Amazon Advertising Strategy The COMPLETE Guide
- Amazon Advertising strategy is crucial for Amazon Seller Central and Vendor Central sellers to run ads both on and off of Amazon through many different ad types.
- Amazon Advertising has platforms that accommodate sellers with a budget as low as $1 a day in Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Display Ads to over $35,000 annually in the DSP. (Dconsemand Side Platform)
- An Amazon Advertising Strategy is the first step Amazon Sellers take to grow their sales along with Amazon SEO, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing & Amazon Influencers.
Whether you’re selling Amazon FBA, Amazon B2B, Merchant Fulfilled or Seller Fulfilled Prime through Seller Central or Vendor Central, you would agree that there are lots of costly mistakes to be made by having the wrong Amazon advertising strategy.
These mistakes can put a lot of time and distance between you and selling.
By having a powerful Amazon Advertising strategy you’ll be able to increase Amazon sales and reduce ACoS on Amazon,
You’re going to learn EVERYTHING you need to know and get my EXACT Amazon advertising strategy as an Amazon Seller myself and as a top-rated Amazon Consultant for over 10+ years.
How To Advertise on Amazon
You can advertise on Amazon with your Seller Central account, Vendor Central Account or KDP account.
Seller Central and Vendor Central sellers access the advertising console directly through their Seller Central or Vendor Central accounts.
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) sellers advertise on Amazon through the Amazon Advertising Console outlined in the Amazon Advertising Console section.
The process of how to advertise on Amazon is simple.
- Log in to Seller Central or Vendor Central
- Click on Advertising and Select Campaign Manager
- Click the Yellow Create Campaign Button
At this point you will be presented with options including the types of ads you want to run such as:
It will look like this:
From there, you will be selecting:
- Which products you want to advertise
- Budget
- Bidding strategy
- How to target customers
This is where you’re likely asking: “Right, but how do I select each one to get the most sales?”
To make these decisions we need to consider our goals such as:
Now, ofcourse everyone’s goals are to get sales.
But are you in a position to get sales or do you need to also build awareness to get the most sales?
Not just build awareness that your product and brand exists, rather that your product provides superior value while solving the customers’ problem or fulfilling their desire.
So you need to ask questions like:
- Should we even be advertising yet?
- Do we have a product that people know they need and now they are just looking for the one with the most reviews and best price that will offer them the best value?
- Do our target customers understand why our product is different and better than the competitors or do they have to click on the listing and read our description, view our images or watch our video to figure that out?
- Do we have enough reviews to be competitive yet for each type of ad?
- Do our target customers understand that we solve their pain point or fulfill their desire?
- Do the customers on Amazon searching for these types of products know they have the problem that we solve?
- Do we have the price as well as the quality and quantity of reviews to compete with the existing products at the top of search listings to take away clicks from them?
This is how to make an Amazon advertising strategy that will improve your Amazon Sales Rank straight from your top-rated Amazon Consulting source.
Amazon Advertising Strategy
The best Amazon Advertising Strategy starts like this:
- Identify buyer intent keywords
- Make your listing as good as it possibly can be using Amazon Listing Optimization
- Make sure the keywords that you are targeting appear on your listing front end or back end.
- Make sure your price is competitive.
- Have a system in place to get Amazon reviews as you’re running ads.
- Consistently drive traffic from off of Amazon onto Amazon to your product listings
- Build a buzz off of Amazon about your brand & products
From there, it then gets into the finer points of setting up your campaigns and adjusting them.
Let’s look at each component involved in Amazon Advertising.
Should I Use Keyword Targeting or Product Targeting For Amazon Ads?
- Always have keyword targeting campaigns, whether your goal is to drive awareness or sales.
- Use product targeting campaigns to show your ads on well-known products that are similar to yours if your potential customers are not aware of your brand or that there is a better way to solve their problem or fulfill their desire.
What Keyword Match Type Should I Use For My Amazon Ads?
You have 3 choices.
Broad Match: Amazon will show your ads for keywords similar to the keyword you’ve entered.
Phrase Match: Amazon will show your ads for keywords added on before and after the keyword you’ve entered.
Exact Match: Amazon will show your ads ONLY when a customer searches for EXACTLY what you’ve entered.
That said, you want to use a combination of all of these.
If You Are Just Getting Started: If You Are Good At Keyword Research:
- Run one ad group with exact match and phrase match keywords in it.
- Then, regularly view your reports to identify new keyword opportunities from the Search Terms
What Is The Difference Between Keywords and Search Terms?
This is the easiest way I’ve found to think about this:
Keywords are topics to make sure you show up for the terms customers type into the Amazon search engine.
Search Terms are the literal EXACT term that the customer typed into the Amazon search engine and you were triggered to show up for that search term by the keyword you selected.
This is because customers don’t use search engines with proper grammar or syntax.
Generally, they’ll type loose approximations in broken sentence structure to try and find what they need.
It gets more convoluted if they are using voice-search.
This is where Amazons’ a9 algorithm comes into play to interpret the “search terms” and tether them to “keywords”.
What Are The Best Keywords For Ads?
The best keywords for Amazon ads are buyer intent keywords.
Think about how you search.
When you want to learn what options there are out there to solve the problem you have or to fulfill your desire, you search for things like:
- Pontoon Boat Accessories
- Pontoon Boat Cover
But if you’ve already figured out what you want and now you want to find the right one for your needs, you search for things like:
- Propane Pontoon Boat Grill With Railing Attachment Mount
- 18 Ft Pontoon Boat Cover Trailerable Blue
Should I Exclude Broad Keywords From My Amazon Advertising Strategy?
No, definitely not.
The most common question I get is “what are the best keywords to sell?” and the answer is buyer intent keywords.
But, if you have a complex product, people aren’t aware that your solution exists or you need to build brand awareness, then less targeted broad, research type keywords are exactly what you need.
A proper Amazon Advertising Campaign should have a mix of both.
How Can I Find Keywords For Amazon Ads?
I mentioned earlier that Helium 10, Seller Labs or Jungle Scout have tools that will show you what keywords your competitors are indexed for and are running ads on.
You’ll get lists you can export like this:
Those are great, but in the lists that you get, they have buyer intent keywords and research keywords.
But did you know that Amazon itself will give you buyer intent keywords?
Here’s how it works:
Step 1) Head to Amazon.com and start typing in a keyword that you think customers would use to find your product.
See the drop-down list with those keywords?
Those are buyer intent keywords.
Those are the keywords that Amazon has identified that:
- Get a lot of searches
- Get a lot of sales
Step 2) Repeat that process for every single keyword you believe people may type in to find a product like yours and then make a list.
Don’t have that much time?
Keyword Tool Dominator makes this quicker & easier.
Here is how it works:
Step 1) Enter the keyword that you want to discover buyer intent keywords for.
You will get a list like this:
That’s 90 keywords you wouldn’t have thought of in 1 second!
Step 2) Repeat that process for keywords you believe customers would type in to find and buy your product.
You’re done.
It really is that simple.
How to Structure Amazon Advertising Campaigns
You may have 1 product or you may have 20,000+ products.
In my experience, the closer you can get to giving each product it’s own campaign, the more impressions you will get.
This works because it consolidates the types of keywords or products that it targets, and this tends to produce the most impressions.
You can separate out colors, sizes, various other factors in Ad Groups.
Here is an example Amazon advertising ad campaign setup:
What Should I Name My Amazon Advertising Campaigns?
Name schemes will be entirely different based on what you’re selling and how many items you’re selling.
I like to use this name scheme:
How To Structure Amazon Advertising Ad Groups
The easiest way I’ve found to think about Ad Groups in Amazon Advertising are these are where you target your customers.
You have 2 main objectives when setting up your Ad Groups.
- Create as many ad groups as it takes to isolate out particular unique identifiers that customers are looking for. (EXAMPLE: You don’t want to show blue t-shirt ads to people who are looking for green t shirts.)
- Consolidate the relevancy of your ad groups to get as many impressions for the most cost-effective cost per click. (EXAMPLE: The same keywords that do a good job selling a v-neck t-shirt will be quite a bit different than a crew-neck t-shirt.)
What Should I Name My Amazon Advertising Ad Groups?
As mentioned above, these are entirely dependent on what makes sense for you.
I like to use this name scheme:
- EXAMPLE: LARGE GALVANIZED ANTIQUE BUCKETS
- EXAMPLE: SMALL GALVANIZED ANTIQUE BUCKETS
Which Amazon Advertising Bidding Strategy Is Best?
You have 3 choices for bidding strategies.
Here is how Amazon describes them:
We’ll lower your bids in real-time when your ad may be less likely to convert to a sale. Any campaigns created before January 2019 used this setting.
Use this when you haven’t dialed in your When should I use this?: ACoS on Amazon yet.
We’ll raise your bids (by a maximum of 100%) in real time when your ad may be more likely to convert to a sale, and lower your bids when less likely to convert to a sale.
Dynamic bids — down only
Use this when you are happy with your When should I use this?: ACoS on Amazon.
We’ll use your exact bid and any manual adjustments you set, and won’t change your bids based on likelihood of a sale.
Dynamic bids — up and down
When should I use this?: You almost never see this. Use this if you don’t have many products to manage and you know the exact number of the cost to acquire a customer that you are not willing to go above.
Should I Use Automatic or Manual Keyword Targeting For Amazon Ads?
You should work to the point where you’re only using manual keyword targeting on your ads.
Fixed bids
This is because it means you know your customer and you are only advertising on keywords that you know your customers are using to make a purchase.
That said if you aren’t familiar with keyword research yet or are selling products where you do not know your customer as well, do this:
- Start with an automatic keyword targeting campaign
- Run it for a month or longer
- Make note of what keywords that make sense that you are converting on or want to convert on.
- Add those keywords to your Manual campaign as:
When Should I Use Automatic Targeting For Amazon Ads?
You use your Automatic campaigns as a tool to discover what keywords you should be running ads on.
After you’re in the ballpark, your Broad match campaign then becomes that tool for you.
After you’re really dialed in, you typically only run Phrase and Exact match campaigns.
It is worth noting 2 important points:
- You need a mechanism in place to discover new keywords that people are searching for so you should be using keyword tools to identify them year-round.
- To help with this, you would run a Broad match campaign from time to time to discover new keywords that people are searching for as search patterns change over time on Amazon.
Why Am I Not Getting Impressions On My Ads?
Amazon will show your ads if it thinks you will make a sale.
This is often the most jarring part about advertising on Amazon for sellers.
Even if you’ve selected keywords and are willing to pay for the clicks, it doesn’t mean Amazon will show your ads.
Think about that.
You’ve spent a lot of valuable time finding the best keywords to convert customers.
You’ve set up your Amazon advertising ad campaigns and even set your bids to be higher than the suggested bids.
Then, you don’t get very many impressions.
Even worse?
You get the-dreaded — in the impressions column, meaning you have NO impressions.
This happens because Amazon doesn’t think you are relevant and will not result in a sale.
This all boils down to Amazon ad relevancy.
So what do you do?
What Should I Do If I Am Not Getting Impressions On My Ads?
- Make sure the exact keywords you are running ads on are on the front end and back end of your Amazon listing.
- Increase your bids.
- Lower your price temporarily, run a sale. — You need to become more price-competitive to earn the opportunity to get seen.
- You need to drive off Amazon traffic to Amazon
- Amazon rewards you for this with visibility
- Leverage Amazon Influencers
- Build the buzz about your brand online
How Can I Reduce My ACoS So I Can Spend Less On Ads?
I take a very deep dive on how to reduce ACoS on Amazon but in short, here is what you will need to work on:
- Amazon Ads Targeting
- Cut non-profitable keywords or reduce their bids by 35% — 50%.
- Find more profitable buyer-intent keywords
- Work to increase your relevancy for high buyer-intent keywords.
- Amazon Influencers
- Amazon Product Titles
- Amazon Product Bullet Points & Product Descriptions
- Amazon Product Imagery
- Answering Questions
- Handling Objections
- Increasing Perceived Value
- Highlighting Competitive Advantages
- Amazon A+ Content
- Amazon Reviews
Amazon Advertising Console
Amazon Advertising Console is Amazons equivalent to Facebook Business Manager or Google Ads platform.
It is the interface by which you control all of your Amazon advertising efforts using the various Amazon advertising products.
It used to be called Amazon Marketing Services and was used to tie Amazon Advertising in for brands and retailers who didn’t use Amazon Seller Central or Amazon Vendor Central such as Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) & more.
Who can use this? Amazon Seller Central Sellers, Amazon Vendor Central Sellers, KDP Sellers & Off Amazon brands & retailers who want to advertise on Amazon but not sell on Amazon.
When should I use this? If you are an Amazon Seller Central Seller or Amazon Vendor Central, they are rolling it into your existing accounts and you will use it by default for your advertising campaigns.
What types of ads can I run with it? All Amazon advertising products are available in Amazon Advertising Console. They are…
Amazon Sponsored Product Ads
Who can use these?
- Amazon Seller Central Sellers
- Amazon Vendor Central Sellers
When should I use these?
- Drive Sales
- Build Awareness
What are the key benefits?
- They look like organic search results
- High click-through rates
- High conversions
Where will my ads show up?
Mixed into Organic search results at the:
- Top
- Middle
- Bottom
What do they look like?
Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads
Who can use these?
- Amazon Seller Central Sellers
- Amazon Vendor Central Sellers
When should I use these?
- Drive Sales
- Build Awareness
What are the key benefits?
- You can write headlines of up to 50 characters.
- This allows you to easily convey benefits or competitive advantages beyond a product title or featured image.
- You can also advertise sales by calling out the savings the customer will receive.
Where will my ads show up?
- Above search results.
What do they look like?
Amazon Sponsored Display Ads
Who can use these?
- Amazon Seller Central Sellers
- Amazon Vendor Central Sellers
When should I use these?
- Retarget Sales
- Build Awareness
What are the key benefits?
- Have beautiful product ads without having to design assets
- Reach customers beyond Amazon
- Bring potential customers who didn’t buy back to your product listing
Where will my ads show up?
Amazon describes where your ads will show like this:
- Engage audiences who viewed the detail pages of your advertised products or similar products within the last 30 days but haven’t yet purchased.
- Off Amazon on third-party websites and apps.
- Engage audiences whose shopping activities on Amazon demonstrate an interest in product categories related to your promoted product.
- On product detail pages, or other product-related pages
- Target specific products on Amazon that are similar or complementary to your promoted product.
- On product detail pages, or other product-related pagesCategories
- Target a range of product categories on Amazon that are similar or complementary to your promoted product.
- On product detail pages, or other product-related pages
What do they look like?
Amazon Sponsored Brands Video Ads
Amazon Sponsored Brands Video Ads allow advertisers to run video ads for their products.
Amazon Sponsored Brands Video Ads are similar to video ads found on other networks such s YouTube, Facebook & more.
How To Run Amazon Sponsored Brands Video Ads
To run Amazon Sponsored Brands Video ads simply head to the Amazon Advertising Console, then create a new Sponsored Brands advertising campaign.
From there, select the video option.
What Makes A Good Amazon Sponsored Brands Video Ad?
- On-screen text: Sponsored brands video ads run without sound by default. So you will want to communicate the key benefits via on-screen text. The customer does have the option to turn sound on.
- Length: 15–30 seconds. Keep things brief.
- Gets to the point: Since the ads are so short, show the product right away and get to the point. Do not prioritize fancy lead-ins. This is not a commercial or explainer-video.
- Loop if possible: These videos automatically run in a loop, so optimizing for that format is ideal.
- End with a call to action: Tell the potential customer what you want them to do, ORDER NOW. Show your branding, unique value proposition and tell the user to buy.
- Do not show your website: You are not allowed to customers users off of Amazon so your ad will be rejected if it contains your website.
Who can use these?
- Amazon Seller Central Sellers
- Amazon Vendor Central Sellers
When should I use these?
- Drive Sales
- Build Awareness
What are the key benefits?
- Quickly & easily demonstrate complex products.
- Stand out from a crowded competitive landscape.
- Leverage the benefits of an explainer video, in a bite-size portion.
Where will my ads show up?
- Mixed in with product searches on mobile devices.
- On product detail pages
Amazon DSP Ads
Who can use these?
- Brand owners that sell on Amazon
- Brand owners who do not sell on Amazon
- Brands with a minimum ad spend of $35,000
When should I use these?
- Drive Sales both on and off Amazon
- Build Awareness both on and off Amazon
What are the key benefits?
- You do not have to design ad assets.
- There is no self-service to setup your own ads like Amazon Advertising Console through Seller Central or Vendor Central and they are done through managed partners and agencies. This means, you do not need to target your own ads and it is a “done for you” model.
Where will my ads show up?
- On Amazon across all pages in the marketplace.
- Off of Amazon on partnered Blogs, Media Outlets & Publishers
What do they look like?
Amazon DSP Ads
Who can use these?
- Brand owners that sell on Amazon
- Brand owners who do not sell on Amazon
- Brands with a minimum ad spend of $35,000
When should I use these?
- Drive Sales both on and off Amazon
- Build Awareness both on and off Amazon
What are the key benefits?
- You do not have to design ad assets.
- There is no self-service to setup your own ads like Amazon Advertising Console through Seller Central or Vendor Central and they are done through managed partners and agencies. This means, you do not need to target your own ads and it is a “done for you” model.
Where will my ads show up?
- On Amazon across all pages in the marketplace.
- Off of Amazon on partnered Blogs, Media Outlets & Publishers
What do they look like?
Amazon DSP Video Ads
Who can use these?
- Brand owners that sell on Amazon
- Brand owners who do not sell on Amazon
- Brands with a minimum ad spend of $35,000
When should I use these?
- Educate in order to drive sales both on and off Amazon
- Build Awareness both on and off Amazon
What are the key benefits?
- You do not have to design ad assets.
- There is no self-service to setup your own ads like Amazon Advertising Console through Seller Central or Vendor Central and they are done through managed partners and agencies. This means, you do not need to target your own ads and it is a “done for you” model.
Where will my ads show up?
- On Amazon-owned products, services and devices like:
- IMDB TV
- Fire TV
- Kindle Devices
- In-stream and Out-stream
- in-stream: During the middle of video content or video breaks
- out-stream: Before & after video content and independently
- On the Amazon Marketplace
What do they look like?
Amazon DSP Custom Ads
Who can use these?
- Brands working with Amazon’s Ad Consultants
- They do require a minimum spend, however, the amount is not public knowledge.
When should I use these?
- Use these to have a holistic approach to create unique ads for every step of the sales funnel.
- Awareness
- Interest
- Consideration
- Conversion
- Retention
- Referral
What are the key benefits?
- Have ads that are truly unique, using a combination of all of the ads talked about here without the constraints of formats that blend in with your competition.
Where will my ads show up?
- Everywhere mentioned previously.
- On and off of Amazon
What do they look like?
- These are images, videos and text that are unique and can appear in any combination of layout.
Amazon Attribution
There aren’t many Amazon Sellers only advertising on Amazon anymore.
Minimum viable effort for any Amazon advertising strategy involves sending traffic from off of Amazon onto Amazon in addition to your on Amazon efforts.
To do this, you will need to measure which channels are working to drive your Amazon sales.
This is where Amazon Attribution comes in.
Amazon attribution allows brands to measure the advertising traffic they are sending from off Amazon channels onto Amazon.
These channels include:
- Google Ads
- Facebook Ads
- Pinterest Ads
- Twitter Ads
- Native Ads
- & More
Who can use this?
- Amazon Sellers who own a Brand that are part of the Amazon Brand Registry.
When should I use this?
- When running ads from off of Amazon platforms to send traffic to your Amazon listings.
What are the key benefits?
- Know what off Amazon advertising efforts drive results.
Having great products and not selling is agonizing, but dominating competitors and selling through inventory is intensely gratifying.
If you need help with anything you’ve read here, I’m a top-rated Amazon Consultant & eCommerce Consultant.
With 10+ years of experience, I can make eCommerce your strength and get you where you want to go quicker & easier.
- Amazon Advertising allows for Seller Central and Vendor Central sellers to run ads both on and off of Amazon through many different ad types.
- Amazon Advertising has platforms that accommodate sellers with a budget as low as $1 a day in Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Display Ads to over $35,000 annually in the DSP. (Demand Side Platform)
- Amazon Advertising is the first step Amazon Sellers take to grow their sales along with Amazon SEO, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing & Amazon Influencers.
Originally published at https://www.sourceapproach.com
