This blog was updated on March 6, 2024.
It’s official: Amazon unBoxed 2024 will take place from October 14 – 16 in Austin, Texas. This is according to a “Save the Date” posted by Amazon Ads on LinkedIn. Amazon unBoxed is the biggest event of the year for brands that sell on (and off) Amazon. Typically hosted in New York City, unBoxed is where Amazon reveals new solutions and innovations to help brands connect with customers and prepare for the future. Last year’s event showcased fresh insights from industry leaders, training and certification classes, engaging breakouts, interactive demos, after-hours events, and an exclusive musical performance. In anticipation of unBoxed 2024, let’s recap some of the biggest Amazon Advertising announcements from unBoxed 2023.
Amazon unBoxed Recap #1: AI-Powered Image Generator for Ad Creative
The most talked about revelation at unBoxed 2023 was a new Artificial Intelligence tool that helps brands create images for advertising campaigns. Currently in beta, the AI image generator is designed to remove creative barriers and enable brands to produce lifestyle imagery that helps improve ad performance.
The AI tool is easy to use and requires no technical expertise. Within the Amazon ad console, advertisers simply select their product and click “Generate.” It then leverages generative AI to deliver a set of lifestyle- and brand-themed images (based on product details) in a matter of seconds. You can then refine the image by entering short text prompts to create, test, and optimize multiple versions.
Amazon unBoxed Recap #2: Sponsored TV
Another exciting announcement from unBoxed 2023 was Sponsored TV, a self-service ad solution for brands of any size to connect with new customers in their living rooms—even if they have never advertised on TV. Sponsored TV enables brands to run campaigns that reach audiences watching content on Amazon Freevee, livestreamed entertainment on Twitch, and third-party streaming TV services through Fire TV apps.
Pre-packaged with shoppable ad formats, this new advertising tool allows brands to buy Streaming TV ads with the same flexibility as Amazon’s self-service ads. This means no minimum spend requirements or upfront commitments. In just a few clicks, brands can create and launch their first campaigns to reach relevant audiences. Campaigns are optimized in real-time, simplifying the complex process of buying programmatic TV ads.
Amazon unBoxed Recap #3: Sponsored Products Expands to Premium Apps and Websites
Amazon announced that Sponsored Products campaigns will now appear on premium apps and websites, including Pinterest, BuzzFeed, Hearst Newspapers, Raptive, and Ziff Davis brands like Lifehacker and Mashable. This launch is designed to help brands drive discoverability and sales when using Sponsored Products. All ads will link to the Amazon product page, making it simple for customers to move from inspiration to browsing or buying – in just one or two clicks. Sponsored Products only appear when advertised items are in stock and include trusted Amazon shopping attributes such as Prime delivery promise, ratings, and accurate pricing information.
Amazon unBoxed Recap #4: New Ad Capabilities (Campaign Planning, Amazon Marketing Cloud, and More)
Amazon always announces new advertising capabilities at unBoxed – and last year was no different. The following are the most important updates designed to give brands more control over campaign planning, activation, and measurement.
- Strategic Campaign Planning for Amazon DSP
Amazon DSP now features a new cross-channel planner that provides holistic insights and performance related to audiences and supply across Amazon and third-party sites and apps. Advertisers can forecast relevant reach by channel or determine where to de-duplicate reach based on campaign performance over the past 12 months. Advertisers can then allocate campaign budgets to drive the desired business outcomes. - Goal-Based Bidding for Amazon DSP
Amazon DSP will support goal-based bidding, which helps advertisers specify a performance target for campaigns. This allows Amazon DSP to automatically optimize bids in real-time to maximize delivery at their performance target. With this release, advertisers can automatically optimize to better meet delivery and performance goals. - Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) Sandbox
Brands can now simulate advertiser AMC activities in a sandbox environment. For example, brands can use the new AMC sandbox to assist with hands-on learning, signal investigation, query iteration, and software development pilot with AMC without affecting a live instance. AMC sandbox mimics the functionality of an advertiser AMC instance but contains only synthetic signals that are artificially and programmatically generated to reflect the structure and statistical properties of advertiser signals. - Audience Updates for AMC
Brands can now turn their AMC insights into custom audiences available for Amazon DSP with just a few clicks. AMC Audiences now has a custom look-alike modeling feature so advertisers can unlock incremental audience reach in line with campaign goals. - New-to-Brand Metrics
Amazon Ads has expanded its new-to-brand metrics suite, which helps advertisers understand, reach, and optimize campaigns toward new customers. Brands can now access add-to-cart and new-to-brand detail page view metrics through the Amazon Ads API for Sponsored Display and Sponsored Brands. The add-to-cart metric reports the number of times shoppers added a brand’s products to their cart, attributed to an ad view or click. The new-to-brand metric reports the number of new detail page views from shoppers who have not previously viewed a detail page in the past 365 days with an ASIN of the same brand.
Channel Key Takeaway: Good for Campaign Planning and Optimization?
Every year, Amazon executives, marketing leaders, partners, agencies, brand owners, and advertising experts attend the annual unBoxed event – including Channel Key. As a full-service Amazon marketplace consulting agency that has partnered with over 250 brands to generate $1 billion in online sales, we understand how fast Amazon evolves and changes. Competing on Amazon’s ever-growing platform requires staying up to date about the latest technologies available to brands. Last year’s unBoxed showcased a host of important advertising capability updates and underscored the growing importance of AI in digital marketing and advertising. We’ll keep you posted as more information becomes available about unBoxed 2024.
