If you’ve been selling on Amazon for any period of time, you know the key to sales conversions is getting your ad to the top of search results on page 1 that matters most to your customers. But when you first launch your product listing, you might have difficulty competing for placement against other sellers with a more established listing and sales conversions. Or maybe you’ve been selling for a while and went out of stock, and you’re trying to make your way back to page one for your top keywords.
So how can you get back to the top of search when you’re a new seller, or your sales have dropped? The secret is in understanding how the algorithm considers your bid against others for placement so that you can win the race. Keep reading to learn how to achieve premium ad placement on Amazon.
Understanding the Algorithm
I like to think of my PPC campaign as my spot at the roulette table against other advertisers.
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I place my bids on the keywords most likely to be searched by buyers, hoping that my chips are in the right spot when the wheel stops. Only in this case, even if the wheel stops on a place where I’ve placed my bids against other advertisers, I don’t automatically win the best ad placement. This is because Amazon’s algorithm might not choose to show my ad where the customer is most likely to click on it.
So how do I get the algorithm to choose my bid over other advertisers? First, I have to understand how the algorithm makes a decision. When you bid on a keyword, the algorithm considers four key factors in determining who “wins” the premium ad placement on Amazon:
Bid Amount + Placement
The first factor is your bid amount plus any placement bids you’ve set. But just because you bid the most on a keyword doesn’t mean your bid will win top placement. We have to first look at the other factors considered.
Match Type
The second factor in consideration is the match type. For example, even if I bid more for the keyword than my competitor, if I have a broad match type and my competitor has an exact match, their ad is more likely to get higher placement. This is because they tell the algorithm EXACTLY what they want to be shown for. In contrast, my broad match is telling the algorithm to show my ad for any variety of that keyword phrase.
Relevancy
The third factor considered is your product’s relevancy to the keyword you’re bidding on. Amazon’s e-commerce platform converts six times higher than any other e-commerce website. Why? Because Amazon is really good at showing the most relevant results to buyers on their website.
For example, suppose I search the keyword “dog toy” on Amazon. In that case, I’m likely to see dog chew toys because Amazon’s algorithm takes the click and purchase history of a search term into consideration when they show relevant results to customers. However, if I search “dog toy” on Walmart, I’ll see dog chew toys, but I’ll also see stuffed animals meant for kids, such as Paw Patrol.
So, if I know that Amazon considers how likely the customer is to click my product after searching for that keyword, I need to ensure that my product listing is super relevant for that keyword. This is why when I bid on a relevant keyword when I first launch a product before my listing has been indexed by the search engine, I don’t win the best placement even if I’m spending a ton on bids.
This is because I’m not the most relevant for that keyword yet. So I increase my chances of being shown and indexed if I set up a manual campaign with an exact match keyword and also set a placement bid. If my product converts, it’s considered more relevant, and even if I lower the bid, I can maintain top of search placement. Isn’t that beautiful?
Ways to Ensure It
The key is ensuring that your listing is super relevant and indexed for any keywords you want to win the best placement on. That means placing these keywords and related keywords intact in their phrase form in your title, bullet points, and backend search terms. When the search engine crawls your listing looking for relevant keywords, it compares the keyword phrases in your listing and ranks your listing in order of relevancy based on the order you place these keywords in your listing. There is no need to repeat medium-tail keywords. But you should have various versions of medium to long-tail keyword phrases with the same seed keyword throughout your listing.
When we write product listings at Amazing at Home, we first research what page one(s) will put this product listing right in front of the customer looking for it. Then we do our keyword research to match and place the most relevant related keywords, in order of importance, throughout the listing to ensure we get the best organic placement possible for that customer. Guess what? Organic placement also means better PPC placement. That’s why when you optimize your listing, suddenly, your ads will show up higher in placement.
History
The last thing to consider when you want to win the premium ad placement on Amazon is the performance history of that PPC campaign. To help my clients remember this rule, I tell them, “PPC holds a grudge.” If you launch a campaign and don’t convert for that keyword (maybe you just launched and didn’t have reviews yet), Amazon’s algorithm will remember that you didn’t convert. And even if you bid more or change the match type, it won’t make much difference in your ad placement.
So if you have a campaign that didn’t perform well, you might be better off creating a new campaign instead of increasing the bid and hoping for the best. That is, as long as you have fixed whatever factor caused you to not convert in the past (price, reviews, photos, etc.).
Of course, the algorithm considers other factors, such as ad and targeting types, sales history, etc. But if you pay attention to the primary factors of bid amounts, match type, relevancy, and campaign history, you can use them to your advantage and ensure better ad placement.
The most important factor of all in my opinion and experience is relevancy. Why? If you aren’t sure what to bid or what match type to use but pay attention to the relevance to your most important keywords, your ads will perform better across the board. So get relevant and get noticed!
About the author
Amy Wees is the CEO of Amazing at Home E-Commerce Consulting, a world-renowned company that has helped thousands of brands launch private label products on Amazon and beyond! Amy’s knowledge in product development, sourcing, marketing, and sales has enabled her to help countless entrepreneurs develop their successful businesses. Visit amazingathome.com to learn more.
