The key to success in any eCommerce business is having a solid marketing strategy in place. It is fundamental to ensuring both profitability and incremental growth.
When it comes to Amazon, nothing is comparable to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for product promotion. A successful strategy begins with a PPC campaign blueprint.
Well-planned, consistent campaign structure and campaign terminology will see you reach optimal ad performance and enable you to execute a more precise approach when it comes to optimization and accurate reporting.
Establishing the right campaign structure, with end goals in mind, is critical as your business scales and your dashboard of ad campaigns rapidly grows. In this guide, I am going to detail my tried and tested approach to proper campaign structure and how it can benefit you and put you on the path to Amazon success.
Introduction to PPC
Jumping in head first and launching campaigns haphazardly can not only lead to wasted dollars in ad spend but can be detrimental to your product’s rank on Amazon. Before you can begin establishing your campaign blueprint it is crucial to understand what PPC advertising on Amazon is, so you can gain a deeper knowledge as to why campaign structure is so important.
What is PPC on Amazon?
Amazon PPC is an advertising platform that allows sellers of all levels to advertise their products and their brand on the Amazon marketplace, by targeting a specific audience of customers who are interested in their products.
Through an auction based system, sellers submit bids for certain keywords, or products, related to the products they are advertising. The higher the bid, the higher the possibility of a prominent ad placement when a shopper searches for the related keyword.
When a customer clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays a fee to Amazon, based on the bid amount. Essentially, the advertiser is buying visibility for their product.
With multiple campaign ad types and match types available to sellers and the endless possibilities of different keywords and product targets, it’s easy to squander many dollars in ad spend without regular and efficient campaign optimization.
This is where campaign structure is most at play. It is almost impossible to effectively scale or optimize poorly structured campaigns. Proper campaign structure allows for better campaign management, minimizes wasted ad spend and provides better insights into product performance.
The Goal of PPC
“To drive traffic as cheap as possible, while improving organic rank to drive traffic at no cost”
PPC alone will not make your brand successful on Amazon, it is only half of the equation. Without a good product, reasonable demand and an attractive product listing, no amount of traffic is going to make your product convert.
The goal of PPC is to drive traffic and to drive it as profitably as possible. And the most profitable way is to rank organically.
Put simply, PPC is a means of placing product ads in front of shoppers.
Do I Need PPC?
Amazon PPC campaigns are low funnel and can be super effective for brand discovery and product visibility.
There are three primary goals to keep in mind when establishing an advertising strategy.
- The generation of sales - retargeting repeat customers as well as new-to-brand purchasing.
- The generation of data - the discovery of profitable search terms that can be incorporated into product description pages for Amazon SEO and launched as keywords in new campaigns.
- The generation of organic rank - the roll-on effect of increasing sales volume and indexing for highly relevant keywords is an improved organic rank = free traffic.
With the current level of competition on Amazon, there is no denying that without PPC, your product simply won’t be visible. But the biggest value comes from the data and the insight that PPC provides into product performance and identification of opportunities for improvement.
PPC Advertising Hierarchy
The Amazon Advertising structure is arranged according to hierarchical levels.
Having a consistent and systematic approach to structuring and naming each of these levels facilitates effective optimization to save you time and ultimately reduce wasted ad spend.
Portfolios
Not only are portfolios an effective organizational tool, they simplify workflow and provide you with an effective way to monitor and report product performance.
Portfolios enable you to arrange campaigns in a way that is meaningful to you and your brand. With their own level of reporting you are provided with an overview for all campaigns within that portfolio.
Grouping together all of the campaigns targeting one parent ASIN within one portfolio allows you to analyze data at the parent product level, so you can determine which products are performing well and which products require your attention.
Campaigns
Inclusive of Sponsored Product, Sponsored Brand, Sponsored Display, automatic and manual campaigns, the more granular you structure your campaigns, the more granular approach you can take when it comes to data interpretation and campaign optimization.
One Product per Campaign
Unless you have very similar products with common relevant keywords, best practice is to target products individually. With budget and spend control at Amazon’s discretion, limiting campaigns to just one product and its child variations tips the balance in favor of the advertiser with 100% of the budget allocated to one product and its variations.
One Match Type per Campaign
Another consideration is campaign match types. In both automatic and manual campaigns, each match type behaves differently. Therefore, separating campaigns based on match type allows each one to do their thing and perform independently of each other.
With budgets, bidding strategies and bid adjustments set at the campaign level, segregating campaigns by match type allows a more targeted approach, meeting the different requirements of the different match types. In addition, separating by match type allows sellers to better direct their advertising spend and budget allocation.
Naming Conventions
With so many ad types, campaign types and match types, managing PPC ads can be simplified by consistent, informative naming conventions. Campaign names should reflect the product, ad type, match type, goal, and keyword source.
Ad Groups
Granularity doesn’t end at the campaign level. In addition to segregating match types, limiting each campaign to only one ad group improves scalability and optimization efficiency. With 100% of the campaign budget funneled solely through one ad group, each keyword or product target has a better opportunity to tally sessions and conversions.
If you consider a campaign with multiple ad groups, where does the budget go? Rarely is it distributed evenly across each ad group. The Amazon algorithm will distribute the budget wherever it sees fit, leaving some keywords within ad groups with little to zero impressions.
Keywords and Product Targets
It’s no secret that advertisers see a disproportionate distribution of sessions and spend when ad groups are subject to keyword or product target dumping.
With the possibility of adding 1000 keywords or product targets per ad group it can be tempting, however, too many dramatically impacts the performance of the campaign. To better explain; an ad group containing 15- 20 keywords sees the top 5 generating 80-100% of the sales.
The common approach in this situation would be to pause these non-performing keywords and product targets. But, if placed in a separate campaign with only 4 other keywords competing for a share of the budget, that keyword could potentially drive profitable sales.
So how do you determine which keywords and product targets should go in which campaigns? One theory is that the algorithm distributes the spend based on search volume and performance. Segregating high search volume/high performing from low search volume/low performing keywords and product targets produces a more even playing field and each target has an equal opportunity to perform at its best.
Through extensive testing, I have found optimal output when keywords and product targets are limited to a maximum of 5 per ad group. An added advantage is keeping ad group keywords to a minimum simplifies optimization and improves scalability, allowing analysis and bid modifications at a more granular level.
Key Takeaways
So let’s take another look at the hierarchy and the rules;
RULE #1 – One Parent ASIN per portfolio
- Monitor performance at the parent product level
RULE #2 - One Parent ASIN per campaign (can include child variations)
- Relevant keyword targeting
- Better analysis and optimization
RULE #3 - Segregate match types
- This applies to both auto and manual campaigns
- Harvest search terms and manage budget more efficiently
- Better keyword performance monitoring and optimization
RULE #4 - One ad group per campaign
- Keeping ad group keywords to a minimum simplifies optimization and improves scalability
- allows analysis and bid modifications at a more granular level
- equal distribution of sessions and spend
RULE #5 - Maximum of 5 keywords/product targets per campaign
- high search volume/high performing and low search volume/low performing keywords
- even distribution of sessions and spend
- dissimilar keywords see spend go to higher converting keywords, leaving keywords that could convert, with low or zero impressions.
RULE #6 - Segregate Keywords based on Search Volume and Performance
- high search volume/high performing and low search volume/low performing keywords
- even distribution of sessions and spend
- dissimilar keywords see spend go to higher converting keywords, leaving keywords that could convert, with low or zero impressions.
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