Amazon PPC 101: What You Need to Know
Doug Bryson
Fractional CMO | SEO & Paid Media Specialist | Expert Vetted Rated Top 1% Upwork Freelancer
According to Marketplace Pulse, Amazon’s marketplace has more than 9.6 million total sellers worldwide, however, only 2.2 million are active sellers. The rest no longer have products available for sale. Almost 223,000 sellers joined the marketplace this year.
One of the most powerful tools available to sellers is Amazon’s Pay Per Click (PPC). It is a powerful advertising billing model that helps sellers to market and target their products to potential customers. In this article, we’ll discuss the basics of the Amazon PPC program.
What is Amazon PPC?
Amazon’s PPC program is an advertising model similar to Google’s, Advertisers pay fees to Amazon whenever a shopper clicks one of their ads (pay-per-click). Businesses only pay after a person clicks on an ad. The company provides three types of advertisements to companies.
- Sponsored Products – These cost-per-click advertisements are the most widely used by marketers. They promote individual product listings on Amazon’s site. These ads are similar to Google Adwords. They use keywords and ASIN-targeted that allow advertisers to promote specific products within Amazon’s search results and product information pages. These ads appear in two places: on amazon’s product detail pages and their ad carousel at the top of their page.
- Sponsored Brands – This feature allows brands to create a customized headline, logo, and three products in their advertisements. They can also use video advertisements to link to specific product detail pages. These ads appear in the spot above Amazon’s official results. It helps send customers directly to a company’s Amazon Store site or their custom landing pages. They can also appear on product detail pages.
- Sponsored Display Ads – These advertisements funnel customers to Amazon product detail pages. These advertisements display ads relevant to the business on Amazon.com and external sites that shoppers visited or have visited. They help to remarket specific products that customers have looked at on Amazon’s site. Sponsored Display Ads appear below the “Add to Cart” button on their product detail pages. They can also appear adjacent to or below search results. The company also displays them on third-party websites depending on the specific targeting method.
Should My Business Use Amazon PPC?
Amazon PPC allows businesses to select different ad types that will complement their advertising goals and budgets. This platform also provides detailed analytic reports to show how a marketing campaign has performed during a specific period.
There are several methods you can use to target customers. They include keywords, categories, brands, and Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs) for products. Your company can also remarket on external platforms to ensure it is meeting its marketing goals. Amazon uses highly visible ad placements on its site, its app, and web browsers (desktop and mobile).
Does Amazon PPC Charge any Prices or Fees?
Amazon’s Cost Per Click (CPC) rates hover around $0.02 – $3.00; however, the average CPC rates can vary depending on the product category, marketplace, and ad type.
Advertisers only pay when a customer clicks your ads. Small businesses can also control how much they spend by setting their budget and bids per click.