A new ad channel on Ozon
Ozon has opened its audience to businesses that do not sell on the marketplace. You no longer need your own store to advertise products and services to the people who shop there every day. Here is what the tool is, how it works and how to get started.
Ozon announced the launch under the name "Advertising on Ozon for business": if you run a business that needs customers, you can now find them on the marketplace. A self-serve ad account for small and medium businesses lets you place ads in a few clicks, and being a seller is not required.
That is the key point. To reach millions of people who order on the platform daily, you no longer need a storefront of your own.
Why this matters
A new advertising channel has appeared. Previously there were social networks and other platforms with ad accounts you could use to attract customers. After sanctions, many of those platforms left the market and a large set of advertising tools and audience access disappeared at once.
Now a new advertising tool is effectively arriving. It is worth watching how it performs, because it may replace some of the instruments that were lost.
Formats and targeting
You choose a format: from a standard or video banner on various pages to a native card that looks like a product in search results.
Find customers nearby. You can target impressions to people within 1 to 30 km of your location. Thanks to its logistics, Ozon knows buyer geography well.
This is where small businesses benefit: beauty salons, local shops. Say you run a salon in a residential complex. You open the ad account, set a radius of up to 3 km from your location, and every user who visits pickup points nearby within those 3 km sees your ad.
There are exceptions, of course: some people collect orders at a pickup point on the way home from work. But that is a small share of users; as a rule, people order closer to home or the office.
Target your audience. Ads can be shown to buyers of product categories close to your business, and the audience can be narrowed by gender and age.
In other words, the tool includes targeting: the ability to aim ads at a specific audience by gender, age and interests. You are not simply advertising to everyone within 3 km of a pickup point. If you run a beauty salon for women, you can select women, a specific age range and specific interests, for example creams, bath salts or lipsticks. Depending on what suits your business, the right product category can help move your offer.
Budget and registration
You can start with a comfortable budget: from $17. You review the first results and decide based on detailed performance reports.
The registration form sits in the Ozon ad account. You can reach it from the announcement or simply search for "Ozon advertising".
There are also options for agencies: open the account, launch ads and so on. Ozon's message is straightforward: bring new customers to your business on Ozon, show them ads, then lead them to your website, app or messenger.
You can send users wherever you want. Want them on your site? Send them there. Want them to message you directly to book a service? Send them to a messenger.
Use cases
Describe your business on Ozon. Ads within a 1 km radius. Interest-based ads: pick categories close to your services and show ads to people who spend money on them.
- People buying face care (creams, treatments, cleansers) can be shown ads for beauty salons.
- People buying toys can be shown ads for a kindergarten.
- A cleaning company can advertise against household goods.
- Someone buying dog food, bowls and similar items can be shown ads for a veterinary clinic.
How it works in practice: a customer buys protein, collects the order at a pickup point and sees an ad for a nearby fitness club on Ozon.
Ozon reports 67 million shoppers, 54 million of them with above-average income, and 44 million daily visits to the platform.
Campaign management and reporting
Ozon notes that you can present your service as part of the platform's content and place your offer directly in product search results. The native format looks like this: regular product cards, with a carousel of your ad among them - a headline, a subheadline and a button such as "book now" for a haircut, plus a path to your site, booking form and so on.
Every stage is manageable. You start with a budget from $17 and see customers on your own site.
Reports for each campaign are a real plus. You can review metrics, allocate budget, compare which formats work, which services work, which banners and headlines work, and run A/B tests.
Ozon is also running a promotion, at least at the time of writing: tripling your ad budget with bonuses. In the example given, you deposit $580, Ozon triples it and you get $1,750 on your balance to spend on promotion. The multiplier depends on the amount: the larger the deposit, the more bonus points, up to 100,000 bonus points.
Who can use it
Access is available to registered businesses and legal entities; self-employed individuals will follow later. For now, only registered businesses and legal entities can use Ozon Advertising, so keep that in mind.
Do you need to sell on Ozon to launch ads? As established above, no. You can advertise your products or services even if you do not sell on the marketplace, and lead the customer to your site, app, landing page, messenger or other sales channels.
How to launch
Start with registration and topping up your account. Then prepare the ad and creative, choose your audience and launch the campaign with your chosen budget.
You can prepare ads in your account, and ad marking is handled for you. That is a big plus, because marking often complicates a campaign launch, and here it is automated. Templates let you launch standard campaigns quickly, but a template will always perform worse than settings tuned to your own criteria.
What budget should you start with? From $17, or rather any comfortable amount, and you can pause spending once you see results. To register, fill in a form with basic information; registered businesses and legal entities will need a tax identification number.
If you want to promote products you already list on Ozon, that is set up through your seller account: pay per click, pay per order and so on. Ozon also runs its own internal ad account. The new ad account is aimed more at outside businesses that want access to the millions of people buying on Ozon but do not yet sell there.
Marketplaces as advertising tools
A broader point: Ozon, and in fact Wildberries and Yandex Market too, are gradually ceasing to be just marketplaces. We used to see them as places with products, logistics and supply. Now they are effectively becoming advertising tools, and the products and ordering are simply the mechanism for holding audience attention and selling that attention to companies and entrepreneurs.
Marketplaces are now officially advertising tools, and they should be treated like any other channel we use: social networks, targeting, influencers, content marketing and so on. Each is becoming one more way to attract customers.
Takeaway
Ozon Advertising opens new options for businesses by giving them access to the marketplace audience without a storefront. The tool offers flexible settings, clear reporting and a starting budget from $17. Marketplaces are becoming full-fledged ad platforms, and this one is worth considering.
