Amazon Advertising for New Sellers

Entrepreneurs first entering the world of selling on Amazon may find themselves in a state of overwhelm. Your first look at Seller Central may cause trepidation, but breaking down Amazon advertising into understandable, digestible nuggets of information can be the key to creating your first successful ads. 

Advertising on Amazon is no longer a “maybe” – it is 100% a part of any successful brand’s ability to scale when selling in Amazon’s marketplace. 

This blog is designed for beginners, to give you a fast (but thorough) rundown of what you need to know to start setting up your first Amazon campaigns.

Amazon Basic #1: Seller Central

Seller Central is your central hub for all things selling on AMZ. You’ll gain access to organic and paid ad analysis, control stock, set shipments, create promotions, and everything in between.

For our purposes, we’ll be focusing on what you’ll do when you go to Advertising ➡️ Campaign Manager.

To create your very first campaign, you’ll click on the button that says Create Campaign. When you do, you’ll be presented with three options. These are the “Big Three” Amazon ad types. Some of them require you to have a trademark and to be signed up for Amazon Brand Registry.

Hot Tip: Brand Registry will become crucial for growth later on down the line, and is worth every minute of effort and every dime spent in order to get your trademark and register. Do this sooner rather than later to open up an entire world of opportunities only available for brand registered sellers.

Amazon Basic #2: The “Big Three” Amazon Ad Types

Sponsored Products are the original Amazon ad type and the most accessible to new sellers. SP campaigns use keyword and product targeting and appear on SERPs and product detail pages.

Sponsored Brands (originally known as Headline Search Ads) are used to advertise a seller’s brand and product lines. These ads may feature a logo image, custom headline copy, and severa; different products at the same time. These ads appear above search results, to the left of normal search results, and sometimes below standard search results in a footer area.

Sponsored Display ads target and retarget shoppers (you can even retarget people when they are not on Amazon!). Sponsored Display ads can be either CPC or CPM (the other ads are CPC, or cost-per-click, only. CPM is based on impressions). They appear on the right side of the SERP, Top of Search, and on listings.  

New sellers should focus on Sponsored Products ads as they are easy to set up and are designed to work with a wider array of budgets. 

Amazon Basic #3: Creating a Sponsored Products Ad

By this point, you’ve clicked on Create Campaign, and you’ve selected Sponsored Products. Here’s exactly what to do next:

1. Name your campaign, then set your budget & duration

A normal range is between $10 per day for each campaign to $30 per day. Durations should be open-ended.

2. Set your targeting typE

When running an Automatic Campaign, Amazon identifies keywords in your listing and connects your product to relevant search terms. This targeting type is important for new sellers because it is easy to set up, and is low risk.

Manual campaigns let sellers choose the keywords & products to target. For manual campaigns, there are three match types:

• Broad match: Contains all the keywords in any order and includes plurals, variations, and related keywords.
• Phrase match: Contains the specified phrase or sequence of keywords in order, but may contain additional words around them.
• Exact match: Exactly matches the keyword or sequence of keywords

When using product targeting, sellers can show their ad on a competitor product listing or across a whole category. 

3. Select the products to be advertiseD

You may select multiple products, however, only one of them will be displayed when your ad is served. 

4. Select a bidding strategy

Dynamic, Down Only:  If a click is unlikely to result in a sale, Amazon will reduce your bid by up to 100%. 

Dynamic, Up and Down: If a click is likely to result in a sale, Amazon will increase your bid by up to 100% (for 1st-page search result placement) or 50% (for all other placements). If a click is less likely to convert, Amazon will reduce your bid by up to 100%.

Fixed: Your default bid remains the same, regardless of the likelihood of conversion. 

5. Select Your Keywords & Bid Prices

When you’re running an Automatic campaign, you do not need to provide keywords. Just set your default bid price.

For manual campaigns, you may use Amazon suggested keywords, enter your own keywords, or both. Amazon also provides bid recommendations to help you to get impressions (you can choose to enter your own bids).

More On Keyword Relevance: 

Amazon determines keyword relevancy by…

• how often the keyword appears in the listing
• where in the listing the keyword is placed
• how many sales are made through the searched keyword

Negative Keyword Targeting & Negative Product Targeting:

Negative targeting permits a seller to block certain keywords and products, so their product(s) don’t appear in searches for those words and alongside those products. Using negative targeting is an effective means for ensuring that you’re not appearing in irrelevant searches. This can be done for automatic and manual campaigns.

6. Click “Launch Campaign”

You’ve done it! Your first campaign is ready and will start being served in about an hour.