5 Common Mistakes Sellers Do While Running Amazon PPC Ads

Using Amazon PPC campaigns can be a very effective strategy for increasing sales and product visibility. However, many sellers unknowingly make some common mistakes that end up wasting their advertising money without getting the desired results. Are you making these mistakes?

This blog post covers five common mistakes sellers make when using Amazon PPC ads and, most importantly, how to fix them. Let’s get started.

Common Mistakes Made When Running Amazon PPC Ads

1. Poor Product Listing Optimization

Your product listing is the landing page for your customers. This will let the user decide whether to make a purchase or not.

If the listing is not optimized, then the chances of sales go down. If the listing is optimized, it will convert the visits into sales.

So, before making a campaign and running it, do a listing audit yourself. Running ads for an optimized listing enhances the chance of good conversions.

2. Targeting too many ASINs in a single campaign

Sellers often add similar products in a single ad campaign to run ads. But this is not a good practice. Each product is unique and has some unique features when it comes to shape, size, material, problem-solving, etc. 

If you are in the bottle industry, selling both plastic and steel bottles. You cannot merge both products into a single campaign. This will not work better. But if you make separate campaigns for both and target them, it will give good results.

3. Excessive use of broad match type keywords

Amazon ads have three keyword match types: exact, broad, and phrase. Each match type has its characteristics. You need to select one of these three while running Amazon Sponsored Brands ads and Amazon Sponsored Products ads.

The exact match type refers to targeting exact keywords on which to run ads. Phrase match targeting refers to those keywords that have the complete phrase within them. Broad match type refers to targeting keywords with at least one word within the keyword.

Most of the sellers prefer broad match campaign targeting. On both relevant and irrelevant keywords, Amazon displays its ads. Gathering clicks from irrelevant keywords exhausts the budget.

So, when running ads, it is vital not to rely more on broad match type keywords. You can use broad match targeting for a few weeks to gather a list of potential keywords. Once you prepare a list of potential keywords, switch off the broad targeting and do either exact or phrase match targeting for better results.

Also, you can consult our Amazon PPC campaign management team. In case you need help optimizing the campaigns.

4. Little or no Keyword Research and Performance Monitoring

Planning an Amazon advertising campaign starts with keyword research. The better keyword research you do, the best will be the campaign result. 

Use keyword research tools to get help with keyword planning. Simply add a competitor’s ASIN, and it will show you a list of potential keywords that you can use for your product. Run and experiment with those keywords.

Monitor your keyword performance on a daily and weekly basis. Pause the keywords that are exhausting the budget and not delivering results. Keep those keywords active that bring sales for you. This way you can lower the ASCOS.

5. Overuse of auto-target campaigns

Basically, there are two types of keywords targeting on Amazon, one automatic keyword targeting and another manual keyword targeting.

Automatic targeting assigns permission to Amazon to run ads on its preferred keywords. In manual targeting, you direct Amazon to which keywords you want to display ads.

Running auto-ads for a longer period is not a good practice. You will have limited control over the campaign bids and keywords. Amazon will keep bids higher and run ads on both relevant and partial match keywords.

This way, you will be charged for clicks that have less chance of conversion. To keep control over your budget, keywords etc, always prefer manual targeting.

Automatic targeting is good to start with for a few weeks. This way, you get a list of many long-tail keywords your audience searches to get products like yours. Now, switch to manual targeting once you have the list.