Amazon Sponsored Product Ads:
Ultimate Guide to Amazon Advertising
There’s nothing quite like the convenience of shopping on Amazon. With a quick search, you can find nearly anything, from books to toiletries, to electronics, and even food — with competitive prices to boot! Because of its vast array of products, Amazon is incredibly popular with consumers! The site has millions of active customers searching for their next purchase, making it a great place to start advertising!
But like any decision, it can be hard to take the plunge and decide to start advertising on Amazon. That’s why we’ve written this article for you! To help you navigate the ins and outs of advertising on Amazon.
Are You Ready To Get Loved By Amazon?
Let’s break it down.
First - what are Sponsored Product Ads, exactly?
“Sponsored Products are cost-per-click (CPC) ads that promote individual product listings on Amazon.”
Sponsored product ads are a great way to get your product in front of new audiences. These types of ads integrate into the organic search results nearly seamlessly! Often, consumers won’t even know they’re looking at sponsored advertising. This is great for new products that may not organically rank very high in the search results, like new products that don’t have the popularity you need yet.
The best part is that campaigns only take a few minutes to launch!
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s discuss your Sponsored Product Campaign and how to get it up and running.
Should I use Amazon Sponsored Product Ads?
The short answer is most likely, yes! If you’re an e-commerce business today, then Amazon is one of the best places to advertise. Amazon sponsored ads work very similarly to Google Ads, but using Amazon will allow you to reach a whole new subset of users. You may want to investigate this option if you have a new product you want to increase sales for.
How do they work?
First, you’ll want to begin your campaign by selecting “Sponsored Products.” (Amazon does have other advertising options so you’ll want to be sure you select the right one. Next, give your campaign a name, choose what products you’d like to advertise for and then you’re off to the races!
But like any decision, it can be hard to take the plunge and decide to start advertising on Amazon. That’s why we’ve written this article for you! To help you navigate the ins and outs of advertising on Amazon.
Your Competitors Aren't Waiting!
So Why Should You?
1. Campaign Duration
The first thing you’ll want to do is decide how long you’ll want your ad campaign to run. For instance, if you’re selling beach towels, you may want to increase the spending on your campaign in the summer and dramatically decrease or stop your campaign as the seasons change.
2. Choose Your Keywords
Think about your product and decide which search terms people may use when looking for similar products. You can also let Amazon automate this and match your ad to “relevant search terms.” If you choose to go down the manual route, you’ll have a couple of options for how Amazon matches your terms.
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Broad Match: This is exactly what it sounds like. Broad match will show your ad to customers if their search terms broadly match your keywords and gives you the most exposure.
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Phrase Match: This will only match when customers’ search terms include a series of keywords that match yours.
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Exact Match: This is the most restrictive but also the most likely to drive conversions. If customers searched your terms exactly, they most likely have a very high intent to buy.
You can also add negative phrases. These will ensure that your ads are not shown if a searcher uses said keyword. For example, if I was selling luxury bath towels, I might use the word “beach” as a negative keyword. This is because I don’t want people to see the ad and click on it, costing me money if they were looking for beach towels and not bath towels.
3. Set Your Bid and Daily Budget
The Daily Budget is the maximum daily amount you want your ad to cost you. This is great because it allows you to control your spending, so you’re never met with a surprise bill. You’ll want to set your bid next. The bid is the amount that you’re willing to pay per click. Amazon offers three strategies: “dynamic bids - down only, dynamic bids - up and down, and fixed bids.” You can find their definition of each below.
a) “For dynamic bids - down only, Amazon may reduce your bids in real time for clicks that are less likely to convert to a sale.”
b) “The dynamic bids-up and down strategy may increase your bids for more-promising clicks that have a higher chance of leading to a sale or reduce bids for clicks that are less likely to convert.”
c) “With fixed bids, Amazon will only use your exact bid throughout the campaign.”
After you’ve set up everything, your ad will be up and running! You just need to monitor your campaign to make sure it is working.
You’ll want to make sure you’re getting bang for your buck. Make sure that the keywords you’ve chosen are working. If you find that certain ones are performing much better than others, you can drop the ones that aren’t working so well. You’ll also want to ensure your daily budget isn’t limiting your conversions! If you could reach more customers and sell more products by advertising to more people, you don’t want to limit that.
On the other hand, if you’re not reaching customers you may want to increase your bids to ensure more customers see your ad.
The most important thing to remember is to keep monitoring and adjusting if things aren’t going according to plan. Your products will still need to be appealing if you want shoppers to click on your ads! Amazon suggests tips and tricks that will help you ensure your ad is not only seen, but clicked on.
You’ll want a strong product detail page with a compelling title and incredible images of what you’re selling to really draw the buyer in. Also, make sure that the information around your product is easily accessible! For example, try using a bulleted list of your products best features instead of a large chunk of text.
There are some requirements to advertise using Sponsored Product Ads on Amazon.
To use PPC advertising you need to have the “buy box” on your product page. Amazon provides some guidelines for becoming eligible for this:
“Your offers are eligible for the Featured Offer if you have a Professional selling account. Check your current account type if you’re not sure and upgrade if required. To ensure that customers have a great shopping experience and to guard against abuse, we remove eligibility based on account performance and other risk factors.”
Overall, advertising on Amazon is a great way to reach new customers and increase your sales. But like any tool, you need to know how it works and any possible pitfalls you may encounter. But if you do your research (and you’re already on the right track!), you can use Amazon ads to increase your conversions drastically
