what is Amazon PPC Archives

When customers look for a new product to buy, about 66% of them start their search on Amazon. And when they begin their searches with one specific product already in mind, 74% go straight to Amazon.

Most sales on Amazon come via the search function, but the results are mainly based on past sales. That makes it difficult for sellers outside of page one to gain visibility for products using only organic SEO methods. To increase visibility for their products, sellers can use different types of Amazon PPC ads to bid on product exposure.

Amazon PPC is an advertising and marketing platform that allows you to buy and optimize different types of Amazon ads. Through the platform, you can bid on keywords and competitor listings, create advertising strategies, and run a variety of PPC campaign styles. Bids and ad performance are specific to your Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN), so you can figure out which campaigns are the most beneficial.

Since its 2012 introduction, sellers have optimized and automated Amazon PPC to achieve several highly specific goals. For example, you may want to make your sales cycle more efficient or maximize the rank of a brand or product. PPC optimization is all about figuring out your goals and accomplishing them with the available resources.

Setting Up Different Types of Amazon PPC Ads

At its core, an optimized PPC strategy helps you avoid inefficient ad spend while accomplishing your goals. You can boost short-term profits by running efficient PPC campaigns or spend more to build long-term strategies in order to increase rank so your listing can see more organic sales down the road. Because Amazon PPC is still relatively new, many sellers aren’t familiar with it. This makes for an excellent opportunity to enhance your competitive edge.

To begin, go to your Seller Central account and hover over the Advertising tab; then, select Campaign Manager. From there, you’ll be asked to set up the budget and duration of your advertising campaign. The entire process is built into your Seller Central account, so you won’t need to download anything to create and track your campaigns.

The next step is to choose what types of Amazon ads you want to utilize. It’s possible to sponsor products or brands specifically and to choose manual or automated targeting. Automated Amazon PPC ads determine what keywords and products are associated with and then run ads based on that information. Manual targeting allows you to choose what, specifically, to dial in on.

Optimizing Manual and Automated Amazon PPC

Both manual and automated Amazon PPC can be highly useful. PPC automation shows you what Amazon recognizes your product for and, over time, conversion rates for each keyword or product. You can then use this information to manually optimize campaigns further and spend more efficiently on long-term campaigns.

By combining Amazon PPC automation with manual targeting, you can build a more hands-on type of campaign in which you retain total control of your ad spend in the context of your goals. Pinpoint the keywords and products that Amazon finds most relevant and successful, then target them specifically to maximize your ROI.

For a few examples of how we recommend properly structuring these automatic and manual targeting campaigns in Kinetic and why we recommend setting them up that way, check out this handy video!

Strategizing a manual and automated Amazon PPC campaign can seem overwhelming, especially if you don’t have a background in marketing.

How can I manage my Amazon PPC?

Viral Launch’s Kinetic platform helps simplify it for you by presenting extremely detailed data taken directly from Amazon in a user-friendly and easily understandable format.

Save time tracking your PPC spend by seeing all of your data within a few tabs instead of digging through multiple Microsoft Excel tabs.

Within Kinetic, you can create rules to automate Amazon ad campaigns based on past performance and receive optimization tips. With Kinetic’s preset advertisement types, you can better understand different types of Amazon ads and PPC strategies.

If you want to be a successful Amazon seller, you have to get your products in front of the right buyers. That’s a fundamental truth. But when you consider that more and more product views are coming from sponsored listings, it makes that goal a little more complicated.

Not to worry. Consider this your go-to guide for Amazon PPC — one of the most effective ways to get potential customers to view your listings.

For starters, what is Amazon PPC? Let’s cover the Amazon PPC basics. It is a pay-per-click advertising platform that helps sellers make it easier to get eyes on their products. The seller pays a fee each time a customer clicks the ad and views the seller’s product page.

Types of Ads on Amazon

There are three different types of Amazon PPC ads that sellers can use. In order to have the most effective Amazon PPC strategy, you need to choose the one that’s right for your products. Here are the different PPC campaigns and when you should use them:

Sponsored product ads promote a specific product to shoppers who search using specific keywords or view similar products. These are best for targeting a single item within your catalog.

Sponsored brand ads promote a collection of products to customers using keywords. These are best when you want to promote a group of products that fall under the same brand.

Sponsored display ads promote a product on sites other than Amazon. These are best for targeting customers who have shopped for similar items.

How to Do Amazon PPC

When you’re setting up your PPC ad campaign, Amazon will walk you through the process step by step. First, you’ll have to choose from the list above to sponsor a product, a brand, or a display. Then, you can choose which product or products you want to promote and set the budget and time limit for your ad campaign.

These choices seem simple, but choosing wisely will help you optimize your Amazon PPC strategy for the greatest return on your investment. When launching a product, it’s unlikely that your PPC will be profitable at first, so you should view it as an investment in future growth. Balance the budget according to a reasonable advertising cost that you’re financially comfortable with.

How Much Does Amazon PPC Cost?

Amazon recommends a daily budget of $10 for PPC ads. It’s also a good idea to leave your end date open. Combined with automatic keyword targeting, this will give your product the greatest chance of being seen by potential customers whenever they shop. If you’re sponsoring a brand, you can also add a logo and a custom headline.

For larger PPC campaigns, you can choose to build an Amazon store. A wide range of prebuilt templates, tiles, and widgets make customizing your store easy, even if you don’t have any previous experience building websites. Once you’ve created your campaign, shoppers will start seeing and clicking on your ads.

Amazon PPC Tips and Tricks

If you’re sponsoring a single product, your ads will launch as soon as you finalize the campaign’s setup. Sponsored brands and stores will launch after a short moderation review period. In any case, there are several factors that impact how soon you’ll begin seeing a return on investment from the campaign.

The ultimate goal is to be as price and review competitive as the page-one performers. The more data you collect through your PPC campaign, the more precisely you can tailor future efforts to build more profitable campaigns. For each one, remember to follow these tips to ensure you’re getting the most out of your efforts:

1. Focus your keyword strategy. Data from your PPC ads will show you which keywords are bringing in the most conversions. But keyword performance can be erratic sometimes, so make sure you’re tracking that data regularly. Shift your focus if a keyword becomes less profitable, and focus on targeting the ones with high conversion rates more aggressively.

2. Position your ads strategically. The data your campaign generates can also show you where your ads consistently deliver the best conversion rates. With this information, you can position your ads for the most strategic value.

3. Budget for enough time. Amazon PPC campaigns are not meant to be overnight successes, which is why you should never set an end date during the setup. It takes time for Amazon to figure out the best way to deliver your campaign. Be patient, and as the campaign’s performance improves, so will the data you collect.

4. Measure more than one metric. PPC involves many different metrics, so you shouldn’t judge performance on a single one. One bad metric doesn’t mean the entire campaign is ineffective. Instead, make decisions based on the overall performance of the campaign.

What makes any ad campaign work is understanding how to reach potential customers most efficiently, which means understanding how they shop on Amazon. Amazon PPC ads give you access to the infrastructure and data you’ll need to gain that understanding faster. Now that we’ve covered the Amazon PPC basics, it’s time to learn more. Enroll in the FREE Amazon PPC course today.

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