If your company sells products on Amazon, then implementing an Amazon PPC advertising campaign could be really helpful. This advertising model allows your products to secure prominent positions in search results, significantly increasing visibility and driving sales. This comprehensive Amazon PPC guide includes strategies, types of ads, costs, and management tips.
What is Amazon PPC?
Amazon PPC (pay-per-click) is an advertising platform designed to help sellers promote their products on the Amazon marketplace. This pay-per-click model means that sellers only incur costs when potential customers click on their ads.
Amazon PPC enables sellers to effectively boost product visibility, thereby amplifying sales and enhancing brand recognition within the competitive platform of Amazon. Top PPC agencies can assist you with Amazon PPC as part of their expert PPC solutions.
Amazon PPC Strategies
To maximize the effectiveness of your Amazon PPC campaigns, consider the following strategies:
1. Keep Your Amazon PPC Campaigns Structured Consistently
It’s essential to ensure that your ad campaigns adhere to a consistent theme. You can organize them by:
- Product Category
- Brand
- Top-Selling Products
Failing to maintain a uniform campaign structure may result in overlapping ads, leading to confusion. By staying organized, you’ll find it easier to manage your campaigns and enhance clarity for you and your team.
2. Have Similar Products in the Same Ad Group
When creating ad groups for your Amazon PPC campaign, it’s crucial to group related products with relevant keywords. All products in an ad group should align with the selected keywords; otherwise, you risk lower conversion rates.
For example, if your ad group focuses on keyboards, including a monitor in that group may not yield conversions, as users specifically searching for keyboards are unlikely to be interested in monitors. Keeping products relevant enhances your chances of conversion.
3. Try Some Automated Features
Amazon offers both automated and manual ad campaigns. While manual campaigns provide greater control, utilizing certain automated features can be beneficial, especially for keyword research. Running an automated campaign for a product group over a few days allows you to identify the most effective search terms for your products.
You can then incorporate these terms into a manual campaign. However, if you’re using automated campaigns solely for research, make sure to pause them afterward to avoid unnecessary expenses. This approach complements manual keyword research, which can uncover additional keywords that Amazon might overlook.
4. Ensure Your Targeted Keywords Match Your Product Listings
Search engines aim to deliver the most relevant results, whether for paid or organic traffic. This means Amazon won’t display your product ads if they don’t match the keywords users are searching for. It’s essential to include relevant keywords in your product listings.
However, avoid keyword stuffing, as this can confuse potential customers and lead to negative outcomes for your Amazon PPC campaigns. Keeping your keywords relevant and clear helps customers understand your product better.
5. Use Long-Tail Keywords for More Targeted Results
Long-tail keywords are specific phrases that are typically longer and more detailed. Using these keywords can benefit your Amazon PPC campaigns by reducing competition, making it easier for your product to be found.
Also, shoppers who use specific searches often know exactly what they want, increasing the chances of conversion. However, it’s crucial to ensure that these long-tail keywords accurately match your product; otherwise, this strategy won’t be effective.
6. Use Keyword Match Types and Negative Keywords
Keyword match types help control how closely your product ads align with the keywords in your ad group. There are three types:
- Broad: Your ad shows when all words in a search query match your keywords, regardless of the order. This type also includes misspellings, variations, and synonyms.
- Phrase: Your ad appears when the search query uses your keywords in the exact order specified. Singular and plural forms are considered matches.
- Exact: Your ad only shows when the search query exactly matches your specified keyword, including singular and plural forms.
In addition to match types, negative keywords are crucial. They allow you to exclude specific keywords that you don’t want triggering your ads. This helps optimize your campaign by preventing ads from showing for keywords that haven’t led to conversions. Negative keywords also have match types:
- Negative Exact: Your ad won’t show if the search query matches the negative keyword exactly, including singular and plural forms.
- Negative Phrase: Your ad won’t show if the search query contains the negative keyword as part of the phrase or in full.
7. Track and Adjust Your Spending Based on Product Performance
In most ad groups, multiple products share the same keywords. Over time, you can identify which products perform well and which don’t. To maximize sales and get the best return from your Amazon PPC campaign, remove the underperforming products from the ad group.
This way, you focus your impressions and clicks on the products that are more likely to convert. Additionally, by adjusting your bid price, you can influence your ad’s placement on the page and increase your chances of getting clicks. Keep refining your strategy until your spending and sales are at their best levels.
8. Watch What Keywords Your Competitors Use
Discovering the keywords that work well for your competitors can create new opportunities for your products. You can then incorporate these keywords into your campaigns to achieve similar success. You might wonder, “How can I find these keywords?” You can do it manually or use online tools.
While doing it yourself can be tedious and time-consuming, using online tools is much more efficient. Tools like Keywords Everywhere and Sonar can help you identify valuable keywords to target. You can find more options by searching online.
These tools save you time and provide valuable insights into your competitors’ keyword strategies!
9. Bid Higher When You Add New Keywords
When you introduce new keywords to your Amazon PPC campaign, start with a higher bid price of around 0.75 (this may vary by category). Since new keywords lack a performance history, Amazon has no data to help decide when to display your ad. Setting a higher initial bid allows your new keyword to gain impressions and clicks.
Once you have gathered some data on the keyword’s performance, you can lower your bid to find the optimal price for your campaign.
10. Give Your Amazon PPC Campaign Time to Succeed and Optimize It
Results won’t come immediately, so it’s important to be patient. Allow your campaign some time to generate data before making any changes.
To avoid overspending while you wait for initial results, consider setting budget caps. Focus on key metrics such as impressions and keyword bid prices. By keeping an eye on these, you can adjust your bid prices to find the best balance between sales and spending.
What Are the Types of Amazon Ads?
Understanding the different types of Amazon ads available can help you tailor your PPC strategy effectively:
1. Sponsored Product Ads
Sponsored Product Ads promote individual products across search results and product detail pages. Recently, spending on these ads has surged by 165% due to their strong ability to attract and convert consumers. This PPC solution allows businesses to target keywords manually or automatically.
With automatic targeting, Amazon identifies the most relevant keywords for your products. You only pay when a shopper clicks on the ad, giving you control over your advertising budget and keyword bids.
2. Sponsored Brands
Formerly known as Headline Search Ads, Sponsored Brands are another PPC advertising option where marketers have increased spending by over 160%. These ads showcase your brand along with up to three products. You pay for clicks, not impressions.
In your Sponsored Brands campaign, you can target and bid on specific keywords relevant to your products. For instance, if you sell goat soap, you might target “goat soap” but avoid “camel soap.” Sponsored Brands support both automatic and manual bidding, where Amazon optimizes bids downwards in automatic bidding.
3. Product Display Ads
Product Display Ads offer a unique advertising approach by targeting shopper interests or related products instead of focusing on keywords. This competitive option helps increase your product’s visibility. There are two main targeting methods:
- Interest-based targeting: Targets shoppers based on broader interests, expanding your audience and brand presence.
- Product-based targeting: Focuses on similar, complementary, or competing products, which can help increase sales by promoting your product as an add-on.
Like other Amazon ads, Product Display Ads operate on a PPC model, meaning you only pay when a shopper clicks on your ad. However, you bid solely on clicks rather than keywords.
Learn More about Amazon advertising.
How Much Does PPC on Amazon Cost?
Amazon has a minimum daily budget requirement of $1 for all types of ads (Sponsored Product, Sponsored Brand, and Product Display). While this is the minimum, most businesses typically spend more as they seek to maximize their reach and effectiveness. Remember, you are only charged when a customer clicks on your ad, which allows for flexibility in managing your advertising budget.
Wrapping Up: Amazon PPC Management
Successfully managing Amazon PPC advertising campaigns requires strategic planning, constant monitoring, and adjustments based on performance data. The tips discussed in this article will help you optimize your campaigns, improve visibility, and enhance conversion rates. By implementing these best strategies, you can maximize your advertising budget and achieve better results on the Amazon platform.