The Amazon PPC Seller

Starter Kit

Contents

PPC is a Process, Not a Destination

Focus On Your Product Before Advertising It

The Buy Box is Extremely Important

Bridge the Gap Between AdWords and Amazon PPC

There Are Three Basic Amazon PPC Ad Types

ACoS is the Primary Metric for Ad Campaign Success

� ACoS Formula: Total Ad Spend/Total Ad Sales

� Low ACoS Means High Profitability

� High ACoS Isn’t Necessarily a Bad Thing

Don’t Overbid When You’re Starting Out

� Start Out With an Auto Campaign

� You’re Going to Have the Urge to Bid High. Don’t.

Automate and Crush Your Competition

A s advertising on Amazon becomes bigger and bigger,

entrepreneurs are scrambling to become knowledgeable in

the new wave of PPC. Amazon PPC is not a foreign language

and you don’t have to research the entire internet to find out

how to do it. Everything you need to know to get started is

right here. The rest is on our blog.

PPC is a Process, Not a DestinationAs a badger who helps Amazon sellers grow their online store and create path

towards financial prosperity for themselves, I am always an advocate of making

your own path. Here is where I give some philosophy.

Amazon PPC is like:

Account security. If you don’t update your passwords and security information,

you can leave it vulnerable to hackers. If you don’t update your Amazon PPC, then

you’re going to leave it vulnerable to competition taking your ad space.

A garden. At first, it's a bunch of work to tend to the soil and plant your seeds and

water them. But over time you will yield profitable fruit. And it's also like a garden

because if you don't optimize, weeds will grow!

Icing on the cake. Your product is the base layer of your whole Amazon-entrepre-

neur cake, but the icing could make or break your cake (that rhymed).

Amazon PPC has to continually be optimized in order to be effective. It is a pro-

cess and not a one-and-done destination.

Focus On Your Product Before

Advertising ItAmazon PPC being only part of the equation of successfully selling on Amazon.

The other half of selling on Amazon is having a desirable product and realistic

business objectives. Some Amazon sellers look to PPC automation tools to sell

products for them. The tools certainly help, but it starts with the product.

Amazon ad ranking is based on CTR and conversion rate.

There are many ways to improve the CTR and Conversion Rate to help your ad

ranking before you start creating ad campaigns.

Here are some things you can do to ensure success on Amazon:

Optimize images

Amazon wants your images to be

compatible with its zoom feature.

Aim for 1,000 X 1,000 pixels or

larger. On top of that, make your

images the highest quality

possible.

Product pricing

Simple supply and demand, my

friend. You want a better price

than your competitors to create

more sales.

Great product descriptions

Your customer wants to know what

they’re buying. If you’re being vague

about your product, the chances

are the customer will move to a

product page that has a better

description.

Customer service

If the customer has a bad experi-

ence, they will most likely give you a

low rating and possibly

a bad review.

Learn more about Amazon PPC ad ranking here

The Buy Box is Extremely

ImportantIn order to qualify to run ads on Amazon, your product has to own the Buy Box.

The Buy Box is the “Add to Cart” button on the product detail page. More about

the Buy Box here.

Things that factor into winning the Buy Box include:

� A history of successful selling

� Excellent customer service

� Having enough stock

� A competitive price

� Having Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA)

How Amazon runs its advertising has been secretive for the most part, but it has

been said that using FBA for your products greatly influences winning the Buy

Box.

Once you own the Buy Box, you’re good to advertise.

Bridge the Gap Between AdWords and Amazon PPC

Amazon is the new ad platform to be on, but it doesn’t require a whole new set of

skills. If you’re well versed in AdWords, you are equipped for Amazon PPC ads. It’s

actually a lot easier than AdWords. For now, there’s fewer options, lower competi-

tion, and higher conversion rates than AdWords. The biggest frustration you’ll

experience as an AdWords professional is that there aren’t enough options for

optimization.

Amazon PPC is heavily inspired by AdWords. Common characteristics include:

� Ad types

� Match types

� Bids

� Negative Keywords

� Quality Score

Google’s priorities are a little different from Amazon’s. Google is all about the

service, Amazon is all about the profit.

Google wants to display ads that are closest to what is entered in a search query.

Amazon wants to present ads that the searcher is most likely to buy. This key

difference extends the idea of what is defined as a “Quality” Ad.

Amazon doesn’t use the term Quality Score, however, they use the same idea:

combining a number of factors to influence the ranking of an ad. Amazon’s ad

ranking algorithm takes in many factors when making your product visible and

breaks the factors up into two categories. Here is a full post on bridging the gap

between Amazon PPC and Google AdWords.

There Are Three Basic Amazon PPC

Ad TypesWhether it be Headline Search Ads, Sponsored Product Ads, Product Display Ads,

it’s important to know what types of ads come with selling products on Amazon.

First things first, you have Seller Central where you’ll find Headline Search Ads and

Sponsored Product Ads, then you have Vendor Central where you’ll find Product

Display Ads in addition to Headline Search Ads and Sponsored Product Ads.

The Power of Headline Search Ads:

� Headline search ads can send traffic to a custom URL (company landing page,

the best selling product, or a brand page).

� They allow for more customization and control of the ad.

� Headline Search Ads are primarily for top-of-the-funnel customers, giving your

product the opportunity to grab a customer’s attention before they precisely

know what they want.

The Power of Sponsored Product Ads:

� They are the most popular type of ads

on Amazon.

� Sponsored Product Ads are the most

seen by customers.

� They are proven to convert the best

and increase ROI.

Sponsored Product Ads live at almost

every step on the customer’s journey.

The Power of Product Display Ads:

� They only appear in Vendor Central.

� Product Display Ads appear on the product page.

� They’re useful for converting customers because these ads appear at the last stage

of the customer journey.

� These ads are not targeted with keywords.

� You can select where you want your Product Display Ads to appear.

On top of the three types of ads in

Vendor Central, there’s brand pages

and ads through Amazon Marketing

Services you can explore. Here’s more

about Enhanced Brand Content and

A+ Content as well as Sponsored

Product Ads, Product Display Ads,

and Headline Search Ads inside AMS.

There! Now you know a good chunk

of Amazon PPC already.

ACoS is the Primary Metric for Ad

Campaign SuccessAdvertising Cost of Sale or ACoS is the main metric Amazon sellers should look at

when determining the success of an Amazon PPC campaign.

Your ACoS percentage is how much you spend on advertising per every dollar of

revenue you make. You can calculate your ACoS using the formula below.

ACoS Formula: Total Ad Spend/Total Ad Sales

Example: If your ACoS is 25%, you paid $.25 for every dollar you made or $25 for

every $100 you made (before the cost to make the goods in subtracted).

ACoS is typically the way to measure your ad campaign success. If you're an expe-

rienced online advertiser and coming for Google AdWords, you may find Amazon

took this idea from Google, which uses Revenue over Ad Spend (RoAS).

Low ACoS Means High Profitability

Most sellers want a low ACoS so they can get the most profit from their ads. Using

that example above, say your ACoS went even lower than 25%. If your ACoS was

20% then you would spend $.20 for every dollar made or a profit of $80 for every

$100. If your ACoS was 10%, you’d spend $.10 for every dollar made and increase

profit.

High ACoS Isn’t Necessarily a Bad Thing

There are situations where you would want to

increase your ad spend and raise your ACoS. Say

your strategy is to gain visibility for your product or

ensure you’re bidding higher than your competi-

tors for a search term. A high ACoS would be a way

to go. With a high ACoS, you sacrifice profit for

brand awareness and taking over a niche with your

ads. Think of it like buying an ad for the Superbowl.

The ad will be expensive, but the brand awareness

potential is unlimited.

Here are the differences between Auto and Manual Campaigns

Don’t Overbid When You’re Starting

OutAmazon PPC is a bidding system. You begin your Amazon PPC journey by setting a

daily budget and a max CPC bid. Next you choose if you want to run an Automatic

Campaign or a Manual Campaign.

Start Out With an Auto Campaign

If you’re brand new to selling on Amazon, I highly suggest you start with an Auto-

matic Campaign. The Auto Campaign will allow you to collect data on search

terms. After about two weeks of collecting data, you can peel your most convert-

ing search terms in that Auto Campaign and stick them into a Manual Campaign

and slowly increase your bids to get the most out of the search terms. Lastly, you

want to block search terms that don’t create conversions. I call this the Research,

Peel, Stick, and Block Method (RPSB).

You can learn more about Automatic vs. Manual Campaigns here

You’re Going to Have the Urge to

Bid High. Don’t. Now let’s discuss the amount you should bid when starting out.

A lot of Amazon sellers are unsure of their bid amount when starting with Amazon

PPC. Many take a shot in the dark and bid way more than they should. This will

lead you to a high ACoS right out of the gate and not that much data to work with.

This is where I recommend the Inch-Up Method for Amazon bidding.

As an Amazon seller and an entrepreneur, you want to get the most ROI for the

least dollar amount. The Inch-Up Method is designed to do that.

First let’s talk about the Fast and Sloppy Method most sellers use when starting

out. Fast and Sloppy, that kind of strategy involves bidding aggressively and over-

shooting where you actually need to be. You might spend $3.00 a bid on day one

and day two of bidding. By day three, you might realize $3.00 a bid is quite a bit to

be bidding every day, so you decide to bring your bids down to $1.50, which is still

a pretty big bid on Amazon.

With these ads, you might end up spending quite a bit of money and get three

conversions (hypothetically). You got clicks, and ended up with three conversions,

but your ACoS will be extremely high. Your money is being thrown down an

Amazon PPC black hole. This is the point where most sellers reach a crossroads.

They ask if Amazon PPC is really worth it or they might drastically cut their bids.

When an Amazon seller repeats this process, that’s months and months of wasted

spend.

If You Bid Lower, You Can Get the

Same Information for CheaperEnter the Inch-Up Method. Ad Badger thought a lot about this when we created

our Bid Optimizer tool. The secret to great PPC optimization is spending the least

for the most information possible and to bid conservatively.

An example of this is on day one use a micro bid (~10 cents) and undershoot on a

keyword. Because you’re not 100% sure how it will perform, there’s no point in

bidding a high amount on it.

The rest of your bidding in the near future should look like this:

� Day one, 10 cents, no clicks.

� Day two, 20 cents, no clicks.

� Day three, 30 cents, one click

� Day four, 40 cents, three clicks

You’re slowly but surely “inching” up your bid 10 cents every single day. You start

to see zero clicks, but a little bit more impressions will start coming in. You’ll begin

getting a little bit more clicks, one click, three click, four clicks, six, 10.

Then at the end of about a week, you’ll end up with some magical

and beautiful conversions. Getting your first conversion on Amazon

is a great feeling for sellers. The same conversions I just paid $50 for

in the Fast and Sloppy Method, you only paid $14, because you

started much, much lower and created a lower ACoS.

Automate and Crush Your

CompetitionThere’s basic Amazon PPC knowledge that you can use to optimize your ads, but

there’s going to be constant updates in Seller Central and Vendor Central and new

avenues to advertise. Amazon is continuing to propel their advertising platform to

disrupt the Facebook and Google duopoly.

It also makes sense to add automation tools to your workflow. Ad Badger cuts out

spreadsheets by automating keyword research and bidding to make it easier to

take on more clients. You can spend less time on Amazon PPC and more time

impressing customers. We also provide 1-on-1 support for all your PPC questions

and personal videos to give feedback on your account. Let The Badger geek out

over Amazon PPC so you don’t have to.

Ad Badger provides:

1. Time savings so you can work on other areas of your

Amazon business. Think about it,if you were to add negative

keywords, and optimize bids, it would take hours a week, but

these things can be automated.

2. Competitive advantages. Your competition probably isn't

updating their campaigns every day. If you can get in daily,

compared to another seller's monthly optimization, you'll get

much ahead.

3. Profit Boosting. Bid optimization can reduce wasted spend

because you’re bidding the perfect amount to win the key-

word and increase ad profit. We scan your account daily to

block out irrelevant and unprofitable searches.

Thanks for reading. Badger out!