Experiential marketing
Experiential marketing is a process for brands to connect with customers through experiences, such as pop-up stores and virtual events. They’re often held in-person and include digital components, as an effective way for brands to create unique and memorable moments.
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What is experiential marketing?
Experiential marketing, also called experiential brand marketing, grassroots marketing, engagement marketing, or live marketing, is a way for brands to connect with consumers through experiences. Though these experiences are typically in person, they often have digital components, with the whole package designed to bring a brand to life in a big, meaningful way.
Marketing experiences can range from pop-up stores to virtual events to parties to interactive installations. They range in scope from intimate events to celebrity or influencer partnerships. There is no limit—as long as the experience makes sense for the brand, supports its marketing goals, and delivers surprise and delight for customers.
Elements of the best experiential marketing campaigns
Successful experiential marketing campaigns work toward accomplishing the following:
- The brand is well represented. It’s clear who’s hosting the experience, and the campaign is relevant and on-brand.
- The experience is memorable and engages customers in unexpected ways beyond standard advertisements.
- The experience is measurable. Particularly when it's in person, experiential marketing campaigns can be tough to measure. Some ways you can do this are through head count, post-event surveys, and use of experience-specific social media hashtags and landing pages. Online experiences are easier to track with click-through rates (CTRs), views, return on ad spend (ROAS), and more.
Experiential marketing examples
Here are two examples of successful experiential marketing campaigns created in collaboration with Amazon Ads.
Case Study
At the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, Cheetos and Amazon Ads constructed a hands-free house powered by Alexa. Guests could explore the immersive Cheetos Hands-Free House—without leaving orange Cheetos dust everywhere—by using technology for everyday activities.
Case Study
Tyson Foods worked with Snapchat and Amazon Ads to increase awareness, consideration, and conversion for Jimmy Dean Fresh Sausage products by using augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Using a mobile filter trained by machine learning, consumers could scan an egg to unlock a coupon in the Amazon store for a free roll of Jimmy Dean sausage.
Building experiential marketing campaigns with Amazon Ads
Amazon Ads offers several solutions that help brands execute successful experiential marketing campaigns. Here are just a few:
A brand’s experiential marketing campaign should be unique. The Amazon Ads custom team works closely with brands to create memorable experiences, no matter where potential customers are in the marketing funnel. These innovative, end-to-end campaigns use Amazon’s first-party insights to help brands reach audiences locally, nationally, or globally. Get in touch with our sales team to learn more.
Amazon Ads offers enhanced features for interactive marketing, including interactive audio ads and interactive video ads, to help make it easier for customers to engage with brands. Interactive experiences across different devices helps deliver unique ads to audiences where they are already consuming content.
Stores allow brands to showcase their offerings in a multi-page, immersive shopping experience on Amazon, and are a way to continue driving brand awareness after an event. They’re simple to set up and edit using drag-and-drop tiles or predesigned templates that allow you to use rich media like images and video, without writing a line of code. Brands can select their own unique, easy-to-remember Amazon URL for their Store, which makes it simple for consumers at an offline experience to find the brand's Store online later. Brands also get reporting on Store-related sales, enabling them to quickly gain insights into visits, page views, and traffic sources to help quantify their experiential marketing campaigns.
With Sponsored Display, brands can create digital ads that complement and underscore experiential marketing tactics in a snap, no matter the budget. Brands can engage with audiences wherever they spend time with display campaigns that can be created in minutes.
Learn more about our full suite of advertising solutions to support your experiential marketing campaign.