Amazon is no stranger to the world of advertising, with the Seattle based company launching their own network six years ago. The company is forging ahead with plans to allow companies to run targeted adds on the entire line of Kindle Fire Tablets and e-Readers.
Amazon has some very big data that it is using to leverage themselves against the likes of Facebook, Bing and Google ad networks. 185 million customers buying habits are cultivated by Amazon to deliver more concise recommendations on eBooks, devices and even shoes. Currently Amazon has launched new advertising options for companies looking to target Kindle users exclusively.
Advertising for Amazon is big business. The company never releases breakdowns like they do in the UK, but according to recent filing reports they make around 1.7 billion dollars a year. This new program would act similar to Google Adwords, where you can customize specific ad units and have them displayed.
Amazons Special Offers program was originally launched in 2011, with the release of the Kindle 3, or known now, as the Kindle Keyboard. The essence of the program is that customers buy $30.00 less on the hardware to have advertisements served on the homescreen and screensaver. Amazon continued rolling out the program to the Kindle 4th Generation, Kindle Touch and Kindle Fire line of tablets. People often were quite happy to save some money, because all of the advertising was fairly unobtrusive.
When Amazon was originally developing the program they had their key properties like Audible being advertised. You could see they maintained synergy between their various products, including eBooks.
During the last three years, Amazon knows how many people are buying their “Special Offers” editions and is pitching the metrics to advertisers. Companies can now elect to exclusively run a month long campaign on your Kindle. If you are a company looking to put an add, the Kindle e-Readers are only available to run campaigns in the USA. The Kindle Fire line allows for the USA, UK and Germany for their targeted markets.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
