How to Avoid Amazon Ads Mistakes that Cost you a Fortune
Kirsty Verity
Using Amazon ads is a necessity for your Amazon business.
Amazon ads make it easy for your brand to be more visible on Amazon and bring more traffic to your store.
And when traffic comes, that means more sales and profit for you.
So today, we’ll give you the best tips on how you can maximize Amazon ads for your business.
Understanding Amazon Advertising
Steuart Henderson Britt once said, “Doing business without advertising is like winking at any girl in the dark. You know what you’re doing but nobody else does.”
And we at Real Amazon Coaching couldn’t agree more.
If you think that you can get traffic or sales on Amazon just by people finding you, you couldn’t be more wrong.
People need to know that you exist. They need to see you know what you’re doing.
That’s what exactly Amazon advertising does for your business.
The man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.
Henry Ford
The purpose of Amazon ads is to help your Amazon business get visibility on keywords you’re not ranking well for during your launch.
It also gives you visibility for ongoing keywords in your launch.
Amazon ads can also help you scoop up sales that you otherwise won’t get when you depend on organic traffic alone.
As an Amazon business owner, it’s a given that you have to pay a little bit to get those sales.
Any business needs visibility to sell.
That’s why every Amazon seller needs to learn how an Amazon advertising strategy works so they could make the most of it.
Learn more about the basics of Amazon ads here: https://sellics.com/blog-amazon-ppc-guide/
The three phases of advertising on Amazon
The ultimate goal is to get to the very top of page one of Amazon search engines.
To do that, you need to go through three phases of advertising on Amazon.
These three phases are launch, maintenance, and boost.
The launch mode mostly requires high bids and high budgets to launch new products to get maximum effects.
Doing so will help you get higher traffic and higher sales.
So how do you know if you’re still at the launch phase? Most would think that the launch phase only involves new product launches.
In reality, if you haven’t reached your desired keyword ranking, you’re still in the launch phase.
Once you’ve reached your goal, then you’ll enter maintenance mode.
This means you get lower bids and lower budgets to obtain sales at a good profit margin.
When we mean lower bids and budgets, this means you need to keep on advertising for ranking and sustainability.
Remember, the goal is to maintain visibility in your market. And to do that, you need to invest in ads inside Amazon.
When you stop advertising on Amazon, you’re giving your competitors the chance to get more sales. You’ll also lose visibility, your ranking will drop and your sales will also be affected in the long term.
Boosting means you’ll be making intermittent jumps in certain keywords bids and budgets to raise your keyword ranking and visibility.
Doing this will help fix any loss you might have missed in ranking and sales.
The key is to know which keywords to rank for so you can make up for lost opportunities in between.
Why you should focus on Amazon for traffic
You might be thinking like a beginner seller, why would you need to focus on Amazon instead of Google and other platforms?
The reason is pretty simple.
You need to be visible where the intention of buying is available.
Your market’s intention should be a priority when thinking of an Amazon advertising strategy. As an Amazon FBA seller, you need to think of why people are spending time on a platform.
For example, Google indeed is one of the best places to search for anything under the sun. The thing is, people use it to search for answers, not to buy.
It might be a good place to look for information about the brand, specs, and experience with the product. But it doesn’t mean they’re buying from Google as much as they are on Amazon.
The same goes for social media platforms like Facebook. While Facebook Marketplace is a selling platform, most buy and sell personal products there instead.
People are hanging out on Facebook, with fewer intentions of buying.
It’s good to create promotion strategies for your business through Google Ads and Facebook Ads. But to get the best results, you need to focus your selling and ads strategies on Amazon.
The benefits of advertising on Amazon
You don’t have to be an expert to advertise on Amazon. But you can use it to make sure that you get to the right customer who is ready to buy.
Since Amazon customers are ready to buy, this is where you need to spend the most time and effort.
For starters, people trust the buying experience of Amazon over any site in the Western world.
Amazon provides the nearest experience to a point of sale advertising on the internet.
Sure, you can do funnels on your website to direct people to buy your products. But sponsored ads on Amazon can get you faster to rank higher on search results inside Amazon.
And most of all, people who go on Amazon are ready to make a purchase. All they need to do is click on ‘add to cart’ to complete the buying process.
You might think cost per click ads strategies cost more if you’re a beginner. But the truth is, you can’t replicate the same traffic on your own.
At the same time, an Amazon ad can help your products get the placement right next to top sellers. This can generate more traffic and sales especially when you’re just getting started as a seller.
Sure, you can try to use other platforms or third-party advertising platforms. But you will never get profitable ad sales from other platforms.
In case you do, you need to learn and master multiple skills like landing pages, advertising creative, writing copy, SEO, and others.
Advertising on Amazon first helps you create the traffic and sales you want for your business, especially as a beginner Amazon seller.
Once you’ve established your Amazon advertising process, then you can explore other platforms to maximize your sales and brand reach.
Check out other benefits of Amazon advertising here: https://www.estorefactory.com/blog/top-6-benefits-of-amazon-sponsored-ads-or-ppc/
The basics of Amazon advertising
Running a successful Amazon advertising campaign requires you to learn the building blocks of Amazon PPC.
Here are some of the key concepts and terms that you should know.
Amazon PPC – it’s an advertising service that lets you run product ads to gain visibility on Amazon’s first-page search results using specific keywords.
Pay per click (PPC) – this model charges the seller a specific amount every time a consumer clicks on the advertisement displayed
Search terms – these refer to any kind of search query that customers type on the Amazon search bar
Keywords – these refer to what you as a seller use to bid on in your ad campaigns. These keywords are available with Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products.
There are three types of keyword matches available in Amazon ads.
- Broad match type keywords are matched to a user’s search term if all the keywords are present in it. It is least restrictive since it matches with a wider range of search terms. It also reaches out to a wider audience.
- Phrase matches are keywords that are matched to a user’s search term if the keywords are present in the same order
- Exact match keywords are matched to the user’s search terms who use the exact keywords. This is the most restrictive since it only allows select search terms.
Negative targeting – these are used to help sellers exclude unwanted customer search terms from their campaigns. It can also be a powerful tool to help control your advertising costs
Campaign types – You can choose from automatic or manual campaigns.
For automatic campaigns, Amazon will run the ads for you. Your ad will automatically match all search terms that Amazon thinks is relevant to your campaign.
Manual campaigns let you choose the keywords yourself. This also gives you better ad targeting precision.
How to plan your core campaigns
Advertising on Amazon requires you to create core campaigns. And you need to separate them to test the performance of each match type.
To advertise on Amazon, you’ll need an automatic campaign that has automatic targeting. You also need a broad campaign that has seed keywords.
You also need phrase campaigns and exact seed keywords to help you get started.
Seed keywords are the top 10-20 most relevant keywords for your products. They don’t include any competitor or brand names in them.
They also shouldn’t have any ASINs. These keywords are often what most people would use to find products.
And they also make up about 95-99% of the sales of products in your niche.
To find keywords, you can use Brand Analytics by putting your main competitor’s ASIN and getting the top 10-15 relevant keywords.
You can also use Helium 10 to check these.
Check out our post on how to do this here: https://goteamreal.com/brand-analytics-helium-10/
How to avoid Amazon advertising mistakes
Now, most Amazon sellers are afraid of spending money. And most see ads as an expensive cost.
This is where the right mindset comes in.
Instead of thinking that ads are a cost, think of it as a necessary expense so you could get more sales.
When you focus on what’s working on your campaigns, you’ll get results and returns.
The secret is for you to realize that spending on sponsored product ads, sponsored products, and display ads is an investment. The more you spend on it, the better it does for your ranking and visibility.
It also improves your long term goal of selling and creating profit for yourself.
Overcome the fear of overspending
To conquer your fear of spending too much on PPC, what you need to do is to focus on what’s working on your campaign.
The right keywords will help produce results and returns. This will also dramatically increase your confidence in spending on Amazon advertising.
Be relevant and visible so your ads will attract the right market and show for as long as possible.
Your search term report will help you decide on this. Check out your best-converting products and best-performing campaigns. Look at the best keywords that have a good conversion and click-through rates.
Focus on your best products and double down on your winners. Be aggressive on your budget with the stuff that converts.
This way you know you’re spending your money wisely so you won’t feel as if you’re wasting it.
Let go of Amazon PPC FOMO
Another common mistake when dealing with ads on Amazon is the PPC FOMO.
Some Amazon sellers, especially the new ones think that running ads on Amazon is no longer as powerful.
So instead of focusing on search ads, they venture into other types of ads like Facebook Ads and Google Ads.
What happens is they spread their budget too thin. They also don’t get the results they want because they don’t focus on what’s necessary.
And that is to maximize your efforts in getting more traffic and buying intention towards your store.
One of our guests in a recent podcast, Laura McCaul, also talks about the benefit of using sponsored products as a good strategy for selling on Amazon.
Some would think it’s an old strategy, but sponsored products can have a huge impact on your sales.
The ability to add your competitor ASINs and use them as negative keywords in your auto campaign can bring in more results.
It also lets you have more control over the wasted ad spend. This gives you more budget and converts your auto campaigns to a revenue creator.
Spend your Amazon marketing budget on the right keywords
It’s pretty common for sellers to think they know the right keywords for their products.
The problem is, you might not be using the right ones that generate sales.
If you’re not converting on the current keywords you’re using, then you need to change it up.
Look at the keywords that generate sales for your products. Check long-tail keywords that you can use for the product.
The data you get can help you create more sales for your products. So make sure to spend on those that get better results.
Start with five to ten main seed keywords. Depending on your products, focus on the bigger traffic keywords. This will help you generate data and look at the sales that the longer tail keywords you’re using.
You can use these seed keywords to increase your ranking for the long term. You can also use these for other keywords that you can rank on.
This can increase your ranking and organic sales. And when you’re ranking is good, you can always go back and see which keywords can work best.
Conclusion
Amazon ads can help you increase your visibility and organic sales.
The key is to learn how to use the right strategies, keywords, and metrics. Once you understand your data, it’s easier to make the best decision on which Amazon advertising strategy to use.
For more tips on how to avoid costly Amazon ads mistakes, check our podcast episode below.
What ads strategy works best for your Amazon business? Share it with us below.
