Ahead of the festive season, Amazon Ads has unveiled a thought paper for digital-first brands. The insights provide a roadmap for how businesses can scale from their first thousand customers to a million-strong base and sustain long-term growth.
As per a recent study, new customers contribute 66% of brand revenues across categories. In India, the appetite for discovery is particularly strong. 84% of consumers are actively looking to explore new brands and products. The study also showed that 88% consumers prefer retail media to try new products and brands. The festive season provides a natural tailwind, delivering 3% more new customers than usual, while fresh product launches drive up to 10% higher acquisition.
Based on consumption behavior, customer acquisition falls in two cohorts:
New-to-Brand (N2B): Customers who are buying in the category, but not the specific brand Category buyers who switch from competitors.
New-to-Category (N2C): Customers who have not bought any product in the
category, but are likely to enter it.
Both cohorts contribute significantly to new customer acquisition for brands and require tailored messaging, with N2C skewed higher in emerging categories like luxury beauty and furniture and lower in established categories like grocery, home and beauty.
Educate: Educate customers about their needs and how the brand can address their needs. Build awareness and communicate value propositions through immersive storytelling, videos, and demos. For example, Loop earplugs worked with Amazon Ads to introduce a completely new category, achieving a 47x jump in branded searches and a 40% rise in conversions.
Connect: Build relatability and credibility among the relevant consumer cohort. Overcome trust barriers by tapping authentic voices, communities, and lifestyle-led content integrations. TVS Raider tapped into the gaming community via Amazon MX Player’s Gaming Insaan show, leading to a 14% lift in purchase intent. Similarly, Mamaearth associated with Korean content to bring its rice water range into the K-beauty conversation, recording +12% uplift in purchase intent.
Drive Action: Build visibility when customers are close to the purchase or need a reminder to buy. Be always-on, capture high-intent audiences, and dominate festive/tentpole moments with search and sponsored ads. Figaro Baby Oil entered the competitive baby care market with DSP campaigns, reaching 2.3 million shoppers within a month and driving a 4x sales uplift.
The Full-Funnel Way
The study shows that shoppers are more influenced by consistent visibility (57%) than discounts alone (43%). Brands using all three tactics (Educate, Connect, and Drive Action) see up to 39% incremental sales growth compared to those focused on a single strategy.
From video ads on Prime Video, Amazon MX Player and Sponsored TV that drive awareness, to immersive brand stores, live sessions, and influencer collaborations that build trust, and sponsored products, display, and DSP ads that capture high-intent shoppers at the moment of purchase, Amazon Ads offers a full-funnel toolkit. Together, these formats allow brands to educate, connect, and drive action seamlessly across the customer journey.
Click here to download the thought paper
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