The basics of Amazon PPC advertising

Amazon is a global e-commerce platform with 300 million users, so basically if it was a country, it would be the fourth largest state in the world! If you are just getting started on this platform and want to explore the world of Amazon PPC advertising, read this article. 

What is Amazon PPC advertising?

Pay – per – click is an advertising model used to drive traffic to the product page, in which the advertiser pays Amazon when the ad is clicked. What does this mean? Well, the whole philosophy is that you pay only when someone clicks on your ad. 

PPC terms you need to know

When entering the world of Amazon PPC advertising, you will be surrounded with terms which might frighten you. But don’t worry, because they are easy to understand when explained with short definitions. Here are some main PPC terms that you will use:

• Impressions – The number of times that Amazon shows your advertisement.
• Clicks – A shopper see’s a advert and clicks on that advert’s link counts as a single click.
• CTR (Click Through Rate) – The ratio between the number of times your advert is shown to customers and the number of clicks that advert gets.
• CPC (Cost Per Click) – The amount that you pay Amazon each time a customer clicks on your advert.
• Spend – The amount of money you have spent on advertising.
• Sales – The gross product sales as a result of advertising.
• ACOS (Advertising cost of sales) – The percent of attributed sales spent on advertising. This is calculated by dividing total spend by total sales.
• Orders – A single transaction by a customer.
• Units sold -The individual quantity of items purchased
• Campaign – A campaign is a way to group your ads under a common advertising budget and dates. It consists of one or more ad groups, which contain different ads and keywords.
• Keyword – The word or words that you are bidding on for the purpose of showing your product advert.
• Search term – A customer search term is the exact set of words which he enters when searching for a product on Amazon. 
• Match type – Keyword match types help control which shopper searches can trigger your ad. There are three match types: exact, phrase and broad. 

Types of Amazon PPC ads

Amazon offers different types of ads to boost your sales and fit to your business goals. These are pay per click ads based on the auction model. It means that you choose the highest price you’re willing to pay when someone clicks on your ad. If you decide to bid the higher price, it is more likely that your ad will appear to the customers searching for your type of product. 

Before you start advertising, you need to learn more about the types of sponsored ads that use PPC advertising models:

Sponsored Display

The goal of Sponsored Display Ads is to reach relevant audiences on and off Amazon.  They appear on product detail pages, customer review pages and top of the offer listing pages. The main feature of these ads is increasing product awareness and conversions. Sponsored Display Ads are displayed to the right audience with relevant shopping activities that match your product. They represent unique remarketing tool which can help you catch the interest of searchers who already searched, viewed or purchased your product or similar ones. 

Create campaigns for these types of ads in a few clicks, select your audience, set daily budget and bid, choose the product you want to sell and that’s it. Now, it is important to say that you don’t bid for keywords in this case. It’s because the platform uses searchers shopping behaviour and interests to help you reach audiences that might buy your product. 

Sponsored Products 

The second type, Sponsored Product Ads appear at the top and bottom of the Amazon search results page, within organic results and also on product pages. They can be a great way to spread awareness about new products that you offer or to promote seasonal items. 

How do you bid? Well, unlike Sponsored Display Ads, you bid on relevant keywords that match your audience interest. Higher bid gives your ad a better chance to display to the customers searching for the type of product you are offering. Besides manually choosing keywords which you want to bid on, there is a possibility to make an auto campaign which allows Amazon to add keywords instead of you. You will also see that this platform offers an option to target a specific product or product category which is similar to yours. That way your product will be more visible to the visitors who are searching for it.

Sponsored Brands

Sponsored Brand Ads offer you more brand visibility, especially if you just started advertising on Amazon. They appear on the top, alongside, within organic results or at the bottom of search. These ads feature your brand logo together with three chosen products. When searchers click on the ad, they are redirected to your Amazon Store where they can continue exploring the product listing. 

The bidding is the same as the one for Sponsored Product Ads. You choose the product that you want to advertise, create and customize the ad. Also, be sure to decide which keywords you want to target and how much money you are willing to pay for the click. Like with Sponsored Product Ads, you can target products and product categories to increase visibility of your items and eventually boost your sales. 

How do you start with Amazon PPC advertising?

So, you have read this quick overview of PPC terms and Amazon ads which use this advertising model. What is the next step?

Be sure to start from the beginning and learn all about Amazon advertising. If you are a seller on Amazon who wants to boost sales or someone looking for opportunities to learn about Amazon PPC advertising, it is essential to determine your business goals and learning paths.  Besides learning every day, you should implement the knowledge you have and put it to the test. So start a campaign, do the A/B test, see which kind of ads work for your brand or the brand you are advertising for. Eventually, you will start getting better results and all of the hard work will pay off.