If you’re an Amazon seller, you’re likely familiar with the challenges of running effective Amazon advertising strategies.
While setting up a campaign might seem simple enough, the real test lies in optimizing it for maximum visibility, efficiency, and performance in the highly competitive marketplace.
Unfortunately, many sellers make costly PPC mistakes that eat into their profits without yielding substantial returns on their investments.
Even if you have an exceptional product and a compelling listing copy, you could miss out on significant opportunities without a solid Amazon PPC strategy.
This guide delves deep into advanced Amazon advertising strategies that will set you apart from the competition.
Start at the Bottom and Work Your Way Up with Keywords
If you’re new to selling on Amazon or launching a new product, it’s challenging to compete with big brands right away. If you try to target high-volume competitive keywords with huge competition, you’ll most likely spend money without getting many impressions and sales.
Instead, it’s better to have 2-3 seed keywords and, along with that, target some long-tail keywords. These are more specific phrases and have less competition.
By targeting these keywords, you can increase your chances of getting on top of search rank and generating sales. You can target more high-volume keywords once you build decent brand awareness and your product ranks higher on Amazon’s search results.
For example, let’s say you’re selling a water bottle. Instead of starting with a generic keyword like “water bottle,” you can begin with more specific phrases like “heat-regulated aluminum water bottle.” These long-tail keywords will have less competition, making it easier for your product to get noticed.
Once you’ve gained some initial sales using long-tail keywords, gradually target more general keywords. In the case of the water bottle, you can start using keywords like “plastic water bottle” or “sturdy water bottle.” This way, your product will become more visible in search results and associated with popular search queries.
You can target the most popular and generic keywords in the final phase. For example, you can target keywords like “water bottle” or “black water bottle.” To get better results, run multiple Amazon Advertising Strategies at this level and experiment with different types of keyword matches to see what works best for your product.
Remember, it’s crucial to choose keywords that are relevant to your product at each stage. Otherwise, you might spend money on ads that don’t bring you any sales. So, take your time, start with specific keywords, and gradually work your way up to more general ones to maximize the potentia of your Amazon Advertising Strategies.
Related content: How to Master Amazon Keyword Optimization
Improve Keywords Ranking One by One
Analyze your automatic and manual ad campaigns, identify your top-ranking keywords, and note their positions on Amazon’s SERPs.
- If your product ranks beyond the fifth or sixth page on Amazon, focus on a select group of (3-4) high-converting keywords instead of trying to boost multiple (15-20) keywords simultaneously. With this, you conserve your budget while focusing on the keywords that generate more sales.
- For the third or fourth-page ranking products, adopt a more balanced strategy. Keep bidding consistently on the top-performing keyword, and see which keyword generates more sales. Then optimize your ad campaign around these keywords. Over time, Amazon will organically lift your product’s ranking for these keywords as conversions increase.
- When your keywords rank on the first or second pages, it’s time to take a more aggressive approach. Since you’re close to top spots, bid aggressively to outpace the competition and win the top ranking on Amazon SERP. At this stage, also focus on bidding on variations of these high-ranking keywords to expand sales potential. Create a separate campaign with these keywords, and set the match type as “phrase” to cover as many variations as possible.
Once the flywheel kicks in for the keyword and the product ranks organically in the top 5 positions, target some other keyword with high conversion rates. The goal is to individually bring multiple keywords into the top 5 organic rankings. It will reduce your ad spend and maximize your total ROAS.
Pro tip: Keep an eye out for keywords that generate clicks but don’t contribute to sales. Add these as negative keywords to reduce wasted ad spend.
Allot a High Budget for Peak Conversion Times
Go to the sales dashboard in your Seller Central account and identify the exact days and times when your products get the most conversions.
For example, take a look at your business report for the past three months, and sort the data to find peak sale days.
The above example shows that Monday and Tuesday get the maximum sales. Additionally, look at the sales trend on the sales dashboard to understand the times and days the product gets the most conversions.
From this sales graph, you can easily understand that the maximum sale happens for the product between 2-11 am.
With such data, you can set up a high ad budget for these peak hours to optimize budget utilization and reduce wasted as spend.
Bid for Top of the Search Placement for Branded Keywords
Identify and bid on branded keywords in your campaigns to maximize conversions. These keywords usually have low competition, thereby, a low CPC but a high conversion rate.
Also, if the product already ranks on top of Amazon SERP, stop running ads on them to conserve the ad budget and move the budget to other campaigns.
Note: If in the initial stage of product launch, you can improve brand awareness by bidding aggressively on high-volume non-branded keywords to get the top of search placement.
Structure Ad Campaigns Based on Performance
When a keyword does well in an automatic campaign, you switch it to a manual campaign. This lets you control your bids and daily spending better.
But with this strategy, it can be tricky to control the overall ACoS of the campaign.
So, instead of creating campaigns based on keywords, create a campaign based on how well a product performs.
Here’s an example: You’ve got a group of five products for your ads. Two have an ACoS of 50%, and the others average around 20%. Those two products with the higher ACoS raise the whole campaign’s ACoS.
So, moving those two products into a different campaign could be a better idea. Doing this gets you a couple of benefits.
- First, your original campaign’s overall ACoS would be reduced.
- Second, it gets easier for you to spend less on ads and make your PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns better.
Ultimately, Amazon’s A9 Algorithm checks things like CTR and sales to decide where you rank your product. If you keep all your products in one campaign, their performance is averaged out. But if you arrange them based on product performance, it looks better to the algorithm.
Target Self Products with Product Targeting
Another effective advertising strategy is to target your own products with product-targeting ads. This is especially effective if you have a portfolio of multiple products, some of which may be performing well while others have poor visibility and conversion rate.
Create product targeting campaigns with your underperforming products to target the top-performing ASINs. The idea here is to display ads for low-performing products on the top-performing product pages.
This strategy serves two main purposes.
- First, it improves the visibility of your low-performing products, attracts more potential customers, and increases the chances of generating sales for the underperforming products.
- Second, if the low-performing products complement the top-performing ones, you can leverage the opportunity to upsell the low-performing product and generate more sales.
This targeted approach lets you strategically promote your products on Amazon and increase your PPC campaigns’ overall performance and profitability.
Final Thoughts
There you have it – an array of advanced Amazon strategies that’ll help you grow your business multifold in 2023.
As you can see, success on Amazon requires a combination of trial and error and dedicated efforts to secure top positions in search results.
From keyword optimization to ad placement tactics, the key is to leave no stone unturned as you equip yourself with the knowledge you need to conquer Amazon.
However, there’s no need to tackle this challenge alone. Leading Amazon agencies like AMZ Advisers and SellerApp can assist you in developing comprehensive Amazon advertising strategies.
We provide professional assistance in creating result-driven Amazon ad campaigns. Our certified experts have a proven track record of helping thousands of sellers expand their business on Amazon.
Author
Arishekar N is the Senior Marketing Director at SellerApp. With over ten years of experience in digital marketing, he has specialized in areas such as SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing. Arishekar possesses a deep understanding of the e-commerce industry. His marketing strategies are always backed by data-driven insights, ensuring that his campaigns are highly targeted and effective.