Amazon Ads – A Definitive Guide To Own The Search On Amazon In 2022

Global online revenue shows that in 2022 Amazon has achieved the fourth position with a revenue of 44 billion U.S. Dollars. So what does that have to do with Amazon Ads?

Amazon services, including Amazon Ads, are the reason behind it; with Amazon ads revenue alone projected to be $39.4 billion in 2023.

You may have heard of “Amazon PPC” or “Sponsored Ads.” These are just a couple of types of Amazon Ads that are responsible for major successes on the platform, but we’ll get into that later.

In this article, we’re going to explain Amazon Ads, go over the different types of Amazon Ads, and help you understand how to use them to your advantage.

What Are Amazon Ads?

Amazon Ads are a digital marketing tool that you can use to make your products stand out from the rest. Like Google Ads, Amazon Ads increase the visibility of your products on the page.

Your Amazon Ads strategy can help you achieve many of your business goals including driving brand awareness and purchases and increasing loyalty.

So how does it benefit you?

Ultimately, Amazon Ads helps you make more money and grow your business faster. Plus, you’d be happy to know that Amazon sellers bag around $26,000 to $810,000 per year, thanks to Amazon Ads.

Why Should You Invest in Amazon Ads?

Simply put, no matter how successful a seller you are, you can still invest in Amazon Ads to generate more business.

Amazon Ads makes the whole process of ranking and selling on Amazon easier and faster. Besides, it also provides you with loads of data that you can use to reach your customers more quickly and use to improve your organic rankings.

Below, we’ve curated 11 major reasons why you should invest in Amazon Ads;

1. More Sales Compared To Facebook Or Google Ads

You may think selling products on Facebook or running Google Ads is more beneficial than selling on Amazon. But the truth is, people do more random scrolling than actually buying anything on Facebook or Google.

On the other hand, 51% of Amazon’s total net sales were generated by their online stores in 2020. That’s because people who search for any product on Amazon have buying intent.

People go to Amazon ready to spend, therefore, investing in Amazon Ads can have an extremely high return rate.

2. Practical Store Is Not Enough

We’re living in an era where people are looking for convenience. And “online” is the name of convenience nowadays. Believe it or not, 55% of shoppers roll their search on Amazon first. Therefore, only selling products in a physical store won’t bring you a profit like it did in the old days.

You’ll need to get your products online, and when you do, ads will make them more visible.

3. Actionable Keyword Research

The most rewarding feature of Amazon Ads is the actionable keyword research.

Suppose you’re running Amazon PPC (pay-per-click), for your product.

When an Amazon customer enters a keyword in the search bar to find the product, the sellers with the highest bids on relevant keywords win the auction. If that happens to be you, your product ads get listed in their chosen placement.

Either way, this provides some useful data for you; you have access to all of the search terms that real customers are entering. This helps you understand which keywords you should be targeting to generate more sales.

Without Amazon Ads, you do not get this critical data and do not know where the actual customers are coming from. That’s why Amazon Ads is a must.

Note: To get this information just click on Seller Central Campaign Manager or the Ad Console, and go to the “Search Term” tab of one of the ad groups. Search terms will appear in this tab.

Check out Amazon Attribution & Seller Central reports to ensure proper use of the customer’s data and to utilize Amazon Ads more accurately.

4. Prioritization Of Keywords

Keyword Research isn’t the only thing that Amazon PPC offers you. It prioritizes each Keyword accordingly.

The Keyword (KW) prioritization tells you which KW is getting clicked on, which ones are getting actual sales, the CTR, and the conversion rate for every search term.

These data help you utilize the most relevant search terms or KWs in your product title and bullet points, so you can play one step ahead in the ranking game.

5. Organic Ranking Improvement

You need to rank high to get conversions, and you need conversions to get a high ranking. That old Chicken and Egg, who comes the first problem, right?

Well, the solution is that once you start to run ads, you begin to get the position and rank higher. Eventually, you’re using ads to improve your ranking organically.

6. Defending Shelf Space

Once you get the rank at the top of the page, you may feel that investing more in Amazon Ads is unnecessary. But, it’s beneficial to keep pushing Ads.

Other competitors in your niche are consistently competing against you to get ranked. If you stop running ads, the competitors can eventually take your space.

So, using Ads to hold the position is as crucial as getting it to defend the shelf space.

7. Creates Brand Awareness

Suppose you already have an established brand; you may think Amazon Ads is unnecessary for you. But did you know how important brand awareness is to keep the business going smoothly?

It’s said that what is practiced the most, stays longer in the game. To maintain the flow of your running business, you must go for Amazon Ads. You can use the Amazon Sponsored Brands category to create brand awareness and establish your brand for the long term.

8. Saves On Storage Costs

When you sell something on Amazon, you have to pay a storage fee for your products. The longer it takes to sell your units, the storage cost increases.

Amazon PPC can help to save on storage costs. It will push out your product instead of waiting for months to sell it. Amazon Ads is the choice to move products and grow faster sales.

9. Assists With Product Research

Remember the search term reports? You can use them as product research inspiration.

Although search terms don’t get direct sales for you, you can get an idea of what people are practically looking for. And you can use those for your further product research.

You can take the keywords relevant to your brand or product portfolio and test them with different tools to see what works.

When it’s clear to all that you have the perfectly suited product for your customer; you get the most out of your business.

10. Listing Validation

Amazon must understand your product perfectly. Or it may bring up irrelevant results to the customers, which has 0 returns for you.

When you run ads on Amazon, it helps the e-commerce search engine understand your product better. So, when a customer inputs a KW related to your product, Amazon aligns your product with the targeted customer and brings you sales.

11. The Amazon Flywheel Effect

The Amazon Flywheel Effect is the biggest reason you should invest in Amazon Ads. It means the circle of success for your business with Amazon.

The order of traffic, sales, and reviews is the ultimate mantra for a successfully growing business. Once you get traffic, you get sales; you get reviews. And when you get good reviews, you get more traffic, followed by sales and reviews. It’s a wonderful cycle.

If you’re thinking of growing a long-term business, it’s vital to understand and follow this flywheel effect. And in this competitive market, you’re not going to make it without Amazon Ads.

Difference Between Self-Service Ads And Premium Ads

When you get into the Amazon Ads information page, you get to see two options on the interface. Self-serve ads and Premium ads.

If you choose Self-serve ads, it’ll work similarly to Google search ads. When someone searches for a specific product similar to what you’re selling, Amazon will show your running ad on the products and present it to the customer.

On the other hand, Premium ads work like display ads. That means they are more visual ads. They show up as a banner or sidebar ad on different pages. Moreover, they can also appear on various websites, just like Google display ads.

Types of Amazon Ads

There are three significant types of Amazon Ads: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display Ads. People who run ads on their products use these services the most.

Under these ads, there are also other kinds of Amazon Ads, but first let’s take a look at the 3 main ad types, their purpose, and who they are geared toward.

Type	Purpose	For Whom
Sponsored Products:	Product Promotion	Sellers
Sponsored Brands:	Brand Promotion	Sellers
Sponsored Display:	Brand Awareness	Vendors

Now, let’s discuss the three major types of Amazon Ads.

How To Use Amazon Advertising – Step By Step Guide

At this point, you may be convinced to begin with Amazon PPC. But confused about how to start.

Well, this step-by-step guide will help you begin to use Amazon Advertising.

Step 1: Setup Automatic Campaign

The easiest and quickest way to start Amazon PPC is to set up an Automatic Campaign. If you’re just beginning in Amazon Ads, you should consider something easy to get a better idea of Amazon Ads.

To start an automatic campaign, you have to go to your Amazon seller central account and then go to Campaign Manager in the Advertising section. Then click on Sponsored Product Ads. Here your journey begins. Fill up all the information on the form that appears on your screen.

While setting the daily budget, make sure you at least put it to $5. The more money you spend, the faster you’re going to get the data, and the more quickly you can optimize your ad. And all of this brings you quicker sales and more money.

In the targeting section, choose Automatic targeting. In the Campaign Bidding Strategy section, try to pick Dynamic bids – up and down. Although it depends on your choice which bidding option you choose.

Choosing the stated one allows Amazon to raise your bids a little bit if it thinks the product will result in a sale. It also allows lowering your bids if it thinks the product is not likely to make a sale.

You can have multiple ad groups under a campaign in the Ad Groups. Or else, every campaign has just one ad group if you want.

Then add your product and launch the campaign.

Pro tip: If you want to save extra cash flow, set a bid by targeting groups instead of setting a default or suggested bid. There are four ways you can select the bid with targeting groups. Turn off all the other three groups and set which way you want to target your customers. By doing this, you can add another ad group later.

Step 2: Keyword Research

Keyword Research is one of the most essential things to succeed in the Amazon Ads business. It’s done to understand what searches on Amazon you want your ad to appear in. There are free tools and paid tools available for KW research.

You can go for free tools like Google’s Keyword Planner and Amazon’s Suggested Keywords as you’re just starting. If you want to level up the game, you must go for paid tools like Helium 10 or Jungle Scout. These tools also have free trials to help you better understand their value of before committing to a subscription.

Step 3: Setup Sponsored Product Ads

Sponsored Product Ads are the most popular type of Amazon ad of all time. But if you can’t do it efficiently, it will bring you no results. There are five ways to do effective Sponsored Product Ads.

Specific Search Terms

The process is the same as before the option of targeting. In the Targeting section, select ‘Manual’ this time. In this option, you get the choice of Keyword Targeting and Product Targeting.

To do Amazon PPC with Specific Search Terms, we’ll go with Keyword Targeting. Enter the Keywords you selected in the box. Select the match type (Broad/Phrase/Exact). You can choose all or your preferred selection.

Adjust the bids one by one, and you’re done. Then you can launch the campaign.

Broad Search Terms

Broad Search Terms mean Long Tail Keywords. Long-tail keywords can be more focused. When someone searches for long KWs on Amazon, chances are that the person intends to buy the product.

So, ultimately long-term keywords are prone to generate more sales. The process is identical to the above; you just have to put the broad search terms this time.

Related Products

You can use tools to search related product keywords. But you can also get them on your product page.

Go to your product page and look in the related products section. Here, you can consider the keywords and product ASINs for associated products.

Competitor’s Keywords

It’s the most profitable way to grow your business fast as a beginner in Amazon PPC. Take direct KWs from your competitors.

Place the KWs in your campaign. Some products don’t have direct competitors; in that case, consider similar products and KWs as Competitor Keywords.

Other Keywords

Other Keywords are ones that Amazon suggests to you. They’re the most organic ones. Because it’s giving you what people are searching on Amazon with the intent to buy.

Step 4: Product Targeting

Product Targeting allows you to display the image of your product on your competitor’s listing. It’s a tremendous opportunity to make sales.

To do this, you have to select Manual Targeting and, later on, Product Targeting. Here you’ll get a list of products of your competitors. You can add all of them or choose specifically.

Then you have to exclude your brand or product from the list.

The next and final step is crucial, yet almost everyone skips it. And that’s a mistake. It’s not selecting the Negative Keywords.

Step 5: Negative Keywords

The suggested product list of competitors might give you some irrelevant products. So you have to omit those products from targeting because there is no use in targeting and spending money on them.

In the Negative Keywords section, you can input the ASINs of the product you don’t want to show up for and exclude your products from showing up in irrelevant places.

Best Amazon Ads Strategies to Make More Money

There’s always a positive and negative side to anything. Amazon Ads have pros and cons, too.

Many people are actively running ads on Amazon for their products. Some are generating a massive income through Amazon PPC– but inevitably, some are continuously failing.

For sellers who have just started on Amazon Ads, here are the best Amazon Ads strategies to make more money.

Targeting New Competitors

When you start on Amazon, you have no reviews and even if your listing looks good, you are trying to find a way to compete and make money. Well, in this case, you can target new competitors.

You should do Product Targeting on your PPC Campaign. It’ll show your products on your competitor’s product page and give you exposure.

Remember the Dog Bed example? When you click on a product it will take you to the product page, but using product targeting, your ad will show up on the right side corner of the page. Like the picture below.

To research this, type your main KW in the search bar on Amazon. Then you’ll find a “Sort By” option on the top right of the page. Select “Newest Arrival” from the choice, and you’ll find products that people have launched recently.

As they get no reviews, competing with them is easy money as your product shows on their page.

Targeting In Spanish

It’s a trick to generate sales fast and easily. There are a lot of people who search in Spanish on Amazon. So, targeting in Spanish can help you reach those customers.

There aren’t a lot of people who are doing this, leaving a gap for less competition. As anyone searches in Spanish, your product shows up, and you get the click quickly.

Separating Auto Campaigns

Separating Auto Campaign is essential. Otherwise, you can lose money without knowing. You’ll typically find four options in automatic campaigns. They are- Close Match, Loose Match, Compliments, and Substitute.

Set up individual campaigns for each option. Set one option on in one campaign and off in the others. Repeat the process for every other option in the campaigns.

Category Targeting And Filtering Bad Competition

When you research for targeting keywords, note down the “categories” as well. When you set up your campaign, do Category Targeting and Filter the brands, star rating, and price range with the filter option.

Targeting Adjacent Categories

People shopping on Amazon have always had a mindset of spending for the best. It’s not always a person who buys one product and leaves the page. But it’s more likely that if you can offer a person something similar to what they’re buying, they could purchase similar stuff.

So, you should also target the adjacent categories of products to sell yours.

Big Budget And Small Bids

It’s not beneficial to start with a small budget on Amazon Ads. Instead, it’s a must, to begin with, a pretty good big budget.

But you must know how to manage the money in this game. Otherwise, you may face a significant loss.

To invest efficiently, you have to make small bids with your big budget. At first, keep the bid very low and always observe the performance. When you see it’s time to increase the bid amount, increase it slowly.

Continuously do this until you reach a sweet spot. When you get to the sweet spot, you’ll start to see massive progress.

Remember, this sweet spot is dynamic. You have to make your plan dynamic to keep consistency. For that, you must think of possible troubleshooting for Amazon Ads.

FAQs

Are Amazon ads worth it?

Amazon ads are worth it, only if done correctly. You can see Amazon’s growth from 2019 at 3.8 percent to 5.2 percent in 2020 among digital advertising market shares of major companies worldwide. Investing in the platform will surely bring you benefits.

Moreover, there are different types of Amazon Ads suited for different people. For example, for sellers, Amazon Sponsored Ads and Amazon Sponsored Brand could be the best options. On the other hand, Amazon Display Ads is more beneficial for vendors.

What Is Amazon SEO?

Amazon SEO is the optimization of products displayed on pages. If you’re running Amazon ads and want to be successful in the long run, Amazon SEO is a must for you.

Here, most of the process is about Keyword Research and prioritization. Further, it includes product targeting, category optimization, and many more.

How Do I Place An Ad On Amazon?

To place an ad on Amazon you need to have a Seller Central account. First, sign up if you’re new or sign in to the account. Select ‘Advertising’ and then ‘Campaign Manager.’ You’ll get an interface with Amazon Ads options. Select your ad type and create a campaign.

Final Words

Before we conclude, we want you to be aware of two big mistakes people often make with Amazon Ads.

1) They are using free tools.

2) They are setting the cost too low.

Using free tools can bring you results, but it may be less efficient and take longer to make sales. On the other hand, a bid that costs less than $5 for a campaign may not provide you with enough data to compete well.

So with that, take the steps, consider all the pros and cons, and find out what Amazon Ads strategy works best for you to own the search on Amazon!