Auditing your Amazon PPC account is one of the most powerful business activities you need to do regularly. Why? It unlocks insights needed to gain a competitive advantage over your competition. Audits can be used to uncover performance issues, analyze your advertising strategy, and make overall better business decisions. We’re going to look at 4 different levels inside an Amazon account PPC Ninja focuses on in our audits to win at Amazon in 2023.
1. KPIs & Profitability
One of the main KPIs we measure is account profitability and performance. For this, we optimize for TACoS (total advertising cost of sale). This is a great way to measure the relationship between how much you are spending on PPC and how advertising is contributing to your organic rank and overall sales. TACoS is used as a percentage and most businesses aim for between 15%-20%.
Spending too little on advertising can lead to low TACoS which means lower impressions, clicks, and overall orders. If you have low TACoS, increasing your ad spend can make sure you're not missing out on any potential additional sales or ranking opportunities. If your TACoS are too high, you might be spending too much on ads. Scaling back and focusing on slower-moving longtail keywords with higher conversion rates could be a better strategy.
Our software uses a data sufficiency model to optimize for these slower-moving keywords which are usually much more profitable. Taking the time to track KPIs is critical but worth it because these metrics can tell you if your advertising strategy is working and help you reach your business goals.
2. Keyword Visibility & Performance
It’s common to see 5-10 keywords be responsible for 80% of sales and giving these keywords special attention is important. When we know our top keywords, we can put the majority of our budget behind these campaigns. We can then utilize placement modifiers and bidding strategies as a way of doubling down. When this data is used correctly, we can bring in more of the right kind of traffic.
Every seller has dealt with the frustration of keywords not getting any impressions. This can happen regardless of how high a bid is since Amazon favors early conversion data points in the lifecycle of a campaign. We can identify these no-impression terms so they can be moved into new campaigns for a fresh start to help maintain wide ad coverage.
3. Catalog & Variation Performance
Just like with keywords, catalog performance needs attention. We can look at the entire catalog and prioritize best-selling SKUs to push more traffic to the right listings. Not all variations need to be advertised and using too much budget on low-performing products could be costing your business more than just wasted clicks.
4. Ad Coverage & Contribution
At PPC Ninja we recommend using a full funnel advertising strategy to take advantage of all the different ad types Amazon offers. Sponsored Products typically make up between 60%-70% of PPC sales. Our report makes it easy to see how each ad type performs and where possible advertising gaps exist.
When new keywords and products are discovered through broad match or auto campaigns, you need to pull these profitable search terms into new campaigns and use all the different targeting types Amazon offers. Our graphs help display performance data by putting your different campaign types side-by-side, making it easier to see what’s working. This approach can reveal clues to performance issues so you can put a stop to wasted ad spend.
Better Data, Better Performance
When we put all of this together, the advanced level of data that is accessed can really set you apart from other sellers. A PPC audit can provide a road map on how to scale your business while balancing profitability. By monitoring key performance indicators, optimizing keywords and campaigns for maximum visibility, and advertising the right products, we can closely monitor account performance and keep a close eye on every aspect of our advertising strategy. Competition on Amazon isn't going anywhere and businesses that take the time to conduct an audit will continue to increase their sales and maximize their opportunity on the platform.
Free Audit
Brands spending over $10,000 monthly on Amazon ads that have a conversion rate above 7% can click here to get a free account audit from the PPC Ninja team. Do you have a growing brand that is not quite there yet? For a limited time, we are offering access to our totally free self-audit tool. Get your copy here.
Checkout our software demo featuring Ritu Java, CEO of PPC Ninja
PPC Ninja is a powerful software helping agencies and brand owners increase their advertising efficiency with cutting edge techniques such as the Bid Sufficiency model, Zero Sales Algorithm, Placements X-Ray and more. Sign up for a 14-day free trial here.
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