Refunds Manager Blog

This is a super awesome, in-depth guest post from the folks at AdBadger, a campaign management and optimization tool for Amazon PPC. 

If you’re tired of the same basic PPC suggestions over and over, we’ve got you covered. Here are 7 advanced Amazon PPC tips that your competitors likely still don’t know how to use properly.

1. Fine tune your auto campaigns
2. Make your bid calculations scientific
3. Diversify your targeting
4. Account structure is everything
5. Avoid keyword cannibalization
6. Refine your category targeting
7. Use PPC software

1.  Fine tune your Auto campaigns

You may not know this, but auto campaigns actually target both keywords and ASINs. 

So if you were to download a search term report and check out what those auto campaigns were targeting and the types of search term results that would come through, you would notice that some of your results in the customer search term column actually begin with “B0” like this:

All of the search terms that begin with “B0” are ASINs (“Amazon Standard Identification Number”). These auto campaigns are targeting customer search terms, but those ASIN targets aren’t necessarily what customers are typing into the Amazon search bar.

In fact, those are competitor products that are on Amazon. So your advertisements can actually be targeting what customers are searching for, or any other product that is on Amazon. 

What if you want to view your auto campaigns and how effective these keywords are versus those ASIN targets?

For any auto campaign that was created after November 15, 2018, you can actually click the targeting tab at the top of any of those automatic campaign ad groups, and you’ll be able to see the four different auto targeting options.

Let’s take a closer look at those Targeting Options

Those four auto targeting options are:

• Close match
• Loose match
• Substitutes
• Complements

Those first two targets, close match and loose match, are keyword targeting options which tell how closely the customer’s search term is related to your product.

The second two targets are product targets, so if someone would buy a different product instead of yours, then your product will be targeting those substitute items.

Complements would be something that goes along with your product. For example, if you were selling hair brushes, then hair spray might be a complement item. Your product ad will be targeting those complementary ASINs.
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This is a guest choice from Seller’s Choice Digital, experts in Amazon branding.

Product imagery is a vital part of selling online. Pictures communicate much more efficiently than text, making them a valuable tool that you can use to your advantage. A customer will normally check the product images before reading the description. This means that your first image is the first impression you make on the customer, and hopefully, after reading our tips, it won’t be the last.

The convenience of online shopping, unfortunately, takes away the customers’ opportunity to physically handle the product. This is a gap you need to fill with detailed and diverse imagery, to make up for the lack of seeing the product in person.

The benefits of well-produced product imagery are numerous, for example, good photos will show your brand. They’re also much more likely to be shared on social media than text is, making them more likely to be seen. This helps improve the reach and credibility of your brand. Another way to get your brand out there is by using Facebook ads. Consumers are also more likely to instinctively trust companies whose imagery they’ve seen before, yet another benefit of putting in a little extra work.

Here are a few tips you can implement when photographing and editing, to make the most of your visual marketing!

1) Know Your Specifications

Before making big decisions about your product imagery, do some research. You need to know the requirements and specifications for your photographs before ever picking up a camera. When you’re selling on a platform like Amazon, you need to look into their recommendations and requirements, not doing so might mean your images are rejected.

You should also plan what you’re using the images for. Is it a thumbnail? A header? Each of your photographs could have different purposes, meaning they require a different approach. Just remember to plan ahead to avoid big changes later on. To help you stay organized, you could use a product launch timeline.

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As an ecommerce entrepreneur, you do everything in your power to get more sales for your products. Since Amazon is one of your top channels, much of your marketing efforts go to getting more sales on Amazon. You run promotions and ads, and you create content. But have you utilized Amazon FBA affiliate marketing to grow sales?

If not, we’re giving you the rundown on how you can find affiliate opportunities for your product and reach out to affiliate marketers directly to forge new business partnerships that are mutually beneficial.

What is Amazon FBA affiliate marketing

Amazon FBA affiliate marketing allows digital publishers to earn affiliate revenue from the products they recommend from their blog posts, social media posts or other content. Affiliates earn 10% for the sale of most products—not only the product they recommended but also anything the customer purchases at that time. 

YouTubers, bloggers, podcasters and other types of digital publishers can sign up to be an affiliate marketer and drive traffic to any product they choose, typically something that aligns with the needs of their audience.

Here’s a fee schedule with what percentages affiliate make per certain items and categories. Amazon sellers are not charged additional amounts in order to pay affiliates. The cost is already covered with your FBA fees. 

What kinds of FBA products does affiliate marketing work for?

When affiliate marketers drive traffic to your product listings, they’re essentially marketing your product for you, in exchange for affiliate commission. Typically, these content creators earn most of their revenue from advertising (usually Google’s AdSense or from YouTube ad clicks) and they are looking for easy additional sources of income.

The best opportunities for affiliate marketing fall to products like these…

• Hobby products – There are thousands of websites dedicated to helping people learn or master a new hobby like sewing or DIY home renovations. These types of sites are very likely to use affiliate marketing to monetize their content. 
• Outdoor or sports gear – Similar to hobbies, products that are outdoor or sports gear are a great fit because there are lots of sites that cater to your target audience.
• Lifestyle, fashion and beauty – Lifestyle bloggers, fashion bloggers, and beauty bloggers regularly make product recommendations and post product reviews, making their content a perfect fit for affiliate marketing.
• Health and wellness – People with a certain health condition or fitness goal are likely to purchase the products that their favorite blogger or YouTuber recommends. 

How to find and reach out to affiliate marketers

If your branded FBA product is a good fit for affiliate marketing, the next step is to get more affiliate marketers linking to your listing. 
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Today, we’re covering our top Amazon copywriting tips for FBA entrepreneurs who know that when it comes to product listings, there is always room for improvement.

Your Amazon product pages are the lifeblood of your FBA business. They need to pull in as much organic traffic as possible and convert as much of the traffic as possible. We’ve talked at length about your product imagery can help achieve both higher click throughs from search results pages as well as higher conversion rates.

But what about the copy?

Your copy has a HUGE impact on your click throughs and conversions. We know that you’re busy, so we’ve designed this post to be easy to skim so can quickly check your familiarity with these concepts. After you’ve read this list, go through all of your product listings and see if they are implementing these best practices.

1. Differentiate your product from its competitors

To really make your product stand out, it needs to immediately be clear to shoppers why and how it is different from its competitors. Imagery is absolutely one of the best ways to do this, but you can achieve this in your copy as well.
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Maybe you’ve launched a couple products on Amazon before, and you want to stay current with the best strategies for your next launch. Or maybe you’re launching a product for the first time and you want to avoid newbie mistakes. Either way, you’ll learn something in this post, which helps you learn how to market your private label or branded product on Amazon.

The basics of launching a product on Amazon

This is a quick overview for the newbies (skip this part if you’re experienced). The benefit of launching your ecommerce product on Amazon, instead of a Shopify or BigCommerce website to start, is that you gain access to customers of Amazon.com, estimated to be 300 million.

There are an estimated 2 million sellers on Amazon. For any product, there are thousands of search results.

The search term “ice cream scoop” yields 4,000 results.

At the most basic level, you have two core strategies when launching your product:

1. Try to show up on page 1 of Amazon search results
2. Try to get external traffic to come to your Amazon product listing directly and buy your product (without searching for it first)

Within those two main strategies, there are of course other strategies.

Try to show up on page 1 of Amazon search results:

• Organic ranking (optimize your listings for search terms)
• PPC traffic (spend on Amazon ads for relevant keyphrases)

Try to get external traffic to come to your Amazon product listing directly and buy your product:

• Social media marketing
• Email marketing
• Content marketing, including blogs, videos and webinars

And yes, within each of those strategies, things get complicated.

Task list for your Amazon product launch

So which core strategy should you choose? Try to rank in Amazon search or build up external traffic?
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We love serving up fresh, insightful content from the Amazon pros—experts who have been there done that, and seen it all. Today we’re sitting down with Chad Rubin to get his Amazon listing optimization tips for 2019 and beyond.

Chad is the CEO of ThinkCrucial, a brand that creates replaceable products in the home across a multitude of categories and is sold on over 15 channels (including Amazon). Chad is also CEO of Skubana, a platform for multi-channel inventory management that was born out of Chad’s own frustrations.

Chad is frequently sought out as a consultant by other ecommerce entrepreneurs, particularly Amazon sellers who want help with optimizing their listings. His consulting fee might be hefty, but not to worry! We asked tons of questions on your behalf.

How did you get started selling on Amazon?

Walmart opened up right next door tomy parents’ vacuum store when I was a kid. There were times we struggled to pay the bills and make ends meet, so I decided I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. For that reason, I was a first generation college grad. I went on to Wall Street to give advice and insights to hedge funds buying and selling various internet stocks, so think Netflix and Amazon and Bankrate and eBay. I saw a ton of growth happening on Amazon so I said to my parents, “You guys should be selling on Amazon.” They responded, “Who’s going to buy vacuum accessories online?”

Sure enough, I was laid off in 2009. I started helping them sell not just on Amazon but on eBay. We started manufacturing our own products. We started making vacuum bags, and then a whole host of other products such as vacuum filters, coffee filters, air filters, spa filters, you name it we make it…anything that’s replaceable in the home. Now we sell across 15 different channels, and we do a significant amount of business across Amazon. Anything you can think of that’s replaceable in the home and that is high velocity, we manufacture.

Along the way, I started struggling to find software to help me run and automate my business. There was a separate shipping software and a separate inventory software and they didn’t talk to each other because ecommerce has changed so much since the early 2000s. We needed a software to help us sell across 15 different channels and we didn’t find one, so we started Skubana. We’re very Amazon centric but we also support every other marketplace or channel that you sell on.

What’s your overall philosophy for ecommerce success?

A lot of times you can double down on Amazon or you can start growing SKUs across many different channels. I believe in playing Monopoly. In order to win, you need to spread out a bit and diversify. I don’t just want to double down on Park Ave. I want to be paid when someone lands on the Railroad.

So for me, I try to focus on being multichannel and being everywhere I can. Anywhere that people have dwell time, I want to be there.

What factors matter for ranking a product?

You need to make sure that you’re building proper product detail listing pages on Amazon. If you’re going to send traffic there, whether its organic or paid, you want to make sure that the traffic converts because that’s really what Amazon cares about. The number one thing they care about is making sure it converts. You also want to want to have a high click through rate, from the search results page to your listing.
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