Amazon a travel agent?

5 years ago in Advertising, Branding, Corporate, Data india, non-endemic 0 140

Amazon gets a lot of advertising revenue from brands that sell on the platform – probably more than $9bn of the $10.1bn total ad revenue.

But a key focus for the growth at the company is bringing on new advertisers that are not selling on the platform – “non-endemic” advertisers as they are known.

Categories such as auto, finance, entertainment (concerts etc), luxury, travel and telecommunications.

So why would advertisers use Amazon for these brands versus perhaps Facebook or Google/Youtube?

Simple answer: The Data.

Amazon knows a lot about out shopping behavior but also about our broader profile.

If you were selling cars, would Amazon be at the top of your publisher list? Probably not.

But if you think about it – Amazon is the perfect partner to leverage data and support with creative and impactful executions. And more than likely your competitors won’t be there in a meaningful way.

In terms of auto data, Amazon has over 40% of the cars in the US registered to a user – make, model and more details. They have over 50,000 reviews on thousands of models. And by knowing your home address they know if you live in the mountains, inner city or perhaps country. Through gift/marriage/baby registries they know about key lifestage changes (and suddenly ordering baby formula and diapers is also a giveaway). On top of this they know my spend profile and household income (courtesy of Experian partnership).

And the formats you can use to reach your ideal customer range from streaming video, to OTT, to display, to a “digital showroom” presence, arranged test drives, direct mailers, branded boxes and bags, to name a few. No doubt augmented reality on the boxes or perhaps in their growing physical footprint will appear soon.

For finance, say you’re trying to market a new creditcard, again you probably don’t have Amazon as top of mind. But in addition to all the behavioral, lifestage and household data Amazon knows what credit card you use to purchase, when you last changed it, whether it’s focus is on points/miles or low interest. Coupled with detailed spend data and leveraging the multitude of ad executions Amazon should be high on the consideration list.

Travel is a category you wouldn’t think of using Amazon for – after all, the digital marketplace environment alone isn’t conducive to a sense of relaxation and beautiful imagery. However, when you think about it, Amazon knows whether I’ve bought travel goods (guide books, language books, suitcases, neck pillows) and my current location around the world including airports.

And they’re adapting the platform itself to build new features for the travel category. Amazon is adding flight bookings to its growing list of services in India, partnering with Indian travel website Cleartrip. Indian users can now book domestic flights through its website or mobile app and it’s enabled through Amazon Pay.

So whether you’re selling on Amazon or not, there is definitely a role for Amazon and Podean is uniquely equipped to create a holistic strategy where other “Amazon agencies” purely specialize in search.