Amazon is a growing retail website and has developed into an extremely powerful marketing tool and search engine.
Amazon PPC ads work in a similar way to Google’s Paid Search platform (Google Ads). You pay every time someone clicks on your ad, with a cost per click model.
Nearly 90% of UK shoppers now use Amazon to purchase the products they need and want. They turn to Amazon in a similar way to Google and other search engines when searching for a product to buy. So, when they click on your ads and product listings, they’re ready and willing to buy.
If you’re an Amazon seller already or if you’re looking to sell your products on Amazon, knowing how it works and the benefits it can offer to your business can help you to get the most from your ad campaigns.
Amazon Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a platform offered by Amazon and which works in a similar way to Google’s Pay-Per-Click advertising service, Google Ads.
This platform uses keyword targeting to create ads for your product listings so that they appear in Amazon’s search results. These ads allow you to get your products on Amazon in front of customers who are ready to make a purchase and you pay every time someone clicks on your ad.
Ad campaigns allow you to display your products to potential customers more often in specific locations on the search results pages to help increase visibility of your products on the platform. Depending on the ad type you choose, your ads can be shown in varying positions with different degrees of visibility.
Customers search for products with the intention to buy on Amazon more than on other search engines such as Google. As your product listings are displayed more often to those who intend to buy, you can boost your sales and revenue by using Amazon.
Amazon PPC allows you to use a variety of targeting methods using keywords, categories, brands or products or remarketing on external websites to make sure that your ads reach the right audience. You can use either a manual campaign in which you choose the keywords to target for your ads, or an automatic campaign in which Amazon decides where to show your ads based on keywords it identifies from your product listing.
The main way to optimise your ad campaigns is through conducting keyword research to find out what customers are searching for on Amazon. This will allow you to optimise your campaigns and use keyword targeting to drive customers to your product listings. You can also add negative keywords to your campaigns to prevent your ads from showing for searches that are not relevant to your business and to optimise your ad spend.
Keyword match types work in the same way as Google Ads:
When you receive an order for a particular product through PPC, Amazon then indexes those keywords to your product. This allows you to rank organically for keywords that you choose. As a result, one of the main advantages of Amazon PPC is that it allows you to boost sales and gain a higher organic ranking once you have gained enough exposure.
Amazon has a range of ad types you can choose from depending on your goals and the platform will allow you to control and scale your daily budget, as well as analyse how ads have performed with a range of reports allowing you to track your ad spend and ROI.
To understand Amazon PPC ads properly, knowing more about the ad types available and how they work can help.
When you run Amazon ad campaigns, you are allocated with ad space through an auction based system based on relevant keywords and your products. You bid a certain amount for your keywords and Amazon will rank your ads according to your bid and your competitor’s bids. The seller with the highest bid will usually have the best chance of being in the top position.
Alongside your bid, other factors are taken into account in relation to the position of your product. Amazon takes the customer journey into account so will look at the following factors, in the same way as the Quality Score works on Google Ads:
Amazon gets millions of searches every month. People search for short product terms as well as longer phrases. Whatever they’re searching for, they have all come to Amazon to do one thing. Buy a product.
Unlike searchers who are using Google, Amazon searchers are not looking for new ideas. They’re ready to buy and all they want to do is search, find the product they want and buy it. Amazon gives you access to millions of customers who are at the bottom of the funnel.
Amazon PPC ads are effective because they put your products in the places where the most shoppers are. Data shows that nearly half of Amazon shoppers do not look past the second results page, much like a Google search. If you can display your products on the first page of the search results or a highly ranked product page, it’s easier for customers to find and purchase your products.
On Amazon, cutting through the noise can be difficult as there is so much competition. The easier you make it to find your products, the easier it will be for customers to find your products and the more likely you will be to make a sale.
Utilising the Amazon PPC platform will help with product exposure and helping to drive sales for your business.
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