Amazon PPC Campaign Optimization Best Practices

Setting up and running Amazon PPC Campaigns is designed to be easy. However, getting the performance out of these campaigns at a profitable ACoS requires knowledge and expertise about Amazon advertising and a process driven approach. Here are some best practices to get you started:

Make Use Of Both Automatic And Manual Campaign Types

Both automatic and manual campaign types have their own distinct advantages. While automatic campaigns help discover targeting opportunities, the manual campaigns offer control over how far you want to go with a targeting option that works for you or otherwise.

Test All Three Keyword Match Types Separately

Putting together keywords with different match types together in one ad group would prevent you from evaluating which keyword match types is converting better. Therefore, separate ad groups if not separate campaigns should be created for each of these keyword match types.

Qualify Search Terms Based On Performance Data

Search terms should be evaluated at least on a weekly basis from your Advertising Report section. To begin with, analyze the ACoS and the search terms with high ACoS should be added as negative keywords. The ones with lower than target ACoS should be added as keywords in the manual campaigns and budget and bid should be maximized to get the most conversions out of them.

Bidding The Right Amount Is The Key To Success

Your bids for keywords, ad groups or campaigns directly affect the cost of advertising and ultimately the ACoS. The Amazon Advertising interface shows the average bids against keywords and it’s a good benchmark to ensure if you are bidding high or low. There is no point bidding a high amount for a keyword that’s not converting well. Likewise, if a keyword is not getting impressions, try increasing the bid.

ACoS Is Not Everything – Watch Out For CTR And CPC

While everyone talks about ACoS as a true indicator of Amazon PPC campaign performance, there is to identify the performance of your campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and placements. Think about CTR – if the CTR is low (less than 1%), this tells you that customers don’t find your product as relevant and therefore targeting needs to be looked into. Likewise, if the CPC is high then you might want to optimize your bids to get even lower ACoS.

Keep Brand Keywords In A Separate Campaign

Since your brand keywords are likely to convert much better than non-brand keywords, you are better off keeping them in a separate campaign. This will help you maximize conversion potential from brand keywords and you could bid higher to rule out competitors from advertising on your brand keywords.

Conclusion

While these best practices may sound like standard and ordinary ideas, you would be surprised how often we come across Amazon PPC campaigns where most of these are not followed. As a result, the campaigns run a high ACoS and advertisers are like you become frustrated, assuming that Amazon PPC ads are not worth it.

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