As an Amazon seller, you may know that running PPC ads can prove lucrative for your business. But setting up these ads the right way is essential to your ROI. 

You don’t just want to create a campaign, set it on “Auto,” and walk away. Instead, take the time to structure your campaign correctly to maximize your return on ad spend (ROAS). 

Learn how to set up an effective Amazon PPC campaign structure below.

Why Does PPC Campaign Structure Matter? 

As an Amazon seller, you have a few options for Amazon Ads management.

You can choose whether to leave your PPC ads on “automatic,” allowing Amazon to make decisions about your keyword targeting, or set them to “Manual,” enjoying full control over your keyword groups. Within these two options, you also have several choices for the types of keywords you’ll target, the placement of ads, the daily budget for each campaign, and more. 

But with great power comes great responsibility. With so many structural options available, you can’t just assume any old PPC campaign will prove effective for your business. You’ll need to put the work into structuring your PPC ads correctly to gain the greatest return. On the flip side, using an ineffective structure will just pitch your ad spend down the drain each day. 

How To Structure Your PPC Campaign

Below is a tried-and-true Amazon PPC campaign structure that many sellers have found success with. This structure starts at the initial launch of a new PPC campaign. If you already have a campaign running but haven’t seen a very profitable ROAS, consider starting over and using the following structure.

First Campaign: Automatic

When you create your first PPC campaign, Amazon will ask you to choose between “Automatic” and “Manual” ad management. The platform typically recommends choosing “Automatic” for your first campaign, and many PPC experts agree. 

“Automatic” means Amazon will have full control over the keywords your ads will target. The platform will automatically peruse your product description, title, and other listing information to glean relevant search terms for which it can display your ad.

You can still choose the budget for the campaign, and it’s best to start low until you can evaluate how well the campaign is performing. Marketers often recommend a $10 starting budget for PPC campaigns. 

Before moving on to any other campaign, allow your automatic campaign to run for about a week. Don’t be discouraged if your ROI on this campaign is poor. The purpose of this initial campaign isn’t to market your products well; it’s to decipher the most successful keywords, which you can manually manage in your next campaign. 

Second Campaign: Manual

After running your automatic campaign for about a week, pause it and take a look at the metrics. Amazon will show you the campaign’s performance for each of the keywords it targeted. You’ll be able to identify which search terms produced the best ROAS for your campaign and which paled in comparison. 

Next, you will create a manual PPC campaign that includes three manual ad groups, as described below. Ad groups are just methods of grouping ads that share the same bids and target keywords. If you’d rather not mess with ad groups, you could create three separate manual campaigns targeting these keywords.

Manual campaigns also give you more control over your daily bid for each ad. Amazon Ads uses a bidding structure to determine which users get to have their PPC ads displayed for the same search terms. You should also review the bids Amazon automatically set in your auto campaign to determine your bidding strategy for this next campaign. 

Ad Group 1: Broad Match

In your first ad group, you will target broad-match keywords, which generally match the keyword term you’ve specified. As a reminder, you’ll identify these keywords after reviewing the performance of your automatic campaign. You can also conduct outside keyword research to narrow your search terms. 

For example, if your keyword term is “women’s dresses,” Amazon would also display ads for long-tail keywords like:

• Women dress
• Dresses for women
• Adult female dress
• Buy women’s dresses

Broad match targeting can help you target all the search terms that generally fit your product descriptions. However, this type of targeting can sometimes waste your ad money, especially when it targets keywords that have nothing to do with your search term. That’s why using the other two match types is still important. 

Ad Group 2: Phrase Match

Your second ad group will target phrase match keywords, which are search terms that must contain the exact phrase as your keyword term or only vary slightly. For example, if your keyword term is “tennis shoes,” your ad could still display for:

• Best tennis shoes
• Women’s tennis shoes
• Men’s tennis shoes
• Tennis shoe brands

This match structure can also help you target more users who may be interested in the products you sell online but didn’t use the specific search term you’ve targeted with your PPC campaign. 

Ad Group 3: Exact Match

Your last manual ad group will target exact match keywords. These keywords must contain the exact phrase as the target keyword in the same order without additional words. For example, exact matches of “bike helmet” would include:

• Bike helmet
• Bike helmets

While exact match keywords reach fewer users than the other keyword match types, they allow you to target the people specifically searching for your type of product. 

Rely on the Amazon PPC Experts

Using the right Amazon PPC campaign structure is essential to your campaign’s performance. But if you don’t have much marketing experience, you may feel a little out of your wheelhouse trying to manage your campaign effectively. 

Instead, hand the responsibility over to our Amazon PPC experts at Click Fluency. We’ll be your Amazon business consultant, boosting your sales and reaching more customers for your Amazon store. 

Schedule your strategy session today to learn how we can help you make the most of your PPC campaign.