You need to monitor your keywords and optimize your bids to make your ads run profitably. If you can automate all these processes, you can save a lot of time and effort, can’t you? 

Advertising automation can really help you streamline your Amazon ad management.

Besides, automating your campaign management will also give you precise results. 

This article tells you everything about how automation can benefit you as a marketer and helps you with techniques that can make you stand out in the competition. 

What to consider before beginning with automation

The problem with Amazon PPC campaigns is you constantly need to test and track them. But automation allows you to be productive and save a lot of time and effort – more about that later. 

You need to know all the aspects of your Amazon ad that you can automate. 

Here are the three key aspects of your Amazon campaign that you can automate:

• Bids
• Keywords
• Campaigns

Along with that, we’d suggest you track your campaign budgets so you can effectively automate your campaigns. 

Why should you automate your Amazon campaigns?

Amazon advances every day, and so does the competition. Therefore, any advertising efforts demand quick and precise results in an unprecedented way. And, automation helps you achieve just that. Besides, instead of monitoring and optimizing manually, you can focus on other activities, including product research, inventory management, and other activities of your business.  

Advertising automation can benefit Amazon sellers in multiple ways. 

Automation saves time

This is a no-brainer. Automation allows you to save time for engaging yourself in other productive activities that may help boost your business, apart from ad management. If you have a large portfolio of products and run multiple automatic and manual campaigns, you need to spend more time managing and optimizing ad campaigns. 

It reduces effort with built-in features

When you leverage automation and tools that can optimize your Amazon PPC campaigns, you can find insightful features that give you actionable data on existing campaigns. Let’s say these advanced Amazon optimization tools can suggest negative keywords depending on your target ACoS, help you find top-performing keywords from automatic campaigns, and suggest you take necessary actions. 

These built-in features help you launch, optimize, and scale your campaigns seamlessly.

Automation Improves scalability

The campaign’s scalability increases if you run and manage multiple campaigns without spending much effort and time. This would save you time in strategizing your advertising efforts.

It helps in documentation and data collection

Analyzing historical advertising data is helpful for creating campaigns. The search term report and targeting report are very helpful to advertisers. But, Amazon only allows access to advertising reports for 65 days and 90 days respectively. That means you should download all the data periodically or you will lose the historical data. 

On the flip side, if you use third-party advertising automation tools, you can access all your data from the time you sync your account to till date.

It operates based on a set of rules

There are two cases that arise if you change bids manually without automation. You lower the bid beyond a limit so that you no longer deal with many important keywords. The second case is where the bid goes higher than expected. In this scenario, the ACoS increases unimaginably.

When you automate the process of optimization, the system decreases or increases bids based on several pre-set rules. This helps you maintain an optimum ACoS and ensure that you do not omit relevant keywords. 

Optimizes round the clock

The automation mechanisms work round the clock without any break so that the reports and analyses are available at any time. 

Lowering the scope of human errors

When you are doing the PPC management manually, it is quite natural for mistakes to creep in. Unlike manual PPC management, automation does away with mistakes and false interpretations. 

Things to keep in mind before you automate Amazon ad campaigns

Before you automate the campaigns, there are certain steps you should follow to ensure your automation process runs smoothly. 

Fixing the goals

Setting a clear goal for your campaigns will help you create the right PPC strategies. These goals may include, increased brand visibility, more brand awareness, better organic ranking, improved market share, etc. 

Set the ad budget and closely watch the metrics

Keep in mind the budget. You also need to possess an understanding of the metrics you want to watch. Watching the metrics for some time will help you find what’s working for your campaign. This will lead to the refinement of your PPC strategies.  

Choose the right way to automate your campaigns

There are two ways in which you can automate your campaigns. 

Use an advertising tool like SellerApp to automate some of your PPC tasks. 

You can either optimize manually or go for automation. If you choose automation, you can also decide if you want to go with the defined rules or the machine learning algorithms. 

Difference between rule-based automation and machine-learning automation

A step-by-step guide to automating your Amazon PPC campaigns using SellerApp 

Now that you know the many benefits that automation brings to your Amazon ads, let’s see how to automate your PPC campaigns. Here is the step-by-step guide. 

SellerApp’s automation rules work based on pre-defined rule sets. You can automate your PPC using these rules. To begin with the automation, you need to:

• Log in to the Dashboard
• Navigate to “Advertising”
• Click “Automation”
• Select “Automation Blueprint”

You can either “Create from Blank” or “Choose from template”

Choose from Template

If you click “Automation Blueprint,” it will show three rule templates to choose from. They include:

• Increase visibility
• ACoS Optimization
• Budget Management

You can increase your product’s visibility by incorporating search terms that will gain you more impressions. You can use Keyword Harvester and ROI Optimizer to achieve this. 

ACoS optimization allows you to adjust your ad spending according to the performance of your keywords. It helps you boost your ROI while maintaining your ACoS. You can curb the wastage of money by optimizing negative keyword targets in your campaigns. You can use the feature called Money Saver to attain optimum ACoS. 

The third rule is Budget Management, which helps you use dayparting to optimize your campaign budgets. Dayparting helps you run your ads at the most optimal times of the day. You can use dayparting at the campaign and account levels. 

Create from Blank

Apart from choosing from the pre-set rule templates, you can also create your own rule from scratch. The “Create from Blank” option allows you to create your own rules or set different conditions for your campaign. 

Click “Create from blank” and add the relevant information about your new rule.

Final words

Automation minimizes your workload to a great extent. But you can not lean back imagining that automation will bring the desired results. It is always a good idea to review your campaigns at least once a week. Also, give the right suggestions to the automation system at the right time to gain maximum benefit. 

——

About the Author:

Arishekar is a multi-faceted marketing professional with a proven track record of success in the highly competitive e-commerce industry. As the Senior Marketing Director at SellerApp, Arishekar has been instrumental in driving the growth and success of the company. With over ten years of experience in digital marketing, he has specialized in areas such as SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing, making him a multifaceted marketing professional.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arishekar/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/arishekarn

Facebook is the third most visited website in the United States, right behind Google and Youtube. The social media giant is ahead of Amazon.com in terms of site visits, with over 5.3 billion visitors in October 2022.  

Globally, Facebook receives over 1.8 billion visitors daily. Therefore, it is one of the most active online platforms perfect for digital marketing campaigns, such as off-site Amazon Ads. 

Using Facebook Ads to Promote Your Amazon Products 

As of the current writing, there are 3 million businesses that are actively advertising on Facebook. In the last 18 months, advertisers using Facebook have doubled. Across all industries, the average conversion rate for Facebook ads is 9.21%. 

If you are an Amazon seller looking to enhance your Amazon Ads campaign, you can utilize Facebook Ads to your advantage. Here are some of the essential things you should know about Facebook Marketing Ads.

What are Facebook Ads?

Facebook Ads are one of the Facebook marketing tactics that online sellers and retailers use to promote their business on Facebook.com. A Facebook ad is a paid post that Amazon sellers and even Amazon affiliate marketers utilize to showcase their products and brand to selected Facebook users based on demographics, location, interests, and other profile information. 

How Do Facebook Ads Work?

Facebook Ads work by showing Facebook users or audiences ads based on their online activities. The ads will be shown to a particular segment of Facebook users based on the defined target audience chosen during the ad creation process. Hence, increasing the chances of engagement. 

Facebook learns the things users likely want to see. The information is primarily taken from the user activity on Facebook. Such activities include page likes, posts users liked, and comments users make. Facebook also learns audiences’ interests from some of the websites and apps they use.

In short, Facebook practices Internet-Based Advertising (IBA). Its algorithm collects data across multiple entities and uses it to tailor advertising based on preferences or interests known or inferred from the data collected.

Amazon.com likewise performs this type of advertising. Amazon ads are shown based on the interests of Amazon users. Similar to Facebook, Amazon also adheres to the framework established by the Digital Advertising Alliance. 

Different Types of Facebook Ads to Complement Your Amazon Ads Campaign

When using Facebook as part of your off-site Amazon Ads campaign, you have the option to choose from Facebook’s wide range of Facebook Ad marketing formats. Here are some of the Facebook Ad formats you can choose to promote your Amazon products to millions of Facebook users worldwide. 

Facebook Marketing – Image Ads

Facebook Image Ads is considered Facebook’s most basic ad format. As its name would suggest, it mainly uses a single image to promote products, services, or brands. Amazon sellers can use this type of Facebook ad to showcase strong visual content for their products. 

The key to a successful image ad is to use high-quality imagery. The images you can showcase via Facebook Image Ads can be in the form of photography, illustration, or graphic design. 

Facebook Marketing – Video Ads

If you find Facebook image ads limiting, you can try video ads on Facebook. Amazon sellers can create video ads on Facebook via Meta Ads Manager. This type of Facebook marketing ad campaign can help Amazon sellers showcase their brand easily. 

Using video ads on Facebook will require you to upload a 15-second video or less. You can use various video creation tools, including those offered by Canva, Adobe Online Video Editor, Veed, or Clipchamp. 

When posting your video ad on Facebook, ensure that you convey a simple, direct, and clear message to Facebook users that can lead them to take action, including buying a product, sign-up for a newsletter, or visiting your website.

Facebook Marketing – Messenger Ads

Another Facebook marketing strategy to help extend your Amazon business’s reach is creating Facebook messenger ads. If you use Facebook messenger ads, you can capitalize on the multitude of Facebook users actively using Messenger. It is estimated that about 1.3 billion people use Facebook’s messenger app every month. 

Facebook Marketing – Carousel Ads

Facebook Carousel Ads are highly suggested for sellers who want to show off multiple products. If you are an Amazon seller with multiple listings, you can use carousel ads as part of your off-site Amazon Ads campaign. 

To actively engage Facebook users, you will need to create a carousel that tells a compelling story that develops across cards. Such an approach will encourage your target audience to swipe through each card to see more of your ads. 

Facebook Marketing – Stories Ads

Like Facebook Messenger Ads, you can create ads on Facebook stories. If you wish to reach your target audience in a full-screen and more immersive environment, you can try Facebook Ads in stories. 

Facebooks Ads Campaign Objectives

Online sellers and advertisers must choose the most appropriate advertising objectives to keep Facebook highly effective. Identifying the best Facebook Ads campaign objective for your business will inevitably influence the outcome of your Amazon  Ads campaign. 

To give you an idea of which type of Facebook Ad you will need for a specific business goal, you should familiarize yourself with the six new ad campaign objectives on Facebook. You can refer to the table below to help you choose the right objective for your off-site Amazon Ads campaign. 

Table Source: Meta Business 

Overview of How to Create Your First Facebook Ad

Creating your first Facebook Ad can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to navigating the ad center interface. To give you an idea of how to create a Facebook Ad, below are the steps you need to take, along with a step-by-step video guide by Meta for Business: 

STEP 1: Set up a Facebook Business Page.

STEP 2: Create an Ad Campaign.

STEP 3: Choose your ad objective.

STEP 4: Define your target audience. 

STEP 5: Choose your ad placement. 

STEP 6: Set your budget and duration.

STEP 7: Create the ad creative.

Combining Facebook Ads With Amazon Seller Tools 

Amazon Ads on Facebook are something Amazon sellers should consider for improved store engagement and conversion. You can capitalize on Facebook’s millions of active users to promote your brand or products.

With the help of the tips and insights discussed above, you can start using Facebook Ads for your off-site Amazon Ads campaign. However, you should not solely depend on Facebook Ads to increase lead generation and conversion, for there are other marketing tools and strategies you should also consider. 

Some of the Amazon seller tools that can go along with your Amazon marketing campaign include but are not limited to keyword research tools, feedback software, an Amazon repricer, data analytics tools, and more. These seller tools can efficiently complement your Amazon marketing campaign. 

Most Amazon sellers allocate a lot of money on advertising which makes sense since it’s one way to get ahead of other sellers. What are Amazon Video Ads?

Amazon looks closely at your product page, but what happens if potential customers can’t find it? Amazon video ads are showcased to relevant searches and can appear on the search page results.

Customers can view your ad without needing to be on your store page or clicking on an actual listing. This video is perfect for increasing conversion and reducing bounce rates.

Amazon Ads can help you gain more exposure by driving customers to your product pages. It’s also another way to possibly help improve your conversion rates. Because when customers watch your video, it helps them better understand your product, and it’s a good way to convince them to purchase your product.

What are the Different Types of Amazon Videos

Amazon has several types of videos available for sellers. Learning how to maximize these videos can help improve their sales.

Video Ads

First is the video ad that appears on product search results. It can be found when you scroll down in the middle of the page. Another is if you go to the next page of the page result. You’ll be able to find it at the bottom.

Product Video

Another type is the Amazon product video, which you can find in a listing as part of your listing photos. Before, you needed to be part of the Brand Registry, but now it is available for all sellers.

Video Section

The third type is the videos on the video sections within your listing also. This type of video can be uploaded from a buyer’s account and not from the seller’s account.

There’s no maximum number of videos you can upload, and you can also control the placements. You can even create those Canva slideshow videos and place them in the first spot, so it’s not your competitor’s videos that are displayed. It’s really a good way to get free clicks and advertisements within your own listing.

How to Create Low-Cost Amazon Video Ads

A lot of sellers make the excuse of not having enough budget or that it’s too time-consuming to create one. Now, you won’t have an excuse because I’m going to show you how you can create an amazing Amazon Video ad for less than $50.

So, of course, before you can create a product video, you should have done your product research on sites like Alibaba and have the sample with you.

1. After you’ve decided on the product and you received the sample with your packaging, you will need at least one or two people to help you. It can be your partner, your sibling, your friend, or even your child if you’re working with toys.
2. You need to explain to them what they need to do before they unbox the product. Then let them explore and unbox it naturally to make it look realistic. It doesn’t have to be perfect. If they didn’t open the box as you instructed, you can stop and ask them to do it again.
3. You don’t also need an expensive gadget to shoot videos. Your iPhone or Samsung phones have amazing quality, especially the latest ones. Next, make sure that you shoot the video with your phone horizontally. This way, you can get 1080p quality.
4. Don’t worry about speaking while filming because the video editor can remove the sound for you. So, you can speak and give them instructions while you shoot.
5. After taking the raw video, you can create a folder in your Google drive. To keep your files organized, you should have a folder for each product, so you can also find them easily when you need to check them in the future.
6. Once you have uploaded the raw video to your Google Drive, you can share it with your video editor. Once you find the right video editor, share the link to Google drive.
7. You can also make a video to explain to them what you want them to do with the raw video. This way, it would be easier to understand what you want them to do with the video.
8. Lastly, don’t forget to inform them about Amazon’s guidelineson videos so you won’t have problems in the future.

You see, it’s not that hard to create an Amazon Video Ad, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Most of the time, shoppers appreciate those videos that are simpler than those that professionals do.

I can share more tips with you about Amazon video ads on my Sourcing Monster website, which you can find here.

How to Find a Good Video Editor

Suppose you haven’t worked with a video editor before and are clueless about how to find one. Below are some tips on how you can search for a good but affordable video editor.

1. Since we’re looking for a way to save money, you can begin your search on Fiverr. Find those that are within your budget.
2. When searching, aside from the price, you should also consider their rating. Go for those with five-star reviews.
3. Check their portfolio and their previous work and see what they can offer. Check the quality of their work.
4. Another thing to consider is to find those with unlimited revisions since there will be times that you need to go back and forth to revise it.

If you’re happy with their work and wish to work with them in the future, you might as well take care of them. For example, you can give them a little bonus as a token of appreciation. This way, they will be more motivated to work hard and create amazing videos for you. Also, it makes hiring them for the next projects a much faster process.

Conclusion

Creating Amazon video ads doesn’t have to be expensive and time-consuming. As long as you have a mobile phone with a great quality camera and know how to find an affordable video editor, you can create amazing video ads that convert.

Utilizing Amazon video ads can significantly increase the changes of higher conversion rates. But be sure to follow Amazon guidelines so all your efforts will not go to waste. Also, keep the videos short, informative, and straightforward so shoppers will enjoy watching them. If they get value from your videos, they are more likely to buy your product.

——

About the Author:

I’m Tomer from Sourcing Monster, owner of an Amazon FBA brand with experience in e-commerce for 14 years. My passion started when I was young, and I’ve been programming since age 12. When I was 14, I opened my 1st online business, which was a hosting company. At 16, I left school to pursue my dreams full-time by working at a start-up company until now, where I have experience in e-commerce and marketing.

In addition to my own success on Amazon, I also teach other sellers how to succeed on this platform through my website and YouTube channel, Sourcing Monster, where I share videos about sourcing products from China and running successful online businesses.

Since new buying habits are formed by consumers now and then, it is beneficial to understand Amazon advertising trends in 2022. This means that Amazon advertising campaigns should likewise adapt to the consumers’ new way of living to impact your overall Amazon campaign.      

Factors Affecting Consumer Buying Habits in 2022

A change in a consumer’s buying pattern indicates a lifestyle change. With the threat of COVID-19 looming in the background, more and more shoppers choose to purchase online rather than brick and mortar stores.

Health and safety have become a priority for shoppers. Hence, changing the way they interact with the consumer industry. 

Along with safety concerns, customers have changed purchasing habits because of the multiple purchase platforms made available by technology. Due to lockdowns and quarantine protocols, access to physical stores has become more limited.  

In turn, this led consumers to find alternative means to purchasing goods. Traditional shoppers turned to online shopping for convenience and accessibility. Therefore, highlighting the omnichannel aspect of the consumer and retail industry. 

Why Amazon Advertising Matters

Although Amazon ranks third to Facebook and Google Ad platforms, it is constantly growing with a reported 52.5% increase in 2020.

Apart from the growing popularity of Amazon ads among brands, the tech giant is also known to have a higher conversion rate than Google ads. In terms of analytics, Amazon advertising has a more user-friendly interface, making it an ideal platform for retailers.   

Amazon Advertising Trends in 2022

In line with the shifting customer purchasing behavior, numerous Amazon advertising trends have been observed in the past few months. Knowing some of these advertising trends and facts provides better insight and understanding of the correlation between your Amazon business and advertising. 

• Personalized Advertising

All across the globe, companies, brands, and entrepreneurs are recognizing the power of personalized advertising. Even Amazon acknowledges the influence of this advertising trend by introducing Amazon Follow as an email marketing portal.

Unlike previous years where advertisers and business owners simply relied on target keywords, the trend has now shifted to a more personalized approach to engage customers. 

Personalized advertising easily improves customer experience, increases brand loyalty, and drives revenue by identifying which medium customers engage with.

• Social Media Advertising

Another trending option for your advertising campaign in 2022 is social media advertising. The social media platform has become highly monetized and suitable for implementing conversion strategies. Thus, it is unsurprising that social media ad spending is projected to reach over $230 billion in 2022.

To give a starting point for your social media advertising campaign in 2022, you can start with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In particular, Facebook can help you meet specific advertising goals, including the following:

Brand Awareness: If you wish to extend the reach of your Amazon business and increase brand awareness, Facebook Ads can help you get your brand or product in front of potential customers. 

Consideration: If your advertising goal is for consumers to consider your product, Facebook ads can help drive traffic to your product detail page or Amazon store. Facebook advertising can help increase lead generation through interesting and relevant Facebook content. 

Targeting: Another feature social media advertising is known for is targetting. Your Facebook ad can be customized to target specific regions, demographics, and other data-driven audiences or targets.

• Video Advertising

Amazon is likewise cognizant of the benefits of video advertising for an online business. That is why they recently incorporated video platforms and interfaces within their platform. 

The use of video on an online selling platform tends to generate higher engagement rates as compared to static ads. This medium is considerably more versatile than traditional ads. Thus, worth considering for your Amazon ad campaign. 

Video advertising outside Amazon is also a good avenue for a product or brand advertisement. The increasing interest of consumers, social media users, and content creators with TikTok, Instagram Stories, and Facebook Reels, is expected to boost social media video ad spending up to $183 billion this year.

• Content Visualization  

Visual content in your advertising campaign can significantly improve your Amazon advertising goal. Visual content is a powerful way of catching consumers’ attention, for images or videos can best tell a story compared to written words. 

Furthermore, integrating visual content into your advertising campaign in 2022 can also result in using less ad space. Thus, potentially decreasing your advertising expenses. 

An excellent example of visual content you can utilize is infographics. The visual representation of your product or business through infographics helps you quickly and clearly communicate complex information.

• Mobile Advertising

Another trend that could help boost your Amazon advertising campaign is mobile advertising. Since smartphones are more accessible than desktop or laptop, more and more people spend time using them for their online activities.

A testament to the power of mobile advertising and marketing, it has been reported that 63% of brands’ most significant ROI is through mobile ads, while 40 percent of Amazon sales are attributed to mobile users. 

With that in mind, advertising campaigns should be optimized to fit in with the mobile platform’s interface. 

• Rewarded Video Ads (Gaming) 

Mobile video ad spending is forecasted to grow to 53.9 billion in 2025. Both small-medium businesses and giant corporations are maximizing the benefit of mobile video advertising, especially on gaming apps.

You can maximize the impact of this advertising approach, especially since almost 70% of players like this ad format. Try to focus on ad design and customization to increase your ad campaign’s conversion rate. 

• Banner Advertising   

Banner advertisements are considered one of the first types of digital marketing that started popping out on the online scene in 1994. Contrary to what others assume, banner ads are not dead. They simply evolved.

You can use banner advertising in 2022 to retarget prospective customers to entice them to purchase your Amazon products. Be sure that banner ads are location-focused and contain CTA to increase conversion rate.  

• Increased On-Platform Amazon Ad Spending

Another noticeable Amazon advertising trend is the increased spending of sellers and brands in Amazon’s advertising solutions. Amazon now seats third largest digital advertising business after Google and Facebook, with “1 in 3 sellers plan to increase ad spend in 2022.”

The majority of the ad expenditures are spent on sponsored brands and products. Therefore, suggesting that most of the sellers are allocating a budget for on-platform Amazon ads to boost their campaign. 

• Strategic Advertising

Business owners have become more strategic when it comes to Amazon advertising. Unlike the previous years, where Amazon ads are seen almost everywhere, sellers now choose platforms that give the greatest Return On Advertising Spend (RoAS).

Most of the brand owners shared that Sponsored Products generate the greatest RoAS, which is why it is worth considering optimizing Sponsored Products to reach more audiences and increase sales conversion rate. 

Do not Forget the Basics of Amazon

The purpose of engaging in Amazon advertising is to increase store engagement and sales conversion rate. However, you should not neglect other basic components of your Amazon business, including the following:

Product Details: One of the factors influencing a customer’s purchasing decision is your product detail page. In order to convince customers to buy your product, you should provide a clear, concise, and accurate description of your product.

Image Quality: Another important factor that affects a customer’s decision are the images you use in your listing. Make sure that the photos you upload are high-quality images and adhere to Amazon image guidelines. 

Keywords: In order for your Amazon listing to appear on organic search result pages, you should use appropriate keywords. Keyword research is crucial for keyword optimization. 

Reviews: Amazon shoppers normally refer to customer feedback to assess your product and customer service. It is a must to provide the best service there is to obtain favorable reviews that will also impact not just customers’ perception, but also Amazon’s algorithm. 

Price: Since price drastically affects customers’ behavior, competitive pricing is essential. In order to achieve convenient and efficient price optimization, the use of an AI repricer is highly recommended. An automatic AI Amazon repricer will help ensure that the item price is automatically adjusted based on the current market situation, competitor’s behavior, and price change notifications. 

Stay in the Loop

Maintaining your presence on Amazon is critical. Apart from the fundamental optimization guidelines mentioned above, you should also be immersed in the Amazon advertising space to create more impact for your Amazon brand or business.

The current Amazon advertising trends will continue to shape how sellers and shoppers interact. Therefore it is always important to stay updated on what is new and what should be implemented when it comes to Amazon ads. 

However, if done the wrong way, it can prove costly and reverse your marketing efforts. In this article, we’re going to discuss some of the mistakes that sellers make with Amazon advertising and what you can do to avoid committing them. 

What is ROAS?

In the world of Amazon advertising, ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is one of the key metrics used to measure the performance and efficiency of a campaign. It is the metric by which you can calculate the amount of money generated or lost from the amount of money invested into a campaign. It is the inverse of ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales).

ROAS is calculated using this formula:

ROAS = Total revenue from ad spendTotal ad spend OR ROAS = 1/ACOS

Top PPC Mistakes to Avoid for a Good ROAS

Using the right ad types according to your objectives

Launching PPC campaigns should always align with your business goals. Sellers use various strategies to ensure the success of their campaigns. But choosing the wrong ad type can be detrimental to improving your campaign ROAS as well as your long-term profitability. 

Amazon has 3 different ad types – Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display. Each of these serves a different purpose and helps you achieve different goals. 

For example – if you’re looking to build brand awareness and visibility by achieving more impressions and are less focused on increasing sales, then Sponsored Brand ads are better than Sponsored Products. Sponsored Brands should be used to target customers at the top of the sales funnel, whereas Sponsored Products work best for improving conversions. 

Remember, it is important to have a well-planned long-term strategy. This lets you understand and analyze which customers clicked on your ads and at what point of their shopping journey, along with the right ad types. On the whole, this helps improve your ROAS overall. 

Regular bid optimization

Your bidding strategies need to be constantly checked on as it is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of concept. How much you bid changes according to the time as well as during peak shopping season when you will have to bid more aggressively for a particular keyword because of high competition. If you bid too low or moderately, you can lose out on important sales to your competitors. At the same time, if you’re bidding too high, it means your ACoS will be very high, and your ROAS will be low. Optimizing bids need to be done frequently along with monitoring them, preferably on a weekly basis if not daily. 

Measure the right KPIs

When it comes to measuring the performance of your ads, there are several important ad metrics – impressions, clicks, conversions, CTR, CPC, etc. However, analyzing all these metrics for all campaigns will do you no good. You need to measure KPIs depending on your campaign goals. You may see high numbers, but if they’re for the wrong performance indicators, you’re not going to know if you’re on the right track in terms of your business goals or not. 

So how can you know what KPIs to focus on? 

Many sellers think that a high conversion rate and clicks are good. But if you notice that your CTR is low, it is an indication that you’re missing out on optimizing several other crucial factors. On the other hand, if you’re looking to increase your brand awareness and exposure, then a high CTR and clicks are good indicators. 

Ultimately, many advertisers want to achieve a high ROAS. While you may have achieved this, if your ad spends, on the whole, doesn’t take into account the profitability of your product, it is an indication that your overall profitability and revenue are moving on a downward trajectory. 

To ensure a good ROAS overall, you need to always ensure that you’re looking at the bigger picture and focusing on your brand/company’s long-term goals.

Targeting the right audience and relevancy 

Amazon Sponsored ads are known to be useful in reaching a wide audience. However, targeting a wide audience is not always as fruitful as targeting the right audience, however large. Your ads have to be relevant to the shoppers you’re trying to attract. Otherwise, you’re spending your precious ad dollars with the chances of a low ROAS. To remedy this, what you need to do is define your goals, as this will help you define the right kind of traffic that is guaranteed to convert better. 

Amazon Sponsored ads allow geo-targeting so that you can target your ads to specific regions where you’re most likely to get high-converting traffic instead of targeting an unnecessarily large audience. Another method to ensure a good ROAS is with dayparting so that your ads run only at times of the day when your target audience is most likely to shop. 

In terms of keywords, make sure you focus your research on forming a list of negative keywords because they help you cut down on wasted ad spending. Also, for a good RoAS, many sellers often forget the importance of long-tail keywords. These have better conversion rates as they bring in shoppers who are searching for a very specific product and hence are high-converting. 

Strategy, structure, and Sponsored Brand ads:

While optimization and automation are important, sellers need to focus on sustainable profitability and adopt ad structures and strategies that facilitate this. While running PPC campaigns, sellers need to remember that they need to drive their profitability without spending a lot of money on making a sale profitable. 

Another important thing is to focus on improving organic ranking and traffic side by side with PPC. Keeping this in mind, after a thorough analysis of different ad types and structures, Sponsored Brand ads have been noted to generate a ROAS that is higher than the other two ad types. 

Automation with SellerApp for a good ROAS

The SellerApp advertising suite comes with automation features that allow you to optimize your campaigns for a high ROAS. With the ability to create custom rules from scratch by defining the conditions for which you want to set triggers, you can optimize your bids and control ad spending. 

You can also choose dayparting for your ads or choose from pre-defined rule templates for automation. The three rule templates – Keyword Harvester, ROI Optimizer, and Money Saver help you. The Money Saver helps with negative keyword targeting by optimizing bids for keywords that bring in low conversion. 

The ROI optimizer lets you set a target ACOS and ROAS so that your bids are optimized for the most potential campaign keywords so as to help you achieve your goals easily. The Keyword Harvester allows you to optimize your bids in such a way that you reach relevant customers and increase conversions, impressions, and visibility for your products. SellerApp automation is a safe way to ensure your campaigns are on the right track to achieving a good ROAS. 

Final thoughts

As stated earlier, Amazon PPC offers a range of benefits to sellers but make sure you tread carefully, especially while structuring your campaigns and optimizing your bids. While automation software may be slightly pricey, it can help you save your money by ensuring that you don’t make costly mistakes. 

Don’t lose sight of your brand and company goals and structure, and deploy your campaigns accordingly. Regular monitoring and optimization are important. As long as you are on top of your campaigns and don’t forget to check on their performance and progress regularly, you are sure to be on the right track to PPC success. 

——

About the Author:

Arishekar N, Director of Marketing & Growth at SellerApp, is a specialist in digital marketing, in addition to website keyword optimization for search engines. His areas of expertise include enhancing the organic & paid ranking of web pages on search engines with innovative SEO & SEM strategies and online promotions.

Online Advertising for Amazon Sellers: Why Advertise on Amazon?

What Is Advertising

Before we delve deeper into Amazon advertising, it is best to refresh our knowledge on advertising and how it differs from marketing. In brief, advertising pertains to the process of promoting a company, brand, product, or service through paid channels. On the other hand, marketing is the process of knowing what consumers need and identifying the best approach to suffice such needs. Simply put, advertising is a component of marketing. 

Different Methods of Advertising

Advertising has evolved over the past decades. There have been hundreds of methods through which companies, brands, and sellers have advertised their products. Here are a few examples of these advertising methods. 

Print Advertising: Print ad is one of the widely consumed types of advertising. Whether it is via periodical advertising, brochures, handouts, leaflets, or direct mail, print advertising never fails to engage the majority of consumers.                        

Guerrilla Advertising: This is an advertising strategy that is unconventional in nature. This advertising method makes use of multiple techniques and approaches to establish direct contact with consumers. Some of the examples of this type of advertising include the use of creative stickers, stencil graffiti, and reverse graffiti. The main goal of this advertising method is to elicit emotional reactions among consumers and to get them to remember the product being advertised. 

Online Advertising: Online ads or digital advertising is the most prominent advertising method in today’s day and age. With the introduction of computers, smartphones, and tablets, a lot of consumers are spending more time on digital mediums. 

Therefore, making online ads a more effective method for online sellers. That is why top Amazon sellers invest and advertise on Amazon as part of their digital marketing campaigns. 

Advertising on Amazon: Amazon Sellers FYI

For successful Amazon sellers, Amazon advertising is among one of the key methods contributing to business growth. Amazon sellers should consider advertising on Amazon this 2021, because of the advantages it offers. To help you understand more about Amazon advertising and its impact on Amazon businesses, here are some important points to remember. 

What is Amazon Advertising?

Amazon Advertising is a service provided by Amazon to help Amazon sellers grow their business through advertising plans aimed to deliver the best possible Return on Investment (ROI).    

The main advertising model it follows is that of the pay-per-click (PPC) model. Its mechanism is similar to Google’s pay-per-click ads, where sellers will only pay when an online user clicks the ads. This method is directly opposed to pay-per-sale (PPS), which is predominantly utilized by eBay. 

Advantages of Advertising on Amazon                                                                                              

Value for Money

When you advertise on Amazon, you are only competing with Amazon sellers. Unlike when you advertise with Google and/or Facebook, where you have to compete with other sellers from different platforms for limited advertising space. Because Amazon sellers do not have to compete with multi-channel sellers for advertising space, Amazon advertising is relatively cheaper.              

Amazon advertising is worth the price, especially since the majority of online shoppers use Amazon for their product searches instead of Google. 

Captured Audience

Those who use Amazon for their product searches are likely to buy as compared to those who use Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. With the latter options, the majority of the online users are potential browsers and not potential buyers. 

Increased Visibility and Sales

Perhaps the most important benefit Amazon sellers obtain when they advertise on Amazon is increased visibility and sales. With the help of specific Amazon advertising services, your brand, product, and even Amazon store will get more attention as compared to those who do not use Amazon ads. 

With increased visibility, store engagement will also improve. Hence, influencing your Amazon Buy Box win rate, and ultimately sales conversion rate. 

What Are Advertising Options for Amazon Sellers?    

To give you a headstart when it comes to Amazon advertising, here are some of the highly suggested and easy to use Amazon advertising solutions:

Sponsored Products: If you want an individual product to appear on shopping result pages and product pages, then Sponsored Products is best for you. 

Sponsored Brands: If you wish to showcase your brand and product portfolio through brand logo and custom headlines, then Sponsored Brands is the ideal advertising solution for Amazon sellers.    

Sponsored Display: If you are interested in reaching the right audience for your Amazon business while staying in control of the advertising campaign, try self-service Sponsored Display.

The options mentioned above are not the only advertising solutions available for Amazon sellers. If you wish to advertise on Amazon, they offer an array of advertising solutions, including but not limited to, Amazon Attribution, Amazon DSP, Amazon Live, and Audio ads. 

Is Amazon Advertising a Must-Try in 2021?

If you are serious about growing your Amazon business this year, Amazon advertising is a must-try Amazon seller tool. Similar to Amazon repricers, product research tools, and keyword research softwares, Amazon’s advertising will help boost your business potential.      

Amazon advertising is highly effective due to Amazon’s access to necessary data. Unlike other online advertising tools and services, Amazon advertising has more defined access to customer behavior, demographics, and other crucial information. With over 300 million users on Amazon.com alone, Amazon sellers will never run out of ad targets for their advertising campaigns.  

As the volume of offline sales has started to drop during the pandemic, the adverse impact of COVID-19 has motivated people to incline towards digital marketing. Consumer behavior has changed the role of e-commerce and online sellers should take more responsibility to fulfill consumer demand.  

Being the largest e-commerce platform in the world, Amazon has a major part to play in managing the present crisis and creating a comfort zone for loyal customers. To tell the truth, Amazon has succeeded in creating a notable customer base in the middle of COVID-19, and more and more people are turning towards its product range for safer and secure online purchases.

Effective Amazon Sellers Advertising Tips

Following are the most appropriate Amazon Sellers Advertising Secrets that go quite well to increase the volume of potential customers during the worst possible scenario!

1. Go for the Right Product at the Right Time

It’s a reality that the sales graph has come down drastically under the influence of the coronavirus. It has led plenty of Amazon sellers to launch more product variations as consumers feel more comfortable placing orders while sitting at home. Therefore, if you happen to be a seller and prefer marketing your products and services through Amazon, you need to adopt a decent Amazon advertising strategy. You have to take a deep look at your product range and stack them in order of consumer preference.

It may surely happen that some of your products will be classified under a priority group (high in demand). It may then require an aggressive PPC campaign. If you are successful in doing so, you will definitely be the first among equals amidst fierce competition. Likewise, in the case of a low demand product category, your bid should go down a bit, and you can even defer your Amazon ads for the time being till the position improves.

2. Shifting the Ad Budget to the Right Product List

It is in human nature to stock essentials because of the crisis. Online consumers are no exception during the present pandemic. They always make sure that their ordered products are delivered on time. However, with the frequent use of Amazon FBA, the customers’ expectations have been managed remarkably, and a delay in shipment by a day or two is well accepted.

Even so, a delayed shipment on account of uncertainty always creates a bad impression and affects the ultimate product conversion rate. As per the Amazon advertising strategy, the sellers need to assess the gravity of the situation. Consequently, they must consider moving their assigned budget to those products that bear positive reviews and maintain a high inventory level.   

3. Groundwork for Inventory and Shipping

The sellers, who are affiliated with Amazon, should plan their stock in advance otherwise they will face logistic issues that will surely hamper their business in the near future. During this phenomenal pandemic scenario, one of the Amazon sellers’ advertising secrets is to ensure to check the inventory levels of brand items related to the high demand category. The Amazon sellers need to foresee the demand and maintain the stock and decide their bids accordingly.

4. Look for the Right Opportunity to Launch a Product

The present extraordinary situation has prompted some Amazon marketers to go for such brands, which are frequently preferred by online customers. This idea might encourage new sellers to make use of the current situation on the Amazon e-commerce platform with a perfect Amazon ad campaign. Therefore, it’s high time to launch a new brand with a high level of inventory and capitalize on the market situation. Amazon PPC can be of immense help for your error-free decision making.

5. Go for a Data-Driven Approach

Your Amazon advertising strategy may face a setback unless you apply proper analytics so as to utilize every penny of your investment. Proper planning and a logical approach will certainly enable you to optimize your ROI. 

It is always recommended to find answers to the following questions:

• What is the present buying trend?
• Is a specific brand item or a product tagged with an SKU high on demand? 
• Have you sufficiently refilled your inventory level to meet the contingency? 

As a seller on Amazon, you can always access Amazon ad campaign reviews to go through the customer data. It can be a useful ploy to change things at various levels to maximize the outcome.

6. Interaction with the Target Audience

Though money matters the most as you step into the world of the vast e-commerce platform of Amazon, yet that’s not all. As per Amazon sellers’ advertising secrets, creating a strong customer base cannot be overlooked while optimizing your PPC campaign. A fruitful online communication with your dedicated customers through chatbots will be an added advantage to know the current market trend. Spending a reasonable time with your valued customers will help you a lot to increase your brand positioning.

Make use of your marketing budget to connect with AI-driven social media channels to float your Amazon ads and also deliver high-quality SEO content to attract more traffic to your business website for a successful brand presence.

The Bottom Line

It’s needless to say that in the present circumstance, when COVID-19 has become a dominating force in our lives, a majority of marketers tend to slash their budget and prefer to stay inactive. However, you should never allow these ideas to enter your mind because it can be fatal to your business goals, resulting in reduced web traffic and lean product conversion.

Using the advertising resources on a limited budget is very difficult to handle during the hard times of the prevailing pandemic. Fortunately, you have an expert team from Amazon, and the team members are always available 24×7 to give a useful insight to launch your advertising campaign.

——

About The Author:

Kamaljit Singh is the Founder and CEO of AMZ One Step and a former Amazon seller. Kamaljit has been featured in multiple Amazon podcasts, YouTube channels. He has been organizing meetups all around Canada and the US. Kamaljit has over 250,000+ views on his Quora answers regarding FBA. Kamaljit also founded AMZ Meetup, where he organizes conferences for Amazon sellers.

With the introduction of new advertising solutions, such as Amazon ads, online advertising has become highly relevant and more personalized to online shoppers worldwide. Online ads are utilized by online sellers to increase traffic, visibility, and sales conversion rate of their online stores and businesses. 

By advertising online, new products, or brands that lack visibility and followers can easily gain exposure. Amazon advertising solutions, for example, serve as a springboard for new Amazon products to be catapulted into the consciousness of Amazon shoppers.      

Online Advertising in Numbers 

Similar to eCommerce, online advertising is yet to reach its peak. In fact, it is expected that this year, global digital spending will grow up to 2.4%, according to emarketer. Hence, making it ideal for sellers to delve deeper into Amazon advertising solutions as early as today. 

It is also projected that in 2021, spending for online or digital advertising as a whole will increase up to $389.29 billion. And such spending equates to 17% growth in digital ad spending worldwide. 

With the projected increase of online ad expenditure in the coming years, it only shows how critical online advertising is in today’s landscape. In relation to consumer response, it is estimated that almost 50% of consumers are influenced by online advertisements and are likely to make purchases after seeing online ads. 

Amazon Is More Than Just A Store

Online sellers should recognize that Amazon is not just your ordinary eCommerce platform that offers products to consumers. People tend to forget that Amazon, with its advanced A9 algorithm, has become a search engine. 

In its own right and capacity, Amazon is now the largest search engine for eCommerce. With 54% of product searching taking place on its platform from 2015 to 2018, Amazon can be considered as the second largest search engine next to Google.    

With that in mind, online sellers should understand and adopt the new dynamics of Amazon. Online sellers should see the value of Amazon as a holistic channel for marketing and advertising. Importance should also be given to its advertising solutions that are triggered by queries on Amazon’s search engine. 

Getting to Know The Amazon Ads Solution

If you wish to improve the visibility of your Amazon products, drive sales, and increase the revenue stream, product advertising is immensely important. Whether you are a newbie seller or not, you should consider Amazon’s own advertising solution before exploiting other external advertising campaign tools.          

Amazon encourages Amazon sellers to launch new products with Amazon Sponsored Ads. Since shoppers go to Amazon to browse and discover new products, advertising with Sponsored Ads will provide a seamless introduction of products to new audiences. 

With 75% of shoppers using Amazon to discover new products or brands, it is crucial for sellers to take advantage of it, especially when introducing new products. That is why the Seattle-based company suggests two of its popular Amazon ad formats, namely the Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products.

Amazon Ads: Sponsored Products Overview

Sponsored Products campaign is one of the Amazon store ads that sellers should use when introducing new inventory items in the Amazon marketplace. As an Amazon advertising tool, Sponsored Products is a form of cost-per-click (CPC) ad that promotes individual product listings on Amazon.                                                                           

As an Amazon advertising solution, the tech-giant guarantees that using Sponsored Products will require no previous advertising experience. Thus, suggesting the ease of use when it comes to this kind of Amazon ad solution.

How Does Sponsored Products Work? 

When using Sponsored Products, the product ads will appear in shopping results and on specific product pages. Through this method, shoppers can easily take notice of your new products. 

Amazon US: A screenshot(cropped) Amazon store search result; Retrieved: Sept. 16, 2020, From https://amzn.to/2H37JMV

As a direct consequence of improved product visibility, Sponsored Products help increase sales of your Amazon store. This happens because Amazon buyers who are looking for items using Amazon as a search engine will be notified of your new item through ads, directing them to your product page. 

What makes Sponsored Products efficient and effective is its automatic targeting feature that allows Amazon to match your ads to specific shopping queries and product searches. In terms of monetary cost, since it is a CPC campaign, you will only pay when customers click your Amazon ads. 

If you wish to get started with this type of Amazon advertising solution, you may CLICK HERE. 

Amazon Advertising solutions: Sponsored Brands Overview

Amazon takes into consideration Amazon sellers who are trying to build their brand and not simply sell products on the platform. For that matter Sponsored Brands is suggested to professional sellers enrolled in the Amazon Brand Registry.

As an Amazon advertising solution, the Sponsored Brands are also cost-per-click (CPC) ads, similar to the Sponsored Products Amazon ad. What differentiates this Amazon advertising solution from its counterpart is that it appears on relevant shopping results in the form of a custom headline showcasing brand logo and multiple products. 

How Does Sponsored Brands Work? 

The goal of Amazon sellers who utilize this type of Amazon ad campaign is to drive awareness and discovery of their brand and product portfolio. Through customizable ads appearing on relevant shopping results, Sponsored Brands help improve brand visibility.              

Sponsored Brands do not only help in brand awareness, for they also promote product awareness. When an Amazon buyer searches for what to buy on the Amazon marketplace, your custom headline appears on the search result showcasing both the brand and product. See image below –

Amazon Advertising: A screenshot(cropped) of an Amazon search video; Retrieved: Sept. 16, 2020, From https://amzn.to/3c7n9LM

If a shopper decides to click on the product advertised in the custom headline, the Amazon shopper would then be led to the Amazon product page. Such a process makes it ideal for introducing shoppers to new products from Amazon sellers. 

Just like the Sponsored Products ad, sellers also have control over the cost of such an Amazon advertising campaign. You only pay when an Amazon shopper clicks your Amazon ad.

Sponsored Brands is ideal for Amazon sellers who want to provide shoppers an immersive environment that is all about their brand. If you wish to get started with this type of Amazon advertising solution, you may CLICK HERE.  

For a better understanding of ad format and functionality, you can check Amazon’s sponsored ads creative acceptance policies. 

Exploring Other Amazon Seller Tools For Maximum Efficiency

What makes Amazon a convenient platform for online selling is the array of Amazon seller tools available online. Apart from the advertising tools and solutions mentioned above, you may also utilize other Amazon seller tools to boost your Amazon ads campaign. 

To give your product or brand advertising more impact, make use of Amazon repricers to automate product pricing. With the help of a repricer, you can achieve a dynamic repricing strategy that will aid in enticing shoppers to click on your Amazon store ads.