Amazon PPC is the advertising platform where third-party sellers can create ad campaigns for their products to boost sales on Amazon. Advertisers pay a fee to Amazon when a shopper clicks on their ad. This is what is known as the pay-per-click model.
Amazon PPC advertising has developed into a powerful marketing channel on Amazon. Running PPC ads enables sellers and vendors to ‘buy’ visibility for their products at the top of Amazon’s search results page.
However, the number of sellers leveraging Amazon PPC’s potential continues to grow significantly year over year. So, if you don’t have a defined plan in place, it may become difficult to achieve your PPC goals on Amazon.
In this guide to Amazon PPC, you will learn:
What Amazon ad types are available for sellers and vendors?
Is Amazon PPC worth it and what does it cost?
How do the basic building blocks of Amazon PPC work?
How to run Amazon ad campaigns.
Amazon PPC Advertising Types
There are 3 Amazon Ad Types available: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display Ads.
Sponsored Products – keyword- and ASIN-targeted ads similar to Google Adwords, that enable you to promote individual products within Amazon search results and on product detail pages. Today, usually when a keyword is searched in Amazon, the first 1-3 products that you see as part of the results are sponsored products. For example, in this search of "bowls" on Amazon, the first two results are sponsored products.
Which means that someone is bidding to have those ads displayed on that page. The seller of the products does not pay however, until the ad is clicked on, at which point the seller pays Amazon the bid price for the click. SP or sponsored products are the most popular of the 3 ad types on Amazon.
Sponsored Brands – ads for brand building that allow brands to promote a custom headline, brand logo, and up to 3 products in their ad in the top spot above Amazon search results (and other placements), with the ability to send shoppers to their Amazon Stores page or a custom landing page on Amazon. Newly available are also video ads linking to product detail pages. Sponsored Brands ads show up as a banner that covers a horizontal section of an Amazon shopper's page. An example of sponsored brands is shown below for the "bowls" page.
Sponsored Display ads – ads that send shoppers to Amazon product detail pages. They deliver relevant ads both on Amazon and on external websites to shoppers who are visiting or have visited (remarketing) specific products on Amazon. Below is an example of two sponsored display ads on the product page of a competitor. The ads are located below the buy box, and directly below the bullet points.
What is the average cost per click (CPC)?
On Amazon.com, the CPCs typically range from $0.02- $3, but your average CPC can vary greatly depending on the product category, marketplace, as well as the ad type.
Are there any hidden fees associated with Amazon PPC?
The short answer is: no. The pricing structure here is transparent and straightforward. You only pay for your Amazon ads only when someone clicks on one of them; and because you set your bids and daily PPC budget, you have total control over how much you spend.
As mentioned above, the exact amount that you pay per click will be determined by the second-highest bidder in the ad auction. If you are the highest bidder you will win the auction and pay $0.01 more than the second-highest bid.
Does Amazon PPC improve organic rankings for my FBA and FBM products?
Yes, it can. Unlike in Google Adwords, Amazon PPC sales have a direct influence on a product’s organic ranking on Amazon. Therefore, more sales generated via Amazon PPC ads will have a positive effect on the organic ranking of your FBA or FBM product.
This effect is especially important for new products. New products generally lack a sales history, and therefore performance data, which in turn negatively affects organic ranking. Amazon PPC can change that by driving traffic to your FBA or FBM product listing and thereby boosting sales as well as generating reviews to drive further conversions.
Is Amazon PPC Advertising right for me?
Most likely, yes! PPC advertising can be both a solid driver of growth and also brand protection against other competitors no matter the size of your brand or product. If you want some guidance or to talk further about whether PPC advertising would be right for you contact us here!