promotions in your campaign, like “Save 50% on [Product]” or “$20 off [Product]"
Delivering the message: Using impactful brand copy
Choosing what to say in your advertising campaigns is just as important as the assets you choose to place alongside them. Your written content needs to highlight your brand’s story and its understanding of what shoppers need.
Include brand copy that helps drive brand awareness:
- Make the tone of the message match the tone of your brand
- Showcase your brand attributes
- Emphasize your USP
Check out some examples:
- “Providing athletes with natural, organic food since 1965”
- “Treats to keep your dog happy and healthy”
- “Bring new vibes to your home with exclusive art”
Delivering the message: Using impactful brand copy
Create brand copy that can help drive consideration and conversion:
- Emphasize your product’s primary benefits
- Use words that are easy for everyone to understand
- Encourage audiences to take an action
- Align your messages to shopper needs
Check out some examples:
- “Discover our yoga workout sets for women”
- “Enjoy new levels of photo quality with our latest camera, built with state-of the-art optical technology”
Delivering the message: Using impactful brand copy
When it comes to writing for consideration and conversion:
Try to avoid:
- Referencing awards, or survey results, more than 18 months old
- Comparing your brand with competitors
- Referring to Amazon services or events, or using Amazon-branded words
- Inserting repeated exclamation points or special characters
Top tips:
- Proofread your text to ensure you have used the local language for each region where you are advertising, used sentence case, and avoided spelling and grammar errors
- Let the Amazon Ads campaign builder help you get your message out there. Review recommendations that may show up in the campaign builder to help you craft your messages and review grammar
Telling your story with video
Deliver ideas, stories, and inspirations straight to your audience on multiple devices. Video can be one of the best ways to spread awareness of your brand, products, and services. Impactful, concise video content can act as a tool to intrigue audiences, making them want to know more about what you have to offer.
About 69% of customers said they’d prefer to learn about a new product or service via video over other mediums like text-based articles or infographics, according to a study by Wyzowl.
(Wyzowl, Video Marketing Statistics, 2021)
Let’s review how using video can help you connect with shoppers at different stages of their journey.
- Awareness stage
- Consideration stage
- Decision stage
- Retention stage
Telling your story with video
Growing brand awareness
This is perhaps the most traditional form of video marketing to gain exposure for your brand.
- Focus on building an emotional connection with engaging visuals
- Make sure your logo appears at the beginning and end of your video
Increasing consideration
At the consideration stage, shoppers are considering products from multiple brands.
- Demonstrate how your product can be used
- Focus on key features that set your product apart
- Use effective imagery to help shoppers imagine the product fitting with their lifestyle
Driving sales
At this stage, you need to tell an effective story that helps shoppers make a purchase decision.
- Highlight your best-selling products in action
- Create video content with customer testimonials
Developing loyalty
Use captivating video content to help keep shoppers engaged with your brand.
- Highlight new products
- Share different uses and updates for existing products
Telling your story with video
Where are videos used?
- Sponsored Brands (Video ad format)
- Sponsored Display (Video ad format)
- Stores (Optional)
Build video ads:
Create Sponsored Brands video and Sponsored Display video campaigns to engage shoppers with your brand and products. Remember to focus your video on the advertised product, and showcase your brand name and logo too. Videos can be between six and 45 seconds.
Telling your story with video
Bring your Store to life with different video formats:
Add a background video tile
This video plays in a loop, doesn’t have audio, and requires no action from customers to begin playing. We recommend using background videos to enhance brand awareness for new visitors to your Store. Think of background videos as a way to reinforce a message, or communicate it completely, if it’s short.
Video tile
This video plays content when it has been clicked, and includes audio. Use this video to describe your brand’s story or products in more detail. When using this type of video, the cover image is important. Use an engaging and relevant image to motivate customers to watch and learn more.
Click on “+Add tile” and choose your preferred format on the right-hand side
Let’s look at an example for brand awareness
Ad format: Store spotlight
- Add a clear, fresh brand logo
- Use concise, informative titles to guide shoppers
- Add a catchy, articulate copy that highlights product benefits for shoppers
- Upload high-quality lifestyle imagery that effectively represents each category
Let’s look at an example for consideration and conversion
Ad format: Store product collection
- Brand logo
- Use of high-quality image, or video, to give clarity to shoppers
- Effective copy that fits the style of the brand and connects with shoppers
- High-quality product images to encourage shoppers to engage
Let’s look at how video ads help you drive awareness and consideration
How branded creatives can work together
- Highlight key product attributes and other information to pique shopper interest
- Include your brand logo within your video to maintain consistency
- Support the effectiveness of your video by featuring high-quality product imagery alongside it
Let’s look at an example for awareness within a Store
How video can help build awareness
- Lifestyle imagery to elevate visual effectiveness and build connections
- High-quality logo resolution
- Well-defined copy that presents the brand story and vision
- Engaging product imagery that can help drive conversion
- Brand logo, coupled with USP to help drive awareness
- Clear titles in place for each Store category
- Effective brand copy that highlights key product information for shoppers, like manufacturing processes, sustainability statements, and quality
Making sure your video content passes moderation reviews is a key step of the campaign process
Remember to:
- Speak to shoppers in their local language
- Choose text that’s clearly visible
- Keep text on screen long enough for it to be read
- Use captions to reach shoppers without sound
- Include short, concise text in your videos to make sure the content is viewable on all devices
Avoid:
- Adding flashy, color-saturated, and shout elements
- Including fade-ins from solid colors or black
- Using blurry, unclear, low-quality, or low-resolution video assets
- Adding illegible text, or interfering with template layouts
- Mentioning deals, discounts, or other savings promotions
- Including incorrect or confusing information for the customer
Building and maintaining your creatives
Deliver branded excellence with Amazon’s creative offerings
For advertisers who don’t have time, design resources, or knowledge to build high-quality assets, this can be a cumbersome task.
With that in mind, we’ve introduced new creative services within the Amazon Ads partner directory.
The Amazon Ads partner directory allows you to find trusted partners like agencies, consultants, or tool providers that offer services across a wide range of areas: from creative and brand building (with imagery, video editing, Store creation, and web design) to campaign management (ideation, reporting, and optimization), retail support (managing your inventory, product detail pages, pricing, and promotion strategy), or even insights integration tools.
Search and filter services based on your requirements, browse reviews and samples of work, and connect directly to manage end-to-end creative delivery with your preferred service provider right within the advertising console.
Here’s how to navigate the Amazon Ads partner directory:
- Spot creative service providers: Select the category “Creative and brand experience services” to find providers who can help with imagery and video creation or editing, Store creation and web design, and audio ads.
- Connect with providers on a global scale: Filter by country, language, or office location to narrow down your search.
- Be mindful of budget: Filter your search to find providers within your budget, so you don’t have to stretch costs to find effective solutions. The partner directory doesn’t charge any fees, and payment is directly managed with the provider, agency, or consultant.
- Don’t fear losing out on details: Analyze the provider’s details, their service-level agreements, included features, and add-ons (extras you can add at a cost). Once ready to start your booking, you’ll be redirected to the provider’s website to communicate with them directly via their channels.
- Discover other services: You can filter by “certification type” to find providers specialized in what matters most to you, from media planning and buying to retail support, analytics and insights, and many more.
Once you engage with a partner, check out our “golden rules” for working together successfully:
- Be clear on your vision for your creative.
- Share key details about your brand and products, like your brand mission, vision, values, and your existing brand guidelines, to educate your partner on your official typefaces, branded colors, and logos.
- Build a concise yet detailed brief on how this creative will feed in to your overall marketing strategy or campaign.
- Remember to be responsive and available to your selected service provider to ensure delivery timelines are met.
Get high-quality translated branded content, quickly
Leave video, caption, and headline translations to the Amazon Ads creative teams, so you can focus on what matters most: growing your brand.
With Amazon translation services, you can get professional, high-quality, and affordable translations for your brand content curated by our team of language specialists and delivered in about 10 days from the time of booking. This can help you launch campaigns that include ad copy and scale up your Store and videos across multiple countries.
- Get your branded copy translated: Use the Amazon Ads localization services to translate your product detail pages, headlines for Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display ads, or your Store’s content into multiple languages. Click here to get started.
- Scale up your video creatives: Use the Amazon Ads localization services to translate your video creatives for Sponsored Brands video format campaigns into multiple languages. Click here to get started.
This feature is available to vendors and sellers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the U.K., and India.
To access Amazon translation services:
- Head to the advertising console.
- Click on the “Creative Tools” tab on the left-hand side and then select “Translations” app.
- Once there, select which service you’re looking for.
- Give your project a name, note the type of content, and include all text to be translated.
- Select which languages you’d like your content to be translated into, and anything that you don’t want translated (like your brand’s name).
- Then, submit your request.
- You’ll receive the translated content within about 10 days.
When submitting your content for translation, remember to:
- Ensure that any submitted content intended for use meets the ad policy requirements.
- Access the translation services through your account in the advertising console.
When it comes to selecting a creative or translation service, decide which options could be beneficial for you based on your goals
— Neal Mercado, chief marketing officer, Designs for HealthAmazon Ads has absolutely enabled us to reach new customers and improve awareness of our
brand to a population who we just wouldn’t have been able to reach.
Goal: Increase brand
awareness and engagement
Recommended service: Video and Store creation services. Find them here.
Tip: Launch your first Sponsored Brands video campaign, and create your Store(s)
Goal: Increase product consideration and conversion
Recommended service: Image creation and editing services. Find them here.
Tip: Use imagery that showcases your product in action in Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display campaigns
Goal: Expand to new regions, and put your brand on a global stage
Recommended service: Video and text translations. Find them here.
Tip: Launch a Sponsored Brands video campaign in a new locale, and communicate your brand messages across your ad campaigns and Store for your chosen locations
Keep your creative advertising assets together in one place
Creative assets is the home for branded assets within the advertising console, where you can store, organize, and reuse media across Amazon Ads and shopping pages.
Benefits of using creative assets:
- Unified brand shopping experience: Creative assets integrates directly with the Sponsored Brands campaign builder, the Sponsored Display campaign builder, and Stores. This lets you repurpose content across your Amazon Ads campaigns, helping create a more consistent experience for shoppers.
- Preapproved assets: As you prepare to use your creative assets with a new campaign, you can select assets in bulk and submit them for review and approval.
- Store all assets together: You can upload images, logos, and video files directly from your computer or by connecting to Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive.
Check out what assets are supported
Available in:
| North America | CA | US | MX | |||
| South America | BR | |||||
| Europe | DE | ES | FR | IT | NL | UK |
| Middle East | UAE | |||||
| Asia Pacific | AU | IN | JP |
Leverage free, high-quality stock images and videos
Amazon Ads and Shutterstock have collaborated to add stylish and impactful assets to the creative assets tool in the advertising console.
Meet Shutterstock
Shutterstock is a global creative service for transformative brands and media companies, with a growing community of over 2 million contributors who add hundreds of thousands of images each week.
What this collaboration can bring for your brand:
- Free, easy access to Shutterstock directly from the advertising console
- 390+ million high-quality licensed images and videos
- Enhanced creatives that can help elevate your brand presence
- Available to be used across your Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display campaigns, and within your Store
Here’s how to get started
Two ways to access Shutterstock assets:
- Plan in advance: Visit the creative assets application within the advertising console. Navigate to “Get professional images,” and enter the relevant keyword. Choose and save your preferred assets to your creative assets library so they’re ready for you to use when creating or updating assets.
- Add assets as you go: Alternatively, when building or refreshing your Store and Sponsored Brands or Sponsored Display campaigns, you can search assets on Shutterstock directly from the Stores and campaign builder. When adding a new image to your Store or ad campaigns, click “Choose from creative assets” and select “Stock assets” (in the second tab). From there, you’ll be able to find the licensed assets you need.
Tip: Use Shutterstock assets across your Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display campaigns, adding them to your creatives as “custom images.” For your Store, you can use them as image tiles across your subpages, or on the above-the-fold section (in the headers).
Tip: When trying to find the right assets and narrowing your search, use words that describe:
- Your brand mission and values: Find images that relate to your values, such as images that are eco-friendly, handmade, or affordable.
- Your product characteristics: Find images that represent concepts you want to showcase to your audience, like images relating to leather or anti-adherent.
- The audience you want to reach: Discover images that match your brand and can help captivate the audiences you want to engage. For example, images with dogs could help gain visibility for pet supplies.
- Seasonality and high-traffic events: Find images related to key shopping events, like Christmas, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, spring shopping, festive and summer imagery, and more.
Available in:
| North America | CA | US | MX | |||
| South America | BR | |||||
| Europe | DE | ES | FR | IT | NL | UK |
| Middle East | UAE | |||||
| Asia Pacific | AU | IN | JP |
Optimize performance with creative assets
Know your key performance indicators (KPIs)
What metrics does your business rely on to monitor performance? What metrics will help you define success? Once you’ve completed your creative work with your service provider and implemented your assets, check in on your performance KPIs to see what difference these creative changes have made.
- Click-through rate: The percentage of shoppers who click to go to a specific destination on your Store
- Detail page view rate: A ratio showing the number of paid views of your video ads to the number of impressions generated
- Purchase rate: The percentage of your products that are purchased in the Amazon store
- Return on ad Spend (ROAS): The amount of revenue that is earned for every dollar spent on an ad campaign
You can access these metrics and gain key insights in the advertising console, where you can review and action reports in the Stores insights dashboard.
Take your insights to the next level with Amazon Attribution
While Amazon Ads helps drive consideration for your brand and products across multiple touchpoints, we know there are a number of non-Amazon channels that also play key roles in the shopping journey. With Amazon Attribution, you can gain visibility into how these non-Amazon touchpoints help shoppers discover and consider your products on Amazon. Using these advertising analytics and insights, you can optimize and plan your digital strategy based on what you know resonates with your customers and drives value for your brand on Amazon.
To learn more about Amazon Attribution and how to get started, read our guide.
Tips to measure and optimize against your business goals
Increase awareness
Metrics to monitor: Impressions and new-to-brand
- Use a scalable creative that will fit for larger audiences, helping to cement your value proposition in shoppers’ minds and encourage them to explore your products.
Improve consideration
Metrics to monitor: Clicks and detail page views
- Refine your media strategy and the copy you use for headlines so you can engage with the right customers and connect them to your product detail pages and Store.
- When writing copy for your products, focus on their features and functionalities, and how they can relieve specific pain points for your audience.
- Make sure your creatives and written copy are aligned to complement your overall marketing strategy.
Generate conversion
Metrics to monitor: Purchase rate and ROAS
- Review your product detail page, and make enhancements as needed. As you make changes, continue to refine your media and creative strategy to make sure your overall presence in the Amazon store is consistent.
Tips to measure creative assets against your business goals
Enhance your product detail page with A+ Content to help make your products even more compelling to shoppers. Available to vendors as well as sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, A+ Content lets you highlight your brand story and distinguish your product features with enhanced images, text placements, and stories.
Where to find A+ Content:
- In Seller Central, go to the “Advertising” tab and click A+ Content Manager
- In Vendor Central, go to “Merchandising” and select A+ Detail Pages
Consider creating A+ Content for:
- Products with a high price point
- New product launches
- High-traffic products
What you can do next
Well done—you’ve learned why creative matters in telling your brand’s story, and how it plays a part in advertising. To help improve your creative strategy further, we’ve put a together a list of next steps for you to explore:
- Explore partner directory to enlist help.
- Find partners for your creative needs.
- Visit creative assets and upload your assets.
- Explore Shutterstock’s licensed images.
- Enhance your Store to stay aligned with your brand's priorities.
- If you don’t have a Store yet, create one.
- Refresh your ad creatives with high-quality images.
- Help your brand succeed in numerous locales by using expert translation services.
- Create impactful video content to help achieve your business goals.
Explore more products to help with your creative strategy
Thank you for reading
Learn. Create. Transform.A guide to help your brand stand out from the crowd.