Amazon Ads discovered a new marketplace to promote brands and products – customers on the verge of making a purchase. The company announced a new ad product during its unBoxed event on September 29. Sponsored Services is set to appear after an item is bought. Locals services providers are recommended to potential clients who purchased a product that requires installation, according to Yelp, which supplies the companies.
A customer who orders a product that needs to be installed will see relevant ads about local business owners on the page confirming the order. For instance, a person who buys a new kitchen faucet can see an advertisement for a plumber on the order confirmation page. Search Engine Land reported the news and noted that Amazon has uploaded information about the new format on its advertising platform.
How the New Format Works
In the Sponsored Service ads on Amazon, the call to action comes after the shopper has completed their purchase or searched on Amazon for items that might need professional installations or continued services. Therefore, it is not mandatory for the shopper to have completed a purchase; a search will suffice to trigger the ad.
Each ad contains two actions for the shopper to choose:
- Call: the shopper phones the professional directly, without leaving Amazon
- Quote: the shopper can submit a request for a quote from within the ad, and the professional will contact them to provide an estimate
Another example of a Sponsored Service ad comes from MediaPost. It shows how a customer who has bought a bookcase can request a quote through Yelp for a furniture assembly professional with just a few clicks.
Three Places the Ads Can Show Up
Amazon reports that ads appear on product detail pages, order confirmation pages and tracking pages for packages. These are three different stages of the buying process: deliberation, immediate post-purchase and waiting for delivery to arrive.
The tracking page is perhaps the most interesting, as it is a page the buyer arrives at having already made the buying decision, with the item they have purchased conveniently on display. For items that require assembly or installation, a service ad is clearly pertinent.
Why Yelp Sits in the Middle
Unlike creating a local directory from the ground up, Amazon is teaming up with Yelp, which boasts millions of local businesses as well as more than 300 million reviews. Amazon lists plumbers, electricians, landscapers, home cleaners, roofers and movers among the professionals shoppers can access, and claims the list includes more than those.
A head of services operations at Yelp, Katy Lightsey, said the company has spent more than two decades to create a platform to help people find local businesses. She said the partnership is a way to get Yelp’s high-intent platform to the shoppers at the point of purchase, and get millions of local businesses on Yelp to drive quotes from the customers seeking their services.
At the same time, it appears that reviews may have greater weight than they would in a typical ad. While a shopper who sees an ad for a plumber they’ve never heard of has little reason to click, a highly rated professional with a review history provides that shopper with something to go on.
What Amazon Says Advertisers Gain
Jenn Donohue, Director of Local Ads at Amazon Ads, described the format as a way to reach an audience that previously had no access to local business offerings. She added that the format uses Amazon’s shopping signals to harness the power of trusted local providers to give these businesses a boost and help the shoppers who need their services.
Amazon’s announcement does not include instructions on using these shopping signals to target the shoppers. What it says is that the ads appear after a purchase or a search for a product that requires a professional service. This is a very limited targeting option, and it suggests that the targeting is done based on products and not on the shopper’s location or purchasing history.
Who Can Use It Right Now
Sponsored Services is now available to Yelp advertisers who operate in eligible home and auto service categories in the U.S., the company announced on Tuesday. A narrow focus, indeed. The newly introduced program is restricted to the U.S. and two categories, home and auto services, and is concentrated on organizations that advertise on the platform.
Meanwhile, Amazon did not specify which categories would be considered eligible beyond home and auto services or whether there may be more in the future. It did, however, give an example of two businesses that would benefit from using the new offerings, namely, a roofing company and a moving company. In other words, any professional listed in the occupations Amazon mentioned would potentially be able to use the offering, at least not all of them are excluded at launch.
Part of a Wider Local Push
Amazon Ads positions itself as a priority for building connections between local and regional advertisers and their customers through more relevant and measurable ways. Recent news items on Amazon advertising include two announcements that relate to the company’s strategic goals.
- Location based interactive video ads: advertisers can customize streaming creative by geographic location, showing regional offers, local pricing or nearby store information within a single campaign. Interactive calls to action such as “Send to Phone” connect awareness to action.
- Geographic Insights and Activation (GIA): advertisers use Amazon’s first party retail signals to find regional growth opportunities, pinpoint high potential areas and reach new to brand customers more effectively.
Those two tools are focused on geography. They help an advertiser to make decisions about where to spend and what to show in each area. Sponsored Services approach the question from a different angle; this is a moment-based offering focused on businesses that do not sell any products on Amazon at all.
What’s Still Unclear
The announcement raises more questions than answers. It does not state pricing terms — will advertisers pay per click or per conversation or per completed quote? Nor does it say how much information would be provided to help determine if a lead from Amazon has paid off for the local business.
In addition, there is the question of quality of leads. If someone goes to a plumbing site linked from an ad on Amazon and clicks “Quote” after buying a sink, are they in the same frame of mind as a person searching for “emergency plumber” on Yelp? Both are likely to be interested in calling a local plumber, but one may prove to be a better lead than the other, and the advertisers would want to know which is which before they start paying higher prices.
Why the Purchase Moment Matters
A search signals to a platform what a customer needs to know about – a purchase signals what a customer owns and may want to buy next. (Buying a new water faucet often means a plumber will be next; buying a bookshelf may also call for someone to help it go up.) That is the opportunity Amazon is exploiting with Sponsored Services, an offshoot of retail media that has long focused on finding new products for customers who are looking for products.
Using an inventory of completed orders – a resource Amazon has plenty of – it has found a way to advertise services both inside and outside of Amazon. The deal represents an opportunity for Yelp to reach beyond its own site and apps to promote local businesses and services. For local service companies, it means a new way to advertise to customers who will not have searched for them in a directory a minute ago. And finally, it is a way for Amazon to attract a new class of advertisers who do not need to list products for sale.
What to Watch From Here
A few things are worth keeping an eye on. First, will Amazon expand the list of categories beyond home and auto services that are eligible? Second, how will advertisers be able to characterize their results after early adopters have run long enough to have meaningful data? Third, will other retailers with large order volumes experiment with a similar marketing offering?
None of these questions are settled, and Amazon has not shared any details about how many businesses are using the new ad format or how many shoppers have used Call or Quote options. What we do know is the trend: the checkout process is becoming inventory for businesses that have nothing to do with the checkout.
FAQs
Q1: What is Amazon Ads Sponsored Services?
It’s a new ad format announced at unBoxed that links Amazon shoppers to local service pros just when they need the help. The local businesses are provided by Yelp.
Q2: Where do Sponsored Services ads appear?
They are present at product detail pages, on order confirmation pages, and package tracking pages at amazon. com. Amazon has placed them here, stating that they should appear immediately following the point where a customer has completed an order, or when they have a focused search that may require professional setup or maintenance services.
Q3: What can shoppers do with the ads?
Shoppers click “Call” or “Quote. ” Call allows them to call the pro directly while staying on Amazon, Quote allows them to submit a request from within the ad so the professional can contact them with an estimate.
Q4: Why is Yelp involved?
Yelp is the source of the local companies appearing in the ads. Which it is gathers multi millions local companies and more than 300 million reviews to help shoppers find the best respected professionals.
Q5: Which types of professionals are included?
These services or providers are also included under Amazon services: plumbers, electricians, landscapers, home cleaners, roofers, and movers Etc. For selected home and auto services categories only.
Q6: Who can advertise through Sponsored Services?
It’s out now for U. S. home and auto services advertisers on Yelp who are eligible. Amazon said they will have a different offer for non-Yelp advertisers.
Q7: Does Amazon say how much the ads cost?
The prices and billing model are not announced. But every advertiser needs to confirm with Yelp or Amazon Ads.
Q8: How does this fit with Amazon’s other local advertising tools?
Amazon Ads points to location based interactive video ads and Geographic Insights and Activation as recent local tools. Those focus on geography, while Sponsored Services focuses on the purchase moment.
Q9: What could the ads look like in practice?
Amazon’s own example is a shopper who buys a kitchen faucet and sees an ad for a local plumber on the order confirmation page. Another example from MediaPost is a shopper who buys a bookshelf and requests a quote from a furniture assembly professional.
