Whether you’re new to selling on Amazon or you’ve been in the business for a while, you’ve probably heard that a good PPC management strategy is the key to being successful on the platform.
For a quick recap: Amazon Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising is part of Amazon’s internal advertising system. Through here, brands and third-party entrepreneurs can target specific keywords to create advertisements for their products and make it appear at the top of Amazon’s search results.
Needless to say, being visible before your competitor’s product listings puts you at an advantage—a front-and-center position can lead to bigger and better sales.
Are you ready to build an Amazon PPC campaign that does just that?
Here are 10 tried-and-tested tips to help you make the most of your advertising campaigns:
Table of Contents
1. Have a solid strategy on lock for PPC.
Amazon PPC is not the space for experiments to see what will or will not work for your business. It is important that your campaigns follow a theme and structure to make sure you are able to make the most of your ad spend.
How do you do that?
For one, you can categorize your ads in three brackets: product type, bestsellers, slow moving.
You can run ads based on these different sections. If you skip this step, you may experience repeat ads due to overlap and you will have a hard time figuring out which is bringing you the most conversions.
2. Simplify your PPC management by maximizing its automation features.
It’s no secret that Amazon PPC optimization is a tedious and data-intensive process, but did you know that some aspects of it can be automated?
This helps you save time without putting a pause on scaling your business. Apart from that, it lessens the possibility of human error.
To help make sure the algorithm takes care of the important stuff, analyze your data diligently and patiently so you can set parameters that do the work on its own (for the most part).
3. Master the art of targeting (automatic and manual).
Let’s not beat around the bush: The secret is to set things up manually, but test with automatic targeting.
Similar to other advertising platforms, it’s best to keep as much control over campaigns as possible. It’s important to monitor your campaigns regularly, but at the same time, it won’t hurt to leave a few factors to the platform.
For example, keyword research helps you create automatic targeting campaigns so you can test the market and discover what search terms possible customers are using to find similar products to those you offer.
However, you should keep in mind that this should not replace common keyword research altogether. Instead, it should add value to existing practices to refine and optimize results for more conversions.
4. Learn about keywords and ensure your targets are in your listings.
Think about it this way: Most search engines want to provide the most relevant results but it doesn’t consider if it’s paid or organic traffic.
This means that selling platforms, including Amazon, won’t shop results that do not match the keywords written. This is also the reason why it’s vital to include your keywords in your product listings when possible.
5. Invest and bid in your own brand keywords.
You never know how your competitors will think, correct?
So, no matter what happens, you need to be prepared to counter it. One way to do it is by bidding on a competitor’s brand keywords to increase visibility.
Now, your competitors are likely to use this strategy as well, so the easiest way to protect your market share is by bidding on your brand keywords.
This will ensure that your customers keep purchasing from your product line. Not to mention, it also makes it more expensive for your competitors to bid on your brand keywords.
6. Set different bids according to performance and value
When you look at your inventory and overall performance, you will find that not all your products have the same profit margin.
This shows that you cannot bid the same amount for all keywords. If you continue to do so, you will keep spending more towards products that don’t sell to begin with.
Try to choose the keywords or search terms that have the potential of bringing the most value. For example, you can bid higher on keywords related to your bestsellers or your hero product.
Your goal is to make a profit, not to lose money or break even.
7. Analyze competitor products to uncover effective keywords, targets, and strategy.
Do you know what keywords your competitors are using for generating traffic for product-related searches?
If not, it’s time to do a deep dive and do your homework!
The answers to this question can help you gain insight into their performance which, in turn, helps you discover new keyword opportunities for your new or existing campaigns.
You can do this manually or by using the help of an online tool to help cut down on the work.
8. Restrict your ads from showing for irrelevant searches.
If you haven’t explored this aspect of PPC management yet, you should know that Amazon advertising offers the option to “block” ads from showing for specific searches with the help of negative keywords.
For example, if you sell bookmarks but you don’t sell bookcases, you can add bookcases as a negative keyword to prevent ads from showing for searches related to bookmarks.
This way, the only people who will find you are those searching for your specific products.
9. Make sure to optimize your product listings accordingly.
This may sound too simple and basic, but it’s probably the most important step to keep your ads working and converting.
Remember, advertising is only one part of a seller’s journey. To maximize your returns, you need to optimize every step of the process and a big part of that is to make sure your listings are detailed, accurate, and updated.
10. Give it time and optimize accordingly.
In our first tip above, we told you to have a plan and see it pan out.
However, it’s just as vital to make certain changes if you see that it isn’t working after a given time frame. Be patient and wait to see results then make optimizations if you don’t like what you’re seeing.
Bonus Hack: Try using advertising settings such as budget caps that can help allow you to stay within a specific budget to prevent overspending.
Not only will it help increase your brand awareness, but more importantly, it will also bring in more sales. If you’re looking for a custom-tailored strategy to help you out, take advantage of our FREE strategy session call by clicking here.
