Amazon Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a powerful tool for sellers looking to increase their product visibility, drive sales, and grow their business on the platform. However, many advertisers fall victim to common Amazon PPC mistakes that can lead to suboptimal campaign performance, wasted ad spend, and lower profitability. These errors can range from poor campaign structure and keyword selection to incorrect usage of match types, inadequate performance monitoring, and issues with budgeting and bidding. By understanding and avoiding these common pitfalls, advertisers can create more effective campaigns, maximize their return on ad spend (ROAS), and achieve their advertising goals on Amazon.
Key Takeaways
1. Avoid common Amazon PPC mistakes by creating well-structured campaigns, selecting relevant keywords, and using a mix of automatic and manual targeting.
2. Understand and correctly utilize match types, implement negative keywords, and leverage keyword harvesting to refine your targeting.
3. Regularly monitor and analyze your campaign performance, focusing on key metrics like conversion rate and ACOS, and make data-driven decisions.
4. Optimize your budgeting and bidding strategies based on your advertising goals, product profitability, and performance data, while avoiding common pitfalls like using Amazon’s recommended bids or adjusting bids too quickly.
5. Use PPC tools and Amazon attribution judiciously, relying on your own analysis and understanding of your products and target audience to make informed decisions and drive long-term success.
In this article, we will explore a comprehensive list of common Amazon PPC mistakes, grouped into five main categories. We’ll dive into the details of each mistake, providing insights and best practices to help advertisers optimize their campaigns and avoid costly errors. Whether you’re new to Amazon PPC or a seasoned advertiser, understanding these common missteps and learning how to navigate them can help you take your campaigns to the next level and achieve long-term success on the platform.
Poor Campaign Structure and Keyword Selection
- Poor campaign structure
- Having more than 1 product per ad group
- Poor keyword selection
- Over-using automatic campaigns
- Under-using automatic campaigns
- Not moving from automatic targeting, broad & phrase match => exact match + negative keywords
- Not optimizing your product listing
- Not having 1 product per adgroup
Incorrect Usage of Match Types and Negative Keywords
- Incorrectly using match types
- Not understanding how exact & phrase match really work on Amazon PPC
- Not understanding the difference between Search Terms vs Keywords for Amazon PPC
- Forgetting negative keywords
- No use of keyword harvesting
Inadequate Performance Monitoring and Analysis
- Not monitoring performance
- Not analyzing your conversion rate
- Tracking the wrong metrics
- ACOS vs TACoS vs ACoP
- Analysing over too short a timescale, with too little data
- Making decisions without context
- Ignoring seasonality
Issues with Budgeting, Bidding, and Profitability
- Not having a clear objective
- Not Evaluating based on strategy/tactics (when high ACoS is ok)
- Stopping too expensive search terms (without adjusting bids to make them profitable)
- Working at too high a level (onscreen data)
- Working at too low a level (bulk download spreatsheets )
- Not watching for loss-making terms
- No proper bid optimization
- Adjusting the bids too quickly
- Budgeting
- Using Amazon recommended bids
- Getting too confused / worried by bid up, bid down etc
- Not knowing the true profits of your products
Overreliance on Tools and Attribution
- Relying too much on automated PPC tools making decisions for you
- Use Amazon attribution