Channel Bakers Case Studies

Samsung Finds Growth with Channel Bakers’ Full-Funnel Strategy

Samsung follows a simple business philosophy: to devote its talent and technology to creating superior products and services that contribute to a better global society. The brand offers its products on Amazon across multiple countries and has an established Amazon presence. They partnered with Channel Bakers, a fully-managed advertising agency and service provider to help achieve its Amazon Advertising goals. Since 2017, Channel Bakers has been specializing in full-funnel strategies that help brands grow their Amazon presence by developing outcome-driven Amazon Ad solutions.

Samsung's Ask Of Channel Bakers: Drive awareness, Increase Efficiency & Boost Sales

In Q1 2019, Samsung sought to elevate its computer monitor sales on Amazon. The monitor category offers a wide range of brand options for Amazon shoppers. Question was how to ensure that Samsung appeared in their Amazon searches. A strong keyword game plan was vital to the campaign strategy. Bidding on category-level keywords could help shoppers discover Samsung’s monitors over competition.

Channel Bakers' Answer: Help develop a full-funnel Amazon Advertising strategy using data-driven solutions to help drive awareness, sales, and increase efficiency of its advertising dollars.

Channel Bakers Solution For Samsung: Implements A Cross-Product Solution To Deliver Performance Improvement & Sales Growth

Channel Bakers developed a “Better Together” approach to the brand’s sponsored ads strategy, and used a wide range of Amazon Advertising solutions to help drive performance of Samsung’s monitors. Below is a breakdown of how the full-funnel marketing strategy was implemented:

Stores: Within Samsung’s Store on Amazon, Channel Bakers worked to create a deeper brand shopping experience on the monitor’s sub-page by including lifestyle imagery and video content. Organizing the brand’s monitor offerings within the Store under classifications such as “UHD,” “Curved,” and “Gaming” also served to help shoppers discover the range of options Samsung offered for different needs. The monitor subpage also provided an opportunity to elevate some of the larger-screen monitors in the 34'' and 49'' categories.
Sponsored Brands: Channel Bakers used Sponsored Brands ads to showcase a variety of Samsung monitors with a focus on key branded and category keywords. The ability to showcase three products within each ad presented a great way to help drive visibility of multiple prioritized products. Creating customized brand copy, Samsung communicated key feature- and benefit-based messaging. Channel Bakers also developed creative assets that featured multiple Samsung monitor models at a specified screen size, helping drive awareness on different product options. Channel Bakers also used the performance of these monitor size groupings to help drive optimizations and inform Samsung on which monitor sizes to focus on within Sponsored Products campaigns.
Sponsored Products: Samsung and Channel Bakers focused on Sponsored Products to help increase sales, with a strategy that mirrored Sponsored Brands. By building single product-focused campaigns, and having granular reporting tools, Channel Bakers was able to have a view of sales performance to help inform which products would benefit from increased budget allocation.
Sponsored Display: Samsung and Channel Bakers used Sponsored Display to help drive cross-promotion on Samsung’s product detail pages, and help shoppers explore options and discover the full range of Samsung monitors while they were already engaging with the brand.
Amazon DSP: Samsung began using the self-service Amazon DSP in Q2 of 2019 through Channel Bakers and was able to supplement its existing sponsored ads strategy. This also helped mitigate increasing bid costs on key awareness shopping terms within the monitor category. Through Amazon DSP they could re-market to audiences who had previously engaged with the brand, as well as reach new relevant audiences at an efficient cost.
Amazon Advertising API: With its integration with the Amazon Advertising API, Channel Bakers is able to create reporting and deliver campaign insights to Samsung. The Amazon Advertising API also allows for visibility into metrics such as “other ASINS” (similar products not associated with the campaign) that help understand the brand halo effect , and indicate relevance beyond the products currently being advertised. These insights help inform and plan for future campaigns.

End Result: Channel Bakers Helps Samsung Find Sustained Performance & Impactful Results

Each component of Channel Bakers’ strategy contributed to driving meaningful results for Samsung’s monitor business in 2019.

Full-funnel approach helps to drive early results: Samsung noticed a lift in overall revenue attributed to advertising for monitors in just the first month of running Amazon DSP campaigns. This was in addition to their sponsored ads in mid-2019. One month after launch, the sales revenue attributed to advertising for Samsung monitors on Amazon increased by 16.6%, and glance views increased by 14.4%.
Sustained performance: Channel Bakers was able to help Samsung drive business results, delivering a 54.7% YoY (year-over-year) increase in total sales revenue attributed to advertising on Amazon for their monitors in 2019, and an 18.8% increase in glance views YoY.

Partner spotlight: How to approach digital video advertising with Channel Bakers

Channel Bakers' group of retail strategists, marketers, and creatives help brands grow globally. Channel Bakers, an e-commerce agency, uses insight-driven strategies with paid search, DSP, or streaming TV and creative services to empower clients with real, outcome-driven solutions to build brands on Amazon and beyond. We sat down with Joshua Kreitzer, Founder and CEO of Channel Bakers, to discuss Channel Bakers’ approach to digital video advertising.

Tell us about Channel Bakers’ story; how was it founded, where are you now, and what’s ahead?

I was a beta-tester for sponsored ads back in early 2013 while at GoPro when I was managing the Amazon relationship. That sparked the idea to launch an agency squarely focused on Amazon Advertising. From the moment I logged in, I was hooked, and I've been passionate about innovating new strategies and tactics to help brands squeeze every ounce of value out of each Amazon Advertising product. We work hard with brands so that they can more effectively leverage Amazon Advertising’s ability to grow their audience.

We’ve been early adopters of everything that the Amazon Advertising product teams have developed. We’re ready to tinker, test, learn, and execute new strategies with whatever Amazon launches next.

Tell us about Channel Bakers’ approach to advertising with digital video advertising.

At Channel Bakers we’ve seen digital video advertising be a catalyst for branded growth that over-indexes with just about every key metric, from click-through rates to new-to-brand sales, conversion rates, return on spend, and more.

Over the past year we've been talking with brands about their connected home media strategy. It’s important to meet shoppers where they are. For the past year, that’s been primarily at home. From a connected home media strategy standpoint, Amazon can help brands have multiple digital video touchpoint advertising opportunities that drive awareness with online video ads (OLV) and streaming TV video advertising on any device in the home. Brands can then further connect with shoppers in a meaningful way through Sponsored Brands video placements that lead the shopper down the funnel to help them choose the right product.

We always recommend brands take advantage of every effective tool available that connects them with shoppers. Digital video is a powerful tool that often gets overlooked when it comes to selling online. Not only does it grab the attention of shoppers, but it also helps products stand out over others.

This level of customer engagement is unique for two key reasons. First, it creates an immediate emotional attachment to a brand’s story and their values. Digital video also makes it easy for shoppers to educate themselves about each product’s differentiating value proposition. If done well, a digital video, whether it be ad creative or product page, can fast-track the shopper’s purchase decision.

For example, we repurposed Amazon’s unused footage of a pet food client into 26 additional videos that were then leveraged for Sponsored Brands video campaigns, doubling their return on ad spend (ROAS) as a result.

What’s your recommendation for an advertiser who is getting started with digital video advertising?

When it comes to digital video advertising, it’s critical to have compelling, fresh video assets, and more than just one asset. Try not to repurpose old videos or even the current videos that weren’t intended for advertising.

We recommend that you start with a basic sentiment analysis by looking at your reviews, peer brand reviews, and Amazon Best Seller product reviews to explore the key differentiators of your product. If there are any unique specifications and/or features to your product that your peer brands do not have, we layer those insights into video storyboards to create multiple videos across the funnel that are more relevant to what shoppers are talking about and buying. The goal here is to be relevant with video assets and reaching the right customers so that your campaigns can get the best performance by being relevant to each audience and their expected outcome.

Our approach includes test performance when driving traffic to both the brand store and product detail pages. General videos showcasing your brand with lifestyle messaging or general product portfolios should yield better results for brand awareness and discovery purposes. Videos that contain specifics about a product are more relevant when leading to a detail page with the objective of closing the sale for that product.

For example, with one of our consumer electronics brands, we implemented a full-funnel strategy with Amazon Streaming TV ads covering the very top of the funnel to drive awareness in preparation for holiday traffic. This included a top-heavy investment in connected TV ads and use of in-market DSP video ads. Our client’s campaign contributed to approximately 75% of its focus ASINs sales during this period, while driving 53% of its product detail page views.

Are there best practices you follow when it comes to campaign set up for digital video advertising?

We audit the advertiser’s overall Amazon Advertising combined with retail performance to identify which products, audiences, and placements have the best opportunities to connect with shoppers. We also include closed captions and subtitles since autoplay videos generally do not play with sound. This ensures that a brand can share its message with its potential customers, at a glance, more effectively than just the video by itself.

If budgets allow, be sure to run all three video placements in order to maximize the reach of your content.

What are three tips for using digital video advertising that you want the reader to walk away with?

Consistent messaging

Have consistent creative content and artwork across multiple channels, including streaming TV and traditional television. This is the most effective way to help drive easily recognizable brand imaging and messaging.

Apply learnings quickly

Leverage existing metrics and insights in order to engage customers strategically. For example, take your brand’s key learnings from performance metrics like Paid Search, Sponsored Display, and Retail in order to customize your Sponsored Brands video, streaming TV, and OLV strategies to your brand’s needs.

Accurate measurement every time

Set consistent KPIs like Branded Search Uplift, Increase in Glance Views and/or Page Views, and Video Completion Rate across the different advertising products in order to help accurately measure success rate.

Preparing for Prime Day

Sanofi Consumer Healthcare is a French multinational pharmaceutical company based in Paris, France. Its Spanish offshoot researches and develops health care products, which focuses on vitamins, cough and cold remedies, and pain relievers. In 2019, Sanofi Consumer Healthcare Spain began selling one of its multivitamin brands, Pharmaton on Amazon.es.

In April 2020, Sanofi partnered with Channel Bakers, a full-service global marketing agency that specializes in Amazon Ads, to support its first-ever Prime Day engagement on Amazon. Sanofi looked to Channel Bakers to analyze potential deals, support retail engagement for supply and sales forecasting, and help drive on-site and off-site engagement before, during, and after the event.

Facing new challenges

Though historically held in July, Prime Day shifted to October in 2020. While this gave Channel Bakers more time to plan Pharmaton’s strategy, the agency faced two challenges: it didn’t have historical data points or growth to reference; and given the brand would be participating in Prime Day for the first time, there was uncertainty about whether the high-traffic event would drive value.

There were also many other brands in the multivitamin category, so the team at Channel Bakers knew it had to devise a strategy that would help drive adoption.

Devising a plan

To create a successful Prime Day strategy, the Channel Bakers team knew Pharmaton needed: 1) the right promotion to engage with shoppers; 2) enough product supply to ensure it could meet shopper demand; 3) paid search campaigns to help drive qualified traffic to that deal before and during the event; and 4) Amazon DSP to help drive conversions and increase new-to-brand shoppers.

To do so, Channel Bakers started by asking Sanofi to map out a potential sell-out using forecasting to ensure it had the right amount of inventory to support the Prime Day campaigns. Sanofi then ran point to secure supply, while Channel Bakers assessed which products would help increase sales for the multivitamins before, during, and after Prime Day, with unit sell-throughs, product detail page visits, and conversions as the key performance indicators (KPIs).

Channel Bakers leveraged the majority of its investment in Sponsored Products, seeing it as a potential sales driver for middle-of-the-funnel tactics. Focusing on Sanofi’s core products (the 60- and 90-count Pharmaton vitamins) for the Prime Day activation, the agency prioritized building campaigns with single ASINs to help with sales tracking.

Channel Bakers then used Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display to showcase a variety of Pharmaton products in shopping results, helping drive brand awareness and visibility, and in turn increasing conversions. Specifically, Sanofi leveraged Sponsored Display for category targeting, to help audiences engage with Pharmaton’s smaller pack sizes within the portfolio.

Next, Channel Bakers leveraged its integration with the Amazon Ads API to monitor the progress of how Sanofi’s ads were performing through its customized reporting service, Visibly. This also allowed the agency to access additional metrics, like product-level reporting in the Amazon Ads API, giving Channel Bakers more insights into how the campaigns performed to help drive sales for Pharmaton.

To optimize, Channel Bakers leveraged the search terms report to understand how the Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products campaigns were performing. Channel Bakers also downloaded a bulksheet to view its bids and budget changes pre- and post-Prime Day and make adjustments accordingly.