THE 2016 GUIDE TO AMAZON SPONSORED PRODUCTS€¦ · Amazon SERP. In the following guide, we’ll walk through the Sponsored Products tactics that we consider foundational to any seller

THE 2016 GUIDE TO AMAZON SPONSORED PRODUCTS

Tactics and Insights for Third-Party Sellers to Advance their Advertising Strategy

Table of Contents

Introduction to Sponsored ProductsAutomatic Campaigns Manual Campaigns Negative Keywords Advanced Match Types Bulk Bid Changes in the Feed Final Takeaways

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3Advancing Your Amazon Sponsored Products Strategy |

Introduction to Sponsored ProductsThe Marketplace is rapidly evolving, and while many sellers are confident in their Amazon strategy, the biggest mistake you can make as a seller is to remain stagnant.

If there is one defining piece of advice we can offer, it is that you must be able to recognize once you’ve reached your sales plateau. Once you do that, you can begin to unpack the controllable, strategic “levers” you have available to you to accelerate your performance.

As competition continues to grow on the Marketplace, sellers will need to tap into high level resources and marketing tactics to ensure they are optimizing and utilizing the most sophisticated practices to stay ahead. Without the right tools and strategies―their products are likely to be trumped by advanced advertisers. This white paper is designed for sellers seeking a sophisticated approach to Sponsored Products.

In our experience as an agency managing a variety of product verticals for many sellers, we’ve seen consistent success from using Amazon’s dynamic advertising platform―Sponsored Products. Because of its controllable, scalable, and very measurable performance, we consider it one of the few pillars of marketplace strategy that every Amazon seller should strive to master.

https://services.amazon.com/content/sell-on-amazon/sponsored-products.htm

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By now, we can assume you are aware of Sponsored Products and the direct impact it can have on your product Discoverability and Buyability cycle.

The goal of Sponsored Products is to create an advertisement that is compelling enough to capture the attention and convert a shopper. The more customers that discover your products, the more sessions, clicks, and purchases are likely to occur. And, of course the more volume you sell―the more your organic ranking will improve and the higher up they will show in the Amazon SERP.

In the following guide, we’ll walk through the Sponsored Products tactics that we consider foundational to any seller focusing on getting more sophisticated with their advertising strategy. More than that, we’ll discuss how to give product-level attention to your catalog while still being able to scale management.

PRO-TIP: As a seller you might feel that you’ve done everything possible to get your products to perform on the Marketplace, but it’s likely you're campaigns are still suffering due to a lack of PPC knowledge and management expertise.

5The 2016 Guide to Amazon Sponsored Products |

What is Amazon Sponsored Products?

Before we dive into advanced seller strategies, let’s discuss the building blocks of Sponsored Products and how it impacts sellers.

Sponsored Products is a PPC platform, which exists within the Amazon Marketplace and drives traffic to an Amazon detail page. These ads exist on the right rail of the Amazon SERP, at the top and bottom of the SERP, and on the carousel on product detail pages.

Sponsored Products Ad Placement at the Top of Amazon Search Results:


Sponsored Products Ad Placement Alongside Organic Search Results:

Sponsored Products Ad Placement on Detail Pages:


Sponsored Products is one of the most powerful tools for driving discoverability and incremental sales for Amazon sellers.

Sponsored Products also impact a seller’s overall Marketplace presence by providing an acceleration program for newer or low-exposure ASINs, increasing Discoverability for your top Buy Box offers and acting as an incremental revenue driver.

Sponsored Products Ads Can Appear in the Following Categories:

• Appliances

• Arts, Crafts, & Sewing

• Automotive

• Baby

• Beauty

• Cell Phones & Accessories

• Clothing & Accessories

• Collectibles

• Computers

• Electronics-Audio/Video

• Electronics-Mobile

• Fine Art

• Grocery & Gourmet Food

• Health & Personal Care

• Home & Kitchen

• Industrial & Scientific

• Luggage

• Movies & TV

• Music

• Musical Instruments

• Office Products

• Outdoors

• Patio, Lawn & Garden

• Pet Suppliers

• Shoes

• Software

• Sports

• Tools & Home Improvement

• Toys & Games

• Video Games

• Watches


Depending on your goals, Amazon sellers can build out campaigns to launch a new product(s) or to feature product(s) that are seasonal or in demand.

With Sponsored Products, sellers will have to determine how much they want to spend, what time period they want to advertise for and which products they want to feature.

In this White Paper We Will Discuss the Importance of:

Phase 1: Creating Automatic Campaigns

Phase 2: Creating Manual Campaigns

Phase 3: Advanced Optimizations and Technology

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*NOTE: For basic campaign setup and introductory best practices, check out our 2015 Amazon Sponsored Products Guide

READ THE PDF

http://www.cpcstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/amazon-sponsored-products.pdf


Automatic Campaigns


Automatic CampaignsAlthough Sponsored Products is one of the most powerful tools for driving discoverability and incremental sales for Amazon sellers, the learning curve for PPC programs are usually pretty big and it can be difficult for sellers to know where to start.

PRO-TIP: The most frequent Sponsored Products inefficiencies stem from a lack of effort to harvest data to support bid levels, keyword matching and optimization, campaign differentiation, and structure.

Once, you’ve registered for Sponsored Products, we recommend sellers build out Automatic Campaigns first, to help them better understand which ASINs they can and should run for Sponsored ads. Automatic campaigns, also known as Automatic Campaign Targeting, are designed to drive more impressions and sales of your products.

Where do I Create Automatic Campaigns?

Seller Central Advertising Campaign Manager Create Campaigns


With Automatic campaigns, Amazon will target your ads to all relevant customer searches based on your product information.

Product selection bias is probably the number one most common inefficiency, which is why running Automatic Campaigns and harvesting data is a critical first step in your Sponsored Products’ advertising strategy. Often, sellers have products in mind that they want to do well or that they believe will do well ―so those are the products that they will advertise, bid higher on, or put in multiple ad groups regardless of the performance. We can almost guarantee that no seller has a product catalog where, 100 percent of their products are going to be winners or 100 percent are going to be losers. Sellers don’t have to make it a guessing game when it comes to campaign structure and keyword selection.

Advanced Amazon sellers should analyze their customer search term data to make strategic decisions on what products and keywords to bid higher or lower on.

Since Amazon customers tend to have a higher intent to purchase, selecting the best keywords for your products is a vital component of your marketing strategy. Bidding on the right keywords for your products can improve your page sales rank and organic listings, and will ultimately influence your product sales. This is why we recommend that advertisers utilize the Search Terms Report for Sponsored Products located in Seller Central as their main source of keyword harvesting. We will go into more detail on how to use this on the following page.


Tip 1: Give All Your Products a Chance to Perform

You want to give all of your products a fair opportunity to perform, which is why we recommend running Automatic Campaigns first.

Running Automatic Campaigns is like placing all your products at the same starting point. There’s no “fan favorites” or product selection bias involved and every product should have an equal opportunity to perform on the Marketplace.

Amazon Marketplace Channel Analyst, David Cooley on Automatic Campaigns & How To Leverage the Sponsored Products Search Terms Report:

PRO-TIP: For Automatic Campaigns, we recommend sellers start with an initial bid level of $.15 to $.25 per product. Let the winners rise to the top and remember to let the data do the talking. Don’t try and select your top ASINs before hand.

Keep in mind, there is going to be some product and category dependency / variation depending on where you are advertising. Sellers should also keep in mind that Sponsored Products Ads will only surface when you are the current Buy Box winner. What this means is that sellers will never drive traffic to a detail page where their competitors are occupying the Buy Box.


Tip 2: Listen to Your Search Term Data

The objective of running Automatic Campaigns is to obtain customer search term data from the Sponsored Products Search Terms Report, and apply this information to future campaign build-outs.

Sellers don’t always know how people search for their products. By running Automatic Campaigns and harvesting data from the Sponsored Products Search Term Report, sellers can get a pulse on which keywords customers are using to search for and buy their product.

For example, a seller who distributes Disney-themed notebooks initially thought his customers were finding his products by searching for back-to-school gear.

After we ran Automatic campaigns, we noticed a trend among his keyword research. Disney-themed notebooks were definitely performing well but not necessarily for the keywords initially thought. We wanted to know exactly which keywords his customers were using to search for those Disney notebooks, so we could capitalize on those terms by bidding more aggressively there.

After dissecting the data using the Search Terms Report we were able to identify that these notebooks were being searched under words like “vacation journal”. Come to find out―this item was widely popular among parents who were planning a Disney vacation and wanted to buy a notebook their kids could write in during the trip. Completely unrelated to the seller’s initial prediction for “back-to-school” search terms.


This granular level of data can only be identified by running Automatic Campaigns and harvesting keywords via the Sponsored Products Keyword Tool - otherwise, most sellers are left in the dark - forced to take a guess at which keywords to bid on and resulting in wasted ad spend.

PRO-TIP: Sellers should also keep in mind that the keywords their customers are using to search for their products now might not be the same popular keywords in 6 months. It’s important to keep Automatic campaigns up and running (even after you’ve built out your Manual Campaigns, Phase 2) - so you can continue to harvest new popular search terms and other valuable data.

Tip 3: Allow Sales Metrics to Catch Up

Amazon tracks clicks and spend immediately but sales can take up to 2 to 4 days to process.

What this means is in the early phase of running your Sponsored Products ads you may see a lot of clicks and no conversions – which are going to result in high spend and high average cost of sale (ACoS).

When most sellers see this type of data, their gut reaction is to pause the campaigns because they are worried about wasted ad spend. Of course this makes sense, but what sellers are disregarding is the fact that these products have not had enough time to fully absorb the data.

Sellers should allow a minimum of 7 days for their sales data to catch up before making any bid or keyword changes. Ultimately, the direction you decide to take your campaigns in, will heavily depend on your goals.


The two most common metrics we hear sellers talk about are Volume and ROI.

For a seller hoping to get their name out there and expand their brand reputation, a 1:1 return on ad spend might be sufficient. In contrast, for another seller, with a focus on improving ROI, those slim margins might not be well-suited for their goals.


Manual Campaigns


Manual CampaignsAs we mentioned in the previous section, when you leverage the Sponsored Products keyword tool, you can identify and fine tune your product targeting based on the relevancy of the keyword(s) and set bids on individual keywords that you think will target relevancy searches.

Where Do I Create Manual Campaigns?

Seller Central > Advertising > Campaign Manager > Create Campaigns

You can create Manual Campaigns through the Campaign Manager (similar to the way we create Automatic Campaigns).

Unlike Automatic Campaigns, Manual Targeting is based on keyword(s). This is why we usually recommend sellers start off with Automatic Campaigns before building out their manual campaigns.

You can think of Manual Campaigns as the next step or Phase 2 for optimizing your advertising efforts using Sponsored Products.

The next step after you create a Manual Campaign is to build out your Ad Groups.

We recommend selecting a name for your Ad Group(s) that you will easily recognize, for example “bath towels” or “phone cases”. Amazon will prompt sellers to scroll or search to select all the relevant products to include in this Ad Group.


The next step is to set your bids and choose your keywords.

PRO-TIP: Sellers can add up to 1,000 keywords per Ad Group.

In this next phase of Manual Campaign creation, Cooley offers additional tips for organizing your campaign structure and selecting keywords and bids.

Tip 1: Goals Will Determine Ad Group Differentiation

Once you decide what your goals are (example volume or ROI), you can determine your Ad Group Differentiation using advertising cost of sale (ACoS) as a guidepost. Basically, what this means is sellers can start to weed out which products are performing well and deserve a higher bid vs. those products that are not performing well. Segmenting your products is just one of the ways sellers can start to dissect and optimize their catalog. This ultimately can reduce wasted ad spend and increase the opportunity for your products to be found organically.

Higher bids on well performing products $0.50 to $1.25

Lower bids on poor performing products $0.02 to $0.15

Medium bids on average performing products $0.15 to $0.50

Estimate


Tip 2: Build a Relationship Between Your Keywords & Custom Bids

Once you have assigned products to your Ad Groups, you can select which keywords to bid on and how much to bid for each keyword.

Amazon will provide sellers with recommended keywords but we strongly encourage sellers to have a marketing specialist who is familiar with the Sponsored Products Keyword Tool to harvest keywords manually for you based on recent search data.

PRO-TIP: It behooves sellers to have a human analysis of their products to gauge how customers are actively searching for and finding their products in the Marketplace (for example recent seasonality or popular trends).

Keywords should be relevant to the products in your Ad Group but, there are known to be exceptions. As we already mentioned―let the data guide you. In your Search Terms Report you may come across keywords with high click-through or conversion rates that you might be surprised to find in relation to your product. Trust your data and when in doubt refer your campaigns to a marketing specialist who can help you with this type of keyword analysis.

Once you have your keywords selected you can also create custom bids for specific keywords in your campaign. As we’ve said, don’t make it a guessing game and use the data to decide which products / keywords warrant a higher or lower bid.

*NOTE: Some keywords are very popular (volume) and may require a higher bid to capture impressions and clicks.


Once you launch your campaign, complete with Ad Groups, products, keywords and custom bids―you can monitor your performance data from the Campaign Manager.

As seen in the example below, sellers can monitor their Ad Group performance and metrics including impressions, clicks, spend, sales and AcoS.


Negative Keywords


Negative KeywordsAs important as it is to identify popular keywords for your products, it is equally as important to locate which keywords are having a negative impact and draining your campaign ad spend.

Negative keywords allow sellers to refine and sculpt their target audience to improve the performance of their Sponsored Products campaigns.

One of the reasons why we’re really excited about the Negative Keyword functionality is because it gives Sellers an opportunity to get more efficient.

Where we actually begin to see the impact of Negative Keywords is through a lower cost of sale and a higher ROI. Essentially, with optimizations such as Negative Keywords, sellers are able to see a bigger impact for each and every advertising dollar.

The best way to identify negative keywords is through the Search Terms Report:


In contrast to relevant keywords (high CTR or conversion rate), negative keywords are terms that received significant volume but low performance (low CTR, low conversions). These terms are draining your ad spend by bringing in clicks with limited follow-through likely due to the fact these terms are not related to your product.

The goal for Negative Keywords is to make sure sellers are getting their products in front of search terms that are actually relevant to the products they are advertising, while at the same time avoiding allocated spend to keywords which are generating clicks without conversions.

Prior to launching Negative Keywords, sellers should have a clear understanding of their goals and objectives.

Example: Launching a New Product

For example, if a seller is launching a new product in Q3 and is focused on maximizing volume and visibility rather than ROI, they might not want to start out with too many Negative Keywords or use Negative Keywords at all until they have enough data to do otherwise.

The more Negative Keywords a seller implements, the more likely they are to restrict the amount of volume their products get.

Example: Excluding Weak Search Terms

On the other side, Negative Keywords can have a positive impact on campaigns if implemented properly. For example, a seller that manufactures a stress relief toy was serving ads to


customers based off of the search term “cool stuff”. Unfortunately, the product never saw a conversion from a customer using that search term.

We saw an estimated 348 total clicks in a 60 day period with about $76 in spend across a few campaigns related to the term “cool stuff”. This is a good example of how “cool stuff” was identified as a negative keyword.

We flagged the term as negative and had it removed from the campaign. Now the product no longer shows for that keyword search and has saved the client from unnecessary wasted ad spend.

Example: Refine Product Targeting

You can also use Negative Keywords to refine your targeting to exclude less relevant terms or terms you do not want associated with your products or brands. What this means is, you may use Negative Keywords to keep your ads from displaying to less relevant customer search terms or terms that you simply do not want associated with your brand.

In addition to efficiency, we can also use Negative Keywords to funnel particular searches from one campaign to another campaign based on the advertised products we want the shopper to see.

For example: If a seller has two campaigns running that have products which could be matched to the same search phrase “hiking boots” (see the following page).


Campaign A

Automatic Campaign

(Using product data relevancy)

Campaign B

Manual Campaign

(Select broad match keywords)

A potential customer searches for hiking boots on Amazon. Sellers can use negative keywords such as (gloves, jackets and other outdoor related keyword search terms) to help funnel out non-relevant terms, since we know this customer is only looking for “hiking boots” at this time. By using negative keywords you can remove the non-relevant terms from the keyword auction.

The goal is to match shopper intent with the MOST relevant product. Although it’s common to see other outdoor hiking related gear and apparel in the Sponsored Products Ads to the right of the SERP, we can assume these ads are less likely to convert due to the fact this shopper has already expressed a direct interest in “hiking boots” not hiking hats, gloves or other outdoor gear.

http://www.cpcstrategy.com/blog/2016/03/sponsored-products-amazon-organic-rank/


Advanced Match Types


Advanced Match TypesAdvanced Keyword Match Types help control which searches can trigger an ad to show. Amazon offers 3 Match Types, including:

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Broad Match This match type offers your ad broad traffic exposure. A shopper's search query will match it if it contains all the keyword terms or their synonyms. The shopper's search query can contain keyword or synonyms in any order.

Phrase Match The shopper's search query must contain the exact phrase or sequence of words.

Exact Match The shopper's search query must exactly match the keyword in order for the ad to show, and will also close variations of the exact term.


Exact Match Type:

• Summary: The most specific and restrictive match type. Ads will only be triggered when shoppers type in the exact string of words

• Impact: Less volume, but if you select your Exact Match keywords properly, high ROI

Shoes for Running

Shoes for Running

Women's Running Shoes


Nike Running Shoes

Running Shoes On Sale


Running Shoes

Running Shoes

Phrase Match Type:

• Summary: Only triggered when the user types in the exact string of words, however there can be other words “before or after” that exact string of words

• Impact: Not as restrictive as Exact Match, but can still filter out searches that might not be relevant

Nike Running Shoes


Broad Match Type:

• Summary: Maximize volume and visibility on Amazon. Ads triggered by words in your key phrase regardless of the order.

• Impact: Provides the biggest opportunity to get in front of the most people. Great for “new” products on the Marketplace.

Shoes for Running



Running Shoes

Nike Running Shoes

Match types can be an extremely powerful tool available to sellers who want to get more efficient and more granular with their search term targeting and bidding.

For example, sellers could use broad match to show an ad to a wide audience or they could use exact match to hone in on specific groups of customers. In general, the broader the keyword matching option, the more traffic potential that keyword has.


In contrast, the narrower the keyword matching option, the more relevant that keyword will be to a potential customer’s search. Understanding these differences helps sellers choose the right options and improve their return on investment. When choosing the appropriate match type for a keyword, Amazon typically recommends starting with broad match to maximize your potential to show your ads on relevant searches.

But in our experience, our marketing experts tend to rely on Phrase Match the most. It’s considered the “middle of the road” for sellers interesting in testing match types and keywords.

PRO-TIP: Marketers can use the Sponsored Products Search Terms report to monitor which keyword(s) variations trigger their ads. This also helps guide marketing managers in their decision on which advanced match type to select for their selected keywords.

Below is an example of an account utilizing Exact and Phrase Match Types:


Below is an example of how each of the 3 Advanced Match Types would be applied to the keyword for “boys shoes”:

Broad Match Boys shoes Include misspellings, synonyms, related searches, & relevant variations

boys shoes size 10, waterproof boys shoes, boys footwear

Boys pants, mens shoes

Exact Match Boys shoes The exact phrase and close variations of the exact phrase

boys shoes, boy's shoe

boys shoes 10

Phrase Match Boys shoes The phrase and close variations of the phrase

boys shoes, boy's shoes 10

Shoes for boys, shoes boys, boys red shoes

Ads Can Show On Search Queries That:

Matches To These Customer Search Queries

Doesn't Match These Customer Search Queries

Match Type Example Keyword

Example of Match Types

One example of a seller that comes to mind that we’ve seen significant results using Match Types is a manufacturer of high end, tactical hiking gear. This seller only offers premium, professional outdoor gear and equipment.

The premium hiking gear manufacturer was getting a large number of clicks and spend based on general searches for “all purpose consumer backpacks and camping gear”, which was making their ad spend extremely inefficient.

32Advancing Your Amazon Sponsored Products Strategy |

Customers searching for a generic backpack and some mid level hiking gear are not likely to invest and purchase premium tactical hiking gear. Those folks looking for gear to take on a weekend trip or as a gift for their kids are likely not the same shoppers intended for this high end professional outdoor company supplier. The problem was the consumer intent was not matching up with the seller’s product.

Instead of just using Broad Match, we implemented Exact and Phrase Match to filter out searches like “cheap backpack” and “discount camping gear”.

We started using Exact Match around performance hiking gear and other similar terms more related to the intent of the seller. What this did was help funnel more relevant shoppers, likely to convert and shorten the gap between the intent of the search query and product on market.


Using Phrase or Exact Match for Each Negative Keyword

Sellers can also apply advanced match types to their Negative Keywords. Most Negative Keywords will be Exact Match, meaning you only want your ad to not appear for that specific term. However, sellers may also use Phrase Match to exclude that term in additional contexts.

Sellers can add their Negative Keywords at the Ad Group or Campaign level. After you’ve identified your negative keywords and the match type for each, you may add them in Campaign Manager one-by-one or by using Bulk Operations.

Keep in mind, Negative Keywords are available at the campaign or ad group level for manual and automatic targeted campaigns.

Below is an example of how a seller might use “boys shoes” as a negative keyword using Advanced Match Type:

Negative Phrase Boys shoes The complete phrase or close variations

Boys shoes, boys shoes 10

shoes for boys, boys red shoes, shoes boys

Negative Exact Boys shoes The exact phrase or close variations

boys shoes, boy's shoe

boys shoes 10

Ads Don't Show On Search Terms That Contain:

Excludes Shopper Search Terms Like These:

Doesn't Exclude Shopper Search Terms Like These:

Match Type Example Keyword


Bulk Operations Bidding


Bulk Operations BiddingIn the past, Sponsored Products campaign creation has been a manual and tedious process where campaigns had to be created one at a time and products added individually (which was fine for sellers with smaller catalogs).

But for sellers with large catalogs (thousands or even tens of thousands of SKU’s) Sponsored Products was often overlooked or under-utilized because of the sheer size of their catalog and the amount of time it would take to build out campaigns.

Now, Amazon has unveiled Bulk Operations for Sponsored Products, which allows sellers to manage large catalogs en masse. The feature allows sellers to create campaign structure, download campaign performance, and make changes by adjusting bids and moving products to different campaigns and ad groups.


These changes can then be uploaded back into the platform. Now sellers with large catalogs have a way to easily manage thousands of SKU’s in Sponsored Products.

What You Need to Know About Bulk Operations

Sponsored Products is now finally scalable, particularly for sellers with large catalogs.

Allows for larger more targeted campaign structures

Label-based bidding

What’s interesting is that while the campaign creation and structuring aspect of the Bulk Operations tool is a significant win for large-catalog advertisers, it’s the feed-based bidding that we see as a huge opportunity for product-level Sponsored Products management.

We saw a number of similarities to how we manage Custom Labels in the Google Shopping feed and decided it made sense to apply the same type of strategy to bid management using the Amazon Bulk Operations Tool.

“With bulk operations, we’ve been able to use those downloadable reports to get more granular in building out our campaigns. More granular in building out our ad groups, and setting specific bids at the keyword level...


“But, what does this mean for seller performance?

Essentially, thanks to bulk operations we’ve been able to advertise MORE products and use the data we get back from Amazon to finely tune our advertising campaigns. From an efficiency standpoint, we can use bulk operations to do a lot more and to do it faster by differentiating ad groups and building smaller more specific ad groups with more keywords.

What we’ve been able to do is build rules that are customizable to each client based on their goals, budget, and product mix to ensure they are getting the most advertising spend out of their budget.

These tools including advanced match types, negative keywords, and bulk operations have really given us the ability to drive efficiency. We can use that efficiency gain to allocate our budget, more appropriately and in turn―drive more volume.”

- Pat Petriello, Senior Marketplace Strategist | CPC Strategy

PRO-TIP: Campaign structure is one of the most underrated components of paid advertising success in Amazon.

Updates to Tracking Metrics in Bulk Operations

Unfortunately, one of the biggest drawbacks to using Sponsored Products is their tracking metrics available through the UI.


It’s difficult to track any changes in your campaign (for example: a bid change half way through the month) using the current Sponsored Products reporting interface.

This is because the Sponsored Products interface only tracks metrics based on year to date or month to date. You weren’t able to filter down to exact date to see the impact a bid change was having on your account. This was limiting for the account manager who wanted to be able to granularly track their bid changes, rather than having to evaluate the change based on a lump average of data.

“Essentially, there’s no filter available to select specific date ranges. It’s just fixed levels of time only. So, what we do in bulk operations, is we look at the data since we’ve made the bid change, not since the month or the week started. For example, if you made the change on a Wednesday - as it stands in the SP interface you can only see that data based on the entire week. You wouldn’t be able to see the performance from the change on Wednesday through till Sunday only.

I think that’s the biggest issue with the user interface and where a lot of sellers are falling short because they are forced to look at that aggregate average and they don’t have a true idea of what impact that change is having on their campaign.

What we are able to do via bulk operations is to make a change and analyze the data only since that change was made to evaluate if it was a good change.”

- Nick Sandberg, Senior Marketplace Analyst | CPC Strategy

PRO-TIP: Bulk operations are not necessarily more user-friendly (a lot of sellers still find it intimidating) but it is more exact and is definitely more efficient.


When it comes to valuable metrics, sellers should focus on their spend and sales, essentially their ACoS. Although impressions can be used to figure out if your ads are being served―we’ve seen a lot of inaccuracy using that metrics and prefer to use data on clicks and spend.

PRO-TIP: Using bulk operations, you can take a product feed - sort SKUs by brand, item type, or any type of content you can use to organize products and ad groups as opposed to having to search for individual products.


Final Takeaways


Final TakeawaysBelow is an example of a CPC Strategy client case study on Sponsored Products.

Designer Living Case Study

Founded in 2009, Designer Living sells an array of brand-name home furnishings and décor items including comforters, sheets, and furniture. After joining CPC Strategy, they saw exponential organic growth using Amazon Sponsored Products, which ultimately catapulted their online sales.

Goals

Goal 1: Improve Scalability & Optimize Catalog Management

Goal 2: Increase Sales Revenue

Stats8/1/2015 to 1/1/2016 (5 month period)

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+133.14%Increased Total Sales

+615.73%Increase Sponsored Products Ad Revenue

http://www.designerliving.com/


Strategy

Goal 1: Improve Scalability & Optimize Catalog Management

As an Amazon reseller representing more than 70 different brands, Designer Living teamed up with CPC Strategy in August 2015 to improve and optimize their Sponsored Products advertising efforts.

The biggest problem facing Designer Living was that they couldn’t advertise their entire catalog in bulk and were struggling to manually optimize more than 10,000 different SKUs. Shortly after they joined CPC Strategy, we implemented the use of Sponsored Products Bulk Operations, which gave Designer Living the ability to scale.

Because Designer Living is a reseller, it was critical that they implemented Sponsored Products advertising efforts to capitalize on Buy Box traffic.

PRO-TIP: Sponsored Product Ads will only surface when sellers are the current Buy Box winner.

Goal 2: Increase Sales Revenue

We also created Automatic Campaigns and segmented their catalog by brand name. Products were shifted into different ad groups (example: high or low bids) based on their cost of sale (COS) goal.


Any products converting below their COS goal were moved into an ad group with a higher bid and any products that weren’t converting at their COS goal were moved to a lower bid. Ultimately, we were able to optimized management for all 73 brands using Bulk Operations.

After a couple months, we discovered there were about 5 or 6 brands that drove most of the sales for Designer Living. We harvesting keywords and built out detailed manual campaigns based on keyword product data for each of those brands, which led to an increase in Sponsored Products ad revenue by +615.73%.

“The biggest goal to implementing all of these advanced strategies (negative keywords, bulk bid changes, etc) is ultimately to drive organic rank through Sponsored Products. For example if you have a product (a ping pong paddle) but maybe you are not known as a “premium seller” for that product. Maybe your product only shows up on the second or third page results but you really want to be known as the premium ping pong paddle seller―Sponsored Products can help create that opportunity for you on the Marketplace. You can bid on the phrase “premium ping pong paddle” so that your product is ranked higher. The goal of doing so, is to drive as many sales under the search “premium ping pong paddle” as possible so that you increase your in organic rank.

Essentially, you are building equity around the term ‘premium’. You have to measure it though, of course―to ensure you are actually climbing the rank if you are spending your budget on this term. If you discover you are still not ranking for the term “premium” then it’s likely time to reevaluate your keywords. Of course, it all goes back to having an understanding of your product and knowing what about your item is important to your customers. From that point you can leverage Sponsored Products.

You don’t always know why people buy your product so running Automatic Campaigns will help you get a pulse on that and you never want to wait longer than 60 days to evaluate your keywords using the Sponsored Products tool.”

- Nick Sandberg, Senior Marketplace Analyst | CPC Strategy

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Documents

THE 2016 GUIDE TO AMAZON SPONSORED PRODUCTS€¦ · Amazon SERP. In the following guide, we’ll walk through the Sponsored Products tactics that we consider foundational to any seller