With millions of sellers trying to attract customers and increase sales, Amazon has become a fiercely competitive marketplace. In fact, it accounts for over 40 percent of all online sales. Therefore, just having a presence on Amazon isn’t enough anymore.
To truly succeed, you need an Amazon advertising strategy that’s not only effective but also carefully optimized to deliver the best return on investment (ROI).
In this blog, we’ll help you understand everything about Amazon ads and how to create a winning strategy for your business.
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TL;DR – How to Do Amazon PPC
Optimizing your Amazon advertising strategy might seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be.
Figuring out how to do Amazon PPC can feel overwhelming, but with the right approach, it can become one of the most powerful tools in your growth journey.
1. Understanding the different types of ads
2. Setting clear goals
3. Optimizing your campaigns regularly
4. Keeping an eye on key metrics
5. Don’t forget to consider seasonal trends and allocate a budget that maximizes your ROI.
If you want to utilize Amazon ads to their fullest potential, you need seasoned experts on your side. We at IG PPC have helped multiple businesses increase their revenue with a solid strategy and can do the same for you.
Book a free Amazon PPC management with us!
What is Amazon PPC?
Amazon allows third party sellers to buy sponsored ads on their product listing pages. If you sell products on Amazon you can pay Amazon so your product shows up on top of their pages. You can choose which pages your ad appears based on a customers keyword search or product category.
Ads are sold with a pay-per-click model (PPC) and cost is determined via targeted keyword bidding.
With proper management and optimized strategic planning of your Amazon PPC campaigns your products can gain great traction and increased sales conversion. You can stand out above your competitors and more popular items or Brands in your category.
Amazon sponsored products ads are especially useful for a new product launches with no sales or reviews history.
Is Amazon PPC Worth It?
Is Amazon PPC worth it? As more consumers start their shopping on Amazon more and more vendors and brands are competing for the product listing page. So by advertising your Amazon listing you will put many more eyeballs on your Amazon product page.
According to Amazon’s internal data products with sponsored ads saw a +40% increase in units ordered, 54% increase in glance views
At IGPPC, see an average a 200% increase of sales per client. Some customer have actually increase their sales by over 1000%.
There are over 300 million products sold on Amazon and your listing can easily get lost among your competitors so with a good PPC plan you can reach millions of potential new clients the potential is huge.
Why Should I Try Amazon PPC?
Because the entry fee is very low and you can customize it as more data and sales come in, You can start as low as $5 and gradually increase it. The investment and ease of placing bids are low and with minimal risk.
How Does the Amazon PPC Auction Work?
Amazon PPC auction works similarly to Google PPC auction. You submit a bid on keywords and then compete with other advertisers for the ad space.
Your cost per click needs to be 0.01 above your competitors next lowest bid. So for instance your bid is $1.00 and the next lowest bid is $0.75 you will pay $0.76.
Essentials of a Successful Amazon Advertising Strategy
The most essential component of a successful Amazon advertising strategy is your team. Before getting into the waters and pouring in your budget, here are the questions you need to ask yourself:
- Is my team an expert in Amazon ads?
- Do they have niche knowledge of my sector?
- Do they have a track record of running successful campaigns?
If the answer to the above questions was yes, you’re good to go. If not, you need to first hire a team who can help you.
We at IG PPC tick all the right boxes and function as your external Amazon ads team of experts. Book a free PPC audit with us, and let’s get you amazing results!
The 3 Types of Amazon Ads
When you’re set to grow your business on Amazon, running ads is a compelling weapon to increase visibility and drive sales. You’ll find several advertising options on Amazon, each customized for different goals and strategies.
Here’s a breakdown of the three main types of Amazon ads to help you get started:
1) Sponsored Products
Sponsored product ads are displayed on Amazon product listing pages or search results listing pages. Your product will be displayed on top just like the other items with a sponsored tag in the listing. This type of ad you will use when starting out.
2) Sponsored Brands
You can advertise your brand’s storefront or a collection of your products on top of Amazon’s SERP.
3) Sponsored Display
Amazon sponsored display ads are audience based marketing you can target specific demographics, genders or retarget a visitor to your product. The ads will run on both Amazon and outside websites.
There are 3 Types of Biddings for Amazon PPC
1) Fixed bidding
Amazon will not adjust your bid price and will only display your ad when your bid price matches.
2) Dynamic bidding – down
Amazon will lower your bid price if it considers the purchase probability to be low.
3) Dynamic bidding – up and down
This is the most popular bidding strategy, Amazon’s algorithm will raise or lower your bid based on the likelihood of the potential click converting to a sale. That means they will increase your bids in real-time over your competitor to help you win impressions that may be more likely to convert to a sale, or they will reduce your bids that are less likely to convert to a sale.
Top 7 Benefits of Using Amazon PPC Sponsored Ads
Running Amazon PPC sponsored ads can give you the competitive edge you need to stand out from the crowd.
Here are the top benefits of leveraging Amazon PPC Sponsored Ads for your business:
- Increases your product sales
- Boosts your organic rankings on Amazon
- Creates brand awareness
- Avoid competitors from snatching positions
- Helps you get the Amazon buy box
- Gain momentum during seasonal sales
- Get immediate exposure for new product launches
Amazon PPC Terms You Need to Know
If you’re interested in Amazon PPC advertising, it’s essential to understand the key metrics and terms that affect your campaign performance.
Breaking down the most important PPC terms every Amazon seller should know:
Campaigns
A campaign is the structure you use to run and manage your Amazon ads. It can include one or more ad groups with different products and targeting.
Manual Campaigns
In a manual campaign, you choose the keywords and set bids. It gives you more control over where and how your ads appear.
Automatic Campaigns
In these campaigns, Amazon automatically targets keywords and products based on your listing. Amazon PPC auto campaigns are great for beginners or for discovering new keywords.
Same SKU
Refers to ads promoting the exact same product (SKU = Stock Keeping Unit), not different variations or other listings.
Impressions
When your ad appears on the Amazon listing page it’s called an impression.
Clicks
When someone clicks on your ad. You are only charged by clicks not impressions.
Amazon PPC Keyword Bidding Match Terms
Understanding keyword match types is crucial to controlling your ads’ appearance in search results. Selecting the right match type lets you fine-tune your targeting, effectively manage your ad spending, and influence the right customers at the right time.
Here’s a breakdown of the essential keyword match terms to help you make informed bidding decisions:
Broad Match
When choosing broad match for your Amazon keyword your ad will show anytime your keyword matches a search term no matter the sequence so for instance if your keyword is “Women’s Shoes” you ad will show for “Women’s Flat Red Shoes“. as long as your keyword is within the phrase.
Phrase Match
Amazon will only display your ad when your entire keyword phrase matches in exact order in the search term but might have other words before or after.
For instance if your keyword is “Women’s Shoes” your ad will only show when someone searches for “Red Women’s Shoes” or “Women’s Shoes high heels” but not “Women’s Winter Shoes“.
Exact Match
Your Amazon ad will only show when someone searches with exact keywords for instance if your Keyword is “Women’s Shoes” you ad will only show when someone search for “Women’s Shoes” and not “Red Women’s Shoes”.
Negative keywords
You can set up negative keywords or terms that will prevent your ad from appearing if used in a search phrase
For instance when advertising men’s shoes you would want to add the keyword “women” as a negative keyword to prevent your ads from showing up when someone is searching for women’s shoes.
Amazon PPC Automatic vs. Manual Campaigns
Confused between automatic and manual campaigns for your Amazon PPC strategy?
Each has different strengths depending on your goals, experience level, and desire for control over targeting.
To explain it more clearly, here’s a comparison table:
| Feature | Automatic Campaigns | Manual Campaigns |
|---|---|---|
| Targeting | Amazon chooses keywords & products | You select keywords and match types |
| Control | Low | High |
| Best for | Beginners, keyword discovery | Experienced sellers, precise targeting |
| Setup time | Less | More |
| Optimization | Limited | Highly customizable |
| Keyword match types | Not available | Broad, phrase, exact |
Amazon Key Performance Indicators or KPIs
With key performance indicators (KPIs), you can measure your ads’ performance and understand where to make adjustments. Knowing these numbers is essential for optimizing your ad spend, improving visibility, and boosting sales.
Below are some of the most important KPIs every seller should know:
ACoS
Amazon advertising cost of sales (ACOS) is a measurement on the efficacy of your Amazon advertising campaigns. It compares the amount you spent on a PPC campaign to the amount earned. This is a very important metric to measure to make sure your campaigns are the cost efficient. For a more comprehensive understand of Amazons ACOS and other Amazon cost per sale metrics, read: What is Amazon ACOS?
CPC
Cost-per-click – This metric measure the average cost per click for your Amazon PPC campaigns. You want to be very strategic about this because you don’t want to go too high and lose profit but you also don’t want to lose out on a promising lead. You should decide on the cost based on your objective
CTR
Click-through-rates this is the rate of which a customer clicks on your ad when displayed on his/her Amazon page. So it’s “impressions” divided by “clicks” = CTR.
Conversion rate
The rate of how many times your ad converts to a sale. “Clicks” divided by “units” sold = conversion rate. You obviously should always optimize your Amazon campaigns to increase your your conversion rate.
Types of Advertising Strategies
Amazon offers a wide range of advertising options designed to help you connect with customers throughout every stage of the sales journey.
Let’s dive into a more detailed breakdown of these advertising types.
Amazon Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Amazon PPC is an advertising type that helps sellers promote their products on the Amazon marketplace on a pay-per-click basis. This means you are charged only when a potential customer clicks on the ad.
Amazon PPC encompasses three main categories:
- Sponsored Products: Amazon Sponsored Products is similar to Google ads. You can select the products you wish to advertise and specify relevant keywords or product attributes to target, along with a CPC (Cost-Per-Click) amount. The ad becomes eligible for display when shoppers search for any targeted keywords or products.
- Sponsored Brands: Boosting your products on Amazon is crucial, but building brand recognition is equally important. That’s where Sponsored Brand ads step in. Sponsored Brand ads allow you to flaunt your brand personality as they appear as banner ads at the top, left, and bottom of the search results page.
- Sponsored Display: Sponsored Display Ads are pay-per-click advertisements visible on product detail pages, customer review pages, atop the offer listing page, and below search results. You can also feature these ads in abandoned cart emails, follow-up emails, and recommendation emails. Their primary aim is to encourage cross-selling or upselling to your customers.
Amazon Demand-Side Platform (DSP)
Amazon DSP is your ultimate solution for buying video and audio and displaying ads across the internet. Leveraging Amazon’s data intelligence, it enables you to connect with your audience beyond Amazon’s platform.
With this platform, you can purchase various ad formats, including display, video, and audio (still in beta). This empowers you to deliver impactful experiences to shoppers, enhancing their interaction with your brand.
How to Do Amazon PPC Step-by-Step
How do you create a competitive advertising campaign strategy that maximizes results and outshines your competitors?
Let’s delve straight into it:
Step 1: Understand Your Goals
Do you want to boost brand awareness, increase sales for a specific product, or clear out inventory? Your goals should shape your strategy.
For instance, use Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS) to gauge sales success or focus on impressions for brand awareness.
While it takes effort, clear goals save resources in the long run.
Step 2: Know Your Audience
Understanding who your customers are and what they are looking for is critical. So, how do you figure this out?
You can use Amazon’s insights and other analytic tools to gather data on customer behavior and preferences.
Step 3: Select the Right Products to Advertise
When selecting products to advertise, prioritize your best-sellers for their potential to convert clicks into purchases.
Make sure that they’re in stock and competitively priced to attract shoppers.
Step 4: Craft Engaging Product Detail Pages
Crafting engaging product detail pages is key to converting shoppers into customers. While Amazon ads can drive traffic to your product pages, the content on these pages seals the deal.
Ensure your titles are accurate and descriptive, your images are high-quality, and your product information is helpful.
Step 5: Decide Where You Would Like Your Ads to Appear
Amazon provides diverse ad placement options tailored to different business needs, including voice ads for Alexa, video ads for Fire TV, and display ads for exclusive sites like IMDb.
With numerous opportunities to showcase ads across devices and sites, get creative to maximize reach.
Step 6: Set a Realistic Budget
Determining a budget that aligns with your goals and the competitive landscape of your product category is important.
Additionally, you must be prepared to adjust this as you monitor your performance.
Step 7: Monitor and Adjust
Make sure that you regularly review your campaigns’ performance and use this data to tweak your strategies, such as adjusting bids, keywords, or even the ad copy itself.
Ready to jump-start your Amazon ads campaigns and grow your revenue? Book a free PPC audit, and we’ll show you how we can achieve the results you want.
Amazon Sponsored Ads Tips
Amazon Sponsored Product Ads offer effective strategies for optimizing your campaigns.
Following are the best practices of sponsored ads that you can use to elevate your Amazon advertising strategies:
- Optimize your product listings with high-quality images and accurate descriptions, and then find relevant keywords for your products.
- Start with automatic targeting to gather valuable data on effective keywords and audience segments.
- Transition to manual targeting for more precise control over your ad targeting based on campaign goals.
- Incorporate negative targeting to exclude irrelevant searches and audiences, optimizing ad spend.
- Track key metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and ACoS to evaluate campaign effectiveness and iterate.
How to Optimize Amazon PPC Campaigns
Now that you know how to launch your Amazon PPC campaigns, you need to learn Amazon PPC optimization to get real results. So, how do you fine-tune your campaigns to drive more sales and make every click convert?
Let’s see below:
Review Your Search Term Reports
On Amazon, you’ll find enough data to help you figure out the most searched terms. Obtaining search term reports shows exactly what shoppers are typing in before they click your ad.
Identify which terms are driving sales and which ones are wasting your budget. Add high-performing search terms to your manual campaigns.
Adjust Your Bids Strategically
Keep trying different bidding strategies to make the most out of them. If a keyword is converting well with a low ACoS, consider increasing your bid to get more visibility.
On the other hand, if you’re spending too much on a keyword without getting sales, lower your bid or pause it altogether.
Improve Your Product Listings
Driving traffic is one thing, but converting traffic is a different ball game altogether. If your traffic is not converting, you’ll burn through your budget quickly.
Make sure your titles are keyword-rich and clear. Use high-quality images, highlight key benefits in your bullet points, and encourage customers to leave reviews.
Use Negative Keywords to Eliminate Waste
Add negative keywords to block search terms that don’t align with your product.
For example, if you are selling luxury handbags, then adding “cheap” or “knockoff” as negative keywords might help avoid poor-quality clicks.
Separate Match Types into Different Campaigns
Broad, phrase, and exact match types perform differently and need to be managed differently as well.
By creating separate campaigns for each, you can clearly see which ones drive results and control your budget accordingly.
Scale What Works
Once you identify a winning campaign, keyword, or product, gradually increase the budget.
Monitor performance closely as you scale to ensure your ROI stays strong.
Optimize Timing with Ad Scheduling
When do your customers shop the most? Use dayparting (ad scheduling) to run your campaigns during high-converting times and pause or reduce bids during low-traffic hours.
You’ll get more value for every dollar you spend.
Must-Have Amazon PPC Tools
Running a successful campaign is tough without the right tools. From keyword research to analytics and bid automation, the right tech stack can save you hours and drive better results.
Using these tools still requires a good understanding of Amazon PPC. However, if you’re unsure about it, leave the PPC management to experts. At IG PPC, we have unrivaled knowledge and experience managing PPC campaigns and offer personalized, hands-on strategies that align with your needs.
Book a free audit with our team today.
Here’s a sneak peek into some essential Amazon PPC tools that sellers swear by:
- Amazon Advertising Console: Amazon’s own platform gives you everything you need to launch and monitor campaigns. You’ll find campaign reports, placement stats, search term reports, and budget controls — all built in.
- Helium 10: Keyword research, competitor tracking, and ad performance – you’ll find all these in one. Helium 10’s Adtomic feature is designed specifically for Amazon PPC. It gives you deep insights into campaign performance, automates bidding, and helps spot optimization opportunities quickly.
- Jungle Scout: Known for product research, Jungle Scout also has a powerful PPC automation suite. You can monitor your ACoS, set bid rules, and track keyword performance. Plus, it integrates directly with your Amazon account for seamless data syncing.
- SellerApp: SellerApp combines data-driven PPC automation with real-time performance tracking. Their smart bidding system helps you cut wasted ad spend and improve campaign profitability.
Should You Manage Your PPC or Outsource to an Amazon PPC Agency?
Amazon PPC campaigns requires constant fine tunings and adaptions you must read and analyze your data and update or change marketing objectives accordingly.
By hiring a trusted Amazon PPC agency you get the peace of mind that your campaigns will always be optimized and cost efficient. In addition you will also get great advice and strategy which will help you increase your Amazon sales volume.
Amazon ecosystem is a constantly changing and fine tuned so having a trusted advisor to consult with might be a great benefit to your Amazon marketplace business, it will free up your time to focus on product development and other areas of your business.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Here are the most frequently asked questions about Amazon ads strategy:
When Should I Launch Amazon PPC Ads?
It’s best to launch your Amazon PPC ads as soon as you create a new listing. Besides getting more exposure to your new product, you want to start collecting data on the product, as more data comes in you can slowly but surely optimize your Amazon ads campaign accordingly.
What You Will Need to Get Started with Amazon PPC?
- A valid Amazon approved product
- Good product description and product images
- A credit card
- A list of keywords you want to bid on
What are the Amazon Ads Pricing/Fees?
Amazon ads prices are set via a keyword auction so prices can fluctuate based on your industry, category and season. You can start paying from 0.01 to several dollars.
How Do Seasonal Trends Affect Amazon Ad Strategies?
Seasonal trends significantly affect ad strategy. During peak seasons like holidays or back-to-school periods, competition intensifies, raising ad costs. To attract more customers, plan campaigns early, allocate extra budget, and run special promotions.
What Budget Should You Allocate to Amazon PPC for Optimal ROI?
Aiming to allocate 10-15% of total revenue towards Amazon PPC is a good starting point. This allows ample spending for data gathering and campaign optimization without overspending. Adjust the budget based on performance and competition.
What Metrics Are Most Important for Measuring Success?
Key metrics to track include:
- ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales): Measures the efficiency of your ad spend.
- ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): Helps you understand the revenue generated per dollar spent.
- CTR (Click-Through Rate): Indicates how compelling your ad is to shoppers.
- Conversion Rate: Shows how well your ads are converting clicks into sales.
- Impressions: Measures how often your ad is shown.
How Can Small Businesses Compete with Larger Brands on Amazon?
Small businesses compete by focusing on niche markets, optimizing product listings, and using targeted advertising.
Long-tail keywords capture less competitive but highly relevant traffic. Providing excellent customer service and gathering positive reviews also enhance competitiveness.
Conclusion
Whether a small business or a large brand, Amazon ads can benefit you at any stage. However, your approach and strategy will differ depending on your unique business goals and resources.
Therefore, to drive your business growth, our expert team at IG PPC helps you create, run, and analyze your Amazon ads strategy.
Book a free PPC audit with us, and let us help you efficiently outrank your competitors with a solid Amazon advertising strategy!
