What Is Amazon PPC? A Guide for FBA Sellers

In times gone by, the biggest advertising decision for a small business was whether to pay for a quarter-page ad in the printed telephone book. Today, those who sell via eCommerce must adapt to a whole new range of tools and innovations—ads that exist not in print, but online.

For those who sell on Amazon, pay-per-click advertising is at the forefront of your options and should be a part of your core Amazon advertising strategy.

If you’re an Amazon FBA seller, promoting your products through Amazon PPC (Amazon Pay Per Click) can help you reach new customers. Let’s explore how to get started and what the terms and choices mean for you. 

What is Amazon PPC?

Let’s begin with the basics: “Pay per click” means that you (the business owner) pay for an ad only if and when someone clicks on the Amazon ad to open up your product page on Amazon.

In a nutshell, FBA sellers have access to Amazon PPC to generate sponsored results (PPC ads) that show up in search returns and on the competitors’ product listing. Prospective buyers can be shown your ads when they type in the right keywords or phrases.

If you compare an Amazon PPC ad to a billboard, it would be like only paying a little each time someone actually looked at your sign and stopped to call the phone number or visit the website on it. If everyone zooming by on the highway only glanced at the billboard but took no action, you’d pay nothing.

Types of Amazon PPC Ads

The simplest way to get started with PPC advertising is through the Amazon sponsored product ad—but it’s not your only option. With stipulations for each of the Amazon seller account types, if your business is listed with the Amazon Brand Registry, you may also choose from #2 and #3 below:

1. Sponsored products – The most popular and accessible type—and available to all FBA sellers—sponsored product PPC ads show up on Amazon search results (either top, bottom, or mixed in). They also can be placed on product detail pages as part of a horizontal scrolling ad carousel. You can opt for either automatic or manual targeting.

1. Sponsored brand – Rather than a particular product, Amazon sponsored brand ads can showcase your whole storefront. The most costly placement is a full-page-width spread above Amazon search results, and smaller ad spaces are available on right or left bars as well as on product detail pages. 

1. Sponsored display ad – This option can showcase a product ad on a search results page, below the “Add to Cart” button on a product page, or even on third-party apps and websites. 

What Are the Benefits of Amazon PPC Advertising?

PPC advertising has been around for years as a key part of how businesses advertise through search engines such as Google. But major platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Amazon are large enough to have their own internal search engines complete with PPC advertising systems such as Amazon Facebook ads. 

Benefits of PPC advertising on Amazon include:

• Low cost – You can bid under a dollar for keywords and set daily and Amazon PPC campaign limits to keep your advertising cost down.

• Choice of control and automation – When you set up an Amazon PPC ad campaign, you can opt to have Amazon automatically identify suggested keywords and phrases plus potential competing products. Conversely, you can choose to manually control every keyword option (including search terms you want excluded from showing your ad) and which competing products to show up on.

• Real-time data – You’ll see when your ads are activated, which keyword clicks lead to sales, which Amazon ad campaigns are profitable and worth further investment, and what needs to be tweaked or canceled.

• Free visibility – Even when customers don’t click on your ad, seeing it on their screens increases brand and product familiarity and can entice them to select it next time—and you pay nothing for all those unclicked appearances.

Why PPC Ads Are Important for Your Amazon Business

With more than 353 million products for sale, the Amazon marketplace can seem nearly as large as the internet itself to a potential buyer. This is why many buyers use the quick search bar to type in what they’re looking for, rather than navigating through the submenus of product categories.

But if a search yields several—or even hundreds—of pages of results, how long will it take for a customer to find your product based on organic product listing alone? 

With Amazon PPC ads, your products can be found based on keywords your customers will use. In addition, they will: 

• Appear in key locations within search results, including the top of the first page 
• Show up directly on a competitor’s product page
• Avoid showing an ad for keywords you don’t want associated with it (i.e., “cheap”)

In other words, Amazon PPC ads can transform your product from a needle in a haystack to a shining diamond, more likely to catch the attention of your audience and (hopefully) make the sale.

Make Your Biggest Sale Ever with Forum Brands

Many eCommerce sellers dream of building their wealth by creating and selling a successful company. If your Amazon FBA business is stable and profitable, you may be closer to that dream than you think. 

Sell your Amazon FBA to Forum Brands as an alternative to investing more time and money in marketing and running your business. Forum Brands understands the value of your Amazon FBA business, and handing over the reins can result in your biggest ever profit—and the capital to fund a new venture or life step. 

Sources: 

Amazon Ads. Sponsored Products. https://advertising.amazon.com/solutions/products/sponsored-products

LandingCube. 57 AMAZON STATISTICS TO KNOW IN 2022. https://landingcube.com/amazon-statistics/