The 12-Point Comprehensive Guide to Amazon PPC

It is estimated that there are over 5 million marketplace sellers on Amazon. 2 million of these are on Amazon.com alone. Amazon is truly an amazing business opportunity, however, with more and more sellers joining all the time, it takes skill and guile to stay ahead of the pack. One method that will raise the profile of any seller is an Amazon pay per click campaign.

How can this bring attention to your products? Is it worth investing time and money? Why not read our in-depth guide below to find out. 

1. What Is Amazon PPC?

If you have worked with Google PPC marketing methods, then Amazon PPC will be very familiar. Advertisers bid for keywords in the Amazon ecosystem. Products listed by the purchaser of these terms will appear as sponsored products amongst the natural search results. 

Since this is PPC advertising, advertisers will only pay if a person actually clicks on their advertisement. Interestingly, since this is an auction, the winning bid will only cost one cent more than the previous bid.

2. An Overview Of PPC Advertising

PPC campaigns have been around in one way or another for almost 20 years. Google, of course, started the ball rolling. However, in 2012, Amazon entered the PPC market by allowing the use of sponsored products and advertising on its sites. 

A key difference between Google and Amazon is the rating given to vendors. Google will value the vendor based on its click-through-rate, whereas Amazon will value vendors based on how profitable they are.

3. Is Amazon Advertising Worth It?

This is a question that is often asked by beginners. The short answer is yes. The long answer is the rest of this article. In truth, there are many reasons why advertising with PPC is beneficial for your product. But it really does bring traffic to your product.

A key advantage of Amazon pay per click is that they already have a huge stream of traffic to their sites. This means that you are simply looking to redirect their existing traffic to your products not generate it from zero.

4. Organic Sales Vs. PPC Sales On Amazon

As you may have learned from search engine marketing, organic (or natural) sales and paid sales work differently from one another. Organic sales are found without any sponsoring. It is simply the result of the customer’s personal research. 

PPC sales are the result of a specific advertising campaign by the vendor to promote his goods. 

5. Seller Central Vs. Vendor Central

There are two types of sales platforms on Amazon, one is for sellers, the other for vendors. 

Seller Central

This is the original mom-and-pop style store that sells goods from the seller’s business. 

Vendor Central

This is for larger companies. For this reason, it has access to a broader range of advertising and marketing services. 

6. Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) Vs. A+ Content

Sellers in the seller central section can use tools from Amazon Enhanced Brand Content. However, if one is a vendor they gain access to A+ content. This means that they can create more creative eye-catching advertisements. They can do this with images and charts to create more persuasive advertisements. 

7. Automatic Vs. Manual Campaigns

Automatic campaigns give Amazon permission to decide when to display your product based on information pertaining to the product. This could mean the title, description and so on. 

In a manual campaign, the user defines the keywords and how much will be bid. This means that they choose whether to select only high yield words or to mix high and low. 

8. The Three Amazon Ad Types

Sponsored Brand Ads

These will appear typically in search engine results. They represent the top of the funnel and attract attention to products before they have defined exactly what they want. 

Product Display Ads

These are used to direct users to alternate or related goods. These are known as “bottom of the funnel” advertisements as the customer has located the items they are interested in.  

Sponsored Product Ads

These advertisements appear multiple times during the customers journey. They will lead them from the search engine results page (SERP) to the product. they are by far the most popular type of advertisement.

9. Amazon PPC Keywords & Match Types

In PPC campaigns, keywords are king. If a customer searches for a term that matches your keyword (which can actually consist of multiple words), your result will show. therefore it is very important to invest in strong keywords. 

You can define whether it should be an exact match, a phrase match or broad match. Like Google PPC advertising keywords are auctioned and higher demand keywords will cost more money. However, if it brings in the customers you are looking for it might be worth your investment. 

10. Amazon PPC Strategy For Beginners

If you are looking for a high yield, rewarding first campaign many experts would recommend that you take our sponsored product ads.

These can appear in headline search ads and adjacent to search engine results and product detail pages. They are reported to have a conversion rate of 10% which is pretty good for your first campaign. 

11. All About ACOS 

ACOS means Advertising Cost of Sales. Calculating your ideal ACOS is a large subject by itself but here is the basic method of calculating it. 

The ACOS formula basically consists of Total Ad Spend ÷ Total Sales.

This might seem like a simple measurement, however, this is a metric that tells you a lot about how you should advertise and how to bd on keywords. Improving your ACOS is a worthwhile goal.

12. How To Get Your Amazon Ads To Rank Higher

If you would like your Amazon ads to rank more highly, start with the simple basics. Focus first on your product page optimization before anything more complex. 

Of course, good reviews will help you and negative reviews will not. Therefore aim to be honest and helpful in advertising. Ensure that you remove anything that will create misunderstanding and consequently bad reviews. 

Amazon Pay Per Click and Much More

If you are looking to employ tools such as Amazon pay per click campaigns to boost your profile and sales, then we are here to help. We leverage our significant experience in the Amazon ecosystem to provide guidance and tools so that you can do this. 

Why not follow our blog to see the latest in Amazon product sales trends and what we can do to help you.