Sponsored ads boost paper gift business
Jeff Block left the corporate world to create hand-crafted greeting cards. Soon afterward, Just Paper Roses was born, offering everything from folded-paper orchids to upscale cocktail napkins and beautiful roses for all occasions—especially anniversaries. Just Paper Roses has been a small but growing business for nearly 15 years, starting out as an admittedly crude website.
When Just Paper Roses brought its line of paper gifts to Amazon.com and took advantage of Amazon Ads, its shipped units doubled in a month. The company also expects sales of high-end, high-margin paper orchids to increase as much as eight-fold. Just Paper Roses says its business is growing as its products achieve higher visibility, which more than offsets any ad spend. Thanks to Amazon Ads, the biggest problem at Just Paper Roses is meeting popular demand.
Easy-to-use online ad tools
Just over three months ago, Block followed the advice of a web marketing consultant and brought his gifts to the world’s largest marketplace, Amazon.com. The consultant showed Block how easy it is to create a free, customizable landing page with Stores. Next, Block learned how to run keyword-targeted Sponsored Brands campaigns to drive traffic to the Just Paper Roses Store. He also used product-specific Product Display Ads* that reach shoppers at Amazon.com and across the web.
Great-looking ads in 3 to 4 minutes
Block says, “Creating ads is 100% user-friendly—it takes just a few steps and 3 or 4 minutes. In contrast, other ad providers are getting more complicated, and I’ve stopped using them.” Block notes that as a result of his success with Amazon Ads, he will be diverting most of his marketing budget to an all-Amazon-based strategy and to Sponsored Brands in particular.
Increased sales, high product visibility
While Block had expected a boost from the move to Amazon of perhaps 20 to 30 orders a month, he has achieved hundreds of additional orders. “The results with Amazon have been overwhelming, and we’re still going through rapid growth,” says Block. He adds that business has doubled in the last 30 days. “We had our biggest day yet a couple of days ago. I’m extremely happy with what my business is doing.” Block cites a high-end, high-margin line of handmade paper orchids as an example of how selling on Amazon using sponsored ads can boost demand.
He will be swapping out ads for nearly 100 products so that his orchids can appear in the prime position, above search results. “Before, we were selling about 75 orchids a year,” he says. “Now, we’re looking at up to 600 a year.”
Says Block, “In terms of spend, I look at the bottom line. I use sponsored ads to advertise because the return is greater than my spend.”
He adds, “Friends keep asking, ‘How will you keep up with the volume?’ That’s the kind of ‘problem’ I want to have.”
*Product Display Ads audience and product targeting features are now accessed within Sponsored Display.
Highlights
- Doubled the units sold in 30 days
- Increased visibility of products, including high-margin orchids
- Higher sales that offset ad spending
What they said
“The first step is always paid advertising. It’s not that I wouldn’t get business without it, but it would take longer. By using [Amazon's sponsored ads], I get quick results.”
Jeff Block, President, Just Paper Roses
Tips for success
- After creating a Store, create Sponsored Brands campaigns to drive traffic to it.
- Use sales reporting to track campaign performance and test different messages and keywords.
- Use the full suite of easy-to-build sponsored ads products to gain high visibility of both your pages and products.