Advertising on OTTO [6 types of advertising explained]

Before the advent of online retail, holding the new OTTO catalog in your hands was a familiar but welcome event. OTTO has now managed to transfer its expertise to the digital world: Stores such as OTTO, Bon Prix, ABOUT YOU, Heine and Quelle are well-known and popular in Germany.

Following the example of e-commerce giant Amazon, the Otto Group has provided sellers with a number of tools that can be used to efficiently reach potential customers via various channels inside and outside the stores.

In this article, I would like to introduce you to these types of advertising.

InShop Promotion

InShop Promotion allows you to place advertisements for your brand on the Otto Marketplace. In this way, you can increase your reach in a simple and straightforward way.

Where can I see InShop promotions?

InShop promotions can be seen in prominent places in the Otto Group stores, for example as headers or skyscrapers. They are also displayed on desktop, tablet and mobile.

Sponsored Product Ads (SPA)

You can also increase the visibility of your products with Sponsored Product Ads. The display of the ads differs from the InShop promotions. The main aim here is to appear above the organic results in the search results for relevant keywords. In this way, relevant users can be addressed through the analysis of keywords and the targeted placement of ads, thus attracting new customers.

This type of advertising is particularly effective because customers who are already looking for a specific product are further along in the customer's journey. They already know which product they want to buy and do not need to be convinced to buy it. This means that potential customers can be intercepted directly before a product is placed in the shopping cart.

Where can I see Sponsored Product Ads?

SPA are displayed among the first search results of a user. Ads are also presented on the product detail pages and product lists.  

Audience Extension and Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO)

As part of the Audience Extension, you can choose from over 2,000 predefined target groups to whom your advertising material is displayed. These target groups are determined on the basis of retail data. By providing different advertising media for the individual target groups, these can be adapted to the user in real time in order to achieve the highest possible CTR. Comprehensive insights reports help you to readjust your campaign to increase its performance even further.

The Audience Extension and Dynamic Creative Optimization are an OTTO Retail Media offering. With around 70 million active cookies, 25 million CRM data and its own team of experts, it can provide unique information on target groups and help sellers to create successful campaigns.

Where does advertising appear within the Audience Extension?

Outside the stores, on third-party sites. The DCO allows advertising media to be dynamically adapted to the targeting segment, as can be seen from the different product variants and advertising texts as well as other elements in the case shown above.

Commitment

The off-site program "Engagement" is a full service management for advertising campaigns on third-party websites. Why can it be worthwhile for you to run your campaign via OTTO? As with the Audience Extension, OTTO Retail Media uses its user and customer data to optimize your ads.

This option is best suited for retargeting visitors to your store, as it allows you to target these visitors on relevant websites via OTTO's network. The useful reporting, including final reporting and an analysis of responders and non-responders, provides information on the efficiency of the advertising campaign.

Where do Engagement Program ads appear?

Through the OTTO Retail Media Network, banners can be displayed on sites that are not part of the Otto Group stores.

OTTO Display Network

The last two types of advertising both use the OTTO Retail Media network, which sellers can use to address their target group outside of stores such as Otto.de. A similar concept is the use of the OTTO Display Network as a market partner. For example, customers who have viewed one of your products in the Otto Group's online stores can later be addressed via the OTTO Display Network.

As with other platforms such as Amazon, advertising material can be created automatically based on the data provided by the seller. The campaign can be created in self-service. OTTO also offers reliable performance reporting that can be used to evaluate and optimize the campaign.

Where do Engagement Program ads appear?

Outside the OTTO Group stores on partner websites.

Print Promotion

In contrast to the options mentioned above, OTTO also offers offline advertising. In this case, these are print promotions, for example flyers that can be added to an order. This is a program that is not limited to orders of your own products - rather, it allows you to reach customers who have ordered from other retailers but are part of a target group you have defined.

This target group can be selected based on factors such as gender, age or region. The exclusion of competitors is also permitted. As OTTO continues to have a high reach, the print promotion can be excellently scaled. Up to 3.5 million mailings per month are possible.

Which type of advertising suits your brand?

The types of advertising described in this article are of interest to different profiles. While sellers can advertise directly on Otto Group stores with the InShop Promotion and Sponsored Product Ads, the other forms of advertising relate to partner websites (with the exception of print advertising, of course).

InShop promotions and sponsored product ads are available for OTTO Market members. The OTTO Display Network comes into play for retargeting campaigns.

Those with a larger budget can work with OTTO Retail Media via Audience Extension and Engagement and use their large network of partner sites for technically advanced advertising campaigns in which ads can be automatically adapted to the user who is currently viewing the ad.

The print promotion is an ingenious opportunity to reach customers who are already active OTTO customers. Print and digital should not be seen as an either-or case, but can coexist wonderfully. Print advertising also reaches customers in a different dimension, as flyers or product samples can still be touched and therefore create a haptic appeal that digital media cannot.

If you need help planning an advertising campaign on Otto.de or the stores belonging to the Otto Group, get in touch with us right away to arrange a free consultation.