What is Amazon PPC
If you are a seller selling your products on Amazon, then you must know that just listing your product on Amazon is not enough. In the face of fierce competition and countless options, you have to run PPC ads to make your product stand out. Amazon PPC is an advertising model in which a seller promotes their product on specific and desired keywords, and whenever a user types their keyword in the Amazon search bar, their product appears as the keyword of the ad.
If the user clicks on your ad, then in return for this click, you have to pay a certain amount to Amazon. That is why it is called pay-per-click. To get the best results from your ad spend, it’s crucial to learn how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns effectively.
Why is Amazon PPC important?
Opportunity to stand out: The biggest advantage of Amazon PPC is that you can display your product in front of buyers among millions of products, which is very helpful in increasing your brand.
In sales Increase: When your product visibility is high and more people click on it, it is possible that your sales will also increase.
By winning the competition: Another big advantage of PPC on Amazon is that it provides a chance for new sellers to stand out and sell their products and compete with old sellers.
If you organize your Amazon PPC campaign well, you can also improve the organic ranking of your products. That is, when you run ads for new products, over time your product can get better positions even without ads, and all your sales will be organic. This is one of the key reasons why it’s important to understand how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns, as a well-structured campaign can drive both paid and long-term organic success.
Amazon PPC Basics
The Amazon PPC system consists of different types of ads. Each type of ad has a different purpose, and they are used for different strategies. To fully understand how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns, it’s essential to first get familiar with the three main basic components.
Sponsored Ads: This is one of the most important and effective types of PPC ads. In this, you promote a specific product on Amazon so that whenever a user searches for a keyword related to your product, your product will be prominently displayed on Amazon’s search results or on the product page. For example, if you are selling Bluetooth headphones, you can run ads on that keyword so that whenever a user searches for Bluetooth headphones, your product will also be prominently displayed in the search results.
Sponsored Brands: These ads are mostly for brands that register their brand in the Amazon Brand Registry. In this, you can add your brand logo to a custom header. Line and can show up to three products. These types of ads usually appear above the search bar. The advantage is that it gets more user attention and gives you more sales opportunities. To fully benefit from this ad type, it’s important to know how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns to maximize visibility and conversions.
Sponsored Display: These are ads that can also be shown to users outside of Amazon, such as on various websites or apps. Their main purpose is remarketing, that is, they retarget users who have already seen your product once. The advantage is that you remind buyers who have already shown interest but have not purchased the product.
Summary: Effective use of Amazon PPC can grow your business. Its main purpose is to deliver your product to the right user, that too when buyers are in the mood to buy.
Choosing the right keywords
The key to the success of an Amazon PPC campaign is the right choice of keywords. If you are using words that buyers do not search for, your ad will not appear in the search or even if it does appear in the search, it will appear to the wrong users, which will lead to clicks but no sales, which may cost you money and affect your business. That’s why understanding how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns with the right keyword strategy is crucial for driving relevant traffic and maximizing ROI.
Why is keyword research important? Whenever a customer searches for a product on Amazon to buy, they type a specific keyword in the Amazon search bar. Your campaign can only be successful if you target the keyword that the customer is thinking about. Your ad should be visible at the right time, in the right place, and to the right buyer.
Best sources of keyword research
Amazon search bar: If you want to search for your keyword, Amazon’s search bar itself tells you a lot. As soon as you type a word in the search bar, Amazon gives you a lot of suggestions. These are the keywords that people are searching for on Amazon.
Helium 10 and Jungle Scout: These tools help you identify competitive and high-volume keywords, and with their help, you can find keywords that you can use in PPC.
Amazon Search Term Report: This report will tell you which words are getting clicks on your ad and which keywords are causing people to buy your product.
Use of Negative Keywords: You have to find good keywords to use in PPC for your product, but you also have to block keywords that are not related to your product but can lead to clicks. For example, if you are selling Bluetooth headphones, then you will make wide headphones a negative keyword so that people do not search for their keywords and come to your product.
If a user still goes to your product, they will not buy your product, which will cause you a loss. Learning how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns includes using both targeted and negative keywords effectively to avoid wasted spend and improve conversions.
Campaign Structure Optimization
A good campaign structure makes your PPC strategy effective. If your structure is not clear, it will be very difficult for you to understand which keywords or products are showing performance and which keywords or products you need to work on. That’s why knowing how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns includes creating a clear and organized campaign structure that allows for better tracking and decision-making.
Why is campaign structure important?
Budget allocation: When you run different campaigns, you have to create a separate budget for each product, which becomes very easy with campaign structure, and you can create separate budgets for each of your products.
Performance analysis: With the help of campaign structure, you can quickly see which ad is benefiting your product and which ad is causing you a loss.
Points to create an effective campaign structure: Divide the campaign on the basis of topics. For example, if you are selling different types of headphones, you will create a wireless headphone campaign, and you will create a campaign for noise cancellation headphones. After running the campaign, knowing
how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns will help you identify which campaign gives you the most benefit so you can focus on it and stop the less effective ones.
Organizing ad groups in a better way: You can create different ad groups within each campaign, and you can add different keywords and many products to each ad group.
Product targeting: You have to create campaigns where there is only keyword targeting and create a separate campaign where there is product targeting. This will allow you to compare the performance better and more easily, where you are benefiting and where you are losing.
Bidding Strategy
In Amazon PPC, the bid is the amount you are willing to pay Amazon for a click. The bid is determined, and the success of the campaign affects its budget and ad position, so understanding how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns means managing bids carefully to balance cost and performance for the best results.
Types of Bidding
Down Only: Amazon only lowers your bid if the conversion probability is low, which is a safe method and prevents budget loss.
Up-to-Down: In this bid, Amazon has full discretion to increase or decrease your bid by 100 percent. If Amazon feels that the conversion probability is high or low, it can show your ad in a better position, but the cost may increase.
Fixed Bid: This is the bid in which your bid will always be used as you have set it, whether there is a possibility of conversion or not. This method gives you more control, but is not as smart as dynamic methods.
Bidding Strategy Practical: Whenever you start bidding, you should initially bid low so that you don’t waste your budget, and you can collect data. After that, you should increase your bids on the best keywords. You should invest more in the keywords that are generating more sales so that you can get some benefit from these bids. You should lower your bids on the keywords with low conversions or cancel them.
You should also adjust your bids over time. Keep changing your bids based on daily or weekly performance. Amazon also gives you the option to bid extra for specific search or product pages. If you know that your product converts well on search, then knowing how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns includes strategically increasing bids where it matters most to maximize conversions.
Performance Analysis
Amazon PPC campaigns are successful when your performance is regularly reviewed. If you just run one ad and don’t analyze the results, you are more likely to waste your budget, which will cost you business. That’s why learning how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns involves continuous monitoring and adjusting to improve your return on investment.
Important metrics to keep an eye on
ACOS: This metric tells you how much advertising cost you spent on all your sales. For example, if you spent $500 and made $2,000 in sales, your ACOS is 25%. The lower the ACOS, the better because it means more sales for less money.
CTR: This tells you how many people clicked on your ad. If your ad is getting less traffic, it means that your ad is not interesting or is being shown to the wrong people.
Conversions: This rate tells you how many people clicked on your ad. How many of them bought your product
Impressions and Clicks: If your ad is getting more impressions, it means that your ad is being seen more, and if it is getting fewer clicks, then your ad is not appealing.
Using Amazon Reports: Amazon provides you with several reports such as the Search Term Report, which tells you how many clicks you are getting on which keywords, the Placement Report which tells you where your ad is being shown, and the Campaign Performance Report which shows you a summary of the overall campaign performance. Understanding how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns means using these reports effectively to make data-driven decisions.
Summary: Analysis of the effectiveness of Amazon bidding strategies is the lifeblood of PPC. If you bid smartly and keep a close eye on each of your metrics, you can avoid wasting your budget, and you can also increase your sales a lot. Remember, PPC is not a set it and forget process, it is a continuous improvement process.
Using Negative Keywords
Many sellers on Amazon PPC ignore negative keywords, even though negative keywords are very important to reduce your cost and increase conversion. Learning how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns includes effectively using negative keywords to avoid wasted spend and improve overall campaign performance.
What are negative keywords? These are words that you do not want your ad to appear on. If a user searches for something using these keywords, your ad will not appear, whether your product is relevant to it or not.
Why is this important: The biggest advantage of this is that you avoid the wrong traffic that comes to your products. For example, if a user searches for free headphones and your ad appears to him, he may click on your ad, but will not buy it. In addition, it saves budget because you do not waste money on irrelevant clicks
Types of Negative Keywords:
Negative Exact Match: This means that your ad will not run only on that specific keyword, for example, making the keyword “cheap headphones” negative exact means that the ad will not run on that keyword only. Understanding how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns involves strategically using negative keywords like this to refine your targeting and improve ad efficiency.
Negative negative match: Any search that does not have this negative match will not show the ad. For example, if you make the keyword “cheap headphones” negative, the ad will not show on words like “cheap headphones” or “cheap earbuds”.
Negative keyword search: To find negative keywords, you need to look at the search term report to see which keywords are being clicked on but are not getting you any sales. In addition, you need to think about whether there are any irrelevant improvements to your product that have a very low chance of getting you any sales.
Budget Management
Just running ads on Amazon PPC is not enough. Real success is achieved when you can manage your budget properly. Effective budget management is a key part of how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns, helping reduce your ACoS and improve overall return on investment.
Why is budget management important? If your daily budget is low, your campaigns will close quickly. And if your budget is more than necessary and your campaign is not optimized, then your money will be wasted, and you may see losses. If you spend your budget without planning, you will not get the desired results, and you will also face losses.
Budget allocation strategy
Prioritize campaigns: You have to give more budget to high-performing campaigns in your campaign so that you can get good sales. Apart from this, you have to allocate a limited budget for new skills such as AB testing. Then save your budget for temporary festivals like seasonal campaigns or Prime Day. Knowing how to optimize Amazon PPC advertising campaigns helps you allocate your budget wisely to maximize sales and adapt to changing market opportunities.
Set daily and monthly budgets: If you have a daily budget for it, it gives you control over your spending, and if you have a monthly budget, it helps you in proper planning for the long term.
Setting the calculation ratio: If one of your campaigns is performing well, then you have to give it 70% of the budget so that it can improve its performance and make you more profitable. This approach not only maximizes returns but also helps you rank products on Amazon by boosting visibility and conversions. In addition, you have to give 20% of the budget to the new campaign as experiments, after which 10% of the budget is kept for remarketing or brand campaigns.