Ever considered what it would be like if you took the best parts of Twitch or YouTube livestreams and combined them with the best parts of teleshopping? Where products are featured on-screen in real time, and users can click straight through to an Amazon product page to buy while they watch?
What if audiences were also identified and engaged using Amazon’s excellent first party shopper data?
Perhaps, like us, you think this sounds like the marketer’s dream! But this particular dream has actually been true since 2019, in the form of Amazon Live. But now, after five years, this ecommerce livestream platform is colliding with the new world of influencer marketing – and sparks are flying.
This is your guide to getting on board with Amazon Live, and the right influencers, to create the ultimate interactive e-shopping experiences.
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What is Amazon Live?
Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world, with its online marketplace achieving a global net revenue of nearly $232bn in 2023. The platform has grown an entire content and advertising ecosystem around its digital store, often termed a ‘retail media network’ (RMN), which creates exceptional opportunities for brands to market their products using Amazon’s first party shopper data.
Amazon Live is one branch of this RMN; it’s a video streaming platform that houses everything from celebrity cooking shows to seasonal product showcases, product hauls, behind the scenes, and more. It sits within a wider range of Amazon Ads, which provide a range of static, video, and shoppable ad opportunities that you can buy across the app and website.
The power of Amazon Live, among all these options, is its interactivity. Users can watch streams live or retrospectively with their favorite influencers, from celebrity superstars to specialized retail influencers. Mentioned products are rotated in a carousel beneath the video, and there’s even a live chat where users can ask questions and get real-time answers.
The second power of Amazon Live is the consumer insights that feed it. Compared to influencer marketing on other platforms, advertising with Amazon gives you access to their first party data on shoppers’ habits. By advertising and selling through Amazon, you unlock incredible levels of relevancy and personalisation.
Amazon Live is perfect for influencer marketing, but very few influencer agencies are yet to have effective leverage across both influencers and Amazon itself to deliver on this opportunity. That’s where The Goat Agency comes in.
We have an exclusive partnership with Amazon Ads, which gives our clients access to a number of unique features, including:
- Advanced optimization of creative, fusing Amazon targeting with Goat expertise
- Sponsored brands integration, placing Goat creator content in above the fold Amazon.com ad locations
- Bringing Goat creator content into Amazon Product Pages and Brand Stores
- Combined with our global expertise in influencer marketing, and depthless connections with leading influencers across every vertical and level, there’s no better partner to have for your Amazon marketing efforts.
How have influencers integrated with Amazon’s advertising tools?
The relationship between influencers and Amazon advertising tools continues to grow, providing you with a range of fine tools for laser focused advertising and brand development via trusted figures.
Amazon Influencer Program
By signing up as an Amazon Influencer, content creators can set up a storefront and earn commissions on qualified purchases driven through their content. They can drop links to specific products across their social media posts or videos, earning commission per click or purchase. This might be through first party content directly on Amazon platforms like Amazon Live, or other channels like TikTok or Instagram.
As you might have surmised, this is basically a streamlined affiliate marketing mechanism. The benefit over traditional affiliate marketing is through easier tracking and management of influencers and their performance through Amazon data, giving you a granular view of your potential audiences for perfect optimization of your creative and campaign structures.
Influencer content supported by PPC
In a less direct manner, you can combine influencer content with targeted PPC to form a highly effective one-two marketing punch.
Influencer content – on Amazon or elsewhere – creates awareness and interest in your products. User engagement data off the back of that, such as view time, click throughs, items in baskets, together paint the perfect targets for your PPC.
With tightly defined audience demographics and purchase readiness, you can look to push your ROAS up to some really impressive levels.
Amazon Live influencers
Amazon Live is home to a diverse range of influencers, all the way up the scale from micro-influencers to A-list celebrities.
Celebrities
More new brands seem to pop up under A-lister celebrity names by the day, with the titular figures acting as the number one in-house influencer. One example on Amazon Live is Scarlett Johansson and her skincare brand “The Outset”. Their most recent Amazon Live stream, in April 2024, is titled “Scarlett Johansson’s 3-minute skincare routine”, so the hook here is obvious.
What’s unique about this format is the long-form, live nature of it – compared to say, a TikTok. The pace is slower; Scarlett gives viewers a tour of the office and cracks a few jokes before sitting down with her co-founder to give a thorough rundown of the products. The effect of this is that viewers have plenty of time to build trust and familiarity with the brand and its ambassador. Being able to send messages and questions through the chat in real time adds an extra layer of connection – one comment reads “just added cleanser to basket” while another says, “I love you Scarlett!”.
While you might not have the budget or the need for A-list celebrities to represent your brand, the mechanism is applicable at all levels. By selecting relevant influencers, you can create an opportunity for users to get their teeth into a detail-rich, shoppable stream that will build their purchase confidence and desire – in a way they can immediately act on.
Amazon Live specialists
There are a class of influencers who invest their time in creating a consistent, quality pipeline of content on Amazon Live. Take Joslyn Davis, for example, a presenter for a YouTube entertainment show and Instagram influencer (266K followers). She has her own Amazon Storefront and Amazon Live channel, where she runs live streams on everything from outdoor cinema nights to “road trip essentials”.
Joslyn doesn’t work with any particular brand, but instead includes a range of products in her videos by category. With the Goat Agency as a partner, you’ll be able to feature your products on Amazon or influencer-led channels like these. We’ll also help you secure supporting ad assets across the app, website and off-platform to drive conversions in a highly targeted way.
How brands are using Amazon Live
While there are a handful of brands running their own channels on Amazon Live, such as Scarlett Johansson’s ‘The Outset’, they usually have assets like celebrity figureheads which make this a worthwhile investment.
For most brands, especially for a first foray into the world of shoppable streams, you’ll likely find best value by commissioning your products to be featured in one of Amazon’s many high quality, targeted streams.
There are also various independent influencers operating on Amazon Live who offer a similar service through their own storefronts. The Goat Agency is on hand to help you identify the best opportunities for your brand across these options, both in terms of relevance and targeting, and ROAS.
Both these approaches will also allow you to leverage the high production value and livestream experience that these creators have to offer, rather than bearing heavy up-front costs investing in your own.
A dedicated Amazon Live channel for your brand might be the right complement to your overall Amazon presence if:
- You already have a brand storefront on Amazon
- You have a wide product range on Amazon
- A significant portion of your sales is through Amazon
- You have a compelling and creative strategy for creating a volume of distinct, consistent, engaging livestream content
If you’re thinking about making this step, The Goat Agency can help you shape the strategy, creative, and influencer connections needed to ensure it pays dividends.
Tips for brands looking to partner with Amazon Live influencers
Seize the opportunity to educate and inspire
This is a brand new type of opportunity to engage with your audience over a long period, respond to their questions in real time, and build a truly personable connection.
Once you start watching shoppable livestreams, you’ll understand that they’re inherently more natural and authentic. There’s no multiple takes, time to place cameras, or post-production. On Amazon Live, the product – and the person using it – are everything.
Don’t just show – showcase.
This is the chance to show your product in action, dive into the detail, and pile up reasons to click buy.
Whether you’re a sports, cookware, clothing or beauty brand, your influencers should be demonstrating and reviewing the products in real time rather than just holding them.
Consider your product choice
Rather than gathering together all the products you want to boost sales for and running through them over 30 or 60 minutes, think about how you can create a truly enjoyable, immersive and memorable experience.
This might mean clustering certain beauty products into a ‘morning routine’ segment, for example, or talking about the dangers of using cheap resistance bands. Users should feel like there’s useful information to be had if they stay on-stream, even if they aren’t ready to click buy yet.
Influencers who can offer expert insights, interesting personal experiences, or celebrity stardust are especially effective for this.
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As the exclusive partner of Amazon Ads in the UK, we offer unparalleled opportunities to get the best out of Amazon’s impressive advertising infrastructure and deep consumer insights.
Combined with our leading expertise in powerful influencer marketing, it’s a new era for social commerce – and Amazon Live is a major part of this exciting growth.
Whether you’re still wondering if Amazon Live is for you, or already know which of your products will shine in the limelight, get in touch today to see how we can help.
