To say that the Amazon marketplace is huge would be an understatement. The e-commerce giant generates $1.6 billion in daily sales. Sellers from across the world utilize the marketplace to sell their products in different capacities. However, just like Google, Amazon has its own marketing realm where people can promote their products through ads of different kinds. While big businesses have adequate resources to start and run their Amazon marketing campaigns, small-scale sellers often need help running them. 

In today’s blog we will answer the question “What is Amazon marketing,” the way it works, and how your business can utilize it to the fullest. 

What is Amazon marketing?

When sellers use the Amazon marketplace, they often require an additional service that can help them reach potential customers through advertisements. The process of running Amazon ad campaigns is better known as Amazon marketing. While it isn’t a definition of the term in the strictest terms, it does highlight its meaning.

There are over 9.7 million sellers on Amazon and this number has been growing steadily over the years. Being a part of this growing seller base is easy, but being ahead of the competition isn’t. While you can always promote your products on Amazon via independent ads on social media or any other platform, it is often advised to run ads through Amazon as their ecosystem acts as a search engine of its own. 

Why do you need Amazon marketing campaigns?

There are many reasons why you may need to run an Amazon marketing campaign. However, a few of them can be listed as follows:

1. The first reason your business needs an Amazon marketing campaign is visibility. Just like your products appear on a Google search results page, they also appear on the Amazon website and other channels associated with the marketplace.
2. Another reason your business could utilize Amazon marketing is better conversions and sales. For obvious reasons, when you run ads on a channel, chances are that people interact with them. If your ad is interesting enough, people will follow through on their last decision and make a purchase, hence completing a conversion.

How to start your Amazon marketing campaign?

Starting Amazon marketing campaigns might look heavy, but it is quite simple; all you have to do is follow a few steps in the order you want to. To run ads or market anything on Amazon, you’re not required to follow a strict list of processes, as there are many avenues to start. Let’s take a look at how you can start your Amazon marketing campaign:

Finalize a marketing budget

In order to utilize Amazon Marketing Services, you first need to identify the need to run an ad campaign, coupled with the type of ad you want to go with. Having a budget secures your moves and explains which sections might need more money in the coming months or days. Here’s how you can optimize your budget as a small-scale seller on Amazon:

1. Run sponsored product ads: Sponsored product ads are the most commonly used ad type on the Amazon marketplace. As the name suggests, it comprises a simple ad that can be found on search pages of the e-commerce website. Think of it as a simple PPC ad that you run on Google using a broad search technique. There’s no shame in starting small on your first ad campaign, as you’ll learn how to target the right cohorts, maximize the ROI, and optimize your target keywords on a limited budget.
2. Check the metrics: Another crucial aspect of running an Amazon ad campaign is checking the right metrics. Click-through rates, conversion rates, CPC, etc., are crucial metrics for which you need to optimize your ads. While it doesn’t directly relate to investments, it’ll fetch good returns if done correctly.
3. Get your final keyword list: To optimize the budget, you need to get your list of keywords right. It can be a collection of broad match and phrase match keywords with some direct match ones added for good measure. You can then choose the list that fits your campaign the best. Most sellers often choose broad and exact match keywords as they provide medium to good results on a limited but flexible budget. If your budget doesn’t extend much, you can always choose exact-match keywords to maintain conversions at a lower cost.

Understanding the A9 algorithm

Your Amazon marketing campaigns run on metrics and your message. The A9 algorithm is Amazon’s proprietary algorithm that caters to all elements present in the marketplace. Think of it as an SEO-based algorithm that looks at your product lineup and goes through your ads and everything related to your product.

Here’s what the A9 algorithm covers:

1. Keyword relevance: Every product is searched on Amazon using a search term/keyword. The more relevant and accurate your keyword is, the better it will rank. The A9 algorithm goes through the keywords that match your product lineup based on their volume for a geographical region and ranks them accordingly.   
2. Conversion rate: Every customer journey has a start and end point, and the end usually results in a successful conversion. When running your Amazon marketing campaign, you make this journey as seamless as possible. A good conversion rate doesn’t hinge on a single metric; you must consider all the available options. You might have a great keyword, but if you cannot bank on it, chances are that the conversion rate won’t be great. The A9 algorithm notices this quite a lot.  
3. Impressions: Impressions are the interactions that your ad or product receives on Amazon. Sometimes, people click on an ad and get redirected to a sale you might have. Sometimes, people look at products to check their prices for comparison. All these activities fall under impressions. When running your Amazon marketing campaigns, you’ll come across various impressions on your ads. Some days, it might be great; others, it might not. To maintain a consistent stream of engagement, you need optimized ad copies, well-written product descriptions, and many images that support your campaign.   
4. CTR: CTR, or Click-Through Rate, is the number of clicks that your product or ad gets on a platform. Amazon is no different from other platforms when it comes to studying CTR. The A9 algorithm studies CTR and puts them on a priority list. The better your CTR is, the better your ranking will be. Your Amazon Marketing Campaign will surely benefit from a better CTR score, aiding your campaign in targeting more individuals.
5. Backend keywords: While the A9 algorithm works its way through the front-end aspects of your products and ads, it also looks up the keywords you’ve got in the back end. Backend keywords are related to your product that couldn’t fit the product description. They also contain misspelled keywords for users to look up your product.        

PPC marketing on Amazon

The PPC, or Pay Per Click, model of advertising isn’t new to sellers on Amazon. Some of the most popular PPC platforms include Google, Facebook, and Amazon. However, for those new to selling products, Amazon PPC is the advertising platform of Amazon that allows third-party sellers to promote their products through ads on all Amazon-related channels.

Here’s how it works. A seller who wants to run an Amazon ad campaign pays a fee for the advertisement upon receiving clicks or other impressions on it. The fee is paid to Amazon as it provides the platform to run your ads.

Amazon utilizes the following metrics for PPC campaigns:

1. Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS): ACoS is the percent of attribute sales you spend on advertising. It basically tells you the advertising cost to generate each sale. 
2. Attributed sales: Attribute sales is the total amount of money that you make from sales that people have seen or interacted with.
3. Impressions: As mentioned before, impressions are the engagements that your ad gets from people. It also represents the number of times your ad was displayed.
4. Clicks: As the name suggests, this attribute defines the number of times your ad was clicked on any of the Amazon channels. 

PPC marketing on Amazon also includes different ad types. Here, let’s take a look at some of the prominent ones:

1. Sponsored product ads: The all-time favorite of third-party sellers on Amazon, sponsored product ads are the ones that appear in search results and product listing pages. You can use automatic targeting and manual targeting for your keywords in such ads. Automatic targeting works by adding keywords that Amazon’s algorithm considers related to your product. It is highly effective as the system automatically finds a list of keywords that represent your product. Manual targeting, on the other hand, involves you manually selecting keywords that might be related to your product. It is helpful in cases where you want only a handful of keywords to represent your product.  
2. Sponsored brand ads: Sponsored brand ads drive awareness by highlighting more than one product on Amazon’s product pages. It is helpful for sellers who deal in multiple brands and varying product lineups. It offers a bigger variety of visual presentation of your products. You can choose between using a single image, a collage of images, or a detailed video. 
3. Sponsored display ads: Sponsored display ads appear on multiple platforms, such as websites that are affiliated with Amazon (Google, Facebook, etc.). These ads are similar to sponsored brand ads as they contain more than one product from different brands. This option could be a little expensive for small-scale sellers, however, it has the widest coverage area for PPC ads. Once your business scales up, you’ll be able to utilize this ad type quite efficiently. 

Bonus tip to run Amazon marketing campaigns: Running an Amazon ad campaign has its share of nuances, and now that you’re aware of the crucial ones, it is time to highlight another crucial aspect of running PPC campaigns, experience!

New sellers often get confused in the gazillion list of prerequisites that one or the other aspect misses out, compromising their hard work and planning. To avoid such instances, what you need is an experienced support structure that caters to your advertising needs while optimizing your practices for better ROI.

Digital Champ comprises a team of talented developers, market researchers, and PPC campaign specialists who enable your Amazon journey by taking care of Amazon PPC campaigns. We’re an experienced Amazon marketing agency ready to assist your business’ ad campaign with:

1. Thorough keyword research
2. Market research and competitive analysis
3. Budget planning and structuring
4. SEO copywriting for products and ads
5. Crafting well-optimized product and brand pages

We understand how confusing starting an online business can be. This is why our team of experts is here to assist you every step of the way. Whether it is Amazon ads, Google ads, or any other PPC campaigns, we’ve got your back.

To sum it up

Amazon marketing campaigns require careful attention to detail on crucial aspects. Whether it is the number and kind of keywords that you require or the type of ads you want to run, it is an elaborate process that requires patience and constant optimization. Remember, not every campaign is going to be the same. Some will give you the best results, while some might not. However, upon completing every campaign, you’ll have insights that’ll help you shape the kind of campaigns you want to run. We hope you read and understood all the nuances associated with Amazon marketing and the way it is supposed to be done. Happy selling!