Paid advertisements on different platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Instagram have taken over the eCommerce space in recent years because of their detailed targeting capabilities. These sponsored posts allow sellers to reach customers in key locations such as social media feeds or SERPs (Search Engine Result Page).
Amazon PPC sellers can present Amazon customers who are ready to transact — and then measure their ads’ performance to identify which specific ads are driving conversions. Now, it is time for online sellers to understand how they can advertise directly within Amazon to reach new customers through pay-per-click campaigns.
What is Amazon PPC?
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click advertisements. The concept, created in 2002, is nothing new in the online advertising industry. The purpose of PPC advertising is to increase traffic to websites. This works by an advertiser paying a publisher (Amazon, Facebook, Google) whenever a consumer clicks on the ad.
Advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market and only pay when customers click on their ads. This model assures advertisers that their content achieves tangible results and charges them fairly for the campaigns they are running. By tracking different key PPC metrics such as attributed sales, impressions, clicks, or advertising cost of sales (ACoS), advertisers can assess how effective their campaigns are. Aiming for an ACoS lower than your profit margin is the objective of Amazon PPC as the lower the number, the better.
What Makes Amazon PPC So Unique?
Amazon PPC, introduced in 2012, is slightly different from other PPC models because it will never drive users away from the Amazon website. Unlike Google or Facebook advertisements, where advertisers may try to draw traffic to their website, Amazon advertisers are always bringing shoppers directly to their Amazon page or product. Amazon PPC also offers a variety of ad types that can cater to brands with different strategies, audience sizes, or levels of experience.
Additionally, Amazon PPC is unique because the sales generated will directly influence a product’s organic ranking. This means that if you advertise a fast-selling new product, it will naturally rank higher and become more visible to customers even without advertisements. Within Amazon, a high ranking equals high visibility which translates to more sales.
Why Should I Use Amazon PPC?
Using Amazon PPC ads is the most effective and fastest way to get your brand’s product to the top of Amazon’s search results page to generate more traffic. Not only will it result in a boost in sales, but it will also improve your organic visibility by creating trust and reputability within Amazon’s algorithm. Additionally, Amazon PPC ads will create brand awareness for new product launches, prevent competitors from snatching top positions and sales, and increase the visibility of products for seasonal trends. While Amazon does offer other types of advertising, PPC ads are the best way to make sure that customers see your product in their search results.
The Different Types of Amazon PPC Ads
Consider how much revenue you will earn in sales for every dollar you spend on your ads. Thus, you should consider your Return on Ad Spend (RoAS). Certain ad types yield higher RoAS. Of the 79% of Amazon SMB sellers that advertise their products, 77% use Sponsored Products ads, 39% use Sponsored Brands ads, and 30% use Sponsored Display ads. Keep reading to learn more about these distinct types of Amazon PPC Ads to determine which kinds match your advertising goals.
Sponsored Products
These PPC advertisements mirror the ads running on Facebook or Google. Advertisers use keywords and product targeting to advertise individual products on the search results page, next to other products, or on a product detail page. When using Sponsored Product Amazon ads, it is important to understand the different keyword match types. Withing Sponsored Product ads, users have the option to run either manual or automatic targeted ads.
Manual Campaigns
Manual campaigns let you choose your targeted keywords and give you more control of the bid price as you can fine-tune your bids to maximize revenue.
Broad Match allows for the most exposure as a customer’s search term must only contain synonyms to your keywords at the least. This type of match allows for this keyword or synonym to be anywhere in the phrase.
- Keyword Example: “natural grain-free dog food”
- Search Query Match: “healthy food for dogs”
Phrase Match triggers when a customer’s search term contains your keyword in a sentence. For a phrase match, however, other words are still able to appear before or after the phrase.
- Keyword Example: “dog food”
- Search Query Match: “healthy dog food for golden retrievers”
Exact Match only occurs when a customer’s search contains the exact keyword you had targeted. As a result, this is the narrowest type of match and is likely to be the most relevant to a shopper.
- Keyword Example: “healthy dog food”
- Search Query Match: “healthy dog food”
Automatic Campaigns
This option is great for beginners because they are simple to set up and they bid on words you never would have guessed that customers search for. Automatic ads take away the difficulty of producing keywords and let you focus on other aspects of your business. In this type of ad, Amazon will automatically choose which keywords to incorporate into your ads based on specific search terms that it decides are relevant to your product.
Sponsored Brand Ads
Formerly known as Headline search ads, sponsored brand ads on Amazon use keyword targeting to highlight multiple products for a specific brand at once. Focusing on this type of ad will help sellers improve their brand personality reaching new audiences with custom headlines, videos, and images. This type of ad allows advertisers to include original video and photo content that gives a personal brand feeling and creates trust and authority from customers. Like sponsored product ads, sponsored brand ads also use keywords and offer broad, phrase, or exact matches.
Sponsored Display Ads
These PPC ads increase your campaign efficiency as they optimize for maximum conversions. Display ads appear in many places including product detail pages, search result pages, customer review pages, and Amazon-generated marketing emails. The targeting in this type of ad is entirely different from sponsored brands and product ads. Sponsored display ads target customers based on audience interests and shopping behaviors. There are three types of targeting options for display ads.
Product
This type of targeting allows advertisers to reach customers browsing related products or categories. It also allows advertisers to display their ads on the product pages of their competitors to try to capture a larger market share. Additionally, advertisers use this to sell complementary products for bigger purchases such as accessories. For example, if you sell batteries, you can target customers buying electronics that require batteries and place your ads on their pages.
Views
This allows advertisers to target shoppers based on their product view history. Your ads will display in front of shoppers who viewed your product (or a similar one) in the past 30 days but have not made any purchases.
Searches
This allows sellers to target shoppers based on their purchase behavior. This option helps advertisers increase their brand awareness and acquire new customers who may care for your product based on their shopping history.
How Much Does Amazon PPC Cost?
As described in the name of the ad type, advertisers only pay for their ad when someone clicks on it. This means that you are only paying when your ad is being utilized or at least viewed. Amazon charges no up-front fee to advertise and no monthly fee either. Advertisers can choose their budget and determine the price of their keyword bid amount. At first, it is important to choose only a few clever longer-tail (high word count) keywords to ease your ad spending. Doing so allows you to see what keywords work best for your brand. While it certainly depends on the industry, the average pay-per-click cost that an advertiser spends on their ad is about $0.77 on Amazon.
Get Help with Your Amazon PPC Campaigns!
Running ads on Amazon can be tricky at first. Help from an experienced digital marketing team can make a dramatic difference when getting started with Amazon ads. Whether you are new to selling on Amazon or want to increase your brand awareness on the platform, Premiere Creative is here to lead the way. We help Amazon clients find new customers through Amazon ads and maintain a professional presence on the marketplace.
The Premiere Creative team sets clear and realistic advertising goals and establishes well-structured marketing strategies that align with your business’s needs. Call (973) 346-8100 to learn more about how we help online businesses thrive in their industries.