Overview
- What is Amazon PPC?
- Glossary of Key Terms For Amazon Ads
- Ad Structures In Amazon Advertising
- Types of Campaigns
What is Amazon PPC?
Amazon PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, is a powerful tool for driving sales on the Amazon platform. As an advertising model, it allows sellers to pay for sponsored product placements in search results and other areas of the Amazon website. When a shopper clicks (or views; depending on the type of campaign — more on that later) on one of these sponsored ads, the seller is charged a fee.
The beauty of Amazon PPC is that it allows sellers to reach a highly targeted audience of shoppers who are already searching for products similar to theirs. With careful targeting and optimization, Amazon PPC campaigns can help sellers increase their visibility, drive more traffic to their listings, and ultimately boost their sales.
However, creating and managing successful Amazon PPC campaigns can be a complex and time-consuming process. It requires a deep understanding of Amazon’s advertising platform, as well as a strategic approach to targeting, bidding, and optimization. That’s why it’s essential to work with experienced professionals who can help you navigate the nuances of Amazon PPC and achieve your sales goals.
Glossary of Key Terms For Amazon Ads
Below is a glossary of most of the key terms and vocabularity that you will need to know like the back of your hand before you start your journey with Amazon PPC.
ASIN – Stands for Amazon Standard Identification Number. It is the unique identifier given to all products that identifies a product’s place on Amazon’s catalog. By typing in the ASIN at the end of this link (www.amazon.com/dp/<INSERT ASIN HERE>), you can go directly to that product’s page. ASINs will always start with “B0” and must always be 10 characters long.
Keyword – A word defined by you that represents a customer search term in Amazon’s search box. Keywords are contained within Amazon PPC campaigns. If we add them into a campaign, then we are essentially telling Amazon that we want our product to show in the search results for that keyword.
Target – An Amazon entity defined by you to tell Amazon where to show your ad(s). You may notice that this has a similar definition as a “keyword”. All keywords are targets, but not all targets are keywords. This is because we can also target both products and audiences in certain types of campaigns. More on this later.
Long-tail Keyword – Keyword with relevant words after its seed keyword.
For example, a few examples of long-tail keywords for violin bow could be violin bow hair, full size violin bow, violin bow with abalone frog, and violin bow carbon fiber.
Negative Exact Keyword – Keywords that you DO NOT want your ads to show up on when a customer searches for the exact words on Amazon.
Negative Phrase Keyword – Keywords that you DO NOT want your ads to show up on when a customer searches for the phrase variations of the negative phrase keyword on Amazon.
For example, if we added the word violin bow as a negative phrase keyword in an Amazon PPC campaign, then we are telling Amazon that we do not want to show for: violin bow hair, violin bow frog, carbon fiber violin bow, violin bow set, etc.
Did you notice that all of the keywords listed above had the words “violin” and “bow” in the exact same order, as defined by the negative phrase keyword of “violin bow”? This is the nature of negative phrase keywords and it can be used as a powerful tool for Amazon PPC campaign optimization.
Customer Search Term (or Search Term) – The actual text that the customer types into Amazon’s search box.
Impression – The amount of times an ad has shown up on someone’s screen. This does not take unique users into account. For example, if I search for “violin bow” on Amazon five times and your ad showed up on my screen in all of those searches, then the number of impressions would be 5.
Bid – In Sponsored Products campaigns, this is defined as the maximum amount of money that you are willing to pay for a single click. In certain types of Sponsored Display campaigns, it can also be the maximum amount of money that you are willing to pay for every 1,000 impressions. Bids only exist on the keyword (or target) level in Amazon ads. ****
Click – The amount of times your ad has been clicked.
ACoS – Short for Advertising Cost of Sale. Ratio of how much money is spent to obtain a certain amount of sales. Calculated by (ad spend / sales) * 100. Remember this metric and its formula because this is one of the most important performance metrics for Amazon PPC campaigns.
For example, if it costed $100 to get $500 in sales, then ACoS would be 20%.
CTR – Short for click-through rate. It is the ratio of clicks vs impressions. Calculated by (clicks / impressions) * 100, represented as a percentage**.** CTR measures our product’s relevance in relation to a certain keyword or target. A higher CTR means more relevance, which means more targeted buyers, which means a higher likelihood of more sales!
CPC – Short for cost-per click. This is how much you spend each time your ad is clicked.
Search Term Report — This is a report that can be generated on Amazon that will show you the performance of all campaigns, ad groups, keywords/targets, and search terms. This report has many uses, including but not limited to: identifying new search terms to add as keywords into our campaigns, performance analysis, identifying bleeding keywords that we should stop spending money on, and negative phrase analyses.
Amazon Keyword Match Types
If you’re new to Amazon PPC, one of the most important things you’ll need to understand is keyword match types. Understanding the differences between broad match, phrase match, and exact match can help you target your ads more effectively and increase your chances of reaching the right customers. In the following section, we’ll explain everything you need to know about all of the Amazon keyword match types.
Broad Match – Adding a broad match keyword to a campaign will “generate” search terms that are relevant to the product. Search terms that come from broad match keywords on Amazon do not have to contain the exact words within the keyword, although most of the time, they will.
Ex – For our seed keyword, violin bow, here would be some broad match search terms that your ad might show up in the Amazon search results for:
- cello bow
- violin
- violin strings
- viola strings
- orchestra strings
Phrase Match – Adding a phrase match keyword to a campaign will “generate” search terms that contain all words from its seed keyword in its exact order.
Ex – For our seed keyword, violin bow, here would be some phrase match search terms that your ad might show up in the Amazon search results for:
- violin bow hair
- 4/4 violin bow
- full size violin bow
- violin bow with rosin
- carbon violin bow
- carbon fiber violin bow
Exact Match – Adding an exact match keyword to a campaign will tell Amazon that you only want your ad to show up for that exact keyword and its plural forms.
Eg – For our seed keyword, violin bow, here would be some exact matches that your ad might show up in the Amazon search results for:
- Violin bow
- Violin bows
Ad Structures In Amazon Advertising
Advertising campaigns in Amazon are broken down into 4 levels: portfolios, campaigns, ad groups, and ads.
Portfolio – Think of a portfolio like a “folder” that holds multiple campaigns. They are mostly an organizational feature that we use on Amazon to keep our campaigns organized, just like how you keep your files on your computer organized.
Campaign – Is the top-level element that holds all campaign elements inside of it. Campaigns can ****contain any number of ad groups. On this level, you can define and set the budget, the schedule (desired start/end date), and placement modifiers for the campaign.
Ad Group – This is an entity where you define exactly what you would like to target. Ad groups are always contained within campaigns. This is what holds all of the keywords that you want to add as well as all of the ads within the ad group.
Ads – The actual ad that customers see on Amazon. Ads are always contained within ad groups and can only be ASINs of any of the products in your catalog. Here is an example of one in the Amazon search results:
Types of Campaigns
Sponsored Products Campaigns
Sponsored Products campaigns are mostly what we will be dealing with. These types of campaigns do not require a registered trademark and Amazon’s Brand Registry. That said, any seller can start these campaigns. They do not require any copywriting or creatives because we are only targeting keywords and product ASINs (product targeting) when we build these campaigns.
Any results on Amazon Search that says Sponsored under the image and looks almost identical to other organic search results means that it is a Sponsored Products ad.
Sponsored Product ad in the Amazon search results.
Automatic Campaigns
An automatic Amazon PPC campaign is a type of advertisement where Amazon determines the most relevant keywords and targets to display your ad. The algorithm uses your product information, category, and customer search history to determine ad placement. These campaigns are generally easier to set up and require less management, but may result in less precise targeting compared to manual campaigns.
In automatic Amazon PPC campaigns, you do not have to provide any keywords or ASINs to target. The following two types of Sponsored Products campaigns that we will talk about fall under the Manual Targeting category of Sponsored Products.
Keyword Targeting Campaigns (Manual Targeting)
A manual keyword targeting campaign is a type of campaign where you decide on what keywords you would like to target for your ads. In keyword targeting Amazon PPC campaigns, you can use Broad, Phrase, and Exact match keywords in any ad group.
Product Targeting Campaigns (Manual Targeting)
Any sponsored products that show up on actual Amazon product pages are what we call Product Targeting campaigns. For Product Targeting campaigns, you bid on entire categories or specific ASINs.
These ads show up under the Sponsored products related to this item section of any product page.
Here is an example of how they look like:
Sponsored Brands Campaigns
Sponsored Brands campaigns are special display campaigns on Amazon that showcase a brand with either a unique headline with 3 products or a video in the middle of the search results. Sellers who want to use Sponsored Brand campaigns need a registered trademark and have to be accepted into Brand Registry.
Headline Search Ads (HSA)
This type of Sponsored Brands campaign usually shows up at the top of Amazon search results, above all search results.
Here is an example of how they look like when you bid at the top of search results:
However, if the advertiser isn’t one of the top bidders, then their headline search ads will display at the bottom of the search results:
Notice that if you are not bidding high enough and your Sponsored Brands Ad shows at the bottom of search results, then it will only show a picture of a single product and the headline copy for the ad; nothing else.
Within any HSA, you can only target keywords and not ASINs (yet)!
As of 2023, Amazon now allows you to create ad groups within HSAs. Each ad group can contain a different set of creatives and headline copy. This is especially useful for when you want to advertise for the exact same products, but test different creatives and headline copy to see which variation will produce higher engagement rates.
Sponsored Brands Video Campaigns (SBVC)
This type of Sponsored Brands campaign shows up in the middle of any Amazon search result page. It features a large video that automatically starts playing (without audio) when it enters the user’s view. Additionally, it features the product that you are advertising for to the right side of the video. This is what they look like:
The downside of Sponsored Brands Video Campaigns is that you are only able to advertise for one ASIN per campaign. That said, for every ASIN that you want to create this type of campaign for, you will need to create one single campaign for it, which can prove to be very tedious for large catalogues.
Conversely, SBVCs are an extremely powerful tool to have in your advertising arsenal due to their much higher click-through rates (CTR) when compared to other types of ad campaigns on Amazon.
Sponsored Display Campaigns
Sponsored Display Campaigns use auto-generated display creatives that help inspire purchase and have the familiar Amazon look and feel. Based on the targeting options you select, your ads can run on Amazon desktop and mobile, both on detail pages and across other Amazon pages.
How Sponsored Display Ads Look
No matter what type of Sponsored Display Campaign you make, they will all show in the same placements.
Below the buybox on a product page
Bottom of product page
Below the bullet points on product pages
Purchase Retargeting Ads
These ads use dynamic targeting to only show our ad to people who have purchased any one of our product pages at least once.
These types of ads tend to convert at a better rate than View Retargeting Ads do.
Product Targeting (AKA Product Display Ads)
Unlike View Retargeting Ads and Purchase Retargeting Ads, PDAs do not use dynamic targeting. Instead, we are required to define exactly which ASINs we want to deliver our ads to.
We typically like to target our competitors’ products that are similar enough to the product that we are creating the campaign for.