20 Tips for Amazon Advertising PPC
Given how saturated Amazon is with products, it came as little surprise to many industry experts, including those over at runrex.com, when Amazon introduced the “Sponsored Products” initiative. Sponsored Products will appear higher in the search results, with the word “Sponsored” next to them, because sellers listing those products will have paid Amazon for every click on their listing, that is, PPC. If you are looking for tips to make the most out of Sponsored Products, this article will look to help with the following 20 tips for Amazon PPC advertising.
Use automated targeting at first
An important Amazon PPC advertising tip, as per the gurus over at guttulus.com, is to use automated targeting when setting up your campaign, as it is a great way to maximize exposure, particularly in the early days of one’s campaign. Automated targeting means letting Amazon choose keywords for you when you set up your campaign. This will ensure that Amazon’s algorithm will help you display product ads for not only your relevant keywords but also for less common phrases as well.
Check out your advertising report
Once your campaign has run for a couple of weeks, as per the folks over at runrex.com, you should head over to the Campaign Manager tool located in Amazon Seller Central and download your advertising reports. This will enable you to see which keywords are doing well and which ones are not, enabling you to optimize for the best results. This is an important tip if you are to be successful with Amazon PPC.
Add the best performing keywords to your manual campaign
Once you have gotten an idea of which keywords are performing well, and which aren’t, as discussed above, the next tip is to take your best-performing keywords, the ones with most sales, and add them into a new manual targeting campaign, as discussed over at guttulus.com. These will allow you to get the best out of these keywords, giving you the results that you crave.
Add the keywords that are performing poorly onto your negative keyword list
Another tip for Amazon PPC is making sure that you add those keywords that are performing poorly onto your negative keywords list. This will ensure that your ads don’t show up for these keywords, saving you money and ensuring that they only show up for keywords that are likely to lead to conversions.
Use negative keywords
Speaking of negative keywords, your list should not only include poorly-performing keywords, but also irrelevant keywords. This will ensure that you are bidding only on the most relevant keywords, which will ensure that your Amazon PPC campaigns are a success.
Allocate a larger bulk of your budget to your manual campaign
As is already mentioned earlier on, and as discussed over at runrex.com, you should set up a new manual campaign for your top-performing keywords. Once you do so, another tip is to make sure that allocate a larger portion of your PPC budget to this new manual campaign as compared to the original automatic campaign.
Don’t be exact with your budget
Speaking of your budget, the gurus over at guttulus.com point out that when it comes to Amazon PPC campaigns when dealing with highly competitive keywords, one will usually spend a few dollars more than what they initially set for their daily budget. An important tip is to, therefore, make sure that you give yourself some wiggle room when it comes to your monthly budget to account for the extra dollars you may have to spend daily, on these keywords.
Leverage your increased sales rank
As is discussed over at runrex.com, it is important to point out that your sales rank will increase as your sales increase due to your use of Amazon Sponsored Products. If your sales rank goes high enough, you can even turn off your PPC campaign, or cut down on it, as your product may have gained enough traction to bring in organic results.
Track your metrics
Another important Amazon PPC tip is to make sure you are tracking and monitoring your important metrics. This means keeping an eye on metrics like spend, sales, as well as ACoS, also known as the Average Cost of Sales. This will give you an idea of whether your campaigns are performing well or not.
Change the default setting for how your fees will be deducted
Another Amazon PPC tip is changing the default setting for how your PPC fees are deducted. This is because Amazon automatically charges your fees to your default credit card in your Amazon Seller Central account, and such you won’t be able to see how much you are making or where and when the charges are coming from. To solve this issue, you should make a change so that Amazon deducts your advertising fees from your disbursements.
Start with long-tail keywords
Another tip the gurus over guttulus.com have for us when it comes to Amazon PPC advertising is starting with long-tail keywords when launching your PPC campaign. Once you have attained some success and a certain level of mastery on matters Amazon PPC should you then switch to the generic and most-searched keywords. These generic keywords come with increased competition, and if you are new to Amazon PPC, targeting them will only lead to you spending a lot of money with minimal exposure.
Go for incremental changes when it comes to keywords
Another tip when it comes to Amazon PPC is to go with small incremental changes when it comes to keyword targeting as covered over at runrex.com. you should start with long-tail keywords as mentioned above, then move to next-level keywords, then finish with generic and most-searched keywords once you have gotten enough visibility. For example, if you sell chopping boards, you should start by targeting long-tail keywords like ‘handmade wooden chopping board’, then move to the next set of keywords like ‘wooden chopping board’, and finally finish with generic keywords like ‘chopping board’ or ‘vegetable cutter’.
You should base your bids and budgeting of keywords on your listing’s search rank
As is explained over at guttulus.com, the bids and budget you will assign for a keyword should depend on the search rank of your listing in the Amazon search results for that particular search query. If the listing is ranking beyond page 5 or 6 on Amazon, you should be conservative with your bidding and focus only on a handful of keywords that are converting well, with your bid also being equally as modest. You should also take a moderate approach if your listing ranks between pages 2 and 5. However, if your listing is on page 1 or 2, you need to take on a more aggressive stance as you are close to the top spot and need to do all you can to win the top positions.
Take your ad placement into consideration when determining your bid strategy
Your ads, when it comes to Amazon PPC, will either be displayed on either the top of the search results on page one, within the rest of the search results or in the product details page as well as other positions like the add-to-cart page. A tip here is to keep an eye on your placement report and see which of these positions has brought you the most conversions and exposure and use this information to come up with your bidding strategy.
Group variations together
Also, if your product has several variations, then they will be listed as child ASINs, which means that running ad campaigns for each one of them individually isn’t the smart play here, as not only will this take up a lot of your budget, but these variations will also compete amongst themselves, cannibalizing each other. A tip here is to group individual variations into a single package, and then promote and sell it on Amazon under a unique ASIN.
Prioritize your top child ASIN
As is discussed over at runrex.com, some may not have the resources or bandwidth to create a combined package for their product variations, let alone run individual campaigns for each of these variations. If you fall into this category, another Amazon PPC tip is to run a PPC campaign only for the top-performing variation, also known as the top child ASIN. Just make sure that the variations are listed as child ASINs.
Leverage alternative keywords
If you target alternative or not-so-direct keywords in your Amazon PPC campaigns, as is discussed over at guttulus.com, then you will also give yourself an edge and increase your chances of success. This is because, there are times when people go to Amazon, not to look for products, but to look for solutions. You can, therefore, identify these solutions, researching the pain points of your audience, and targeting them through Sponsored Products.
Structure your ad campaigns based on product performance
Rather than structuring your ad campaigns based on the performance of your keywords, you should consider creating your ads based on the performance of a product, according to the folks over at runrex.com. This is because structuring ad campaigns based on keywords may make it difficult to control the overall ACoS of certain products which may require more clicks to make a sale as compared to others.
Target products that show up in Google Ads
Another Amazon PPC tip is to target the products that show up in Google Ads as well as on other platforms such as Facebook Ads or those promoted on Instagram. Through this, you will be able to benefit from the good work of your competitors on these other platforms, as people will already know about said products in the market.
Research your target audience’s buying behavior
If you understand your audience’s buying behavior, you will be able to have a successful Amazon PPC campaign. Do some research and find about their buying behavior such as how they like to shop, their interests, and so forth. This will ensure that you get the timing right when it comes to your ads, running them during the times of the day when your audience likes to shop for the best conversions.
Remember, if you are looking for more information on this and other related topics, the highly-rated runrex.com and guttulus.com have got you covered.