Inside Lumive’s strategy to use Amazon Ads to help connect with customers in Saudi Arabia
In June 2020, Amazon arrived in Saudi Arabia, bringing a new range of digital advertising possibilities to the region. Enter Lumive, a newly established Saudi Arabian tech brand with a diverse product line and clear, marketable goal: create smart home technology that’s accessible to everyone.
The competition for eyes, clicks, and buys is stiff in Saudi Arabia — something Lumive has contended with firsthand. And while shoppers are willing to pay a higher price for quality, establishing a brand and ensuring your products remain visible has always been a challenge in this marketplace. Lumive founder, Kareem Elharon, saw this as a chance to use Amazon Ads’ many tools and resources to help the brand achieve its immediate goals.
“The challenges Lumive faced in the marketplace were twofold,” Elharon noted. “First, our new and emerging products were often ranked in lower positions on search engines. Second, aggressive competition from other sellers made it difficult for Lumive to establish brand recognition in the eyes of consumers.”
Envisioning success with Amazon Ads
It started with a crash course on the capabilities of Amazon Ads. Lumive tapped into resources Amazon offers to its sellers, including webinars, guide videos, and email newsletters, that would help familiarize them with the possibilities of advertising. The brand also leaned on bespoke services like Amazon Seller Central Help and Seller University to feel comfortable and competent with ad products.
Part of Lumive’s success, Elharon believes, is due to Amazon Ads’ staff. “The frequent contact between me and the Amazon Ads team helped to keep me abreast of new products and strategies we could try,” Elharon said.
With Amazon Ads’ help, Lumive identified a few key areas of focus: keyword optimization and localization, budgeting for product launch, and using self-service ad products. This helped Elharon and his team easily generate creative that would help foster brand trust and boost product visibility among relevant audiences.
Smart solutions to product placement
Amazon Ads offers unique and comprehensive suite of options to help brands achieve their business goals. It also provides multiple pathways to help drive brand recognition and boost new and existing product listings.
Lumive leveraged coupons and promotions in ad campaigns to gain instant attention and linked their Sponsored Brands ads to their brand Store to help enhance brand awareness. Implementing Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products — self-service ad products that help marketers generate effective cost-per-click campaigns — started to inspire greater product awareness.
"The great thing about using these types of solutions was the chance to connect our brand to Amazon shoppers; consumers who are willing to buy products and make purchase decisions based on value”
— Kareem Elharon, Founder, Lumive
Taking brand top of mind
Success on Amazon wasn’t instantaneous for Lumive; instead, it took between three to five months of experimentation and optimization to perfect their marketing formula.
And it was during that period of experimentation that Lumive began to seriously dive into the possibilities of keyword localization. Elharon was able to synthesize his knowledge and understanding of the Saudi Arabian marketplace to drive and inform his keyword campaigns.
“Adding Arabic keywords was a great tip from Amazon Ads that really helped lift our product listings and boost sales,” Elharon explained. “I often preferred to use English words, because most content here is available in English, but at Amazon Ads’ suggestion I began using both.”
The results were impressive: Lumive noticed, with the help of the advertising console, an uptick in audiences searching with Lumive and Kamzai keywords on Amazon — indicating shoppers were starting to recognize the brand.
Meanwhile, the use of Sponsored Brands, along with an updated selection of ads on social media, helped Lumive create a more enduring presence wherever they spend time. Those tactics helped improve the brand’s social media following, and in turn, possibly boosted orders coming through the company’s website. Lumive was now using Amazon Ads to help generate sales throughout the marketplace, in conjunction with other marketing channels.
Where Lumive is looking next
Lumive has seen positive results in Saudi Arabia using a variety of digital advertising solutions and has taken great strides towards meeting its initial goals. As the brand continues on its journey to build brand presence and increase product visibility, there’s one digital ads solution that Elharon swears by. “Using Amazon Ads’ self-service ad products is incredibly helpful as Lumive launches into new marketplaces, like the UAE.” Elharon explains.
"We know Amazon’s advertising solutions can help us gain brand exposure, and meet an audience interested in shopping and connecting with a brand they can trust.”
— Kareem Elharon, Founder, Lumive
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