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We are continuing our conversation with Brian Johnson of Sponsored Product Academy (& PPC Scope) to discuss how to simplify your Amazon PPC.
If you haven’t listened to the first part, you really need to. Simply because if you are selling on Amazon, Brian gave us a ton of useful, mindblowing information that will change the way your thing of sponsored ads. Do yourself a favor, and go listen to part one.
Amazon PPC the Wrong Way
One mistake many sellers make is that they don’t structure their campaigns properly. They want to think that they can set up the campaign, and let it run. If you want to do the bare minimum and ignore any other aspect, there are a couple of things you should do.
You’ll want to set up and automatic campaign with a low bid. Probably, no more that $0.30. Each variation of the product should be separated into their own ad groups within the campaign. With the low bids you’re likely to turn a profit with any product. This is the simplest way, you relinquish all control. You probably won’t get many sales or impact your organic positioning, but it’s better than nothing. For more tips on what not to do, check out Brian’s training videos.
Amazon PPC the Right Way
If you want to do it correctly, you need to structure your campaign properly. That way you can read how the audience responds to the ads for each of your products.
Advertising only affects about 10-15% of sales
Amazon PPC Goals
Most people don’t had an advertising plan. They just want to get to page one and thinks ads are the way to do it. Advertising only affects about 10-15% of sales.
So if you’re on page 10, advertising isn’t going to get you to page 1. That’s just not realistic. A realistic goal for PPC would be to learn the audience so that you can position your product. You have to go back and identify the search terms that are showing your ads, that brings a shopper into your listing and converts to a sale. If you don’t know the terminology your audience is using, how do you target it?
You need to learn the terminology your audience is using, then you can focus your listing to target that audience. If you do that, you are more likely to have a higher organic search position.
Sometimes your ad campaign will be profitable and that’s great. Run with it, expand it as much as possible. Other times, you might find that you’re losing money because it’s too expensive and not converting. However, that may not be a failed campaign because you can still learn from it. If, through advertising, it is raising your organic listing, then it could be profitable that way.
Using Amazon PPC for Product Positioning
So the next question is, how do you take what you learned from your campaign and use it for better organic search position? Through your Amazon PPC campaign you learned different search terms that draws shoppers into your listing. You might find that you convert really well on 5 of those search terms. However, you might find that only 2 of them have low enough competition that you have the chance to rank really high in them. If you tailor your listing to search terms that have low competition, it gives you a better chance of positioning your product higher in the niche search terms that you know convert.
For Free video training from Brian, click on the video image below:
Keyword Stuffing
An old technique that used to work very well, was keyword stuffing. That is when you take every keyword that anyone might find your product through, and stuff them into your listing. The idea was that you could boost your ranking for all these keywords by just having them in the listing. Around mid-2016 Amazon changed the way they view relevancy and content matching when it came to keyword advertising.
Before, they used a broad match search where they took all the words in your listing and matched them with the search terms. Now they also factor in phrase match, where if you have the exact phrase the buyer searched for, that counts. Amazon rewards you if you target exact phrases rather than individual words. They reward you for targeting your audience. In order to do that, you have to know your audience.
Organic vs Sponsored Ranking
Organic results and sponsored ads use different content data. This switch last summer and most people don’t realize it. Now, they both use title. Organic mostly uses the backend search term fields. Sponsored ads uses the bullets and description fields mostly.
Let’s say you are selling a blue pen. Through Amazon PPC, you find that you convert on “blue plastic pen”, “thin blue plastic pen”, “plastic pen”, and “pen”. In your research you find that “pen” has a million competing results. You will never get on page 1. You might make it to page 20. As you target your audience, you’ll find that you rank better on more targeted search terms. Typically, long tail keywords like “thin blue plastic pen”. However, you might find that “thin blue plastic pen” has a lot of competition because some research tool recommended it. Therefore, “blue plastic pen” might have the least amount of competition. That is where you would want to position your product. You know it converts because your PPC showed that, and you can rank much easier because competition is low.
There is an insane amount of information and nuance when it comes to all this. Much more than I could adequately cover. So to find out more,
check out Brian’s training videos.
It’s part of a series you can watch without obligation, and it will blow your mind. No joke. I’m still reeling from what I learned from this interview.
Amazon PPC Cheat Sheet
Brian has graciously offered his Amazon PPC cheatsheet for Amazing FBA listeners. Head on over to:
and get the cheat sheet as well as some other great resources, including access to training videos.
His program is a six-step system and this cheat sheet goes through the most critical three.
- Discovery Launch
- You set up a campaign for a new product to figure out the competition level and the search terms that go with it. It’s a way to get keywords that you can use in your ads. However, Amazon is very inefficient and won’t do a good of a job as you could do on your own.
- Initially this is aggressive, then after 2 – 4 weeks, you can back off your bid.
- Research Campaign
- You would set up secondary campaigns for the purpose of finding keywords that Amazon fids relevant, therefore will show your ads that will lead to conversions. This is a more focused campaign for after you filter out the inefficient keywords.
- High Performance Campaign
- This is a laser focus campaign where you earn you ranking and making profitable sales.
Performance Metrics
There are three metrics that you need to focus on to determine which campaign makes it to the last phase.They are related to the sales funnel.
- Click-through rate. When a shopper searches on Amazon, they are getting the organic results as well as ads. Once they click on your ad, they are telling you that ad is relevant. The click-through rate is an indicator of how many people are coming into your ‘shop’.
- Conversion Rate. This is how good of a job your product does in convincing the shopper.
- Profit. The profitability isn’t shown in any Amazon report but it’s essential for having a successful business.
Get More Information
The best place to get more info is in Brian’s free training at Sponsored Product Academy. There are 4 free videos about this whole area. Just click on the video image below to access that:
The Academy full course itself It is very in-depth training. It’s about a 5-week course. It’s the best place to start if you want to dominate your competitors in advertising. But start with the free videos and take it from there.
For the cheat sheet and other resources, including instant access to training videos, just visit the link below:
Watch How to Effectively Use Amazon PPC with Brian Johnson Part 2 of 3
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