The 3 Phases of Campaign Optimization

Raise Profitability While Lowering Ad Spend in Sponsored Products Campaigns

At PPC Entourage, we have used Sponsored Products campaigns as an important part of our strategy to create a thriving Amazon business and then to consistently scale it.

A critical part of this process has been focused on Campaign Optimization.

By using Campaign Optimization, Amazon business owners will be able to get the most out of their Sponsored Products campaigns, through strategic bidding and by preventing ad spend from being used on keywords that are not converting.

Anyone can throw a product into a SP campaign, let it run for a while and hope that it generates sales. Sellers who conduct business this way are really gamblers, trying to find a winner before their funds run out. They are relying on luck to produce a winning Amazon advertising campaign.

And to make matters worse, by using this method, they are simply not learning anything.

Yes, you can find a winning campaign using this method, however, because you didn’t learn anything you won’t know how to make the necessary changes to improve results the next time out and lack the ability to duplicate those improved results in other SP campaigns.

Too often, Amazon sellers fail to realize their campaigns are set up in a way that is hurting rather than helping sales.

Every Amazon seller needs to master the art of Amazon Sponsored Products campaign creation to be successful in the Amazon advertising space.

Think of Campaign Optimization as the foundation from which you build the solid structure of your Amazon business from the ground up.

Here's what you need to know in order to ensure that you have a strong foundation in place to build the most efficient and optimized Sponsored Products campaigns possible.

A quick note about ACoS

Sponsored Products campaigns can generate sizable profits for an Amazon seller, if those campaigns are managed correctly with the right metrics. An important metric to track is the advertising cost of sales, which reveals the cost to acquire one customer.

Managing ACoS can help you quickly narrow in on the effectiveness of each SP campaign, while continuously optimizing your Ad spend will help you obtain a lower ACoS.

The Three Phases of Campaign Optimization

Campaign Optimization can be broken down into three phases.

Phase 1: Bulk Edit (bulk optimization)

This feature was developed while working with some of our Managed Services clients. We found that a number of them had not done much optimization in their Sponsored Products campaigns.

We created inside of PPC Entourage a time-saving tool that would allow any Amazon seller using it, to go back through the entire lifetime of a SP campaign and quickly find the "junk" (anything that contributed to needless Ad spend), across all of their campaigns and turn it off.

Bulk Edit allows you to perform Campaign Optimization strategies across multiple campaigns and ad groups all at once. It is only done if you have seasoned campaigns that have been around a while. You can select any combination of campaigns, set filters (or use helpful pre-made filters), and then find under-performing SKUs, keywords, search terms, and words.

You can apply sweeping bid changes all at once, pause individual SKUs within certain ad groups where they are not responding well to ads, and even add negative exacts on a campaign or ad group level in bulk. You can also find and optimize individual words that are your worst offenders.

Bulk Edit four functions that follow the optimizations strategies outlined in the Blueprint 3.0 include:

• SKUs Bulk Optimization (simultaneously find the SKUs that aren’t performing well across all of your campaigns)
• Keywords Bulk Optimization (simultaneously find the individual keywords across all of your campaigns that are underperforming relative to your saved campaign parameters)
• Search Term Optimization (simultaneously find search terms across all of your campaigns that are underperforming, generating clicks but no revenue.)
• Negative Words Bulk Finder (will find the individual words that are not related to profitable sales across all of your campaigns at once)

Phase 2: Individual Campaign Optimization - 5 Strategies

This is where you dig a little deeper into each individual campaign to optimize it. Here are 5 simple Campaign Optimization strategies that can help you to lower your Ad spend.

Strategy 1 - SKU Optimization:

• The most basic form of optimization. Pause under-performing SKU's
• Can be used on all campaigns that have multiple SKU's or variations

Strategy 2 - Keyword New Bid:

• Raise or lower keyword bid to align with your ACoS strategy
• Best used on Phrase/Exact Match Campaigns
• N/A on Automatic campaigns

Strategy 3 - Keyword Optimizer:

• Used to find the individual search terms that are NOT converting for a given keyword
• Can be used on both profitable and non profitable keywords within a campaign
• Great for all campaigns (Research, ACoS Scraping, Phrase/Exact Match Type Expansion)
• Can't be used on Automatic campaigns

Strategy 4 - Search Term Optimization:

• Find search terms that are dragging down the performance of your campaigns and use a "Negative Exact" strategy to eliminate further exposure
  Works great for all campaigns, but especially for the Automatic, Seed Research, and ACoS Scraping campaigns.

Strategy 5 - Negative Word Finder:

• Find the individual words that have not been linked to any profitable sales and use a "Negative Phrase" strategy to eliminate further exposure
• Works great for all campaigns but especially for the Automatic, Seed Research, and ACoS Scraping campaigns. Use Negative Phrase carefully

Phase 3: Autopilot Mode

Use this feature of PPC Entourage in your Campaign Optimization to look at the individual keywords in your SP campaign, in order to help you to hit your Target ACoS.

Autopilot Mode can be used for any campaign type.

For manual campaigns, use Autopilot Mode to monitor each keyword's ACoS, CTR%, and amount of impressions, as well as to raise or reduce bid prices based on the criteria you have set (defaults settings can also be used).

For both automatic and manual campaigns, you can set up autopilot to add poor performing search terms as negative exacts based upon the number of clicks without sales or CTR%.

How Autopilot Mode functions:

1. Autopilot runs once-a-day (at night)
2. Autopilot reviews every keyword within the campaign. It then looks at the keyword bid price and relate that to your established ACoS. It then attempts to match your bid price to your ACoS.
3. Autopilot may raise (to generate more impressions for successful campaigns) or lower your bid price (in an attempt to get a more favorable click price)
4. Autopilot looks at 90 days of data
5. Autopilot allows you to automatically eliminate a search term (Negative Exact), if it meets certain predetermined criteria based upon search term data. This can be tailored to the type of campaign you have setup (Phrase/Exact Match)
6. Autopilot will ignore keywords, allowing you to keep a keyword in your campaigns, preventing it from being optimized out under any circumstances. Bid prices will not be raised or lowered. Search term optimization will not be performed

Autopilot Mode will help you to manage your Sponsored Products campaign costs more efficiently.

In conclusion...

It is essential to optimize all of your Sponsored Products campaigns on a regular basis. First and foremost, it keeps your campaigns fresh and gives you a clear picture of their performance over time.

Campaign Optimization once again is the critical building block that will help you to create and maintain a successful and thriving Amazon business.

Implement these three phases of Campaign Optimization as your personal Blueprint for realizing the financial and personal freedom that you desire and deserve.