Introduction

Amazon PPC strategies are everywhere. It is not new to read about the same strategies wrapped in a fancy gift paper on an everyday basis. In this blog post, I will talk about 3 secret strategies that can make your Amazon Ads more predictable, better performing as well as more strategic.

Without further ado, let's dive straight in.

1. Save that bulk sheet:

Before running a large experiment, save your bulk sheet. This will save your snapshot bids and budgets for each campaign. If your experiment fails, you will not have to wait weeks to get back to your previous ROAS, but you can get to it in a fraction of a second.

This not only brings in predictability in your advertising performance but also gives you the freedom to try new strategies. Because you know, that if the experiment does not work, you have a fall back option.

Q1: What is a large experiment?

A: An experiment that runs across multiple campaigns and KWs

Q2: Why should I save the bulk sheet?

A: Saving the bulk sheet will keep track of your current bids and budgets for all the campaigns you have.

This is important, because as you know, that once you make changes to your account, you will lose the history on existing bids and budgets. These bids and budgets are important as they have already shown great results for you.

Q3. Ok, but why should I save it before running a large experiment OR before making large number of changes on my Amazon PPC account

A: So that you can preserve the bids & budgets from a period of certainty. i.e. a period when your account was performing well.

Q4. What will I do with this saved bulk sheet?

A: First run your experiment

If the experiment succeeds, congratulations, you are good. If the experiment fails. Don't panic. Simply upload your saved bulk sheet. It will re-instate your previous bids and budgets in an instant. And so will your ACOS.

Q5. Is this a tried and tested strategy?

A: We have tried this strategy exactly 12 times in 5 different accounts. Consistently hit the same ROAS, and went ahead with experimentation with better data points.

Q6. When does this strategy not work?

A: This strategy works best over short terms. Within the same month or within the same quarter. You cannot re-upload a February bulk sheet in October.

2. The 5-50 Rule:

Top 5 selling ASINs should get min. 50% ad spend. This is the most under-utilized optimization strategy on Amazon ads. Top Selling ASINs have the best ACOS. So higher the spend on top selling ASINs, the better the ACOS and higher your total sales.

In the below image, you can see 2 cases. Case 1 is when the advertiser is spending the same amount of ad $ on Top, medium and bottom selling ASINs. Case 2 is when they are spending 46% ad spend on top selling ASINs, and only 20% on bottom selling ASINs.

Notice the difference in ACOS. Case 2 is noticeably better in ACOS with absolutely no significant change in any other Amazon advertising strategy.

One of the best kept secrets of good agencies is how they distribute their ad spend on various ASIN bands.

If you use an Amazon Ads software, ensure that you are able to measure your spend % by ASINs and ASIN groups. You will be able to get this data on atom11 on their Ad spend profile module.

3. When to increase bids:

One of the rookie mistakes on rule based optimization that sellers and agencies make is:

"Increase bids on keywords whose ACOS < target ACOS"

That is NOT how it is done! (Click here to read about Bidding Strategies on Amazon Ads)

Why?

1. You will end up increasing bids for a LOT of keywords (Thousands). CPCs will increase and you will end up increasing your ACOS

2. If CPC = 1$, and Bid = 5$. What happens if you increase bids further.

NOTHING and in long term, it'll raise CPC without changing # ad orders.

Bid increases only help when CPC/ Bid ratio is higher than 0.5

Here's what you do:

If ACOS < Target ACOS * 0.4
AND Clicks > Clicks to Conversion
AND CPC/Bid > 0.5

Then Increase Bids!

Increasing bids has to be taken very very seriously. Any unwanted bid increase will land you in a high CPC zone. High CPC means High cost of advertising.

CPC/Bid as a feature is not available on many Amazon Ads softwares. It is however, available on atom11 while you create rules for Bid Optimization.

These strategies are not something that you hear everyday on linkedin and on the web. If you are looking to supercharge your Amazon Ads strategy, book a FREE consulting call here.