10 Tips and Tricks to Take Your Amazon Sponsored Products to the Next Level

Article by: Orca Pacific Advertising Team

July 10, 2018

• Advertising

Properly utilizing Amazon Sponsored Products is one of the most cost effective ways to significantly increase your sales and improve product visibility. However, setting up and managing these ad campaigns can be an overwhelming and time consuming task, especially when looking to maintain and exceed established key performance indicators (KPIs). By utilizing these tips and tricks, you’ll be able to take your Amazon Sponsored Product campaigns to the next level, improving the return on your investment and boosting product visibility.

Table of Contents

• Spread Your Advertising Efforts Across All of Your Products
• Utilize Both Manual and Automatic Targeting
• Use Automatic Campaigns to Gather Data
• Be Clear About Your Amazon Advertising Goals
• Organize Your Sponsored Product Campaigns
• Check Your Keywords
• Block Irrelevant Keywords
• Pay Attention to Bids
• Do Your Keyword Research
• Track Progress

Tip #1: Spread Your Advertising Efforts Across All of Your Products

When you have a wide range of products, you may have an idea of which items you think will perform the best. That doesn’t mean, however, that you’ve immediately selected the right product! Instead, use a campaign structure that allows all of your products to deliver evenly, then let the data drive your strategy. This can also help you more easily identify new opportunities while measuring your success at an ASIN or product group level.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”#AmazonSellerTip Don’t assume which products will perform best using Amazon Sponsored Products. Use a campaign structure that allows all of your products to deliver evenly, then let the data determine which ASINs you should invest in via @OrcaPac” quote=”#AmazonSellerTip Use a campaign structure that allows all your products to deliver evenly, then let the data determine which ASIN to invest in more.”]

Tip #2: Utilize Both Manual and Automatic Targeting

Depending on your needs, there may be times when automatic keyword targeting is your most effective tool. Other times, you’ll find that it’s more beneficial to use manual targeting, which will allow you to specifically select the keywords you want to target. Depending on the time you have to create your advertising campaign and the amount of energy you want to invest, take advantage of the targeting strategy that meets your specific needs.

Tip #3: Use Automatic Campaigns to Gather Data

What search terms are most likely to bring potential customers to your products through automatic targeting? As you collect this important data, it will become easier to shape future manual campaigns. Don’t simply let automatic campaigns run. Instead, use them to gather that valuable data that will improve your future marketing efforts.

Tip #4: Be Clear About Your Amazon Advertising Goals

Do you need your advertisements to generate incremental sales, or are you simply making a move to increase visibility and improve recognition of your brand across the Amazon Marketplace? Are you hoping to increase sales of a specific item, possibly to remove overstock? Being clear about your advertising goals upfront will allow you to more effectively shape your marketing efforts across all of your platforms. Your goals will change over time, and as a result, the way you handle your Sponsored Product ads should change, as well.

Tip #5: Organize Your Amazon Sponsored Products Campaigns

Organization is critical for understanding how your campaigns are performing and how to shape better performance in the future. You may, for example, choose to organize your campaigns by product type, by brand, or by a specific list of products that are more likely to pull in high sales dollars for your business. The more effective your organization strategy, the better you can shape and track your Amazon Sponsored Product efforts. This saves time and money in the long-run.

Tip #6: Check Your Keywords

Typically, Sponsored Product ads can only be run with keywords that are contained within the actual descriptive text of your product: that is, keywords that are in the headline, the description, and other key areas. Make sure that you’re not missing out on keywords that might improve your search visibility. If there are keywords involving your product that you’re missing out on, look for ways to include them in your descriptions.

Tip #7: Block Irrelevant Keywords

Some of the keywords that trigger your ads include broad categories that might not reflect the products you’re actually selling. By using negative keywords–that is, defining a list of keywords you do not want to deliver against—you can greatly reduce the number irrelevant impressions and therefore decrease your cost while increasing CTRs and conversions.

Tip #8: Pay Attention to Bids

Some of the products you have on Amazon have fairly wide profit margins. This means that you can afford to spend more on bids for keywords related to those products. Other products have slim profit margins, leaving you unable to spend a substantial amount on their keywords. Pay attention to what you’re spending for bids, and categorize your spending appropriately. You may, for example, be more willing to invest in keywords that have a high return, while you’ll quickly find that keywords with a lower return aren’t worth extensive spending. As you evaluate your spending over time, you’ll be able to better shape your advertising efforts to improve ROI.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”#AmazonSellerTip Categorize your Amazon ad bids based on product profit margins to ensure the best #ROI via @OrcaPac” quote=”#AmazonSellerTip Categorize your Amazon ad bids based on product profit margins to ensure the best #ROI”]

Tip #9: Do Your Keyword Research

Just like advertising on any other platform, it’s important that you understand the keywords that shape your Amazon Sponsored Product campaigns. Make sure that you’re doing your research. What keywords are genuinely relevant to your products? Are you missing important product keywords? Are there keywords that aren’t generating the type of traffic you need for your marketing efforts? Doing keyword research based on Amazon automated targeting and your performance across other platforms will allow you to improve your targeting.

Tip #10: Track Progress

How much are you actually spending per click–and how does that compare to the return on your investment? Make sure that you’re clearly tracking this information each time you launch a new campaign. You may find, for example, that a keyword you thought would perform well is actually failing to convert, even if it generates clicks and traffic. On the other hand, a keyword that you thought would fail to perform may be generating the bulk of your revenue. Pay attention to your progress throughout your ad campaign to shape your future efforts.

conclusion

Amazon Sponsored Products is an important part of an overall Amazon Marketing Services strategy. Through these key tips and tricks, you’ll quickly become more efficient at managing your Amazon Sponsored Product campaigns and will be able to see an immediate boost in your overall performance. If you’re struggling to build your Amazon marketing strategy, contact us at Orca Pacific. We’ll work with you to shape ads that will more effectively generate traffic and sales for your business.

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