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Amazon PPC (Pay-per-Click) ads, also known as Sponsored Products, are one of the many forms of online marketing that every Amazon seller should be taking advantage of. But like any other advertising methods, knowing important facts about Amazon PPC ads is a must for a successful campaign.

In this article, we’ll guide you through things you need to know to ensure your Amazon PPC campaigns are working for your benefit by increasing sales as well as improving organic rankings and not just eating your profits.

What is Amazon PPC?

PPC or Pay-per-Click ads are one of the many online marketing methods that most entrepreneurs are making use of. The most common types are Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords), Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, and now Amazon Ads.

With Amazon Ads, Amazon sellers are charged by Amazon for every click their listing/s is receiving from potential customers. It is one of the ideal ways for a seller to “buy” a top position on Amazon SERPs where customers are more likely to buy. This type of online marketing is an auction system where sellers bid on search terms. Bid amount and ad quality are what will determine the product listings’ visibility and ad ranking on the search results page or SERP.

Why run Amazon PPC Campaigns?

Below are the top 5 reasons why you need to run Amazon PPC Campaigns:

1. To boost your product sales.
2. It increases the organic rankings of highly competitive keywords.
3. Helps promote brand awareness.
4. Launch new products.
5. Prevent competitors from getting the top position and sales.

Amazon PPC Ad Types

There are three types of Amazon PPC Ads namely;

1. Sponsored Products Ads
2. Product Display Ads
3. Headling Search Ads

Let’s take a look at these Amazon PPC Ad types in detail:

Sponsored Product Ads

This type of Amazon PPC ad allows businesses/sellers to advertise their product based on keywords or search terms. This is also the most popular among the other ad types because it shows up at almost every stage of the buyer’s journey.

You may see them below the Headline Search Ads, at the right of organic listings, and on related product detail pages.

• Top of the search results page, below the Headline Search Ads

• Middle of the search results page.

• Bottom of the search results page, below organic listings.

• At the bottom of a related product detail pages.

Headline Search Ads

Headline Search Ads show as banners above Sponsored Product Ads and organic listings and can also be found at the left side of the search results page. This ad type would require you to come up with a short but enticing ad copy to persuade customers and grab their attention.

Product Display Ads

The last type of Amazon Pay-per-Click ad is the Product Display Ads. Ads under this type are found on product details pages of related or competitor products. This ad aims to persuade a customer to buy the sponsored products over the competitor product or buy the related product together with the product being viewed by the customer.

Automatic vs. Manual Campaigns

Another important thing you should familiarize yourself of before you start setting up your Amazon PPC campaign is the type of campaign that you’ll be using. Amazon PPC Campaign Ads come in two types, namely automatic and manual campaigns.

To help you get started with Amazon PPC campaigns, let us help you understand what is the difference between the two.

Automatic Campaign

The automatic campaign is the type of Amazon PPC campaign where you will let Amazon do the work of finding keywords for you. Basically, what you only have to do is to decide and select the ad budget and let Amazon do the rest. Amazon will have the full control on whether they are to show or not to show your ad based on the details you have on your product listing – title, description, bullet points, and back-end search terms.

This campaign is best for new sellers or those who don’t have enough experience with pay-per-click campaigns yet.

Benefits of Automatic Campaign

1. Easy setup. Choose your budget, activate, and go.
2. No manual entry of keywords.
3. One of the best ways to do keyword research. With automatic campaigns, Amazon collects all the data which you can use for your future campaigns.
4. Your product will be eligible to show for long-tail keywords you have no idea customers are using.

Drawbacks of Automatic Campaign

1. You have very minimal control over which keywords you want your listing to show up.
2. As Amazon takes full control of the campaign, your listing might show up to searches that are relevant but aren’t converting well. This means you get charged for ads without a sale.
3. It has also been observed that Amazon has the tendency to bid on irrelevant keywords.
4. Bids are the same for all keywords – high-converting, low-converting, and non-converting keywords.

Manual Campaign

The manual campaign, on the other hand, will give you full control of your campaign as well as its spending. In a manual campaign, you will handpick the keywords you want to bid on. This will mean you will only be charged for clicks where you really intend your ads to show.

Benefits of Automatic Campaign

1. Best for sellers who have enough experience in PPC campaigns.
2. Allows you to maximize your ad budget.
3. Bidding manually on keywords will allow you to have precise targeting. Which can, in turn, lead to more sales with lesser ad expenses.
4. You will have full control over the performance of your campaign. You can reduce bids or fully turn off low-performing keywords.
5. Amazon offers bid suggestions to every keyword you want to bid on, making it easier to decide how much you should bid.

Drawbacks of Automatic Campaign

1. Needs enough time and effort to set up and keyword research or risk losing money.

Keyword Match Types

When creating your Amazon PPC campaign, you’d also need to decide on what keyword match types you are to bid.

Below are the types of keywords to choose from:

Broad Match

Keywords or search terms that are broadly relevant to your product. This match type has the tendency to show on irrelevant searches but is less competitive and cheaper.

Phrase Match

Keywords that appear in phrases that customers are using to search for the product. This is more competitive, expensive, more specific than broad match type.

Exact Match

Keywords that exactly matches your product. Very competitive and the most expensive.

Negative Keywords

These are the search terms that you don’t want your ad to show up. Negatives tend to refine your campaign by telling Amazon not to waste your ad budget to specific keywords which you know won’t convert into a sale.

How to create your first Amazon PPC Ad Campaign

Below is a comprehensive video from Amazon with the step by step process on how to set up your first campaign. Watch and learn!

Tips for a successful Amazon PPC Ad Campaign

1.  Use Automatic Campaign ad type if you have 0 experience in running PPC campaigns and let it run for 2-4 weeks. It will allow you to gather the actual keywords or search terms that customers are using to look for the product you are offering without much effort from your end.
2. Run manual campaign after running and analyzing the automatic campaign data where you already have enough idea on which keywords are converting well.
3. To start with, use broad match types in partnership with your automatic campaign for keyword research with a small ad budget. This will allow you to collect data without spending too much. Bidding high on automatic campaigns will, of course, give you higher chances of conversion but you’ll end up wasting a lot of money on keywords which may not convert into sales.
4. Bid high on competitive keywords as this will allow you to win the bid and appear for them.
5. Bid low on low-converting keywords.
6.  When running manual campaigns, add negative keywords.

Analyzing PPC Data

Congratulations on launching your first campaign! So what’s next? If you think the work is over, well it isn’t. It’s just a start. But a good one at that. The next step is to analyze and understand the data. This will allow you to monitor and make necessary adjustments on your campaign/s to improve it and get the most out of your advertising costs.

PPC Ad Campaign Metrics

1.  Impressions – The number of times Amazon customers saw your ad.
2. Clicks – The number of times your ad received a click from a potential customer.
3. CPC or Cost per Click – This is the dollar value of each click your ad received which Amazon will charge you.
4. Conversion Rate – The percentage of clicks that turned into an actual sale,
5. ACos or Advertising Cost of Sale – The cost of your advertising. This is the ratio of how much you spent on advertising for every sale.

Based on the results of the metrics above, modify your campaigns towards profitability.

Note: There is a delay of 48 hours for you to be able to view your metrics for a specific date. These data can be seen on the Reports tab on Amazon Seller Central.

There you go! Amazon PPC campaign might be challenging. But with enough knowledge and patience in learning and analyzing data, your success with paid campaigns is within reach.

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