Your listings must be optimized so they rank organically. Once the ads take effect, they help improve the organic ranking. Eventually, you want the organic rankings to outplay the ads. The ultimate goal is to earn more money from your organic rankings than you earn from your ads. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t even need the ads because all your sales would come from organic rankings.
It simply wouldn’t work if all your sales evolved from paid ads, because paid ads only allow so much growth. However, every product needs paid ads. Why? Because you are competing with other sellers on Amazon and your competitors will be using paid ads. Even if your commodity is one-of-a-kind, people still need to find you. Paid ads help push your listing to the top.
Amazon eCommerce is extremely competitive and it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get to Page 1 naturally. What’s more, it’s not easy to achieve more sales by getting your products in the ‘Buy Box.’ For your business to continue growing you need to take advantage of Amazon’s paid ad options.
It’s Important to Understand Amazon’s Algorithm
Amazon is a business, and its marketplace is powered by what’s known as the A9 algorithm, which has a huge emphasis on sales conversions. The A9 algorithm determines which products receive Page 1 rankings - it also determines the highly prized No.1 ranking. Listings likely to result in sales get promoted, and listings with high conversions rate more highly. This results in products that are highly ranked receiving more traffic and a better chance of achieving even higher sales, thus pushing their ranking even higher.
You rise above your competitors by making your prices competitive, asking customers for reviews, monitoring your performance and rankings, keeping your conversion rate high, and bringing in external sales traffic. To beat your competitors, you need to take control of your listings, keep prices low, and be prepared to sacrifice your time and energy to give truly great customer service. You should know your competitor’s products as well as you know your own.
Improve Your Overall Rankings
There are a range of factors that affect the A9 algorithm, and these include the title of the product, its click-through rate, conversion rate, and verified reviews, together with other factors that determine if your products are visible in the Amazon Index.
For those small business advertisers who have a strong product, a strong strategy, and a limited budget, Amazon is the ideal advertising platform. When you use Amazon Advertising effectively, it’s very possible to compete with the well-known, bigger brands, drive a high ROI, and take your share of the market. Your Amazon ads can also be used to boost your organic sales because the more sales you make, with positive reviews, the higher your product listings will rank organically.
Advertising Budget
We suggest taking a comprehensive advertising approach and advise that our clients also advertise on their website, noting that most businesses already advertise on their website. If a business achieves only 10% of sales from their website and 90% from Amazon, then we suggest that’s how they should divide their advertising budget. However, if all their sales are coming from Amazon, then their advertising budget should be spent on Amazon.
PPC Ads or Organic Rankings
For sellers on Amazon, the most effective option for increased traffic and improved conversion and exposure rates is Amazon PCC ads. When Amazon PPC ads are used strategically, you’ll notice increased traffic and an increased conversion rate. When it comes to advertising on Amazon, PPC ads are the most invested category.
Advertising Results
Advertising results will depend on :
Your budget - how much you’re investing into your advertising
Your content looks right
The seasonality
When you start using Amazon ads you’ll notice a month-by-month increase, but it could take 6-months before you notice a dramatic difference. It could take up to 1-month before you see any progress at all, so be patient because this is a long-term game.
Amazon Sponsored Products
Of course, you could slowly climb up the rankings by waiting for your products to gain user reviews, but this could take a long time, if ever, to occur. Did you know that 70% of visitors to Amazon never pass the first page of results? That’s a worry because it means you’ll never get any views at all unless you enjoy the fast results of paid ads. If you want more people to see your products, you need to take advantage of Amazon Sponsored Products.
A lot of Amazon sellers are aware that keywords used in product titles can be helpful when it comes to organic SEO rankings; however, by itself, this may not be enough. The same can be said about placing keywords in product descriptions, bullet points, and in your back end; they help improve visibility by getting you into the Amazon Index, but they won’t help your rankings because these things on their own are not ranking factors.
Because of this, Amazon Sponsored Products are the only way to go. Amazon advertising helps your products advance to the top of the results, thus helping your organic performance. Now you can start driving clicks, making sales, and gathering reviews.
What The Research Shows
When Amazon shoppers are on the search page, 35% click on the first product. In fact, the first three products listed earn a whopping 64% of clicks! It doesn’t really matter how sellers get there - all Amazon cares about is that their product listings are top quality so they drive sales and shoppers get what they want.
Our advice is that Amazon Sponsored Products are the way to go if you want your brand to achieve the top spot in the results. Anyone new to Amazon will discover that this is the quickest and most successful way of boosting your rankings and getting sales traffic.
Protect Your Branding with Paid Ads
Your branding is protected when you use paid ads. Let’s say you’re a successful business and your main product is a sheet set. Once people notice that you’re a successful company, they’ll show interest in your branding. Brand ads are the very least you should have because you want shoppers to see your products whenever your business name comes up. Failure to have brand ads could mean that other ads will start advertising your branding. We understand that you may not have the budget to invest in ads, but at least consider brand ads to ensure your competitors don’t gain your traffic.
Regardless of your budget, you must at least protect your brand. The last thing you need is for someone to search for ‘MacLean’s’ (they’re looking for search words and branding) and Colgate ads appear at the top of the list. This is the problem that occurs: if you are MacLean’s and someone searches for MacLean’s, then it should be MacLean’s ads that show up.