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As an entrepreneur, I don’t need to tell you how competitive Amazon digital marketing has become. It’s harder than ever to stand out.

Without a good digital marketing strategy in place, you can end up making costly mistakes that cost you the money you need to scale your e-commerce business. The good news is that there are ways to optimize your ad spend to save money AND see better returns with your efforts.

Achieving great results with your Amazon advertising requires more than just following the crowd and covering the basics.

The 10 following strategies will help to push your products to the top of the page, increase your Amazon SEO, improve your brand awareness, and save you money on your Amazon marketing.

Top Amazon Advertising Strategies for 2023

1. Improve Brand Awareness
2. Focus On Product Profitability
3. Use Negative Keywords and Phrases
4. Set Up Automatic Targeting
5. Target Categories For Sponsored Products
6. Utilize Match Types
7. Optimize Your Bids
8. Take Advantage of Sponsored Display Ads
9. Cancel Ineffective Ad Campaigns
10. Don’t Forget About Amazon DSP Advertising

By following these 10 strategies you’ll put your brand in a perfect position to be successful. Along the way you’ll also increase your brand exposure and ad revenue, as well as decrease your Amazon advertising cost. This will ultimately help you to use your marketing budget in the most effective way.

1. Improve Brand Awareness

Amazon has quietly become one of the top advertising websites and is the global leader in retail sales. Why is this such an excellent opportunity for sellers? It’s largely because of Amazon’s Sponsored Brands advertising.

Sponsored Brand ads were previously known as Headline Search Ads.

When a customer searches Amazon for a product, Sponsored Brands ads appear in the header’s first column of the search results page. That makes Sponsored ads incredibly impactful. 

This prominent placement of this ad type has shown to have a sales conversion rate of 18% for products placed on the search results page, regardless of whether it was the intended product or not that customers had searched.

These ads are ideal for top-of-the-funnel brand awareness and product reach, especially when you couple them with keyword phrases and exact match keywords that highlight your product.

2. Focus On Product Profitability

It might seem silly, but an important step in strategizing your Amazon ad campaigns involves understanding your Amazon products’ margins. 

Every SKU has unique selling data points you can analyze. Using the data, ranging from cost to promote to manufacturing and selling costs, you can determine whether your profit margins are big enough to pour more ad dollars into that particular product.

Analyze which of your products has a higher profit margin before you think about spending anything more on paid ads. The last thing you want to do is waste money on ads for a product that barely makes it worthwhile.

This analysis will help you pivot your product offerings by phasing out those products that aren’t carrying their weight then dedicate the resources towards more profitable products.

3. Use Negative Keywords and Phrases

The ad campaigns that Amazon uses don’t automatically relate to the specifically intended search terms.

Broad search results can lead to a dizzying array of confusing product matches. That’s why setting up your negative phrases and keywords is crucial so that your product does not show up in irrelevant search results.

For example, if you’re selling over-the-ear headphones, you wouldn’t want to target and rank earbuds as a keyword. You may get some clicks and maybe even make a sale or two, but in the end, you’ll spend a lot of advertising dollars just to get in front of customers looking for something very different to what you are offering.

The way to utilize negative keywords effectively is to create a strategy that focuses on targeting those keywords that convert and excluding those that don’t.

You should target specific keywords and phrases with high conversion rates regardless of traffic volume and eliminate broad terms that are high-traffic and low-conversion.

Your Ultimate Goal Is to SELL Your Product, Not Gather Clicks!

Remember, your objective is SELLING your product, not getting the most clicks on a keyword. 

Utilize this strategy to increase your ad dollar return.

When utilizing negative keywords, use these targeted terms to adjust the amount you spend on your bids. Then, refocus your efforts on the high-volume, converting words with higher bids and lower your bid amount on broad, low-converting terms.

By doing so, your product will appear more relevant to those exact match results while also allowing you to have a smaller presence for any broad terms that may crossover with your keywords.

Lastly, take the time to fine tune your PPC ads utilizing the data of keywords that are converting for you. Use the search results that customers find your product with, and build your negative keyword list to exclude those terms that drain your budget without converting any sales.

4. Set Up Automatic Targeting

Amazon ads allow the advertisers to set-up control for either manual or automatic targeting. That presents both challenges and opportunities. With most ad campaigns, the more control you have as the advertiser, the better. However, there are instances when taking advantage of auto targeting makes sense.

One of the biggest advantages of auto targeting is you can use Amazon to help you test critical terms to find ones that your customers are using and exclude irrelevant ones.

Automatic targeting can help you save you money by experimenting and discovering more relevant search terms that your target audience is already using. This will make it easier for you to fine tune your PPC ads and optimize your product sales pages.

You should use this research in conjunction with traditional keyword research to complement and define your Amazon ads’ priority terms.

5. Target Categories For Sponsored Products

Amazon Sponsored Product ads offer added prominence and appear on the right-hand side, (based on their position) above, and below the search results that are presented to an Amazon seller.

With this ad feature, you can target specific categories to pair your product. By pairing multiple products that complement each other, the goal is to heighten your sales conversions.

This ad option is known as Product Attribute Targeting (PAT), and allows sellers and vendors to take full advantage of ad space next to a specific set of products, brands, or items. You can highlight your product alongside items priced at the same price point and pairing with things that work together.

For example, if you’re selling exercise gear, running an Amazon sponsored product ad will pair your product on search result pages for all types of crossover products like exercise clothes, shoes, and more.

To run a PAT ad, you need to set up manual targeting in your sponsored product campaign first. Next, you need to select the products and bids you want to use before choosing the product categories you want to target.

Finally, you target established brands at similar price points or ratings, allowing you to leverage those products’ popularity and position your product with theirs in like search results.

The beauty of this type of strategy is that it will give your product a push by appearing in similar type product searches without having to do a lot of costly experimentation with your ad campaigns.

6. Utilize Match Types

Similar to Google Ads, Amazon uses the broad, exact, phrase, and negative match types to allow advertisers to refine their targeted keywords. The objective is to use crossover terms and match types to hone-in on your target prospect and their search terms used.

Broad Match

Broad match types are the terms most used and least defined. It’s the widest net possible and is the lowest converting of your terms but can help drive traffic to your product sales pages and increase brand awareness.

Phrase Match

You can add broad match terms with keywords in front or after them to add descriptors. For example, if you are selling headphones, you can add terms such as “over-the-ear headphones,” “red headphones,” and more options.

For more specific targeting, phrase match types are the better option. With phrase match, you target terms that customers are using, like “best red over ear headphones” in their search. You can use plural forms, misspelled words, whatever your research is turning up concerning customer search terms. Phrase match is more defined than broad search but is not as specific as an exact match.

Exact Match

Exact match is highly defined, and targeted key phrases match exactly your keywords used with their search query.

You can use plural words and misspelled words, but the search result will not include your products if the query isn’t 100% identical to the searched terms.

Again, let’s use the headphones as a product example.

If you’re selling headphones and using the exact match as a strategy, you can use a key phrase like “best red over-the-ear headphones for $100.” Any search that includes all those terms will appear on the results page but will disregard anything different from your key phrase.

Negative Match

Negative match terms can make an enormous difference as you optimize your marketing strategy. The way you do it is simple; set up your negative match to disregard those terms and key phrases that are irrelevant to your needs and don’t convert for your sales.

This strategy will help you keep your ad budget under control and eliminate wasteful spending by disregarding unnecessary terms.

7. Optimize Your Bids

Every few weeks you should be taking a close look at your keywords and analyzing their effectiveness. However, be careful not to take a knee-jerk approach to adjust your keyword strategy too quickly based on only the most recent data.

Keywords and phrases may change a little over time. Their popularity and usage could arise from their prominence in popular culture, or everyday market fluctuations.

For example, if you think a phrase or two is an outlier and performing well, you can add it to your campaign. Don’t go overboard and change every key phrase based on a small sample of data.

Instead, use Automatic Targeting to discover the recent terms your customers are using and test the new phrase. If it continues to perform, you can optimize your product content to match, and iterate your ads to adjust to the new search terms, then discard your underperforming terms.

Again, this step is crucial and needs to be conducted with caution. Using Automatic Targeting will take a lot of the experimentation and risk associated with trial and error.

8. Take Advantage of Amazon Sponsored Display Ads

Amazon Sponsored Display Ads (formerly known as Amazon Product Display Ads) are Amazon’s self-serve display advertising solution. This Amazon advertising strategy allows brands (with Amazon Brand Registry) to target and retarget shoppers both on and off of Amazon with auto-generated, product-focused ads.

The biggest difference between Sponsored Display Ads and both Sponsored Product and Sponsored Brand ads is WHAT the ad is actually targeting. Instead of targeting keywords, Sponsored Display Ads targets customers based on their shopping habits.

Amazon Sponsored Display Ads use intuitive, retail-centric controls that are tailored to your brand and product’s own requirements. An Amazon display ad can help attract audiences while they’re browsing specific detail pages, on Amazon’s own home page, and across third-party apps and websites.

Amazon says that sellers who used Sponsored Display Ads had an average of twice the impressions and half again as many clicks on their listings.

9. Cancel Ineffective Campaigns

Now that you’ve looked at the data of your best-performing ad campaigns, it’s time to shut down those that underperform. Monitoring which keywords seem to be performing well and those that just aren’t pulling their weight is a crucial step in your optimizing strategy.

You also want to consider which products aren’t performing at all or have low sales. When something requires a significant amount of advertising to get a single sale, you need to consider if the product is worth selling.

When the return and profit margin is slim, perhaps you should discontinue the product or consider it as potential upsell rather than a dedicated product with a marketing budget that drains funds away from other better-performing products.

10. Don’t Forget About Amazon DSP

Selling on Amazon has been exploding in popularity and there are some very good reasons for it. The low initial investment catches the eye of many entrepreneurs looking to add to their income flow. Then, there’s the hard-to-pass-up opportunity for instant access to Amazon’s enormous customer base.

According to Statista, In the six months prior to February 2022, direct visits to amazon.com amounted to 5.8 billion.

It’s clear that Amazon has become THE way to buy and sell products online. What’s less clear is HOW YOUR OWN BUSINESS can compete and stand out in such a crowded marketplace.

Recently there have been many restrictions coming from Apple, Google, and other platforms focused on the sharing of data to third parties. However, when you gain access to that data from a voluntary opt-in through a property you control, you aren’t sharing anything with a third party. 

Amazon DSP might be the best way to use that third-party data to reach your prospective buyers. Amazon demand-side platform (DSP) allows you to programmatically buy ads to reach new and existing audiences on and off Amazon.

Here’s the best way to try to explain Amazon DSP.

You know those times when you see an ad pop up on your social media feed or website page like magic, promoting a product you JUST interacted with on another platform?

Yep, that’s Amazon DSP advertising.

Experts have estimated that by the end of 2021, 88% of all digital display marketing in the US will have been spent through programmatic advertising.

There are two ways to take advantage of Amazon DSP. The Managed by Amazon service option typically requires a minimum spend of $50,000 USD (minimum may vary per country).

Or, if you’re looking for more flexibility, you can reach out to a third-party agency. This option offers an attractive blend of control, combined with ready access to DSP expertise.

Analyze Your Data And Iterate Your Marketing

As you optimize your marketing using these top-performing strategies, you still have to actively adapt your campaigns over time. The worst, most costly mistake is often setting a budget, establishing keywords, and forgetting about making incremental adjustments to your campaign.

This is primarily due to search terms that fall out of favor, and not adapting your Amazon marketing to how your customers may be searching for products. You need to analyze the data and see what’s performing well and what isn’t.

You’ll want to download the reports of effective and performing keywords so that you can discard those that cost you money but don’t convert.

You will need to test drive and iterate ads to reveal what is better-performing keywords and terms.Then, as you identify the specific terms that are performing better, you can optimize your content and ads to include those more frequently, including long-tail keyword phrases that act similarly to the exact match type ads.

Advertising on Amazon is a great way to improve your brand awareness and simultaneously increase your sales, but there isn’t a magic potion to make it happen.

Canopy Management can help you to build an effective strategy that aligns with your unique business needs. We’ll help you get more from your Amazon advertising so you can do more for your business.

How Canopy Management Can Help

Canopy Management is a full-service marketing agency for Amazon sellers. Our team consists of former Amazonians, multi-million dollar sellers, and award-winning experts. When you consider the many ways that Canopy Management can help you grow your business, you’ll see why selling on Amazon is much easier “under the Canopy”:

• Strategic Growth Planning
• Listing Copywriting Optimization
• Listing Photography
• Product Videography
• Advertising Management
• Customer Service
• Demand Side Platform (Amazon DSP)
• Amazon Posts
• Full Service Management
• Amazon Review Aggregation