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I put together a quick write up for Amazon sellers looking to use PPC within Seller Central. This strategy is intended for a large catalog but, many of the concepts would still apply if you only have a handful of products. You can run effective Amazon PPC campaigns by structuring them similar to how you would in Adwords.
There are currently two campaign options in Seller Central, manual and automatic targeting. Manual campaigns use keywords, similar to search campaigns. Auto-targeted campaigns rely on Amazon matching your listing to the user query, a lot like shopping campaigns.
An important difference between Amazon PPC and Adwords ads is that sales from your ads will improve your organic position in Amazon’s results. It’s also important to note Seller Central ads will only run if you are in the buy box.
Auto-targeted campaigns will use your Amazon listing information to match the user query. This campaign type is ideal for collecting user search terms to build out keywords for your manual campaigns. Tier your campaigns with increasing bid values so you can start with a broad and low bid coverage, then as you go, build out more specific campaigns as you dial in your profitability.
Tier 1
Create an auto-targeted campaign that contains all of your products. Set your bids between the $0.02 minimum to $0.10. It is possible to get a surprising amount of traffic and performance on a $.02 bid but, this will vary based on the competitiveness of your products. This campaign is the foundation of your tiered bidding structure and will set the floor bid for the other campaigns.
If you have an extensive catalog of products, you will probably want to use the bulk import option to load all of your products into a campaign and within a single ad group. Amazon explains how to do that here.
Tier 2
Create product category specific auto targeted campaigns. This tier is the next layer of detail to your account structure. Look at performance data from your all products campaign to prioritize campaign creation. Your bids should be higher than your all products campaign. Take advantage of ad groups to create organized groups of products. Organized and tightly themed ad groups will give you more control over your bids.
Tier 3
Using auto targeted campaigns provides you with a wide coverage of user queries but, it is only as good as your listing and Amazon’s ability to match it. The next layer to your campaign structure is the manual campaign. This tier is where you will add performing keywords found in your search terms report and add new keyword opportunities.
Follow the same concept of creating tightly themed ad groups for fine tuning your bids.
Amazon suggests keywords for you, and they are often WAY too broad. You will have to do some keyword research of your own. There are Amazon specific keyword tools like MerchantWords but you could get by with Adwords Keyword Planner or SEMRush. If you’re running PPC for an ecommerce site that also sells on Amazon, you could take your existing keywords and use them in your Amazon campaigns.
Using broad match keywords is much safer on Amazon than in Google. Search intent is much easier to identify on Amazon than on Google. Someone searching for a product on Amazon is far more likely interested in buying the product than someone looking for information on Google. Because searchers are ready to buy, using broad match is way less likely to get out of hand on Amazon than Google. It is still recommended to look at your search terms report to find converting terms and weed out irrelevant terms. Amazon does allow the use of negative keywords. I haven’t had to use this much as Amazon does a decent job matching your keywords to appropriate user searches. Phrase and exact match keyword variants are available for when you find keywords that convert well.
Running a profitable campaign
Amazon’s performance metric is Average Cost of Sale (ACoS). You determine ACoS by dividing ad cost by sales. This is an important metric to understand when gauging the effectiveness of your campaigns. I like to break this out visually by comparing it to an ROI factor.
Make a copy of this Google sheet and add your campaign’s gross margin in the GM% field to see what your ACoS should be, based on your profitability expectations.
Use ACoS to find areas in your account that aren’t meeting your ROI expectations and make the necessary adjustments. Adjust campaign spend by reducing bids and budgets and looking for negative keyword opportunities.
Amazon ads can be very profitable and boost your organic performance at the same time. PPC can be great for driving sales and improving ranking on a new listing. Anyone else on here running Amazon PPC? I’d love to hear your strategies or if you found this useful!
There are currently two campaign options in Seller Central, manual and automatic targeting. Manual campaigns use keywords, similar to search campaigns. Auto-targeted campaigns rely on Amazon matching your listing to the user query, a lot like shopping campaigns.
An important difference between Amazon PPC and Adwords ads is that sales from your ads will improve your organic position in Amazon’s results. It’s also important to note Seller Central ads will only run if you are in the buy box.
Auto-targeted campaigns will use your Amazon listing information to match the user query. This campaign type is ideal for collecting user search terms to build out keywords for your manual campaigns. Tier your campaigns with increasing bid values so you can start with a broad and low bid coverage, then as you go, build out more specific campaigns as you dial in your profitability.
Tier 1
Create an auto-targeted campaign that contains all of your products. Set your bids between the $0.02 minimum to $0.10. It is possible to get a surprising amount of traffic and performance on a $.02 bid but, this will vary based on the competitiveness of your products. This campaign is the foundation of your tiered bidding structure and will set the floor bid for the other campaigns.
If you have an extensive catalog of products, you will probably want to use the bulk import option to load all of your products into a campaign and within a single ad group. Amazon explains how to do that here.
Tier 2
Create product category specific auto targeted campaigns. This tier is the next layer of detail to your account structure. Look at performance data from your all products campaign to prioritize campaign creation. Your bids should be higher than your all products campaign. Take advantage of ad groups to create organized groups of products. Organized and tightly themed ad groups will give you more control over your bids.
Tier 3
Using auto targeted campaigns provides you with a wide coverage of user queries but, it is only as good as your listing and Amazon’s ability to match it. The next layer to your campaign structure is the manual campaign. This tier is where you will add performing keywords found in your search terms report and add new keyword opportunities.
Follow the same concept of creating tightly themed ad groups for fine tuning your bids.
Amazon suggests keywords for you, and they are often WAY too broad. You will have to do some keyword research of your own. There are Amazon specific keyword tools like MerchantWords but you could get by with Adwords Keyword Planner or SEMRush. If you’re running PPC for an ecommerce site that also sells on Amazon, you could take your existing keywords and use them in your Amazon campaigns.
Using broad match keywords is much safer on Amazon than in Google. Search intent is much easier to identify on Amazon than on Google. Someone searching for a product on Amazon is far more likely interested in buying the product than someone looking for information on Google. Because searchers are ready to buy, using broad match is way less likely to get out of hand on Amazon than Google. It is still recommended to look at your search terms report to find converting terms and weed out irrelevant terms. Amazon does allow the use of negative keywords. I haven’t had to use this much as Amazon does a decent job matching your keywords to appropriate user searches. Phrase and exact match keyword variants are available for when you find keywords that convert well.
Running a profitable campaign
Amazon’s performance metric is Average Cost of Sale (ACoS). You determine ACoS by dividing ad cost by sales. This is an important metric to understand when gauging the effectiveness of your campaigns. I like to break this out visually by comparing it to an ROI factor.
Make a copy of this Google sheet and add your campaign’s gross margin in the GM% field to see what your ACoS should be, based on your profitability expectations.
Use ACoS to find areas in your account that aren’t meeting your ROI expectations and make the necessary adjustments. Adjust campaign spend by reducing bids and budgets and looking for negative keyword opportunities.
Amazon ads can be very profitable and boost your organic performance at the same time. PPC can be great for driving sales and improving ranking on a new listing. Anyone else on here running Amazon PPC? I’d love to hear your strategies or if you found this useful!
