This is probably for newer Amazon sellers that are now starting to get how selling on Amazon works. For the more intermediate sellers or sellers that are already selling on the Amazon marketplace probably know how important Amazon PPC is and would not need further convincing.
The question enviably comes when the new seller keeps hearing about Amazon PPC, thinking about why they should spend even more money to start their Amazon business. Since Amazon PPC started it has been an essential part of selling on Amazon, even more so in 2021 as Amazon has moved aggressively to monetize every main placement on their website.
So if you are still not convinced about starting your first campaign on Amazon PPC, below are the top 7 reasons why you should
Getting Real Data on Customer Search Results
Assuming you have gotten to the stage where you have decided on a product to sell. You probably have already done a lot of research, specific keyword research, on your product. But the tools you used for keyword research are using estimates and not true Amazon marketplace data.
If you have researched multiple keywords and prioritized them, you can never really know how these keywords perform on your products. There is your perception of keyword-product fit but you can never really know with certainty unless you can test it against the market. As the saying goes “It doesn’t matter what you think, it only matters what the market thinks”, and Amazon PPC is a great way for Amazon sellers to test whether their keyword is truly relevant.
By running an Amazon PPC campaign against your keywords, you can make sure that the keyword you added into your Amazon listing is the ones that actually convert to a sale. Double down on the keywords that are performing well via Amazon PPC by optimizing your Amazon listing with it and also target your product launches with these very same tested keywords.
Ranking for Keywords Improve Amazon SEO
The beauty of Amazon PPC is that the conversion metrics have a direct effect on the organic ranking. This direct correlation between PPC and organic rank is very different than say Google Adwords or Facebook ads as they’ve explicitly said that running ads on a keyword does not influence organic ranking.
The story is different on Amazon. Amazon’s paid search ranking (PPC) is influenced by the same factors that drive its organic position. So the spending you make on a keyword conversion you make on Amazon PPC can directly drive both Amazon PPC sales and organic sales on your improve ranking.
Amazon PPC can start the “Fly Wheel” effect
Within Amazon, there is a positive feedback loop that occurs in addition to sales. This feedback loop is critical to your success as an Amazon seller, and it can jumpstart your product visibility. The “Fly Wheel” effect is another name for this positive feedback loop Amazon PPC is a great method to get started “spinning this flywheel.”
The flywheel effect as explained:
- Impression and Clicks to your book
- Clicks = Sales
- Sales would ? your keyword ranking
- A higher ranking will mean higher sales
- Higher sales will increase your reviews
- More reviews = Higher conversion rate
- Higher conversation = Higher Rankings = ? in Sales
- Flywheel repeats
The main lesson is that Amazon PPC will assist you in achieving both tangible (sales) and intangible (reviews and keyword ranking) benefits. These intangibles can have an impact on tangible outcomes. Knowing that Amazon can achieve all of the above goals in one swoop makes Amazon PPC a worthwhile investment.
Protecting your Amazon Product Listing
As mention above, Amazon has a placement for ads everywhere and this includes your product listing page. As you can see below they are over the place and you can see it for a competitor’s products.
Hence, you can use Amazon PPC via product targeting ads to “defend” your listing against your competitors. In this case, your Amazon PPC campaign, just like a good defense on your quarterback, can defend against competitors by bidding on your own ASIN and have your own branded product listed on your product listing page.
Basically, by having all your product on your own listing you are preventing a shopper from having a chance to look at your competition. This prevents leakage from the traffic you have driven directly to your listing via Amazon PPC or from Amazon SEO.
Further Explain your offering via Sponsored Brand Videos
Is your product offering unique? And you want to explain it in detail but photos won’t do it justice. With Amazon PPC you can create Sponsored Brands video ads that are 45 secs long. On both mobile and desktop, these clips appear in the middle of the search result page. Because it is now only displayed on the search result page, this ad type only allows for keyword targeting. I believe that the product attribute targeting (PAT) option will be available in the future, and that video advertising will be displayed on the product pages.
By using video ads you really explain your value proposition of the product that can in turn lead to much higher conversion and higher keyword ranking as a result.
Although video asset creation might be pricey, any video is preferable to none. Take video clips of your product with your smartphone and have someone edit them for you on Upwork or Fiverr. One hack for this is to go over your reviews, see if there are any positive video reviews, and run your Sponsored Brands video with them
Increase awareness of your Brand
Using Amazon PPC you can drive awareness to your brand by using Sponsored Brands ad type. These are banner-type ads, that show up as the top banner of the search results. The banner ads can show up to 3 different products and can show a collection of products instead of one.
With the opportunity to customize your tagline with an ad that directs straight to a customized landing page with your selection of products, Sponsored Brands is fantastic for helping customers discover and engage with your brand to increase awareness.
Increase Amazon Search Result Real Estate
Using Amazon PPC you can really be strategic and use it to dominate the “real estate” on a customer search term. Let’s say your product really converts well to “Sleeping pillow for travel”, and you have a few variations of the product. Then you can create the following Amazon PPC campaign to dominate the results by bidding aggressively for “Sleeping pillow for travel”:
- Sponsored Product Campaign # 1 for variation one
- Sponsored Product Campaign # 2 for variation two
- Sponsored Product Campaign # 3 for variation three
- Sponsored Brand Campaign for variation one/two/three
- Sponsored Brand Video Campaign for variation one
By running the above campaigns you can potentially show up on half of the overall placement available on the first page of “Sleeping pillow for travel”
Hope you found the above article has convinced you of the reason why Amazon PPC is as important as ever for the Amazon seller. It may appear intimidating at first, but if you are prepared to put in the effort, you should see some favorable results using Amazon PPC. Over time, Amazon selling has gotten more competitive; you can no longer simply list a product and wait for sales to trickle in; being successful in Amazon PPC will give you a distinct advantage.
About the Author
Rick Wong is the founder of SellerMetrics, an Amazon PPC Software. Having worked in some of the world’s largest financial institutions in Canada, he ventured into Amazon selling in 2017 and sold his Amazon business four years later.
He currently resides in Hong Kong with his wife and 1 yr old daughter. On days that he is not in his office, you can find him playing golf with his friends or watching the newest show on Netflix with his family.
