This 2021 is over and in what way. Amazon surprises us every month with new features, opening new markets to advertise our products/brands, and improvements in data analysis. Knowing all the tools that Amazon makes available to us, as obvious as it may seem, can be decisive in achieving good performance from our campaigns.
What good is it for us to fight with the so famous ACoS if we don’t know how to really deal with it?
I have a low budget, should I invest in Amazon Ads?
The answer will always be yes. Whether you are an SME or a large multinational, it does not matter how much money you spend on advertising, what is important is how we spend this money on sponsored ads.
You can be a multinational with a lot of financial resources and end up “burning money” for not knowing how to launch your campaigns correctly. Or otherwise, you could be a small business with a very limited budget but find a great return on sales because you do have knowledge and experience.
This serves as an example for us to remember that no matter how much money we invest in Amazon Ads, if we don’t know the rules of the game, we will be wasting time and money. It is very important to always have the right information to be able to manage your own campaigns, or to have an Amazon Advertising specialist to guarantee the correct investment of your budget.
News Amazon Advertising 2022
Amazon is acquiring (increasingly) more influence in the world of online sales. And it is that Amazon was crowned the king of marketplaces for a reason, doubling sales within its platform between 2018 and 2020.
Waiting to know the numbers of this fantastic 2021, we ask you the following question:
"Will you miss the opportunity to increase your sales in the most important marketplace worldwide?"
Only a madman would say no, and that is why we are going to show you what will be the novelties with which we can start this 2022 in Amazon Advertising.
Filter for suggested keywords
Unlike Google Ads or Facebook Ads, the advantage that Amazon offers us when advertising within its marketplace is that customers have 100% purchase intention. A user who searches Google for the keyword “basketball” does not necessarily want to buy an item related to this sport. Maybe you want information about the sport, watch a video of a match or just find out about a new game to play with your friends.
This is where Amazon makes the difference. The user who enters Amazon does so knowing that the only thing he can do is buy. And this is where, once again, Amazon offers us the possibility to further optimize our campaigns.
Amazon’s new functionality allows you to filter suggested keywords in manual targeting. How?, you may be wondering. Go for it.
Amazon Ads now allows us to sort suggested keywords based on the most orders or the most clicks.
This functionality complements perfectly with the study of keywords that we will have carried out previously. We can segment those keywords that have historically generated more orders, in order to optimize our campaigns with an ACoS or sales objective.
This new feature directly affects two seller profiles on Amazon.
Low budget / Weak product. With a somewhat limited budget, we can try to attack those keywords that historically generate more orders. Thus, we can ensure that our little budget is being invested in those words that maximize sales.
It is also possible that despite having a good budget, our product is not sufficiently attractive compared to those of the competition. This could be due to a lack of reviews, a higher price than others, or too long shipping. Targeting keywords with many clicks with a “weak” product could make us “eat” our budget very quickly, resulting in lost sales. We always recommend that you review your budget rules in your campaigns to avoid this situation.
Good budget / Strong product. Here we find the opposite case to the previous one. We have a product with many reviews, a good price and good shipping. We know that our product is victorious in a comparison and that it would be a sale before one click. In this case we are interested in targeting keywords with a high click rate. The budget will allow us to assume the cost of the clicks and on top of that we will be maximizing the number of clicks, significantly increasing sales.
Keyword translation
There comes a time in the development of a brand within Amazon that is inevitable, the expansion to other countries. Although it seems impossible or difficult to access depending on the company, our experience in the sector assures us that it is the right step to follow. Expanding your products to new markets is possible with FBA, or what is the same, Amazon Logistics.
Now that you know that it is very easy to take your products to other countries through Amazon, we are going to focus on advertising.
Once we have our products in the new market, it is time to launch our advertising campaigns. To do this, we have two options: carry out a study of the keywords that generate sales for our competing products in the country (or our own) or directly translate known keywords in our market.
Amazon Advertising now allows you to translate keywords directly in our campaign draft. This allows us to manually segment more easily without knowing the language of the country.
We are going to put an example. We have a product which we want to segment by the keyword ice cream. If we press the button “Translate to German and add” we will obtain the direct translation through Amazon and it will be added to the list of segments.
As we have mentioned before, it is very interesting when streamlining campaigns and manually segmenting by keywords. But be very careful, since one thing is the translation of the keyword and another is the intention of the search. The fact that in Spain a keyword is used to find ice creams does not mean that in Germany (to follow the example) the literal translation is used.
So that we understand each other, we would be interested in segmenting a product to treat herpes zoster in Italy by herpes zoster, which is the Italian translation. Well, in Italy it is also known as fuoco di sant’antonio. If we had segmented by the literal translation, we would not be impacting our entire target, losing possible sales.
To get the most out of this functionality, we must always have done a keyword study before. Once we have identified the keywords through which customers reach our product, we will be able to make the most of this new feature of manual segmentation.
Simultaneous launch of automatic campaigns
This new functionality is also somewhat related to the previous one, referring to advertising in several countries at the same time. Let’s give an example to see and understand it much better.
We are a company that is selling products on Amazon Spain, Italy and Germany. We decided to launch our first automatic Sponsored Products campaign in Spain. When we are about to create the campaign, we come to the next section in the campaign creation menu.
When we go to create our campaign in country X, we can launch the same automatic campaign in the rest of the markets in which we sell. This allows us to greatly speed up the launch of campaigns, thus optimizing the time we must dedicate to launching each one of them.
If you don’t want to launch in another country, it’s as easy as unchecking the option and continuing to finish the campaign.
Many times we find ourselves with the “problem” of having to launch advertising campaigns in a country whose language and purchase intention are unknown to us. Automatic campaigns help a lot to enter a new market, since it is Amazon’s own algorithm that will place our ad on Close Match, Far Match, Substitute Products and Complementary Products keywords. Amazon will discover which keywords work and in which products our ASIN’s generate better sales.
Since we are going to launch an automatic campaign in an unknown market, why not take advantage and do it in some other?
Bid optimization in Sponsored Brand
Of all the novelties that we have presented so far, this is undoubtedly one of the most exclusive to date. For now, we’ll find it available only in the US API. But why not go ahead and learn what it is? Thus, when it lands in one of our markets, we will be prepared to make the most of it. We are convinced that sooner or later Amazon will end up implementing this bid optimization in the advertising console.
It is very important to be clear about the differences between a Sponsored Brand and a Sponsored Product. As a general rule, the Sponsored Brand is usually labeled as a type of campaign aimed at creating and reinforcing the brand image within Amazon itself. This would be an example of a Sponsored Brand.
We believe that a Sponsored Brand, apart from creating a brand image, also serves to maximize sales for those buyers who are loyal to the brand. And Amazon knows it. That is why it has launched the following adjustments in automatic bids for Sponsored Brand:
The update will allow us to choose between two objectives: focus and increase the number of sales or maximize buyers who are new to the brand. That is, we can establish an ACoS optimization strategy through this first behavior, or directly focus on attracting new customers for our brand.
The default behavior for automated bidding will always be to maximize immediate sales.
If we decide to optimize our Sponsored Brand campaigns towards the new-to-brand objective, the automatic bids will be dynamic upwards. That is, our bids will be higher for those people who have not yet purchased any of our products.
We will also have this functionality if you do not use automated bidding. We can count on higher bids for new clients, just as we have commented in the previous point. We will only have to check the box to activate it.
Finally, as of today, this bid optimization is not available for the Sponsored Brand video format. We can only use it in the traditional format of Logo + Phrase + Products/Categories.
Whether the ACoS or the TACoS is your chosen metric to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns, this functionality is very interesting to adapt your brand campaigns to your objectives.
The importance of Amazon Advertising for Década Studio
At Década Studio we are experts in Amazon and marketplaces. With Amazon’s recognition as an Amazon Ads Partner, we help brands grow their businesses on the world’s largest sales platform.
We take care of adjusting the budget of each campaign to the needs and specifications of each client. We propose segmentation strategies and help you to launch your business and your product in the fastest and most efficient way possible.
If you want to start advertising or optimize your advertising campaigns, do not hesitate to contact us, since Década Studio has a team of professionals willing to accompany you at all times.
I'm Ferran Bernades, Amazon PPC Specialist at Década Studio. Always trying to reinvent the wheel, I explore the possibilities that Amazon offers to grow a business on and off its platform. Unconditional fan of a beer in the sun.
