Australian SMBs are benefitting from the positive impact of advertising as they look to expand their businesses locally and internationally, according to new research from Amazon Ads.

The study found that nearly nine in 10 (88%) said that their current advertising strategy is successful in acquiring new customers while over seven in 10 (71%) said it had helped them to expand their Australian business. More than half (54%) said that advertising had helped them grow their business internationally within the last 12 months.

This confidence in advertising led more than one-third (33%) of Australian SMBs to increase their spend on advertising during the past year, while 39% kept their budget the same year-on-year. The most common motivations for this increase in spend include driving awareness of a new product or service (47%) or to improve customer awareness of their brand (45%).

The most popular channels for SMB spend in advertising include social media advertising (70%), online search (63%) and online display (44%). Looking ahead, nearly one quarter (24%) plan to spend on streaming TV advertising during the next 12 months.

Despite the success enjoyed by some, not all SMBs feel they need advertising to grow their business with one in three (32%) not currently spending on any kind of advertising because it is too expensive (44%) while a similar number (38%) said they haven’t seen a return on previous investments (ROI).

Even among SMBs that are currently spending on advertising, challenges remain. Close to one-third (32%) said that their biggest challenge was lack of budget, followed by a lack of time and resources (29%), while 28% say that knowing where to focus their advertising budget was the greatest challenge their business faced when it came to advertising successfully.

It’s clear that many SMBs can attribute business growth to their advertising strategies, achieving successes like domestic and international business expansion, and a heightened ability to drive awareness of a new product or broader customer awareness of their brand, according to Amazon Ads Australia and New Zealand head of endemic advertising, Kasey Jamison.

“We’ve seen this to be the case for sellers in our store – small businesses that advertise on Amazon have seen 26% of their sales, on average, driven by Amazon Ads. In fact, the combined sales from SMBs continue to outpace Amazon’s own first-party sales,” she told Retailbiz.

“Every business has unique needs, and our approach is always to identify the right marketing mix to help advertisers meet their individual goals. We work to understand the biggest challenges SMBs are facing and use this insight to develop ad products and solutions to help them reach and engage millions of Amazon customers at every stage of their journey.”

Amazon Ads aims to make advertising as simple as possible with a range of tools that are self-service, cost-effective, and designed to flex according to resources and budget.

“Our easy-to-use ad products and solutions include Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and Stores, helping SMBs reach relevant audiences and better understand how their campaigns are performing against their business goals,” Jamison said.

“We also support SMBs in giving them the skills to advertise online through our free learning console. It features courses, certifications, learning bootcamps, on-demand webinars and videos to help advertisers gain expertise in Amazon Ads products and services.”