Amazon PPC Playbook: Actionable Strategies from Top Experts on Amazon Advertising

Amazon Expert

Hi I’m Steven, Founder of My Amazon Guy, a 500+ person Amazon Seller Central agency out of Atlanta, GA. We Growth Hack eCommerce and Marketplaces through PPC, SEO, Design, and Catalog Management.

Negate Search Terms

Amazon Advertising Expert Abe Chomali, founder of https://www.xpstrategy.com/

Abe Chomali, the founder of XP Strategy, advises on regularly negating search terms. Targeting the right keywords is crucial to reaching the right audience with Amazon advertising campaigns. But you could be wasting ad dollars if you do not negate irrelevant search terms. 

Regularly review and negate search terms. Add negative keywords or ASINs to prevent your ads from showing up in irrelevant search results. 

You may do this recurrently after a specific number of clicks or on a weekly basis to help reduce wasted spend and improve overall ROI. Freshly set-up campaigns are like babies. 

They need much closer monitoring by looking at search terms reports and negating irrelevant search terms that might be eating up the budget. Make use of the ASIN Negation Tab, which is specially designed to help prevent ads from showing up for certain products. 

You’ll find this quite useful when targeting a specific category while excluding products that are not for your ideal audience.

Use Product Targeting in Amazon Advertising

Amazon Advertising expert Chris Rawlings, founder of https://www.sophiesociety.com/

According to Chris Rawlings, founder of Sophie Society and also a brand investor, the cycling of Amazon ads influences which placements are producing the most favorable results. There are certain placements that perform better than others.

Currently, Sponsored Product Expanded Product Targeting is one of the placement types that produces better outcomes. Product targeting in Amazon advertising is when you attempt to show your ads on the listings of other products.

Product targeting in Adobe's marketplace.

With expanded product targeting, Amazon can choose which listings your ads will appear on. This is different from when you directly target specific ASINs or from how auto campaigns inside keyword targeting work. 

Start by creating a product targeting campaign. Enter your own ASIN as your target and then tick the “Expanded” box (the “Exact” box should be unticked).

Increase Ad Spend Strategically

A woman smiling in front of an orange background while managing her Amazon marketplace account.

For Destaney Wishon, CEO of BetterAMS, it is important to be picky about the targets you focus your ad budget on.

To determine the more strategic targets, perform an Amazon advertising presence audit. In Amazon Seller Central’s advertising console, click “Add Columns”, then add Spend, Sales, Orders, CPC, ACoS / RoAS, and Conversion Rate.

A screen with an enhanced AI option highlighted for improved marketing management through My Amazon Guy.

Change the date range to the last 30 days and then filter spending in descending order (highest to lowest). This allows you to review which targets are eating up most of your ad spend. 

The ideal targets in Amazon advertising are those that convert best and improve your rank or organic sales presence. Be strategic when budgeting by ensuring that you do not spend a lot on auto campaigns, category/product targeting, or low-converting targets.

Adjust bids to drive conversion and profitability. Focus on targets that convert higher than average.

Cleverly Bid on Ads

Amazon Advertising expert Edward Ruffin, Director of Services at https://www.sellerlabs.com/

Edward Ruffin, Director of Services at Seller Labs, says that you need to work smarter and not harder when it comes to Amazon advertising. 

Many Amazon sellers often increase their bids and budgets in hopes of beating the competition. However, this move only results in losses. Amazon already provides tactics and tools that advertisers can take advantage of. 

Look more closely at your advertising data to see where you need to spend more. Make use of broad and placement modifiers, as well as other bidding strategies, to gain better control of your budget. 

Broad modifiers let your ads appear for more search terms that are relevant to your listings. Placement modifiers, on the other hand, give you some sort of control over appearing in placements where your listings have a history of conversion. 

There are strategies on Amazon advertising that allow you to cleverly control your spending and be as aggressive as you want to be. It is not a good decision to impulsively triple your bids right after seeing that there’s more competition in your category.  

Study your advertising data and history. Let the performance of your previous campaigns guide you on where to allocate more of your budget.

Control Your Ad Spending

A woman holding a mug that says jungler while utilizing marketplace management offered by My Amazon Guy.

Co-founder of Junglr, Elizabeth Greene, thinks that self-reflection is important before making any decision about increasing ad spend.

Determine how much control you have over where your money goes. This is true whether you are planning to raise budgets, bids, placement percentages, and more. 

Lower control means greater risks. It would be terrible to revamp an entire ad campaign due to a lack of oversight and careful assessment of your Amazon advertising.

Monitor Ranks Using Helium 10

Amazon Advertising expert Hannah Whitlock, founder of http://reddogppc.co.uk/

Hannah Whitlock is the founder of Red Dog PPC and she noted that overspending on ads may be avoided by using Helium10 to monitor organic and sponsored ads.

Here at My Amazon Guy, Helium 10 is also one of our favorite tools to use. Sharing our partiality for H10, she explained that if the organic rank for a certain keyword is 1-4, you could lower the PPC spend without leaving an impact on the organic position.  

Remember that there are certain keywords where a high ad spend is necessary, despite attaining a good organic rank. For brands, testing and determining the possibility of overspending are important to succeed in  Amazon advertising.

Perform Trend Analysis of Amazon Advertising

Amazon Advertising expert Joe Shelerud, Co-Founder and CEO of https://www.adadvance.com/

Joe Shelerud, Co-Founder and CEO of Ad Advance, recognizes the usefulness of the Search Query Performance report.

He said that it is one of his favorite tools for unlocking untapped keywords that are potentially needle-moving. More than just keyword discovery, this tool can also help when performing trend analysis.

Adobe marketplace.

Details from this analysis will help you plan inventories and create future advertising strategies for achieving more gains and evading losses.

Work With Organic Sales Percentage

Aamazon Advertising expert Josh Hadley, host of https://ecommbreakthrough.com/

Josh Hadley, is the host of the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast. He said their new products ranked quickly through a strategy that involved paying attention to organic sales percentages.

They launch 30-40 SKUs monthly, and they follow a three-step strategy for this. The first step is keyword classification, which involves entering four selected keywords into Amazon’s search bar. 

His team identified their competitors based on the percentage of organic results on the first page of search results. Secondly, they launched products with single keyword exact match ad campaigns for two keywords for the first 8 weeks. 

When their organic sales percentage got over 50%, they set forth on the final step of ad campaigns for the last two keywords.

Focus on the Basics of Amazon Advertising

Amazon Advertising expert Liran Hirschkorn, CEO & Founder of https://incrementumdigital.com/

Liran Hirschkorn, CEO & Founder of Incrementum Digital, expressed that in order to improve results in PPC advertising, you need to focus on the basics first before the advanced levels.

Concentrate first on highly relevant keywords and product targets. Optimize bids according to ACos/TACos targets and then add negative keywords.

Once done with these basics, proceed to optimizing placements, A/B testing creative headlines, and using sponsored display.

Convert Text to Text Art

Amazon Advertising expert Ritu Java, CEO of https://www.ppcninja.com/

Ritu Java, CEO of PPC Ninja, has found that instant approval is possible through a visual hack.

If you wish Amazon to approve a text on an image for Sponsored Brands Headline ads, then make the text into text art. This is similar to the main image hack Steven Pope shared about adding readable text in the main image.

Convert Text to Text Art for Amazon Advertising

Follow Pareto’s Principle

Amazon Advertising expert Travis Zigler, CEO of https://profitablepineapple.com/

Travis Zigler, CEO of Profitable Pineapple Ads, implements Pareto’s Principle in Amazon ad campaigns. 

With this principle, 20% of customer search terms may result in 80% more sales. Isolate then scale search terms in separate and customized exact match and broad match campaigns. Work on exact match campaigns if you have a limited budget.

Improve Your Listing’s Conversion Rate

Your Amazon conversion rate shows how many of your page visitors are really purchasing your product. Also, it helps your listing rank higher, helping you gain more visitors in the long run. 

To improve your conversion rate, there are actually several things you can do.

First, you may optimize your listing’s title, bullet points, description, images, videos, A+, and product reviews. Develop a pricing strategy for profitability and competitiveness. 

It would be good to also offer some discounts and promotions to attract customers. You can check out one of our YouTube videos on how to optimize your product listings.

You can also get a free audit of your listing from a listing optimization expert at My Amazon Guy.  Click here to claim your free listing review.

No One Size Fits All PPC Plan

We know all too well here at My Amazon Guy that Amazon PPC marketing is not a walk in the park. There is no single strategy that will work for all advertising ventures. 

You might actually need to follow a variety of methods to achieve your advertising goals. May these tips from the experts provide you with wisdom. And if you ever need additional help with Amazon Advertising, we are glad to assist you in any way we can

We can help with the several key areas that you should focus on in order to improve PPC ads. You may also check out our website for more Amazon PPC Tips To Lower ACOS & Grow Sales.

If you would like more help with your Amazon ads, click here to learn more about how we can help.