Introduction
Welcome to the Amazon Advertising Data Trends Review Series for January 2021. This is a monthly blog series where we:
- Breakdown changes in the Amazon advertising market landscape
- Pinpoint key areas of improvement
- Provide guidance on future market expectations
If you missed last month’s edition, you can check that out here.
By reviewing the data and trends in the proceeding blog post you will gain a better understanding of what has happened in the Amazon advertising marketplace in January. In turn, will enable you to strategically position your ad-campaigns for February and beyond.
The Data
The data used for this post includes:
- Sponsored Product ads
- Ads delivered in the US
Market Overview
In this section, we break down the aggregate view of the Amazon advertising marketplace. More specifically we will review what happened to ACoS for January and analyze KPI’s that influenced the movements in ACoS.
ACoS, Ad Spend per Order, & Conversion %
Now that the holidays are over, ACoS, Ad Spend per Order, and Conversions have reverted to more normal levels after their increases/decreases during November/December 2020. With all 3 metrics having relatively stable trends throughout January.
One interesting trend this month was the impact that MLK Day, January 18th, had on some of the KPI’s this month. Leading ACoS to have a slight dip on January 19th – 22nd.
6 Month View
1 Month View
Revenue per Click
RPC had a significant spike during January and almost breached the all-time high of last December. This was primarily driven by shopping on MLK Day/Weekend.
6 Month View
Aggregate Trends
Outside of the monthly changes, there are a few key longer-term trends we have been monitoring to see if these are larger marketplace changes that are here to stay if they will be short lived.
Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions
Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions continues to see an increasing trend. It currently sits just under $4 and we will have to see if this threshold will be breached or if it reverts back to more normal levels.
Cost Per Click
In prior months, there has been a strong increasing trend in CPC. However, last month this trend has faltered, and after January I believe it is safe to say that CPC is no longer experiencing an increasing trend. Which is good news, knowing that ad spend isn’t experiencing an industry wide increase.
Click Through Rate
CTR% has consistently struggled to break through the 0.40% level. In December we experienced a CTR% that remained consistently higher than the 0.40% level. This month, we continued to see this, and we even saw the CTR% increase! It is still a bit too early to tell, but CTR% could continue to see this trajectory.
Match Type Breakdown
ACoS Remains Converged
In previous blog posts we have mentioned the convergence of the ACoS by match type and all 3 match types continue to remain converged for January.
Ad Spend per Order Divergence
Over the past couple of months, Ad Spend per Order had similar experience as ACoS, with all match types being converged. However, this month we see the Exact match type starting to break away. This is important because Ad Spend per Order is oftentimes one of the main drivers of ACoS. If we continue to see an increasing Ad Spend per Order, we could expect to see an increasing ACoS for the Exact match type.
Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions
In the aggregate trends, we saw that Ad Spend per 1000 impressions has a strong, longer-term increasing trend. When this is broken down by match type, we can see that this trend is largely being driven by the Exact match type.
Revenue per Click
In the Market Overview section, we saw that the RPC almost breached the all-time high from December. When we break this down into the match types, we can see that this was also driven by the Exact match type. What’s interesting is that the Exact match type actually broke through December’s all-time high and created a new level. Therefore, the Exact match type may be becoming even more profitable in the future.
Placement Type – Longer Term Trends
Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions
Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions, Top of Search placement hit a 6-month high in January of $62 just after reaching a 6-month low of $32 the previous month. Top of search has historically remained within $40-$50. It’s most likely it’ll revert back to a lower level in February, though historically February has had a higher Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions than January.
Ad Spend per Order
The Detail Page on Amazon started to increase higher than Other on Amazon. In previous months these metrics have remained relatively the same. We’ll track this next month to determine if they continue to diverge or if they revert back towards each other.
Click Through Rate
The CTR% for Top of Search and Other on Amazon continue to experience increasing trends.
January’s KPI Predictions
In this section we forecast what we think may happen to the KPI’s in the preceding month, by reviewing the Year over Year trends. But before we start, let’s dive into what we had forecasted would happen for January:
- Forecasted Decreases:
- Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions
- Conversion %
- Revenue per Click
- Forecasted Increases:
- ACoS
- Ad Spend per Order
- Cost per Click
- CTR%
Let’s see how we did on our predictions and forecast what we believe will happen in January. Please note that the month of January is represented by the purple dot. As more monthly data becomes available, this will extend into a line graph with an easier ability to compare.
ACoS increased in January, meeting our expectations. In prior years February has experienced a lower ACoS than January, therefore we expect to see a lower ACoS next month.
Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions had a slight increase in January, missing expectations. Next month, we are expecting Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions to experience a slight increase.
Ad Spend per Order increased in January, aligning with expectations. Expecting to see a slight decrease in February.
Conversions decreased in January, aligning with our expectations. Expect conversions to increase in February.
Cost per Click had a slight increase in January, as expected. We are expecting to see a slight increase in February.
Click Through Rate increased in January, aligning with expectations. Expecting to see CTR% remain flat for February.
Revenue per Click decreased in January, aligning with expectations. Expecting to see a slight increase in February.
Key Points
Overall, the key points for this month include:
- After the holidays, ACoS has reverted back to a more normal level that is consistently experienced throughout the year
- There continues to remain strong increasing trends in:
- Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions, largely driven by the Exact match type
- Click Through Rate for Top of Search and Other on Amazon
- Click Through Rate has consistently remained above 0.40%, a previous barrier
- Ad Spend per 1000 Impressions - Top of Search broke further above the $50 threshold creating a new high of $62
We will be reviewing this data and including deeper insights and trends each month. If you have any questions or any data you would like to see, please reach out.
Entourage: Software to Scale Amazon Ads and Results Driven Management.
