If you are an Amazon Seller I am pretty sure you have heard, used or learned about PPC. (Pay-per Click)
This is the Amazon advertising platform that helps you increase sales, and rank faster for certain keywords.
All this sounds good, but the problem is that it is not as easy to create and maintain a low ACOS that allows you be profitable.
Today, I want to go over an extremely important second step that is PPC Management or Optimization.
As a pay-per-click (PPC) advertiser, you want to know how to optimize PPC campaign. After all, you want to get the maximum return on investment (ROI) from your advertising efforts.
Otherwise, you risk wasting a lot of time, money, and effort on advertising campaigns that earn you little in brand awareness, leads, or sales.
Where to start?
Look into the PPC report. It will provide an extremely valuable data full of keywords that have been typed into the search bar by your potential customers.
Optimize Keywords
To optimize your keywords, consider following these steps:
- Perform Keyword Research.
Research the most beneficial keywords for your brand. This will also help you better understand your target audience and how they’re looking for your content, services, or products.
For example, “blue jeans” is a generic keyword with a much higher search volume as compared to “blue skinny jeans for men.” However, the latter is more relevant if you do sell blue skinny jeans that are designed for male customers.
It is challenging to determine the best-performing keywords when you have a huge list of keywords. That’s why many amazon sellers use the Helium 10 software to identify the most significant keywords on their own and on competitors asins.
2.Pause the Low-Performing Keywords.
Sometimes a single keyword can hurt the performance of your entire PPC campaign. That’s why it is crucial to pay close attention to keyword performance on a weekly, if not daily, basis. A handful of low-performing keywords can make you lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
It is recommended to pause all keywords that aren’t getting any results. However, if your keywords are somewhat performing but not at the level you want, it’s best to look at the following things before pausing.
- Segment by “Top vs. Other” – Consider segmenting your keyword’s performance to observe whether an ad position outranks the rest. Often, paying a premium to be at the top position isn’t profitable. You may find that the “sweet spot” for maximum clicks and better revenues lies in lower ad positions.
- Search Terms Reports- study the PPC reports to determine what search queries users are typing in and which of them are matching with your keywords.
For instance, say you’re creating a campaign about “boys’ jeans,” and you use the keyword “boys’ jeans” as a broad match type in your campaign. However, you see that the terms like “skinny jeans for boys,” “blue jeans for boys,” and “striped jeans for boys” are performing better than your original keyword. In such a scenario, you should pause the keyword “boys’ jeans” as it is underperforming.
3. Create a List of Negative Keywords.
The search terms report helps you identify which keywords to add as negative keywords. It shows the actual terms that users searched for, which both triggered your ad and resulted in a click.
Identify irrelevant keywords in all these sections, and add them to your negative keywords lists as they only generate impressions and wasted clicks – but no conversions.
For instance, you have a broad match keyword “men’s jeans,” and the search term include “skinny men’s jeans,” “blue jeans for men,” “skinny jeans for women” and “jeans for women.” Now your ad is related to men’s jeans, but some irrelevant search queries like “skinny jeans for women” and “jeans for women” are triggering it. Add those keywords to your negative keyword list, as this will save your ad from being triggered for the irrelevant search terms.
Similarly, look for themes around products or services that you don’t offer, and the names of your competitors.
4.Choose the Correct Match Types.
Restricting your keywords too much might limit traffic, so try to keep your keywords as broad as possible and layer them with Smart Bidding. A broader keyword can help machine learning technology prioritize the best performing keywords regardless of their match type.
You already know that after set up your first campaign, you will want to get as much insight as possible to ensure that the money you spend on your PPC campaign is a worthwhile investment.
Guidelines for CPC Optimization:
- If your current ACoS is higher than your ideal ACoS, you’re spending too much. It’s perfect for lowering your bid to check if you can lower your expenses without harming your sales.
- If your current ACoS is lower than your ideal ACoS, you have more money to spend. It’s best if you increase your bid and check if your ad reach can significantly improve.
- If your keywords do not receive any impressions, you need to check the product category and make sure that what you have entered is correct and that your keyword is included in your list. If everything is right, you need to increase your bid and check if placing a higher bid will make the keyword “active.”
- Suppose you have keywords that are not making any sales for an extended period and remain unprofitable after lowering your bid. In that case, it’s ideal for removing them from your campaign and placing them in your negative keywords list.
Conclusion.
You will have to run continuously your PPC campaigns to be successful. Amazon market works on the same principle as entire economic market system. You need to have visibility in order to get sales.
Do you remember how sellers used to argue for a place on the entrance gate of the market, because those situated at the end of it were getting less visitors.
Same here. If your listing can be found on page 8 it won’t bring you too much customers.
PPC is the solution to appear in front of your potential customer on the very first page. But remember you need always optimize and manage your PPC strategies according to the data you can collect after running the ad for at leat 5-7 days.
At this point, you have 2 options.
The first one is to learn to manage and optimize the PPC campaigns by yourself . CHECK HERE how to do this.
Alternatively, you may hire an agency that will handle everything for you.
If you are interested in finding out how it works you can FOLLOW THIS LINK and schedule a free meeting with our PPC Manager .
Amazon PPC has never been an easy job, and most probably will never be, but you may always choose what suits you best and run a successful Amazon business..