Amazon Optimization Strategies Proven To Reduce Wasteful Ad Spend

In today’s blog, we’ll be discussing some proven optimization methods you can use to reduce wasteful spending on Amazon.

One quick note before we start- did you know DataHawk has teamed up with Payoneer Financing? Now you can get the capital your business needs right away, so you can focus on increasing revenue, not your bank account.

1. Zero Impression Targets are relevant targets that aren’t receiving Impressions. They may have previously received them, but are no longer doing so.

First, determine if the target is relevant and investigate how long it has been since the target has received Impressions. Take a closer look at the campaign. Perhaps you used a Negative Phrase or Negative Exact Match (over-optimized with Negatives), that caused this situation to occur.

Next, review any sweeping bid changes you may have recently made that have caused the campaign to no longer get Impressions.

Ask yourself if the target is getting crowded out by too many other competing targets. Remember, less is more… fewer targets, keywords, and items in an Ad Group, but a higher number of campaigns equals a more efficient and effective Amazon sponsored ad strategy.

If keywords/targets become too crowded within an Ad Group, this may cause them to get far fewer Impressions, as they are competing for the same budget for that campaign. To rectify this situation, you can raise your bid price, or isolate the target in question and place it in its own campaign.

2. Zero Sales Targets are targets that have clicks but no sales. It’s vital to identify them as soon as possible because they are likely wasting a significant portion of your Ad Spend.

Resolve this problem by establishing a threshold for clicks without a sale (7 to 8). Look to see if the keyword in question is truly relevant. This will guide you as to whether to pause or lower the bid on the keyword.

3. Unsalvageable Targets have very high ACoS (sometimes as high as 100% or more). Be careful – most sellers react by immediately pausing these targets, but ask yourself…is there enough empirical data to support that decision? Look at where your product is in its life cycle. Newly launched products often come with a higher ACoS. Allow time for the target to accumulate data.

Set an unsalvageable threshold between 100% to 120%. If your ACoS surpasses this threshold, it’s probably not going to be a viable target and there is likely something that needs to be fixed within the listing.

If you have enough data, look at the Search Terms related to your keywords…those that converted well, and which ones did not. PPC Entourage has a feature, Keyword Cleaner, designed to reveal which search terms have generated sales and those that have not on a keyword level.

Another option is to do a Negative Exact on the search terms that aren’t working while permitting the keyword to remain in use.

Armed with these insights, you can now decide to either pause the bid or lower the bid substantially.  Also, be sure to periodically revisit and test.

4. Zero Clicks Targets usually occur because there is an extremely weak Offer or very poor relevancy to the keyword or Amazon keyword search, you are going after.

If it was previously getting clicks with a high click-through rate percentage, then you have to examine what is causing it to do so no longer.

• Is your competition running a better deal?
• Have your reviews taken a dive?
• What does the Placement optimization look like?

5. Deep Bid Optimization for Placements works on a campaign basis only. You can modify bids on Top of Search or Product Pages to drive more or less traffic to those locations.

In order to do this, determine the difference between TOS and Rest of Search conversion rates, note your clicks, orders, and ACoS, and then tweak your base bids and modifiers to drive traffic to the Placements that are doing well.

• Determine the bid decrease which will be the best ‘base bid’ for the Rest of Search,
• Determine and add the modifiers.

Based upon conversion rate, the goal is typically to drive a larger amount of traffic to the Top of Search, then to the Product pages, and less traffic to the Rest of Search. This is why you lower the base bid.