10 Growth Hacks to Effectively Do Amazon Keyword Research and Use Amazon PPC to Crush the Competition

Effective Amazon Keyword Research management can do many great things for your Amazon PPC account. Certain things like blocking bad keywords and finding converting keywords lower your Advertising Cost of Sale (ACoS) and increase your conversion rate in the process.

PPC or Amazon Sponsored Products Ads plays a crucial role in growing your Amazon FBA business, particularly in today’s highly competitive market. In order to gain visibility from potential customers and generate sales, the Amazon sellers are required to stand out from the crowd and fight for placements. Amazon Keyword Research is a key factor that decides the fate of your Amazon FBA business because it is all about keywords. If you want your product to appear at the top of the search results, you need to effectively conduct Amazon Keyword Research for your campaigns.

When it comes to PPC, you will only have two campaigns running for your every product – manual targeting and automatic targeting. For auto-targeting ads, there is only one ad group as Amazon generates all keywords automatically.

Manual targeting campaigns, on the other hand, requires you to create three ad groups for each keyword match type, particularly phrase, broad and exact match types.

And for every match type, you would want to have all your keywords listed.

In this blog post, we will discuss in detail each component to Effectively Amazon Keyword Research and Use Amazon PPC to Crush the Competition.

Before we start, let us go over things that you need to know.

Amazon PPC keywords

To make it simpler, think to keywords as negative and positive.

Negative Keywords are those you block so that your product doesn’t appear on them. This is where effective Amazon Keyword Research comes in handy.

Positive or winning Keywords are the phrases and words that you actively look for while Amazon Keyword Research and want to appear for. Having positive keywords are essential in order for customers to find your product and have a good conversion rate. You would like most of your budget go to positive keywords that convert.

Bad clicks will suck the life out of your budget, decreasing your conversion rate. Also, keywords that don’t convert are probably not converting because those keywords are not entirely relevant to your product. They decrease your conversion rate that ultimately hurts your Advertising Cost of Sale and decreases your ad rank.

Keywords vs. Search Terms 

Now, this is something everyone who runs Amazon Sponsored Products Ads has to consider.

When we talk about organic searches on Amazon, we preferably use the word ‘keywords’ to describe what customers search and what your products rank for.

Let’s say, for example, you might say that you rank #1 for the keyword ‘trekking shoe.’ You would be correct.

Though, when it comes to Pay-Per-Click, there is a big difference between what you appear for and what you bid on.

In other words, a ‘search item’ is what you appear for and a ‘keyword’ is what you bid on. Knowing the difference is the key towards your success on Amazon PPC.

Your Amazon Keyword Research can potentially trigger hundreds of different search items. But wait – there’s more! You can control what you appear for with the help of Match Types. Yes, you read that right!

There are three Match Types:

1. The Exact Match Keywords activate the search items that match your keywords exactly, where plurals can be included as well. For example, if you bid on exact match ‘trekking shoe,’ you will appear for ‘trekking shoe’ or ‘trekking shoes.’ The Exact Match gives you the complete control over what search items you appear for.
2. The Phrase Match Keywords activate the search terms that have your keyword in a phrase. For example, if you bid on phrase match ‘trekking shoe,’ you can appear for ‘women’s trekking shoe’ or ‘men’s trekking shoe.’ Phrase Match gives you temperate control over the what search items you appear for.
3. The Broad Match Keywords activate the search terms that are stems of your keyword, or you can say are Synonyms. For example, if you bid on broad match ‘trekking shoe,’ you will possibly appear for hundreds and thousands of different search items. This can vary from ‘men’s trekking gear’ to ‘kid’s trekking shoes’ to ‘mountaineering equipment’ to ‘trekking gear.’ The broad match gives you the least control over what search items you appear for.

What are Long Tail Keywords?

While you Amazon Keyword Research, you may come across several keywords with more than three words, which can be extremely specific. There are called long tail keywords. They are actually keyword phrases that can be particularly specific.

Consider the long tail keyword – An Amazon Keyword Research Tool that Optimizes Smartly.

It is a keyword phrase that you can’t entirely predict and will have hundreds and thousands of variations.

Below given in an example of the keyword ‘cream’ and its endless variations:

Cream

Hair Cream

Discount Hair Cream

Discount Coconut Hair Cream

Discount Coconut Lemon Hair Cream

Discount Coconut Lemon Hair Cream Thin

Discount Coconut Lemon Hair Cream Thin Hair

Discount Coconut Lemon Hair Cream Thin Hair Organic

The point is that Amazon Keyword Research and keyword management are weighed higher when it comes to Amazon PPC.

Now given that you have understood the essentials of Amazon PPC and Amazon Keyword Research, let’s jump straight into our next part where we will discuss how to Effectively Amazon Keyword Research and Use Amazon PPC to Crush the Competition.

Let’s get started

What does Amazon Keyword Research do?

As we have mentioned above and in our previous articles – if you go for the incorrect keywords, you will miss your target/audience completely; if you go with the highly long-tail keywords, you will lose out on traffic; and if target competitive/authoritative keywords, you will probably never rank. Confused? Well, it is part science and part art! It is all about using the plethora of tools at your disposal and also understanding the customers and predicting the terms that they are actually going to type in the search box.

#1 Brainstorming the PPC Keyword List:

The starting point for Amazon Keyword Research should be the website landing pages that your Amazon Sponsored Products Ads will be linking to. Scan each page and harvest relevant keywords from the text. Assume that you have a well-written website with a relevant copy. This will enable you to put together a significant list of keywords that directly rate your products.

Keywords can be organized into the following types-

• Brand Items
• Competitor Items
• Generic Items
• Related Items

#2 Use Appealing Product Descriptions and Bullet Points:

The title is what catches the buyer’s attention when they are searching the products. Therefore, you need to convince the buyers that your listing is better than the rest. Appealing descriptions and bullet points can help you get more clicks. It is always advised to use the combination of product features, benefits, and answers to anticipated objections with the main keyword. This key mix will allow you to differentiate your listing from the rest.

#3 Write Descriptions as if it is a Story:

Remember that you have to compel your potential customers into buying your products. The product description is one place where you can allure the customers with reasons to buy your product. And most important, instead of features, focus on benefits as you can use them to your aid catch customers attention. Tell your customers how your product can help them improve their lives.

#4 Use a Technique called “CONCATENATION”:

In order to quickly expand your keyword lists, you can use a technique known as concatenation. There are several online tools like mergewords to expand your keyword lists by integrating columns of words together. Moreover, you could also use the simple “=CONCATENATE()” command in Microsoft Excel to do the same.

#5 Set Goals

Amazon Keyword Research involves tons of data including spreadsheets. This process seems to be boring but is rather an important one. So it would be stupid of you to skip this part. Take the main goal of your campaign and cast a vision. Goals define the content and why you are even doing the Amazon Keyword Research.  Know and set your traffic, revenue, and conversion goals. This will give you a clear vision of what are you supposed to do when it comes to Amazon Sponsored Products Ads campaign.

#6 Insert Keywords in Canonical URL:

Mostly preferred as Canonicalization, it is a way of notifying search engines that a particular URL represents the master copy of a page. As you link your main keyword into your canonical URL, the chances of you increasing your rankings on Amazon and Google ultimately increase.

#7 Run an Auto Campaign for Research:

Amazon Keyword Research tools are valuable, however, in terms of Amazon PPC; you are not required to pay for any extra service. You can retrieve data from Amazon at little expense. Automatic Campaign is the best Amazon Keyword Research tool in this situation.

Create a Campaign-

Your products should always have the auto campaign visibility. Launch your auto campaign. There is no need to get worried about your data as Amazon usually take two days to provide accurate metrics like Clicks, Impressions, ACoS, Conversion Rates, and CPC.

Later, you will be able to convert your positive/winning search terms into exact search terms, as you will recognize that exact term converts.

#8 Choose your Bid:

Bid refers to the maximum amount that you are willing to pay per Amazon Sponsored Products Ad click. As mentioned earlier, ad placements aren’t created equal. The sponsored product ads appear on numerous parts of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and some are notably visible than others. You will have to outbid your competitors in order to acquire winning spots that are likely to lead into clicks and ultimately sales conversion. Amazon makes it easy for the sellers by providing them with suggested bids when launching the campaign.

Moreover, when you launch the campaign, you will be provided with an option to start the Amazon Bid+ feature. Turning it on will automatically increase your default bid along with your sponsored ad group bid by at least 50%.

Do note that if you win the auction using the Bid+ feature, your sponsored product ad will appear on the top row of the Search Engine Results Page, but it will increase your cost-per-click (CPC).

#9 Set Up a Budget:

All you need is a dollar to set up your daily budget. While preparing your first campaign, consider the number of keywords you require and the ideal starting bid. Suppose, if your most favorable starting bid per keyword is $0.75 and you have 40 keywords, then your daily budget would sum up to $30.

It is calculated by simple multiplication.

$0.75 (optimum starting bid) X 40 (keywords) = $30

Using this method, you will be able to be able to display your sponsored product ads effectively and efficiently.

Calculating the ideal Advertising Cost of Sale (ACoS)-

It is necessary that you know how to calculate your ACos because it helps you avoid losses. Following are the variables you need for the calculation.

• Product selling price ($30)
• Amazon FBA fees ($10)
• Cost of Goods ($10)
• Miscellaneous ($2)

Computation

Product Selling Price – (Cost of Goods + Amazon FBA fees + Miscellaneous fees)

i.e; $30 – ($10+$10+$2) = $8

For calculating the ACoS threshold, divide the net profit from the product-selling price.

$8/$30 = $0.26

By comparing your target number with the actual ACoS, you can also optimize CPC bids.

#10 Block the Search Terms from Triggering in the Research Campaign:

Now, you would want to block the keywords from triggering in your research campaign. That is, turn on the keywords that have changed into a negative exact match in your campaign. This process is called ‘negative keyword sculpting’ as this process uses negative keywords to drive traffic.

Summary

Now would be the best time to put all your knowledge into practice for starting your ad campaign, particularly during the coming holiday season. If you plan ahead, do your Amazon Keyword Research, you will be able to make the most out of your sponsored product ad campaign.

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