If you are advertising on Amazon, you know significant competition exists in every product niche. Therefore, you need a solid strategy for growing your brand and becoming recognizable on Amazon. 

Besides an attacking strategy, a defense strategy is also fundamental. On Amazon, you want to protect your brand and product pages from competitors as much as possible to achieve maximum brand visibility. 

Keep reading to learn about the benefits of a solid defense strategy and how ASIN defense campaigns can help you achieve your goals.  

What Are ASIN Defense Campaigns?

ASIN defense is a cross-promotion strategy. You use product targeting for advertising your products on your other product pages, meaning that your products will be ads and targets. 

The benefit of ASIN defense campaigns is that when shoppers click on your product and start looking at your product page, they can see a whole catalog of your relevant products. It is visually much better for shoppers to see only one brand on the entire product page, which increases brand awareness. But this is not the main reason for having these campaigns. 

The key motivation for having ASIN defense campaigns is to push your competition away from your product pages. That way, when people scroll for more options, they see the rest of your catalog. The other benefit of having these campaigns is that if somebody clicks through but is not ready to purchase a particular product, you can show them other products from your catalog.

So instead of having the competition win the purchase from your product page, you are now displaying other options (ASINs) and increasing your visibility and brand awareness.  

You can implement a defense strategy for all three campaign types: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display campaigns. You should focus on Sponsored Products and SD. Through these two campaigns, you can secure maximum coverage of your product pages, while with Sponsored Brands, your ads will be shown under the “Brands related to this item” with another two brands. You won’t be able to push competitors away entirely, but you’ll still leave them one position less to appear. 

Sponsored Brands ASIN targeting campaigns are usually low volume. However, they will still be able to redirect shoppers to your storefronts for more items in your catalog and increase the chance of purchase. As for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Display campaigns, they should almost mirror one another.  

What Is The Best Way To Structure Your ASIN Defense Campaigns? 

 There is no best way to structure them, but three main types of ASIN defense campaigns exist. First is bundling substitute products together, which means targeting the product from the same category (pens to pens) where you suggest other product variations to shoppers. 

The second type is advertising your best product on your other product pages. So if a shopper decides not to purchase the clicked ASIN, you are there with your best product to try and change their mind. 

The third very used structure is to create a market basket where you will target your products from different categories that complement each other (pencil and pencil razor, or pencil and pencil case).  

For ASIN defense campaigns, it is better to have more products, but you can still create them using 2-3 products. You may not be able to cover all ad places on your product page, but you will still take a few spots from the competition and work on your visibility. Also, if you have a few ASINs within one parent ASIN, you will not be able to cross-advertise them. But you will still be able to target ASINs from another parent ASIN group. 

Besides all these benefits that defensive campaigns give you, we are still looking at the metrics to see if it is profitable and how much it costs. To have defense campaigns work well, you need higher bids and placements to secure ad place on your product pages. Even though bids and placements are higher, we could still see a good conversion rate with a lower ACoS.  

ASIN Defense Campaigns’ Optimization

 As for the optimization of these campaigns, there are two main types—optimization for defense and optimization for ACoS. Optimization for high defense means keeping the bids and placements high regardless of ACoS to ensure you do not leave any ad place for competitors. 

Optimization for ACoS means you will decrease the bids and placements on defense campaigns as soon as something starts spending more. Doing this leaves ad places on your product pages for the competition, but your spending remains lower.  

When creating a new strategy, you must include and plan a defense strategy as one of the most important parts of self-defense and brand awareness. 

Decide on the budget you are willing to spend on the defensive strategy. Amazon's advertising platform is constantly evolving, so you must keep up and be open to new advertising opportunities and strategies. 

Successful brands on Amazon will adapt to these new changes and use them to capture market share before the competition. Be sure to follow their steps! 

About the author

Marija Popović is a PPC Specialist at Sellers Alley. Work experience in the client relations industry has given her precious insights to dive into the Amazon world. Marija is a valuable team player and a great colleague. She’s sharp-minded, innovative, and always looking for new industry knowledge!