As an Amazon Seller, there is a lot of competition on the platform that your product will be up against. In order to rise to the top of search results and attain the conversions you need to make the revenue you want, it is key to utilize the right marketing tactics. One of the best ways to drive traffic to your listing and increase your product sales is by running Amazon Pay-Per-Click Ads, also known as Amazon PPC. PPC are sponsored advertisements that help sellers increase their online product sales on the Amazon platform. Pay Per Click works just as it sounds: when a shopper clicks on on that advertisement, the seller is charged a small fee. The Ads are not being charged based on how many people view it (impressions) but rather only incur a charge if the shopper clicks on the ad. PPCs can be used to generate sales, store visits, and more.
How Does PPC Work?
The pay-per-click (PPC) approach requires the Seller to pay Amazon only when a customer clicks on the ad that Amazon has displayed in front of a relevant audience. The specific audience is targeted in relation to keywords, which are phrases that shoppers type into the search bar in order to find specific products. For example, a keyword for a indoor plant stand might be “potted plant holder indoors”. Keyword research is a tool that Amazon offers to sellers so that they can find relevant keywords to target and aim for their products to come up first in search results for. These keywords are arguably the foundation of PPC, because the audience that these ads are displayed to are based on the keyword(s) that a seller is targeting with that ad campaign.
When doing a product launch, PPC Ads are a great thing to take advantage of. Campaigns have a daily spend limit that can be adjusted to the desired ad spend of the seller. It PPC daily spend is essentially the amount of money that a seller is willing to spend on a daily basis to get those initial sales during a product launch. For most, this is a time worth investing in and it is also something that can be adjusted overtime. For example, if a seller’s ads are converting extremely well, that means they are getting a substantial amount of sales for a low cost. This would likely incentivize them to increase their daily spend limit, or “bid”, for that PPC ad. It’s up to the seller to change their bid amounts to determine where their products show up in the search results. Sellers who bid more than the competition have a better chance that their product will appear at the top of the search results for the specific keyword.
It’s usually a good idea to wait for a decent period of time before making any changes to keywords and ad spend limits. This is because the PPC data is oftentimes a little delayed on the advertising platform, and conversions are less likely if the target and ad budget are constantly being manipulated. If after several days the data shows that a keyword is not getting sales and therefore wasting Ad Spend, it can easily be turned off.
The 3 Different Types of PPC Ads
There are three different types of ad campaigns most sellers want to use when doing a product launch: The exact match, broad match and automatic campaigns.
An exact match campaign is an ad campaign that targets exact keywords a seller is looking to advertise for. For example, if a seller wanted their product to show up on page 1 for “Panda Teddy Bear” with no other variation of that keyword ━ then they would use the exact match campaign. This will tell Amazon to put their product listing in the top of the search results for that exact keyword when a shopper types in to the search bar.
A broad match campaign is a broader search that targets the main keyword as well as other keywords that contain a portion of the main one. So these ads would also appear in similar searches. It takes the core keyword that a seller is targeting and expands it so it is displayed in front of shoppers searching some type of variation of that.
Finally, an automatic campaign is one that allows Amazon to advertise the product in the search results for keywords that they think will generate a sale for that product. Assuming the listing is created well with keywords and well written descriptions, these automatic campaigns can be especially useful and lucrative. Amazon has really good data and if the seller has done everything on their end to optimize their product listing, this type of PPC ad is the cheapest and can be the best performing.
Pro Tips For Running PPC Ads
- Amazon will suggest a bid amount for the keywords being targeted on PPC as well as offer an estimated cost per click. It is a good idea to use the data that Amazon provides, such as these estimates, to effectively calculate how much money to put into Ad Spend. Remember that there is always competition who is seeing and considering the same data offered by Amazon, so it’s best to up your bid rather than use the exact number that Amazon provided.
- After several days has passed, it’s a good idea to pull a search term report for the PPC ads and to identify the high converting keywords. These keywords can be leveraged into future campaigns and give you a baseline for how much to spend and what profit margins you can attain and seek to attain.
- Sellers can also utilize the “top of search” ad placements to generate high visibility for their products. This placement is the most expensive because it’s at the very top of the search results, but it can be really helpful when seeking initial sales during a product launch.
