Ready for spring cleaning? Here are 7 tips to help spruce up your household advertising.
Those chores aren’t going to do themselves—that’s why many consumers keep a stocked closet with everything from cleaning supplies to laundry goods to bathroom accessories. If your brand is advertising these kinds of household goods, there are several ways you could improve the performance of your ad campaigns. Based on insights from Amazon DSP static ads and design elements run in the US, Amazon Ads developed tips to help marketers craft ads to reach customers of household products. To check which product categories these recommendations are relevant for, refer to the list of audience segments at the bottom of the page.
The key performance indicators (KPIs) for these tips include average click-through rate (CTR), detail page view rate (DPVR), purchase rate (PR), and return on ad spend (ROAS), which are important metrics for helping ad creative resonate with audiences. Here are examples of ads and seven ways how using insights to select imagery and text could help your household brand marketing campaigns reach and engage your audience.
Explore ad examples
Here are examples of what ads could look like after following Amazon Ads’ tips.
Tips in action for CTR driven campaigns
Tips in action for DPVR driven campaigns
Tips in action for PR/ROAS driven campaigns
1.
Highlight the products
It can be beneficial to focus on the products in your household ads. Creatives that featured a human had a decrease in average CTR by 12%.1 Instead, showcase the product, whether that’s by itself or in lifestyle imagery.
The imagery of products should include several components, such as multiple objects, logos, and text. Creative images with nine or more objects (compared to images with five or fewer objects) had an average DPVR that was 26% higher and an average PR that was 21% higher.2 So, don’t be afraid to experiment with adding more objects to your ads.
2.
Don’t be afraid to add more objects
3.
Fonts and text are important
There are several insights that show the significance of text amount and font sizes in household ads. First, limiting the copy to four lines showed an increase in average CTR by 18%, compared to ads with nine or more lines of text.3 Second, try to limit the word count to 10 words or fewer, mostly in uppercase. Creatives with a low word count had an average DPVR that was 10% higher and an average PR that was 11% higher than those with 18 or more words.4
Also, creatives with a majority of uppercase words also had an increase in DVPR, by 10%.5 Make sure to you keep your capitalization consistent, though.
Finally, experiment with different font sizes for a variety of word widths. For example, use both wide and narrow fonts within the text of a single ad. Doing so had an average PR that was 13% higher than ads that had a low word width variation.6
The wording used in household ads could have a direct impact on KPIs. For example, using the word “new” resulted in an increase in average CTR by 10% and in average DPVR by 13%.7 (However, using “new” had a decrease in average PR by 25%, so the ideal word choices are dependent on which KPIs are of most importance to you.) Also, it could help to avoid the word “clean.” When it was used in ad creative, there was a decrease in average DPVR by 42% and in average PR by 42%.8
Additionally, try addressing your customers directly using “you” or “your.” Creatives with pronouns such as these had an increase in average DPVR by 80% and in average PR by 100%.9 When it comes to household ads, customers tend to respond well to this type of direct messaging.
4.
Consider your words carefully
5.
Use a call to action (CTA)
It can help to include a call to action (CTA) in your household ads, which led to an increase in average DPVR by 46%.10 Just make sure to keep your CTA at a low height. For example, there were the best results in ads with a CTA that didn’t take up more than 3% of overall ad height.11 Those ads with a low CTA height had an average CTR 22% higher and an average DPVR 27% higher than ads with a high CTA height.12
Using discount messaging such as “sale” could improve the performance of household ads. Creatives with a discount callout showed an increase in average DPVR by 29% and in average PR by 33%.13 So, if there are any sales, bargains, or buy-one-get-one deals to highlight, give them a shout-out in your ad campaigns.
6.
Try using discount messaging
7.
The lighting can be key
The two parts of the ad to consider when it comes to lighting are the background and the foreground. The foreground includes the image of the ad as well as text or any CTAs. Across all KPIs, ads with a light background and light foreground had the best performance, with an increase in average CTR of 11%, average DPVR by 37%, and average PR by 59%, compared to creatives with a darker background and foreground.14 Other combinations of foregrounds and backgrounds that were brightly lit or darker performed well for certain KPIs, too, as seen in the table below.15
| CTR | DPVR | PR | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dark background with dark foreground | Bottom performer | Bottom performer | Bottom performer |
| Dark background with light foreground | 15% average uplift vs. bottom performer | Uplift not significant vs. bottom performer | 22% average uplift vs. bottom performer |
| Light background with dark foreground | Uplift not significant vs. bottom performer | 20% average uplift vs. bottom performer | 37% average uplift vs. bottom performer |
| Light background with light foreground | 11% average uplift | 37% average uplift vs. bottom performer | 59% average uplift vs. bottom performer |
How Amazon Ads sourced these insights
The category insights used here were generated by capturing design elements from 17,000 creative image files from within the US from 2018 to 2021. Creatives were separated into verticals according to their audiences. Statistical and machine learning models then looked at the impact of design elements on awareness, consideration, and purchase KPIs. Creative performance was adjusted to remove the contribution of confounding effects such as placement and serving frequency.
Audience segments included in the analysis: Cleaning/laundry supplies, paper & plastic supplies, kitchen appliances/gadgets, storage, tableware/dining/linens, cookware/knives/utensils, outdoor kitchen, kitchen rugs, garbage, kitchen faucets/fixtures/cabinets/islands, kitchen/dining gifts.
Learn more
Want to find out more about optimizing your advertising creative? Explore other ways to improve ad campaigns for a variety of other types of categories, including grocery products and healthcare products. There’s more information and tips on display advertising available, too.
1-15 Amazon internal, December 2021, US