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Amazon PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising is an essential tool for accelerating sales and growing business on Amazon. That’s because Amazon PPC campaigns help you target the right shoppers with proper messaging, improving your conversion rates and leading to a significant boost to your overall Amazon SEO.

But, only if you take the time to make sure your Amazon listing is properly optimized.

With the right optimization strategies, you can achieve a competitive advantage on the Amazon marketplace and grow your business exponentially.

This post is going to expand on why optimizing your Amazon PPC campaigns is so important to your listing’s crucial Amazon SEO rankings, and detail the steps that you can take to elevate your ad campaigns above those of your competitors.

What is Amazon PPC?

Amazon PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is a form of digital advertising where sellers bid on keywords relevant to their listings. When a shopper searches for a keyword, Amazon displays sponsored PPC ads in the search results. The ads are referred to as “Pay-Per-Click” because advertisers are charged only when a shopper clicks on their ad. The goal of Amazon PPC is to drive traffic to your product page and increase sales. 

There are three main types of Amazon PPC ads, Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display, each with their own targeting options and ad formats. Through their versatility and effectiveness, Amazon PPC ads are a critical way for you to reach your target customers in what’s become an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Here’s a quick description of the three PPC ad types:

Amazon Sponsored Products

Sponsored Products are keyword-targeted ads that appear in search results and on product detail pages. They allow you to promote individual products and are charged on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis.

Amazon Sponsored Brands

Sponsored Brands are ads that appear at the top of search results and feature a custom headline, logo, and multiple products. They’re particularly important for you as you scale your Amazon business because they allow you to promote your brand and extend your reach. They’re charged on a CPC basis.

Amazon Sponsored Display

Sponsored Display ads are next level and allow you to reach your target audiences both on and off Amazon. They can target shoppers based on their interests, behaviors, and other attributes, and are charged on a cost-per-click or cost-per-impression (CPM) basis.

Why Should You Optimize Your Amazon PPC Campaigns?

Amazon PPC management is a foundational eCommerce skill. Optimizing your PPC campaigns can help you increase your SEO for Amazon products, grow your sales, reduce advertising costs, and gain a competitive advantage on the Amazon marketplace.

Here are a few more reasons why you want to take the time to optimize your listings and improve your SEO for Amazon products. 

Attain Higher Visibility

Optimizing your Amazon PPC campaigns helps you to improve the likelihood that your ad’s relevance and quality score will increase significantly. That can lead to higher ad placement in Amazon search results, and more overall visibility for your products.

Boost Your Ad Targeting

Optimizing your ad campaigns makes it easier for you to target the right keywords and shoppers. If you’re selling camping dishware for outdoor enthusiasts, you don’t want your ads shown to shoppers looking for fine-dining options. You want to ensure that your ads are shown to people who are most likely to buy your products.

Conversion Rates Can Make or Break an eCommerce Business

Amazon advertising can quickly become prohibitively expensive if you’re not careful. By focusing on high-converting keywords and ad placements, you can increase the chances of shoppers clicking on your ads and making a purchase. That’s going to significantly reduce your Amazon advertising cost of sales (ACoS). (ACoS compares the amount spent on PPC campaigns to the amount earned)

Amazon Has Become Increasingly Competitive 

Amazon’s marketplace has become increasingly competitive, with tens of thousands of new, potential competitors looking to make their mark on eCommerce every day. To end up on top, you need to take the time to optimize your Amazon SEO to position your ad campaigns for success. 

By improving your ad relevance and overall quality score, there’s a very good chance that you’ll see higher ad placement and more visibility for your products.

Keyword Research Comes First

It’s impossible to begin any Amazon SEO strategy without talking about keywords. Keyword research is a key ingredient to success in Amazon PPC campaigns. Utilizing the most relevant, high-converting keywords will help you achieve greater ad relevance and improved performance – all while avoiding wasteful spending and staying ahead of your competition!

Keyword Relevancy is Critical 

Knowing the precise words your potential customers use to search for products related to yours is a key step in optimizing your campaigns. Keyword research gives you valuable insight into what terms shoppers are actively searching – allowing you to create targeted strategies focused on reaching the right buyers.

Optimize Your Ad’s Relevance for Shoppers

Amazon doesn’t like to waste shoppers’ time. By targeting the best possible, relevant keywords, you can boost your overall listing quality score. That leads to higher ad placement and better visibility for your products.

Improve Conversion Rates

If you make sure to reach out to shoppers in the right places with relevant keywords, it can give your conversion rates a boost. By targeting customers actively searching for products like yours, you increase their chances of making a purchase when they click on your ad.

Reduce Wasted Spend

There are no two ways around it. Amazon advertising is expensive. Targeting irrelevant keywords leads to a big waste of ad spend. By focusing on the right keywords, you can ensure that your ad spend is used effectively and efficiently.

10 Tips for Optimizing Your Amazon PPC Campaigns

1. Know Where You Want to Go – Set Clear Goals and KPIs

When planning your Amazon PPC campaigns, it’s important to set specific goals and identify key performance indicators (KPIs). This allows you to effectively monitor progress and improve future decision-making based on collected data. 

2. Precision Matters – Create Targeted Ad Groups

Improve the visibility of your products and get better ad placement with targeted ad groups! Grouping similar items together makes it easier to manage campaigns and optimize their performance. This can result in more relevant ads, increased quality scores – making a big impact for maximum return on investment (ROI).

3. Make Negative Keywords Your Superpower

By strategically implementing negative keywords into a digital marketing campaign, you’ll be more likely to not spend money on ads that aren’t relevant to what you’re selling. Not only does this lead to more clicks and conversions from potential customers, but it also helps maximize ad performance for maximum ROI. 

4. Drill Down on Your High-Converting Keywords

Long-tail keywords can give your product the competitive edge it needs to stand out in search engine results. These more specific phrases make up for a unique and detailed description of what people are looking for,and lead to enhanced visibility with less competition from other products or websites. This can help increase your ad’s relevance and quality score, leading to higher ad placement and better visibility for your products.

5. Take Advantage of Amazon’s Automatic Targeting 

Amazon’s automatic targeting features can help you reach new audiences and improve ad performance. By leveraging these features, you can identify new keywords and placements that you may not have considered.

6. It’s a Moving Target – Monitor Your Ad Performance

To keep your Amazon PPC campaigns running smoothly, regularly tracking performance indicators is key. Taking stock of ad performance metrics can unearth unexpected optimizations that are waiting to be found and used. 

7. Test, Test, Test! 

A/B testing is the perfect way to determine which strategies are most effective for your products. Experimenting with different ad creatives, keywords, and placements helps you find out what works best—ultimately allowing you to optimize campaigns for maximum efficiency and maximize ROI.

8. Your Ads Need to Perform  

Take control of your Amazon PPC campaigns and get the most out of every penny by dynamically adjusting budgets and bids. Strategically reallocating budget to top-performing keywords allows you to maximize visibility, and skyrocket your Amazon SEO. 

9. Have a Little PPC Patience

Patience is key when it comes to reaping the rewards of your campaign. Expecting instant results? Unfortunately, that’s not how campaigns work – have a little patience and you’ll have a better overall understanding of where you need to improve to reach your goals. 

10. Reach Out to An Amazon Agency

Optimizing Amazon PPC campaigns is crucial for achieving better sales, an optimum Amazon SEO, reduced costs, and a competitive advantage on the Amazon marketplace. 

An Amazon PPC Management agency like Canopy Management can play a vital role in achieving better results from your Amazon ads management. 

Canopy Management’s industry-leading skills have allowed them to achieve an impressive track record of generating over $2.2 billion in revenue for their clients and an average of 84% YoY profit increase. 

How Canopy Management Can Help

Canopy Management is a “full service” marketing agency for Walmart and Amazon sellers, and our team consists of former Amazonians, multi-million dollar sellers, and award-winning experts. When you consider the ways in which CANOPY Management is able to help you grow your Amazon business, you’ll know why.

• 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