Maximizing Your Sales: The Ultimate Guide to Amazon PPC

Behind every successful business, there is a great marketing plan. If your business is on Amazon, the PPC advertising is the right way to market your business.

When it comes to the Amazon PPC campaign, the right strategy is the key to success. A well-managed PPC campaign on Amazon increases product visibility and boosts sales. 

There is another very popular reason why sellers use Amazon PPC ads. People visit Amazon with an intent to buy and anything that brings about a quick sale is worth trying. This is why almost 75% of Amazon sellers use at least one kind of PPC ad. 

This article details about Amazon PPC Ads and how they can help boost your Amazon sales. 

What is Amazon PPC?

Amazon PPC is Amazon’s advertising platform. It allows Amazon sellers to set up ad campaigns for their brands and products and charges them each time a potential customer clicks on them. 

How does Amazon PPC ads work?

These ads work on a cost-per-click basis. That means you can set a bid with Amazon for your ad to appear when shoppers search for products. You need to pay when the customer clicks on your ad. 

Besides, Amazon ensures that if you are the winner, you only need to pay one cent more than the amount offered by the second-highest bidder. For example, consider your bid for a given keyword is $3 and the second highest bid is $2.10. As per Amazon, you would have to pay only $2.11 and not $3.

The key PPC metrics of Amazon are:

Advertising cost of sales (ACoS)

This is the percentage of sales spent on advertising and is calculated by dividing total ad spend by total sales. 

Attributed sales

It’s the total sales generated within a week of clicks on your ads.

Impressions

It is the number of times Amazon displays your ad. 

Clicks

It is the number of times your ads are clicked.

What are the different Amazon PPC ad types?

PPC ads are various types on Amazon. They are:

1. Sponsored Product Ads
2. Sponsored Display Ads
3. Sponsored Brands Ads

Sponsored Product Ads

This is the most common type of PPC ads and is used by 66% of third party sellers on Amazon. It looks like organic listings and appears on search results and product listing pages. 

The seller can target keywords using automatic and manual methods. 

Automatic targeting: In this strategy, Amazon’s algorithm determines the keywords to target. Amazon algorithm finds these targets from the shoppers’ purchase data. 

The keyword match types that are available with the automatic targeting are,

• Close match – when the shoppers’ search terms are closely related to your product
• Loose match – when the search terms are loosely related to your product
• Substitutes – it targets shoppers who are looking for similar products from a different brand.
• Complements – targets shoppers viewing detail pages of products that complement your products. 

Manual targeting: You can hand pick the keywords you want to target in your campaign. The ads will appear only if the search terms match with your keywords. You always need to monitor for changes and optimize your ads for lower spend and better results. 

Sponsored Brands ads

This was formerly known as “headline search ads.” These ads allow sellers to drive awareness to a set of products at a time and grab shoppers’ attention with more attractive visuals. 

There are three formats from which you can choose in the case of Sponsored Brand Ads. 

• Product lists
• Store
• Video format

When clicked on these ads, it will lead the shopper to your brand’s Storefront on Amazon. 

Sponsored Display ads

These ads target customers who visited your product detail pages on and off Amazon. Unlike Sponsored Product ads and Sponsored Brand Ads, these ads also appear on Amazon affiliate sites including Google, Facebook, Netflix, and even mobile apps. All you need to do is to own a registered brand to utilize Sponsored Display Ads. 

Steps to set up your Amazon PPC ads

Here are the steps to set up your Amazon PPC campaigns. 

‍Pick your products

The first step to set up a successful PPC campaign is to pick the right products that you want to add in your campaign. If you are setting up a Sponsored Product Ad, it is a good option to promote the new product in your shop. Try various keyword strategies to target your audience. 

‍Keyword & Optimization

Finding the right keywords and optimizing your campaigns for them is the next step. If you choose automatic targeting, Amazon will find the right keywords for you. But if manual targeting is your choice, then you will have to conduct a thorough keyword research.

But even with the automatic targeting, you need to do the product listing optimization properly. You also need to optimize product descriptions, titles, and images as well. 

Create Your PPC Ad Campaign

Now it’s time to begin creating your PPC campaign. First you need to login to your Seller Central account. Navigate to the “Advertising tab” and click “Create campaign”. Then choose your type of ad and give a suitable campaign name. 

Give other details including your campaign start date and end date. Select either automatic or manual targeting. Then select the products you want to advertise as well as your base bid. If you choose manual targeting, upload your keywords. Amazon PPC ads allow you to target around 1000 keywords per ad type. But you can start with 20-40 keywords. 

‍Set Up Your Bids

After adding  the required information about your campaign in your Amazon advertising account, you need to set up your ad bids. You can update your bids whenever you require.

It is a good strategy to bid on multiple keywords but you can bid higher on a relevant keyword with lower competition rate. This will help you win the bid and gain more relevant clicks. 

If you find the above steps tedious and time consuming, you can approach SellerApp. We serve as an Amazon PPC Agency and can provide you assistance in setting up and managing your PPC campaigns. The team of Amazon experts are equipped with years of expertise in building and scaling brands like yours.  

Get approval from Amazon

Once you set your bids, you need to get the approval from Amazon. Amazon will take a few hours to a day or two to approve your campaign. 

How can PPC ads improve sales on Amazon?

A well managed PPC campaign is for sure a boon for you. It especially helps you in reaching more customers on and off Amazon and improve sales. Here are some tips to generate more sales from your campaign. 

Begin with automatic campaigns

Running automatic campaigns will provide you with plenty of performance information. The information gained by running an automatic campaign will help you make informed decisions. When you are able to make informed decisions regarding your campaign, you will gain more sales. 

Monitor search reports regularly

Always keep an eye on your keyword performances. Identify the keywords that are not performing well and reduce bids for them. This will help you put a control on your ad spend and refine your campaign. This will eventually lead to more sales. 

Reinvest in advertising

You can make this possible by simply making an adjustment in your Seller Central default settings. This will enable Amazon to deduct money directly from your revenue. You no longer will need to use your credit card. 

Bring about flexibility in budgets

Ensure your budgets do not easily run out. You need to be ready to adjust your budget according to the requirements of your campaigns. 

Conclusion

Amazon is an exciting marketplace where you can sell almost everything under the sky. The best way to stand out on Amazon is to use the most suitable advertising strategy. The best advertising strategy should be something that helps boost your sales and grow your brand. With the right understanding of your requirement and budget, you can find the right PPC solution for your campaign.