Beginners Guide to Amazon Ads

Beginners Guide to Amazon Ads 2
Amazon Ads are Amazon’s equivalent to Google Ads and since launching in 2012 have become a real traffic-driving contender.
Similarly to Google, Amazon ad targeting is mostly based on the keywords that an Amazon searcher puts into Amazon’s SERPs
(search engine result pages), but there are some other exciting advertising options with Amazon that are worth a try!
Designed to give Amazon sellers premium visibility on the number 1 eCommerce
site, you are able to bid on specific keywords to appear in general search pages
and within product displays. In fact, eMarketer predicts that by 2020, Amazon will
be the third largest digital ad seller - given that their first quarter in 2018 brought
in over $2 billion in ad revenue, there is plenty of proof to support this!
Add that to the fact that Amazon searchers have high buying intent, Amazon ads
have become a vital PPC platform for eCommerce entrepreneurs. Those not
marketing with them are likely missing out on big conversion opportunities.
So where to start? In this guide to
Amazon Ads we will answer all of
your Amazon Marketing Services
(AMS) questions and take you
through everything you need to
know about how Amazon PPC
works, how you can get started,
the benefits of using this growing
advertising platform and a few
optimization hacks.

How does Amazon PPC work?
Where are Amazon Sponsored Ads displayed?
What is the difference between Premium and Self Service ads?
Why should I be marketing with Amazon PPC?
How much does it cost to advertise on Amazon?
What are the advertising options available with Amazon?
How do I get started with Amazon Sponsored Product ads?
How do I optimize and maintain my Amazon ads?
Let’s get started!
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As we mentioned earlier, similar to Google Ads, Amazon ads
are based on keywords that advertisers are able to bid on.
Say there are three stores selling water bottles; they would
each bid on the search term ‘water bottles’ in order for their
products to show first. The seller with the highest bid and
best rating will be displayed first, the second-highest bid will
How does Amazon PPC work?
be next, and so on. Like any PPC, with Amazon, advertisers
will only pay when the searcher clicks their ad and they can
control their ad spend through budgets and bids.
Amazon PPC offers marketers in the US the following eligible
categories that advertisers can place their sponsored ads in:
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Apparel Collectible Coins Industrial & Scientific Shoes
Appliances Computers Jewelry Software
Arts, Crafts & Sewing Electronics Luggage Sports
Automotive Parts & Accessories Entertainment Collectibles Movies & TV Sports Collectibles
Baby Fine Art Music Tools & Home Improvement
Batteries Furniture Musical Instruments Toys & Games
Beauty Grocery & Gourmet Food Office Products Video Games
Camera Handmade Outdoors Watches
Cell Phones & Accessories Health & Personal Care Patio, Lawn & Garden
Clothing & Accessories Home & Kitchen Pet Supplies

Amazon offers a variety of placement options which include Amazon’s search results pages (SERPs) and product listing pages on
desktop, mobile and in app pages, as well as off-site placement on third-party sites.
Where are Amazon ads displayed?2
This ad is placed at the top of the Amazon SERP as a banner, with
a small, discreet ‘Sponsored’ label that allows the ad to blend in
with all the search product listings. These will appear at the top of
AMAZON SERP HEADER ADS
the page, the right column, the bottom of the page, or between
entries. Advertisers can also choose Sponsored Brand ads, which
include headline text that sends people to a specific brand.

The second option available to
advertisers using Amazon PPC ads are
product page ads. They appear just
below the fold on desktop, above the
reviews and product FAQ.
AMAZON PRODUCT
SPONSORED ADS
Off-site ads work similarly to Google
Display ads in that they are displayed
off Amazon site pages on third-
party websites and can be used by
eCommerce sellers whether they
are selling on Amazon or not. These
fall under Amazon Premium ads,
which we will discuss in more detail
in the next section.
AMAZON OFF-SITE ADS
We will go into each of these campaign types in the next sections

As we mentioned, Amazon offers
placement on and off their site and
can be divided into Premium and
Self Service ads. Here’s a short
description of each.
What is the difference between Premium
and Self-Service ads?3
Amazon self-service ads are those
ads placed on search and product
pages that are targeted to customers
through search terms, products and
interested.
AMAZON
SELF-SERVICE ADS
Your ad

These are Amazon’s advertising options for offline or device-specific placement
and include video, display, and eCommerce ads.
AMAZON PREMIUM ADS
Custom
solutions

The short answer? Amazon Sponsored Ads give you extra exposure on the biggest eCommerce platform. The long answer
is that Amazon PPC ads have a host of benefits that help eCommerce sellers launch new products, boost sales and push
seasonal sales, while also helping your organic Amazon reach. Here’s a short breakdown of just some of the benefits of using
Amazon’s Sponsored Ads.
Why should I market with Amazon PPC?4
BOOSTING SALES FOR PRODUCT LAUNCHES
For those advertisers wanting to push a new product above the noise of established
sellers already succeeding in that niche, sponsored Amazon ads are a must. Why?
New products are some of the hardest to launch, but with Sponsored Ads,
advertisers can boost new products by displaying them at the top of search pages,
which in turn gets you more clicks and sales (ROIs). One case study with big
Amazon seller Empire Case proved that by using Amazon PPC to launch a new
product, you can increase ROIs by 200% and sales by 100%.
REACHING BUYERS
WITH INTENT
One of the biggest advantages of using
Amazon Sponsored Ads is that you
are exposing your ads to Amazon
searchers who are very actively looking
for what you’re selling. When using
other advertising platforms, you are
catching people doing research (on
Google) or people who are interested
in the niche you’re selling in (on
Facebook), but most people who are
searching Amazon have come there
because they have buying in mind. In
other words, you are exposing your
products to a bigger pool of buyers
who have buying intent.

BOOSTING ALL
PRODUCTS WITH
HIGHER EXPOSURE
The results above are not just limited
to launching products. Using Amazon
Sponsored Ads can help you boost
exposure - and therefore sales -
of an entire product line or category.
Another eCommerce superstar,
Sawyer Products, has had a good
experience using Sponsored Ads to
help them move from a ranking
of #53 up to #16.
IMPROVED ORGANIC
AMAZON RANKINGS
The last main benefit we will look at
is how Amazon PPC contributes to
your Amazon organic ranking. Amazon
ranking algorithms are a secret, but
we know that sales velocity, relevance,
conversion rates, and product/brand
variety all contribute to improved
rankings. Amazon Sponsored Ads help
advertisers with all of these aspects,
as they help you increase sales and
therefore build your sales history data,
which Amazon uses to determine
organic Amazon rankings.
RUNNING EFFECTIVE SEASONAL CAMPAIGNS
Amazon offers great options to advertisers who want to push high-season campaigns, such
as product specials for Christmas, Mother’s Day or Hanukkah. We know that holidays bring
with them a lot of online shoppers looking for gifts, and Sponsored Ads will enable you to
cash in on the big days by promoting your seasonal sales.

How much does it cost to advertise on Amazon?5
With Amazon Sponsored Ads, there aren’t any monthly
fees and, as we know, advertisers only pay for clicks.
Advertisers have control over how much they are
willing to spend per click or how much advertising
budget to use. The minimum cost-per-click bid allowable
to advertisers is as low as $0.02; however, to be
competitive, Amazon recommends a minimum of $0.05.
There are no monthly fees and no minimum spend - you
are charged only when an Amazon customer clicks on
your ad and is taken to your website. You control not
only the maximum price you are willing to pay for that
click, but also your daily budget.
When creating a campaign, an advertiser puts a bid amount
to help Amazon determine which ads will be displayed
in which searches and where. If you bid higher than your
competitors, your Amazon Sponsored Ads will more likely
appear first. If you bid lower than your competitors, your
Amazon Sponsored Ads will likely show many pages down
or not at all.
Pro Tip: Use long tail keywords of two words or longer, as
the more specific you are, the more intent the buyer who
searches the terms has. They are also less in demand and
will therefore cost less.
So how can advertisers predict Amazon costs in advance
to ensure that they are staying within their budget? Here are
some tips to get you started.

CONSIDER YOUR MARGINS
Next, you’ll want to give yourself a healthy margin. For example,
let’s say you want to launch a product that is for sale for $13, which
costs you $2 to produce/buy and $5 to be able sell the product
on Amazon. That means you have $7 left to cover your Amazon
PPC costs and your profit. This means that if you are paying $0.70
per click with a 10% conversion, your whole profit will be eaten up
by your ads. Therefore, when pricing your products, consider the
margin you will need to budget for ads.
LAUNCH A TEST PRODUCT
Lastly, before you throw your full budget into ads, launch a product
and test the market to help you plan your bids and budgets ahead of
time. To do that, create a product listing, optimize your title and test it
on auto or manual campaign settings to find the best options for you.
RESEARCH PRODUCTS WELL
The higher the competition a product keyword has, the higher the
bids will be for that keyword. To try predict your budget and keep
costs down ahead of time, start with products that perform well and
have a high demand or low competition. To do that, you will need to
do a little research beforehand to choose well-performing products.

What are the Amazon on-site advertising options?6
Amazon offers advertisers a variety of advertising types that help eCommerce sellers sell products or build brand
awareness. Choosing between them should be based on your objectives and budget.

AMAZON SPONSORED
PRODUCT ADS
Here’s a breakdown of each of the advertising types:
Sponsored Product Ads are the
most common advertising option
for sellers. They appear below
search results and are based on
keyword targeting. On clicking the
Sponsored Product Ad, Amazon
searchers will be sent to a specific
product page for the product
being advertised in the ad.
Here you will be able to choose
your bid, duration, daily budgets
and keywords. We will go into
more detail on how to create
an Amazon Sponsored Product
Ad in the next section.
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Watch the video here
Displayed in Amazon SERPs, Sponsored Brand ads show at the bottom, top and/or side banners of search pages.
Here advertisers have access to a customizable design that includes a headline, logo, up to three products and a brand
landing page. These ads have a minimum bid of $0.10 per click, campaign budget of $1 per day and $100 per campaign.
These ads are only available to Amazon Brand Registry enrolled sellers, and are a great branding tool for professional sellers.
AMAZON SPONSORED BRAND ADS2

How do I get started with
Amazon Sponsored Product ads?
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As we mentioned, most beginners start with Amazon Sponsored Product ads first.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating your first campaign on Amazon.
STEP 1: ACCESS ‘CAMPAIGN MANAGER’
Through your Amazon seller central dashboard, click on ‘Advertising’ and then ‘Campaign
Manager.’ Alternatively, you can choose this campaign through your AMS dashboard.

STEP 2: CAMPAIGN SETTING SETUP
Next, you will be instructed to set up your campaign
settings, including naming your campaign, setting your
daily budget, choosing the start and end dates for
your campaigns, and choosing between manual
and automatic targeting.
Manual targeting means that you decide on the
keywords you want to bid for in your campaigns while
automatic targeting leaves targeting up to Amazon,
which auto-generates the keywords in your campaign
based on the products you are selling.

Now you will be instructed to
name your group of ads to help
you distinguish between the many
ad groups you are able to add
to each campaign.
Next you will be instructed
to choose a single product
to allocate to your campaign.
STEP 3:
CAMPAIGN
SETTING SETUP
STEP 4:
PRODUCT SELECTION

Now it’s time to
insert your default bid.
This is the amount
you’re willing to
spend on each of
the keywords you
are targeting. When
selecting your bid,
remember to consider
your daily budget. For
example, if your daily
budget is $15 and you
choose a default bid
of $1, then - given
your bids cost $1 -
you’ll only get 15 clicks
per day for you ad.
STEP 5:
BID SETTINGS
STEP 6: KEYWORD SELECTION
The next step in creating your campaign is choosing the keywords, which you can
either choose from Amazon’s suggestions or add your own based on your data.

Here you are also able to select ‘broad’ or ‘exact’ match types.
‘Broad match’ means that your ads will be displayed based on a broad basis,
meaning that your keywords will not be matched to search terms that match
your keywords, but those that are related to them, such as synonyms and
variations (for example, singular or plural forms and misspellings).
‘Exact match’ keeps your search terms more segmented, meaning that your ads
will only show to Amazon searchers who are using your exact keywords
or phrases, without any consideration for misspellings, plurals, synonyms, etc.
STEP 7:
SAVE AND FINISH
Now it is time to save and finish
your campaign.
PRO TIP:
BEST AMAZON PPC CAMPAIGN
STRATEGY FOR BEGINNERS
When creating your first campaign,
you want to follow some key steps to
ensure you are building a successful
campaign strategy. To do this, start
by creating an automatic ad campaign
and let it run for about a week.
Then, generate a keyword search
terms report to collect data on your
highest converting keywords. You can
then use these and other long tail
keywords that you brainstorm based
on that list in a manual ad campaign.
Watch the video here

How do I optimize and maintain my Amazon ads?8
The key to keeping your Amazon ads optimized lies in utilizing Amazon’s great optimization
tools, using negative keywords and being crafty with your copy. Here are our two must-
know optimization and maintenance tips to get you started.
USE AMAZON’S TWO KEY SPONSORED PRODUCT OPTIMIZATION TOOLS
Sponsored Products tailored recommendations are shown
in real-time and enable advertisers to optimize their
budgets. According to Amazon, these recommendations
are curated from each campaign’s historical data, including
expected traffic, seasonality and spend rate.
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Each recommendation includes a link that will take
advertisers directly to their campaign settings, where
they can review and apply the tailored budget
recommendation in just one click.

Amazon’s Sponsored Product Automatic Notifications
The second new feature in Sponsored Products is a real
time-saver for advertisers! These are automatic budget
notifications that advertisers now receive in real-time
in both Amazon Marketing Service (AMS) and Seller
Central accounts.
Negative keywords are a must for ensuring you are not
throwing away precious ad budget. As you would with Google,
you want to use negative keywords to ensure your ads are
relevant to the page they’re on. For example, let’s say you are
selling musical instruments and create a campaign around your
‘flute’ products. If you are bidding on the keyword ‘flutes,’ your
ad could show to searchers looking for champagne flutes.
Let’s say they click the ad out of interest before heading
back the the champagne flutes: you’re paying for a click with
a buyer who is very unlikely to buy your product. Negative
keywords, in addition to being conservative with your match
types (exact or broad), can help you avoid this.
TEST DIFFERENT KEYWORD BIDDING STRATEGIES2
Ultimately, the addition of these notifications means that
as soon as you log into either account, you will be able
to see the status of your Sponsored Product campaigns
budgets and know which ones are getting close to
reaching their limits.

Amazon provides advanced reporting to its sellers for optimizing their campaign
performance. Use a variety of reports to provide insights into sales and
performance metrics including search term, keyword, placement, purchased
product, advertised product etc.
USE ADVANCED REPORTING MODULE3

As PPC platforms go, Amazon
is easy to use. Add that to the
high buying intent that Amazon
searchers have, and it’s almost
a no-brainer for Amazon
sellers. The important thing,
like with any PPC platform
or campaign, is to test to find
the winning structure for your
brand specifically. Start with
Sponsored Product ads but
then ensure you test all three ad
formats, comparing their ROIs
to other big marketing platforms
such as Google or Facebook, to
find the right combination for
maximum success.
CONCLUSION
If you’re an eCommerce
entrepreneur who’s totally
new to Amazon selling,
then our multi-channel
product data management
is perfect for you.

639 Passaic Avenue,
Nutley, NJ 07110
Call Us 1-973-542-2188
sales@storeautomator.com
www.storeautomator.com
StoreAutomator LLC
More than Integration.
It is about adaptation.

Beginners Guide to Amazon Ads

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