Optimisation Tips for Amazon Ads
So you’ve successfully set up your Amazon ads account, you’ve chosen the right platform, you’ve chosen the right ads, you’re live, you’re spending money (and hopefully making money), but where do you take it from here? How do you improve the account? What do you look for and how can you improve your ROI?
Here are six tips to get you started on the right foot.
#1: Create Well-Structured Campaigns by Product Category
If you are an experienced Google Ads advertiser this is something you’ve likely already mastered. You can use your Google Ads organisational skills to structure your campaigns and ad groups with Amazon’s ad platform. The best strategy here is to have a separate campaign for each of your main product categories, and then, under each campaign create ad groups that are more specific. For example, let’s say you sell women’s sportswear; you might decide to start with three of your top-selling products:
1) Women’s workout pants
2) Women’s workout tops
3) Women’s sports bras
Under each campaign you should create ad groups centred on more specific categories. For example, in campaign #1 you might have three ad groups – women’s yoga pants, women’s running pants, and women’s lounge pants. Then you will want to create a list of relevant keywords for each ad group (I’d recommend staying between 15-30 keywords per ad group). Finally, you will craft relevant ads for each keyword grouping.
(Like with Google Ads) A solid account structure will ensure your ads are relevant, which will in turn save you money and improve your ROI. This tip is extremely critical to reap the benefits of advertising on Amazon.
#2: Create Compelling & Urgent Ad Copy
Ensure your ad text is not only accurate in terms of what you’re selling, but try and inject some creativity and humour into your ads, if possible. Standing out is more important than ever amongst the cluttered search results of Amazon. In addition, instilling a sense of urgency can also be helpful. For instance, if you are running a sale or promotion make sure to highlight this in your ad.
#3: Ensure Your Ad Copy is as Specific as Possible
Your ad copy should be very specific in terms of what you are selling. For example, if you’re selling a water bottle a consumer may want to know how many litres/cups of water it holds, if it’s BPA free, if it keeps water cold for up to a certain number of hours, etc. While it might be hard to expose all of this information in the ad text, it’s important to insert the most important information in there.
#4: Bid on Popular Brands That Sell Similar Products
Whilst brainstorming keywords to bid on, don’t forget about your well-known competitors. If you sell backpacks you should be bidding on terms like “Mountain Warehouse backpacks” and “North Face backpacks” because these are popular brands that are commonly searched for and purchased. This will allow you to gain exposure and pursue someone to buy your much cooler but less well-known brand name backpack.
To find your key competitors, do a generic search on Amazon for products in your vertical – say, “backpacks” – and see which brands come up the most in your search results.
#5: Experiment with All Three Ad Formats
While sponsored product ads might appear to yield the fastest and most visible ROI, sponsored brand ads might lead to more loyal, repeat buyers. It’s worth experimenting with all three ad types to see which yields the highest returns, and then once your statistics paint a clear picture you can re-allocate your budget based on the results of your campaign.
#6: Use Negative Keywords & Be Conservative with Match Types
Just like when advertising on Google, negative keywords are key to reducing wasted spend. For example, if you’re selling musical flutes, and bidding on the keyword “flutes” with broad or phrase match then someone could type in champagne flute and your ad could still show. If they then accidentally click on your ad, you’ll be charged for a click from someone searching for a £10 glass rather than a quality musical instrument.
It can also help to be more conservative with your match types, staying clear of broad match, and putting a higher emphasis on phrase and exact match. However this will vary by goal and campaign.
There’s much more to explore in the world of Amazon advertising, and I’d predict that the platform is only going to grow its scope of tools. In the meantime use these helpful tips, optimise, grow your ROI and, as always, for any further help with Amazon or anything else PPC related please feel free to get in touch with myself or the team and we will be happy to help.
