Source: Adexchanger
Users are already very much aware of Amazon’s practices of pushing their own products with ads alongside competitors campaigns, a practice usually referred to a conquesting campaigns.
According to AdExchanger, conquesting is when a brand tries to directly peel off a competitor’s customers or audience.
Amazon is now intensively employing this strategy both as an ad platform and as a private-label brand operator, leveraging the wealth of customer data they own, positioning themselves as the most aggressive conquest advertiser on the platform.
The platform is namely pushing its private labels, giving them sponsored placements atop other brands’ own search results and product pages.
The practice is infuriating brands, and could open the company to charges of anticompetitive action, AdExchanger reports, but that hasn’t discourage the company’s efforts, probably as they have confidence in being an unavoidable platform today.
Search ads can be the most blatant form of conquesting. Amazon recently caused a stir by advertising its AmazonBasics batteries in a huge splash above search queries like “Energizer.”
However some brands are very aggressive, and are willing to take some losses to undercut a rival, which could spell trouble for Amazon if the bidding war was to ensue.
But Amazon also reserves some search conquesting tactics for itself. Many searches for a brand that Amazon has a private label alternative to will show a carousel of products like “Top rated from Amazon’s brands” directly above the fold, meaning a user doesn’t need to scroll the page to see it.
However, there’s no option for a brand to buy its own top-rated product carousel or to prevent Amazon from pitching its private labels.
