Amazon PPC ads are a sure-shot way for Amazon sellers to grow the sales of their products. Amazon sellers must have a strong marketing strategy to increase brand value and generate sales. Online sellers may spend more time driving traffic to their store. With thousands upon thousands of sellers selling identical products on Amazon, sellers who use the most effective marketing strategies can gain a competitive edge over those who spend less money and get more results.
In this article, we will explain why Amazon PPC ads are important and how sellers can leverage PPC ads to increase their sales on Amazon.
Table of Content
- 1 What Are Amazon PPC Ads?
- 2 Who can use Sponsored Products
- 3 Why Amazon PPC ads are necessary for the seller
- 4 How to create an Amazon PPC Ads strategy
- 5 Types of Amazon PPC ads
- 6 Choosing which type of Amazon PPC ad is right for your business
- 7 A step by step guide to creating Sponsored Product PPC ads
- 8 How to optimize automatic-targeting Sponsored Product ad
- 8.1 1. Return your campaign to automatic
- 8.2 2. Review the data
- 8.3 3. Create an advertisement report
- 8.4 4. Review your advertising report
- 8.5 5. Create a list of poor performing keywords
- 8.6 6. Create a list of high-performing keywords using the same report
- 8.7 7. Continue to run your automatic-targeting sponsored ad
- 9 Manual-targeting Sponsored Product ads
- 10 Amazon PPC Hacks
What Are Amazon PPC Ads?
Sponsored products are pay-per-click (PPC) ads that promote specific product listings on Amazon. Amazon PPC (Pay Per Click) is an advertising platform that Amazon makes available for third-party sellers. It allows sellers to create advertising campaigns for their products and charges them every time a potential client clicks on or views their advertisement.
You can easily create a campaign in a matter of minutes, even if you’ve never advertised on Amazon before. Amazon product ads are more effective than Facebook Ads and Google Ads because they only show to customers who have already purchased on Amazon or are actively looking for products. Your ads should get Facebook and Google users to do something different. They are less likely to buy your product than someone who is searching Amazon for your product.
Who can use Sponsored Products
Amazon PPC ads can be used by both sellers and vendors (but sellers must be enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry.)What is the difference between sellers and vendors? Sometimes referred to third party sellers, sellers sell their products directly through Amazon. Vendors, sometimes referred to as third-party sellers, sell their products directly through Amazon in bulk. Then Amazon sells them to its customers.
Amazon PPC ads are available for FBA and FBM products. These are eligibility criteria for each ads type:
Sponsored products
Professional sellers, book vendors, Kindle Direct Publishing authors (KDP), and agencies can use the Featured Offer. Products must fall within one or more of the eligible categories and be eligible to receive the Featured Deal.
Sponsored brands
All sellers who enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry can access vendors, book vendors, agencies.
Sponsored Display
Professional sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, vendors, and agencies with clients who sell Amazon products.
Why Amazon PPC ads are necessary for the seller
Amazon PPC is more effective than other advertising channels, as it allows you to reach customers where they make actual purchases. Amazon PPC lets you promote your products by placing ads on Amazon. These ads will appear on mobile and desktop browsers, as well as in Amazon’s app.
Amazon PPC allows you to select from different Amazon advertising types based on your goals. You can also control and adjust your budget and view detailed reports to show how your ads performed.
Amazon PPC provides a variety of targeting methods, from keywords to brands and products (ASINs-Amazon Standard ID Numbers) and remarketing to external websites to ensure your message reaches the right audience. Amazon Sponsored ads help its seller to:
Gain Visibility
Ads appear where they will be seen on Amazon, like the first page so that your product gets found by customers.
Relevant ads can increase sales.
Sponsored products can help you increase your Amazon sales by reaching customers searching for similar products to yours and redirecting them to your product page.
CPC ads can help you control your costs
Only customers who click on your ads pay. By setting your budget and choosing the amount to bid per click, you can control how much money you spend.
Advertising success can be measured.
You can track a range of performance and sales metrics to help you measure the impact of advertising on Amazon’s business and optimize your campaigns.
How to create an Amazon PPC Ads strategy
These are the fundamental aspects of building an Amazon PPC management strategy.
- You can test each type of PPC campaign and experiment with manual and automatic keyword targeting to find the best one for you.
- You can conduct detailed keyword research with keyword research tools, focusing on both related keywords and competitors.
- Set daily budgets and default bidding 50-100% higher than Amazon’s recommended.
- Allow ads campaigns to run for at most two weeks before you start running reports or making adjustments.
- To find keywords for manual campaigns, you can use ad reports generated by your automatic campaigns.
- Ensure that the keyword receives at least 10 clicks before you adjust or remove it from a manual campaign.
- Continue to review your ad reports at least once per week. Add, subtract, and adjust keywords as necessary.
Types of Amazon PPC ads
There are three types of PPC ad campaigns that you can start on Amazon. Here is the overview
1. Sponsored product ads
These are Amazon advertisements that appear in search results and product listing pages. Sponsored product ads can be created by any third-party seller. This is the most popular type of PPC advertising on Amazon.
You can further divide sponsored product ads into two types.
- Automatic Targeting: Automat-targeting lets you take the wheel. Amazon’s algorithm will find relevant keywords in your product listing. Amazon will use the data it gathers from clicks and sales to improve your conversions over time. Automatic-targeting ads can’t be manually optimized.
- Manual targeting: The seller enters the keywords and bids for a manually targeted campaign. This entire process is manual. You will need to monitor and adjust the keywords and bids as necessary. Long-term, manual optimization is more efficient than automated optimization.
2. Sponsored Brand ads
These ads can only be used for brand-registered Amazon products. These banner ads include the logo, message, and product information of a brand in Amazon’s search results. These ads are shown at the top of Amazon’s search results, along with the left-hand rail and at the bottom of search results pages.
Sponsored brand ads can be a great way to reach top-of-the-funnel customers.
3. Sponsored Display Ads
Sponsored display ads are a far cry from the other types of PPC ads. These ads do not target keywords. Based on customer behavior, Sponsored Display ads will show up.
Sponsored display ads can be an excellent way for you to attract customers at the bottom of your funnel from your competitors. Sponsored Display ads can be used by professional sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, vendors, and agencies with clients who sell Amazon products.
Choosing which type of Amazon PPC ad is right for your business
Amazon offers sellers many different types of PPC ads with customizable targeting options. We recommend that you test all the available ad types, including automatic-targeting and Sponsored Product ads. These two types of ads will help you determine the keywords and search terms that you should target on Amazon.
Below, we’ll discuss all your PPC options. It is helpful to think about your strategy in terms of your expected return on ad spending, especially if you have a limited budget. This means that you should consider how much revenue your ads will generate for every dollar spent.
Some ad types or strategies have a higher Return on ad spending. Sponsored brand ads, which are close to and loosely related, generate the highest sales among all PPC types.
Your products’ price is also important. Return on ad spending increases with product price. However, products priced between $21 and $30 have a higher Return on ad spending than less-expensive products.
It can be hard to determine which PPC strategy is best for your brand. 42% say managing their PPC bids is the top challenge they face in running their business. You can test each ad type to find what works and what doesn’t. Once you have enough data, you can remove ads you don’t like and boost those that work.
A step by step guide to creating Sponsored Product PPC ads
We’ll be covering how to set up Sponsored Product Ads based on target technique. How to create an automatic-targeting sponsored product ad.
- Login to Amazon Seller Central, and choose Advertising > Campaign Manager.
- Scroll down the graphs, and click the yellow “Create a campaign” button
- Click the grey Sponsored Products Ad “Create” button.
- Next fill in the information at the Settings section on the Create campaign page
Name of the campaign
Your campaign name should be unique. You can name your campaign anything that will help you remember the purpose. Your campaign should be named after the product. The Ad Group name should then be used with the campaign type, product variations, and if applicable, the Ad Group name.
Date
Choose the start and ending dates for your campaign. You can leave the end date blank if you wish your campaign to continue indefinitely.
Daily budget
Amazon lets you set the maximum amount you wish to spend per day on ads. Amazon states that if your ad spending falls below the limit at the end of the day, you can use the remaining amount to increase ads by 10% later in the month.
Ad costs can also be charged if you have more than $500 in ads or at the beginning of each month.
Your account balance is taken to pay for your ads. If you don’t have enough money, Amazon will charge the credit card that you registered at registration.
Targeting
Select “automatic” to create an automated-targeting sponsored product advertisement.
- Choose your campaign bidding strategy
Campaign-bidding strategies are available for automated-targeting sponsored product ads.
Dynamic bids are down only
Amazon will lower your bids when you are less likely to sell. This stops your ad appearing on irrelevant product searches.
Dynamic bids – up and down
Amazon will raise your bid 10% if the automatic-targeting sponsored product is more likely than a ‘down only” bid.
Fixed bids
Amazon will not alter your bid once you have set it, unless you yourself do it
- Create an ad group
Enter the following information on the same page “Create a campaign”:
Name of the Ad Group
The ad group name is used to identify products that share the same budget and bid. The name of your ad group can be any thing, but it should help you remember its purpose. Your ad group should be named after the type of campaign (automatic, manual) and the variation.
Example:
- Campaign name: bamboo skewers
- Ad group – 50-pack
Products
Choose the products you want to advertise. When you start out, we recommend that you only choose one product for each ad group.
- Set your bids
There are two ways to set bids for automatic-targeting sponsored product ads:
- Set default bid
- Set bids by targeting group
- Optional: add negative targeting keywords
You can add keywords to the auto-targeting list if you don’t wish your product to appear in specific keyword searches. We recommend that you leave it empty.
- Launch campaign
Double-check all information. Once you are satisfied with your information, click on the yellow “Launch campaign” button at the bottom. If you have to return to the listing later, you can save your draft.
Amazon usually takes between 30 – 60 minutes for your ad on Amazon to appear.
How to optimize automatic-targeting Sponsored Product ad
After your sponsored product advertisement has been running for at most a week, it’s time to go through the data and make any changes.
1. Return your campaign to automatic
Return to Seller Central > Marketing > Campaign manager. Scroll down to the graphs to find the campaign that you want to modify. Next, choose the ad group that you want to optimize.
2. Review the data
You can quickly review the information in your ad groups to get an instant snapshot of how your sponsored product-targeting automatic-targeting ad is performing.
3. Create an advertisement report
After reviewing the broad data, create an advertising report. An advertising report is an Excel spreadsheet that contains data from all your advertising campaigns.
- Select ‘Sponsored products’
- Create a ‘Search term’ report type
- Select ‘Summary’
- Run a report for the last month (or any time that’s relevant to your campaign)
- Name your campaign
- Deliver your campaign whenever it works best for you
- Click the yellow ‘Run’ report button.
- Go to ‘History’
- Download your report and open it
4. Review your advertising report
The advertising report has a lot of important data about the keywords and search terms Amazon customers used in relation to your automatic-targeting sponsored product ad.
5. Create a list of poor performing keywords
6. Create a list of high-performing keywords using the same report
7. Continue to run your automatic-targeting sponsored ad
Continue to run your automated-targeting sponsored advertisement for another week after optimizing it. Continue the process for the second week.
Manual-targeting Sponsored Product ads
You will need to do keyword research before you can launch your first manual-targeted sponsored product ad.
How to perform keyword research for manual-targeting sponsored product ads
You will need to do keyword research before you can launch your first manual-targeted sponsored product ad.
1 – Log in to Jungle Scout, an all-in one platform for selling on Amazon — then select Keywords > Keyword Scout
2 – Search in Keyword Scout
Keyword Scout offers two options for searching for keywords that are relevant.You can first perform a search by using a similar keyword.
3 – Create a keyword list
Above the keyword list, click the button to download CSV. This will create a spreadsheet that allows you to organize the data according your needs.
You can copy and paste from this list when you create a manual-targeting sponsored products ad.
How to create manual-targeting sponsored product ads (keyword targeting)
1 – Create a new ad campaign
Repetition steps 1 through 6, described in “How you can create automatic-targeting sponsored products ads”, but instead of ‘Automatic, choose ‘Manual” in the Targeting section.
2 – Set Targeting
There are two types to target manual: product targeting and keyword targeting. Select keyword targeting for this ad.
3 – Add keywords into your manual-targeting sponsored products campaign
4 – Adjust the starting bids for your keywords
Amazon displays your keywords after you have added them to the keyword-targeting window. The right column shows the selected match types and suggested biddings.
You have the option to adjust the bids however you like.
5 – Launch campaign
Double-check all information. Once you are satisfied with your information, click on the yellow “Launch campaign” button at the bottom. If you have to return to the listing later, you can save your draft.
Amazon usually takes between 30 -60 minutes for your ad on Amazon to appear.
Amazon PPC Hacks
This is a hard question to answer. The definition of a good strategy will vary depending on your goals. To be successful, every PPC campaign must follow a few proven strategies.
- Use Automated Campaigns
Manual-targeted campaigns allow you to optimize your ads, while automatic campaigns offer more benefits. These are great for finding high-converting long-tail keywords which lead to conversions.
Keyword research plays a crucial role in optimizing your PPC listings. For each ad group, you should simultaneously run an automatic and a manual campaign. The campaigns should run for at least two weeks. The campaign will automatically bring up keywords that can lead to conversions.
- Structure your campaigns
Always ensure that you properly organize your campaigns. Spending money against yourself is the worst thing that you can do. When creating ad groups, you can group your products under one of the following categories.
- By product type
- Brand
- Top Sellers/Your top competitors
To avoid any overlap, be consistent in your categorization.
- Keep similar products in your ad group.
Are women’s running shoes and men’s sneakers in the same category? Although there is no universal answer, it is most likely that they don’t belong together. Make sure that your ad groups have similar target keywords when creating them. This is even truer if you have a large portfolio.
- Use negative keywords
You may notice keywords with high click-through rates but low conversions. This is likely because they are not relevant to your product. You should ensure that your product does not appear for these search terms.
It is best to mark non-relevant keywords as ‘negative keywords. After that, your products won’t be advertised for these keywords. Avoid marking too many keywords as “negative” keywords, especially if they relate to your product. It might be a better idea to lower the bid for the keyword in question if low conversions are an issue.
You have two options to fine-tune your campaign with negative keywords.
- Negative Phrase You will not see your ads for the search term or any close variations thereof.
- Negative Exact You will not see ads for the exact search term.
Negative keywords are key to decreasing your ad spend and improving your ACoS.
- Data-informed decisions
Data is the new oil. Without actionable and coherent data, optimizing your Amazon PPC campaigns is difficult. Although Amazon offers all relevant information regarding your campaigns, separating the useful information from the noise can be difficult.
- Bid on your own brand
You might be wondering why you would launch PPC campaigns that target your brand because your competitors are doing the same thing. It is crucial to protect your customers and keep your market share from being taken over by your competitors if you are an established brand.
Bid on the brand names of your competitors if you want to grow your customer base and brand. This will ensure your products are found when customers search for them.
- Eliminate the non-performers
Amazon advertising is about boosting sales or increasing brand recognition. Selling on Amazon is all about the right product. It’s a good idea to stop advertising your product if it isn’t selling even after a dedicated PPC program. You may need to take down the listing in some cases to save your hard-earned money.
You are worth your money, so make sure you only invest it in products that will provide high returns.
- Optimize your campaigns regularly.
Your campaigns should be checked on a regular basis. This applies to both manual and automated campaigns. Check at the end of each week which keywords brought in the most traffic and converted the most. Your bids should be adjusted to reflect the keyword performance. Data should drive your decisions.
- Reduce the bid if the ACoS of a keyword is higher than your target.
- If you see a keyword performing well, but the ACoS is lower than the target value, you should consider bidding higher.
- You can increase the bid for one week if there are keywords that don’t drive traffic.
- You can mark keywords that aren’t relevant to your listing as negative keywords.
To determine the best advertising strategy for your seller, it is crucial first to identify the end goal. To optimize your sales funnel, it is essential to understand the customer journey. Amazon advertising campaigns are great because you can target customers at different stages of your sales funnel. These advanced Amazon advertising tips will help you put your customer first and focus on their buying intent.
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