Business Success Skills

A Step-By-Step Guide To Setting Up Amazon PPC campaigns




These tips will help you drive traffic to your Amazon product listing, increase sales, and improve your organic rankings.

1. What Is Amazon PPC?

Amazon Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is an advertising platform that allows sellers to bid on keywords to display their products in search results and on competitor product pages. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Campaign Types

  1. Sponsored Products: Ads for individual product listings.
  2. Sponsored Brands (for registered brands): Showcase your logo, headline, and multiple products.
  3. Sponsored Display: Retarget shoppers who’ve viewed your product or similar ones.

For most sellers, Sponsored Products campaigns are the best starting point.

2. Setting Up Your Amazon PPC Campaign

Step 1: Log in to Amazon Seller Central

  1. Navigate to Advertising Campaign Manager.
  2. Click Create Campaign.

Step 2: Choose a Campaign Type

Start with Sponsored Products because it’s straightforward and effective for beginners.

Step 3: Configure Campaign Settings

  1. Campaign Name: Use a descriptive name like "Water Bottle Launch Campaign."
  2. Start and End Date: Start immediately and leave the end date blank (for ongoing campaigns).
  3. Daily Budget: Set an initial budget (e.g., $20–$50/day).
  4. Targeting Type: Choose between:
  5. Automatic Targeting: Amazon matches your product to keywords and products.
  6. Manual Targeting: You bid on specific keywords.

Step 4: Targeting Options

Option 1: Automatic Targeting (For Beginners)

  • Amazon uses your listing's content to find relevant keywords and match products.
  • Bid Strategy:
  • Use Dynamic Bids - Down Only (Amazon lowers bids if a click is less likely to convert).
  • Set a default bid (e.g., $0.50–$1.00).

Ad Group Name: Group similar products (e.g., "Water Bottles - 32oz").

Option 2: Manual Targeting (For More Control)

  1. Keyword Targeting:

  2. Match Types:

    • Broad Match: Ads show for related searches (e.g., "insulated bottle" triggers "best insulated water bottle").
    • Phrase Match: Ads show for phrases in the exact order (e.g., "insulated water bottle" triggers "best insulated water bottle").
    • Exact Match: Ads show only for the exact keyword.

  3. Product Targeting:

  4. Target specific competitor products or categories.

  5. Bid Adjustments:

  6. Broad Match: $0.50–$0.75.
  7. Exact Match: $0.75–$1.50 (higher bid for precision).

Step 5: Add Keywords

For Manual Campaigns, add keywords using:
1. Keyword Research Tools: Helium 10 Cerebro, Jungle Scout, or Merchant Words.
2. Amazon Search Bar: Use autocomplete suggestions.
3. Competitor Analysis: Extract keywords from top competitors' listings.

Example Keywords for a Stainless Steel Water Bottle: - Broad Match: "insulated water bottle," "travel water bottle."
- Exact Match: "stainless steel water bottle."

Step 6: Set Your Bids

Amazon PPC uses a bidding system, so you must bid on each keyword.

Bid Amount Guidelines:

  1. Low-Competition Keywords: $0.50–$0.75.
  2. Medium-Competition Keywords: $1.00–$1.50.
  3. High-Competition Keywords: $2.00+.

Amazon recommends a Suggested Bid Range for each keyword. Start at the middle of the range.

Step 7: Launch the Campaign

  • Click Launch Campaign to make it live.
  • Monitor performance daily during the first week.

3. Optimizing Your Amazon PPC Campaign

Step 1: Monitor Key Metrics

  1. ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales):
  2. [ {ACoS (\%)} = \frac{{Ad Spend}} / {{Sales}} * 100 ]

  3. ACoS should be below your profit margin (e.g., if your profit margin is 30%, aim for an ACoS of 25–30%).

  4. CTR (Click-Through Rate):

  5. [ {CTR (\%)} = \frac{{Clicks}} / {{Impressions}} * 100 ]

  6. A healthy CTR is above 0.5%.

  7. Conversion Rate:

  8. [ {Conversion Rate (\%)} = \frac{{Orders}} / {{Clicks}} * 100 ]
  9. Aim for a conversion rate above 10%.

Step 2: Optimize Keywords

Weekly Actions:

  1. Pause Low-Performing Keywords: Stop bids on keywords with high spend but no conversions.
  2. Increase Bids for High-Performing Keywords: Boost bids on keywords with a low ACoS and high conversion rates.
  3. Add Negative Keywords: Exclude irrelevant keywords to avoid wasted spend.
  4. Example: If "plastic water bottle" triggers clicks but your product is stainless steel, add it as a negative keyword.

Step 3: Adjust Bids Based on Performance

  • For keywords with a high ACoS: Lower the bid to reduce spend.
  • For keywords with a low ACoS: Increase the bid to maximize impressions and sales.

Step 4: Scale Your Campaigns

  1. Expand to Manual Campaigns: If you started with automatic targeting, move high-performing keywords into a manual campaign.
  2. Test Sponsored Display Ads: Retarget shoppers who viewed your product or competitors' products.

4. Example Campaign Plan

Initial Campaign Setup

| Campaign Type | Targeting Type | Daily Budget | Bid Strategy | Keywords |
|--------------------------|--------------------|------------------|---------------------------|----------------------------------|
| Sponsored Products | Automatic | $30 | Dynamic Bids - Down Only | N/A |
| Sponsored Products | Manual | $40 | Exact Match | "stainless steel water bottle" |
| Sponsored Display Ads | Product | $20 | Dynamic Bids - Up & Down | Target competitors' listings |

Metrics to Monitor (Daily for the First Week)

| Metric | Target Value |
|--------------------|--------------------------|
| ACoS | Below 30% |
| CTR | Above 0.5% |
| Conversion Rate | Above 10% |

5. Tools to Manage Amazon PPC

  1. Amazon Advertising Console: Monitor and manage campaigns directly.
  2. Helium 10 Adtomic: Automate PPC optimization.
  3. PPC Entourage: Simplifies bid adjustments and keyword optimization.

6. Next Steps

  1. Launch campaigns and collect data for 7–14 days.
  2. Analyze keyword performance and optimize bids.
  3. Scale campaigns by increasing budget for high-performing ads.
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