Faisal Nadeem lecture Notes
How Amazon PPC Works
Before we delve into the nitty gritty details of setting up, managing and improving PPC
campaigns, I just want to give you an easy-to-understand breakdown of how it works.
PPC is one of those things that seems complicated and convoluted from the outside, but if
you look at it this way, it seems a lot simpler.
Campaign Structure Explained
Think of PPC as a hierarchy of things, that build a full account. Here’s a visual aid to describe
it best:
1. Campaigns
At the top level you have campaigns, which is where you group things by the product and by
the type of campaign: manual or automatic.
Note: If you have several products that fall into similar categories, for example, shoes, you
might have a manual campaign with the topic of “shoes”, within which you can advertise
several pairs of shoes using the same keywords.
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2. Ad Groups
Below campaigns you have your ad groups, which is where you can start to break down your
campaign into manageable chunks. It’s usually easiest to be as granular as possible, so that
you can easily navigate your way around, adjust your keywords and see how your campaigns
are performing at the top level.
In the diagram on pg. 24 I highlighted a couple of ways that you could do this for a manual
campaign for the Garlic Press Manual Campaign.
3. Keywords
Inside those ad groups are where your keywords sit. These are the terms that you are effectively
bidding on, in order to get your ads to show up in the search results. How competitive a
keyword is will typically determine how much you have to pay to get your product displayed
in Amazon for that keyword. You can add many keywords into each ad group, but it’s best
to keep them manageable. Between 25-50 keywords per ad group makes it easier to manage.
Plus, you don’t want to target thousands of keywords at once, because this will result in wasted
spend.
Once you understand this structure, the hardest part is manipulating your campaigns to drive
the most revenue, with the best targeted keywords, while spending as little as possible. But
we’re going to cover all of that shortly!
Keyword Match Types
I’ve already touched on match types in the campaign structure section above, so let’s clarify
what this means and what they are.
You have the choice to set your keywords as broad, exact or phrase match.
Here’s an overview of how these match types work using Jungle Stix as an example:
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Managing Match Types
One useful method of campaign management for Amazon sellers is to carve your campaign
up with match type ad groups like the example below.
This allows you to easily stay on top of your manual campaigns, and also adjust your budgets
accordingly.
Each match type helps you to narrow down your target audience.
Using a broad match type opens up your ads to a wider audience which is great when mining
for new keywords. This is a good place to start when launching new products.
Using a phrase match type allows you to start to narrow down the amount of variants that
can trigger your ad, thus saving cost and becoming more targeted. But there are still some
variants which can continue to provide some useful insights.
Finally, using exact match is most targeted and allows for the least variance in the search
term that the consumer enters. This makes your ads more targeted, and usually cheaper with
an improved ROI. It also means your ad will show to less people (less impressions). It will take
some experimentation before you can transition keywords from broad match to exact match.
When you start a new campaign, it’s always best to start broader, so that you can reach a wider
audience and spot keywords you had not already thought of or researched. Then, once you
can see which keywords perform well for your product, you can hone in on those customers
with phrase and exact match.
You can continuously review your data and iterate the keywords you are targeting and what
your bids are for those keywords.
Tip: Amazon allows you to download search terms
reports so you can see the actual keywords consumers
used to find your ad.
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