Amazon PPC strategy 2018 – Understanding Amazon PPC
Amazon PPC strategy 2018 – Understanding Amazon PPC
It’s a new year and it is now time to return to the drawing board and rethink our strategies for your Amazon PPC campaign. The trends might have changed from the previous year and the aim of this article is to familiarize you with the latest trends and practices and help you have a successful Amazon PPC campaign in 2018.
Automatic and manual campaigns
In the past it has always been advisable to use predominantly manual keyword targeting since it enables more control. However, one of its biggest drawbacks is it leads to a likely missing out on relevant incoming search traffic especially when you implement all your keyword traffic a little bit too narrowly. It is therefore advisable to try to implement both automatic and manual campaigns to enjoy the best of both worlds. Automatic campaigns when implemented with a purpose can open avenues into finding new more relevant keywords. It’s still advisable to skew the budget more towards manual campaigns as automatic campaigns often lead to wastage, but keep the automatic campaigns running. This strategy ensures that any relevant keywords obtained from the automatic campaigns can be taken and added to your manual campaigns.
Use of sponsored product ads
Sponsored product ads should always be the default ad type especially to those new to PPC and are struggling to choose the right ad type for themselves. If you’ve also had a very successful PPC ad campaign and you’re looking to reinvest your profits then it’s also advisable to skew majority of these profits towards sponsored products. This is because by showing up on the product page of a relevant product, sponsored product ads have the highest conversion rates as they are shown with relevant items as the customers are actively shopping. It might be a new year but sponsored product ads remain as the highest converting of all ads.
Optimising of your ad group structure frequently
This is of great importance to minimize wastage of funds, track which campaigns and ad groups are a success and having control of which traffic to spend on. Optimising should be done regularly, say quarterly or even monthly, and each product line should be treated differently since each has different challenges. Setting of as many negative keywords as possible is also important as is ensuring that you don’t have one keyword stretched across different ad groups. It is also advisable not to use the same keywords in different ad groups as this will make it a nightmare to be able to control and track which products are being analysed for which terms.
Use of headline search ads
In December 2017, Amazon revamped the look of their headline search ads making the products look more like actual products on Amazon. The result was that while sponsored products ads remained as the highest converting, headline search ads have now become more successful than ever before. This is because they are getting more clicks as they are now looking like normal product ads and not just a branded banner as before. Extra information is also available to the customers as they can now see the review counts prior to clicking on the ads. This saves money as picky customers who may only buy products that have say at least 4 stars are no longer an issue. So, if you deal with branded product lines, headline search ads may just be the thing for you this year.
Calculation of advertising cost of sales (ACoS)
It makes no sense jumping straight into PPC without calculating the advertising cost of sales as without this it’s impossible to know whether you’re getting a return on your investment or not and this therefore is prime conditions for overspending. The recommended model is calculating both your break-even advertising cost of sales and setting thereafter your target advertising cost of sales. To ensure that you’re breaking even always ensure you keep your advertising cost of sales lower than your profit margins, this therefore requires you know exactly what your profit margins are. This however should only be your minimum target as you wouldn’t want to only be breaking even. This is where your target advertising cost of sales comes in and for optimum results ensuring your target advertising cost of sales is at or below 20% recommended to ensure you are still making a profit.
Ensuring your product is ready for PPC
This year, a trend continuing from years past, bids and budgets are sure to shoot up as smaller sellers with smaller profit margins are pushed out. Its therefore paramount that you ensure that you only use PPC if and only if your product is ready. You don’t want to be part of the statistics of people who plough in a sizable fortune without ever seeing a return on their investment. It’s important to be cognisant of the fact that some products just aren’t PPC compatible.
This are just some of the trends to keep your eye on this year to ensure that you have a successful and profitable year on Amazon PPC. Remember there is always more to learn on the subject by visiting such sites as bitgale.com
