When running Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) ads, audience targeting is one of the most crucial factors in achieving success. While targeting the right audience is essential, equally important is excluding certain audience segments to maximize campaign efficiency, save on unnecessary ad spend, and boost ROI.
This article will explore the common types of audiences you should consider excluding from your Amazon DSP ads and provide strategic insights on why and how to implement these exclusions.
Benefits of Excluding Audiences
Excluding certain audiences from your Amazon DSP ads can offer several significant benefits:
Budget Optimization: Excluding unqualified audiences ensures your ad budget is spent on high-value prospects rather than on those who are less likely to convert.
Improved ROI: By focusing on the right audience and filtering out non-converting segments, campaigns tend to achieve better returns on investment.
Refined Targeting: Audience exclusions help refine campaign targeting and ensure that you are reaching potential new customers, not wasting impressions on people who are unlikely to take action. For a deeper dive into Understanding Audience Types in Amazon DSP, refer to this guide that breaks down the various audience segments you should consider.
Now let’s break down some key audiences to exclude and the strategic use cases for each.
1. Existing Customers / Subscribe & Save Customers
Use Case: Excluding customers who have already purchased your product or Amazon’s "Subscribe & Save" is a critical strategy for avoiding wasted ad spend. These individuals are already loyal to your brand, and serving them acquisition-focused ads may be redundant and unnecessary.
Strategy: By using first-party data, you can identify customers who have already made a purchase or subscribed to recurring orders. Integrating Customer Match data with Amazon DSP can help create an exclusion list of these customers, ensuring you focus more on acquisition rather than retention. For subscription products, especially, targeting existing subscribers with acquisition ads will not bring additional value.
Implementation:
- Upload first-party CRM data to exclude existing customers.
- Exclude “Subscribe & Save” purchasers through Amazon’s data if available.
Benefits: This exclusion saves budget, and keeps campaigns focused on finding new customers or re-engaging lapsed ones.
2. D2C (Direct-to-Consumer) Customers
Use Case: Direct-to-consumer (D2C) customers are those who already purchase directly from your own website. These customers may not need to see ads on Amazon, especially if they are loyal to purchasing from your brand directly.
Strategy: Brands often want to separate their Amazon audience from D2C buyers, particularly if the margins differ across channels. By excluding D2C customers from Amazon ads, you can target new prospects on Amazon while keeping your D2C customers engaged through other platforms, like email marketing or retargeting on your site.
Implementation:
- Use CRM data or D2C sales lists to exclude individuals who have purchased directly from your website.
- Integrate D2C data with Amazon’s DSP to exclude these customers from campaigns. You need to leverage Amazon Marketing Cloud for this.
Benefits: This strategy protects your Amazon ad budget and allows for more focused ad spend on acquiring new Amazon customers.
3. Recent Purchasers
Use Case: Targeting recent purchasers of your product is often inefficient since these individuals likely won’t be ready to make another purchase so soon. Repeated exposure to acquisition-focused ads can lead to a negative customer experience.
Strategy: Use purchase history data to create exclusion audiences of customers who have recently bought your product. Depending on the type of product, you might want to set up an exclusion window based on purchase frequency or lifecycle (e.g., 30-day, 60-day, or 90-day exclusion).
Implementation:
- Exclude purchasers from campaigns for a set period (e.g., 30 days after purchase).
- Use dynamic exclusion lists based on purchase behavior.
Benefits: This reduces wasted impressions and ensures that your ads are targeting fresh prospects who are more likely to convert. If you're looking to better understand how to approach remarketing to these audiences, check out our guide on How to Use Amazon DSP for Effective Remarketing.
4. Geography Exclusion
Use Case: Not all regions respond equally to your products. You can exclude those regions where your conversion rate is sub-par, resulting in saving wasted ad spend.
Strategy: Implement geo-targeting and exclusion filters within Amazon DSP to prevent your ads from being shown to audiences in non-targeted or irrelevant regions.
Implementation:
- Use geographic data to exclude regions where your products are not available.
- Set location-based exclusions at the country, state, or city level, depending on your business needs.
Benefits: This strategy ensures better localization of ads, avoids irrelevant clicks, and saves budget.
5. High Ad Exposure but No Purchase
Use Case: Some users may have been exposed to your ads multiple times without converting. These audiences are unlikely to make a purchase, and continuing to serve them ads will result in diminishing returns.
Strategy: Identify and exclude high-exposure audiences who have seen/clicked your ads multiple times but have not engaged or converted. You can define this threshold based on your campaign's ad frequency cap (e.g., exclude users who have seen the ad five or more times but have not clicked or purchased).
Implementation:
- Set up frequency capping and monitor high-frequency non-purchasers.
- Use reach & frequency analytics within AMC to determine at what point you should exclude these individuals.
Benefits: This reduces ad fatigue, optimizes ad spend, and helps focus on audiences more likely to convert.
6. Brand Search Audiences
Use Case: Users who have already searched for your brand on Amazon may not need to be targeted with top-of-funnel awareness ads. They are already aware of your brand and are likely considering a purchase, but acquisition ads may not be the most effective strategy for this group.
Strategy: Exclude audiences that have searched for your brand in Amazon’s search engine but have not yet converted. These users are best targeted through other means, such as retargeting or promotional ads.
Implementation:
- Use Amazon’s Brand Search Audience data to exclude individuals who have searched for your brand in the last X days.
- Focus instead on remarketing strategies to convert these high-intent users.
Benefits: This approach helps allocate resources to more awareness-focused prospects and directs high-intent audiences to the correct funnel stage.
Best Practices for Audience Exclusion in Amazon DSP
1. Regularly Update Exclusion Lists: Ensure that your exclusion lists (e.g., CRM data, purchase behavior) are regularly updated to reflect current customers, recent purchasers, and other segments.
2. Leverage First-Party Data: Your own CRM or sales data can be an invaluable resource in building and refining exclusion audiences. Keep this data fresh to maximize its effectiveness.
3. Monitor Campaign Performance: Track key metrics (e.g., impressions, click-through rate, conversion rate) to see if certain excluded audiences need to be added back into campaigns or further refined.
4. Balance Exclusions and Acquisition: While excluding certain groups is important, make sure you don’t exclude too many audiences and limit the reach of your campaigns. Test and adjust based on performance.
5. Set Clear Frequency Caps: Use frequency capping to control how often users are exposed to your ads. This can help prevent ad fatigue and minimize unnecessary exposure to non-converting audiences.
Conclusion
Audience exclusion is a critical part of running a successful Amazon DSP campaign. By carefully identifying and excluding certain groups - such as existing customers, D2C buyers, and recent purchasers, you can save on ad spend, prevent audience fatigue, and focus your budget on the most valuable prospects. Implement these exclusions strategically to ensure your campaign stays optimized, efficient, and geared toward high-ROI outcomes.