How to optimize PPC campaigns when you have low inventory?

Nowadays, selling on Amazon has become an excellent possibility for sellers with good products, well-optimized product listings and efficient PPC management. By selling on Amazon, you can significantly improve your business and increase sales even though the battle for rank #1 is getting fiercer every day. You can notice a significant increase in CPC in almost every category month over month, which signifies that the number of competitors is increasing, and the chase for number #1 represents a considerable challenge. So how do you optimize PPC campaigns on Amazon and stay ahead of the competition?

Consequences of low inventory issue on Amazon

Good management of your product listings and your PPC ads on Amazon can boost your products to become best sellers. Although many sellers focus on the elements mentioned above, they often forget one essential asset for growing their business. Inventory and enough units in stock are crucial assets for every product, so their sales and rank don’t decrease. This issue with low inventory and units out of stock can negatively affect product rank and sales, not to mention PPC management of campaigns that become inactive when the product is out of stock.

Campaigns and ad groups seem to run although the product is inactive, but when you click on the product within your campaign, you can notice an alert for the product - ineligible. It means that your ads are not active until when the product becomes restocked and available again.

Maybe this sounds like a harmless situation, but this issue can cause your product to lose rank and a decline in sales. When this happens, you need time to regain your rank and your visibility on Amazon, as well as sales. It requires a couple of weeks to fix your account so you can continue selling like before. If you had your campaigns running, you could pause them, and when the product is available again, you can activate campaigns. However, pausing campaigns can harm your product rank for main keywords. Afterward, you will need some time (a couple of weeks) to recover your account regarding PPC campaigns when your product is active again. 

PPC tips for low inventory products

To avoid this problem, you need to restock your inventory before it is too late. 

When it comes to the PPC part of management ads for products with low stock, it is important to decrease bids and budgets to balance and keep campaigns running so you can have enough time to restock the inventory and keep your campaigns running. Low inventory issues are also bad for campaigns because the number of impressions and clicks decreases since the Amazon algorithm recognizes those products with low stock and leaves them behind. We had numerous situations where sales, clicks, and impressions decreased when products started having low inventory. 

Out-of-stock issues are a more significant challenge than low inventory because they block your sales. You lose sales and potential customers who notice that your product is out-of-stock, so they find competitors’ products like yours, and you miss the purchase. 

Besides inventory status–available, and out of stock, you can have the reserved status of products in Amazon inventory. It means that they arrived in the Amazon warehouse, but they are still not ready for dispatch. The issue with this status is that products become active in campaigns, but when a customer clicks on the ad, he can see the delivery time on the product page between 10 and 20 days. Most buyers skip this product because it’s not available at the moment, and you pay per click on the ad. So, the best solution is to pause all campaigns with products out of stock to avoid spending without sales.

The inventory level is a vital asset for selling on Amazon, and you have to create a great strategy and provide enough units to prevent the out-of-stock situation. It means that you need to have a high number of units in stock for essential holidays, Prime Day, and other big events. These days your sales can increase significantly, so to avoid out of stock issues and decline in sales, think about your inventory level to be sure that you are going in the right direction.

Conclusion

With all the information mentioned above, we recommend you have enough available products in your inventory so your ads can be successful all the time and your products shine like a star on the first page on Amazon. As we said, it would be best if you keep your inventory level high, and for the rest of the PPC job, you can leave it to us. 

Our experts are waiting to help you optimize your PPC campaigns! Don’t hesitate to book a completely FREE audit of your Amazon account as we are going to point out all the strengths and weaknesses of your current PPC strategy.

About the author

Jelena Gajic is a PPC Specialist at Sellers Alley with over three years of experience in Amazon PPC. She is a PPC enthusiast, always looking for new ideas in her field of expertise, and a language lover who speaks English, French and Italian fluently.