AMZ Ads Campaign and Bid Strategy, Part 3 - Surpassing The Average
“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.” - Jim Collins
As a preface, this article is part 3 of a 3 part series. If you haven't read parts 1 and 2 or you’d like to review them, click HERE to read part 1 and here to read part 2 as we’ll be building on the foundational elements outlined there. As a reminder…for the purposes of these articles, I’ll use the terms “keyword(s)”, “keyword phrase(s)”, “term(s)” and “search term(s)” interchangeably because for the purposes of this article, they all mean essentially the same thing. I hope that all makes sense.
As a younger man, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel and compete for my country in the sport that I loved as part of the national team for a number of years. Although I’d always considered myself athletic as a child…I swam, I owned a bike and I ran (when forced to)...I was by no means “top-tier” at any of those things. At best I was an above average swimmer, a good cyclist and a capable runner. So to say that qualifying for the national team, let alone eventually competing at the world championships was a textbook example of overachievement would be an understatement. What I did have was the ability to capitalize on areas in which I could achieve marginal gains through hard work, determination and the application of analysis to technique, nutrition and recovery…areas often ignored by more talented athletes or even the “average joe”. That served me well and I’ve taken that same strategic mindset and tried my best to apply it to other aspects of my life, not the least of which has been business…in this case, the business of selling on Amazon.
This article isn’t meant to be all encompassing…I’m fairly confident that’s not even possible in this field. It’s meant to provide some reminders, some hidden gems and some different perspectives. My hope is that it may open you up, set you on a path towards recognizing that success on Amazon is often achieved (or not) by elements that the average Joe is either unaware of or unwilling to commit to. Although we definitely have to keep our eye on the foundational elements, it’s doing the things that others aren’t and thinking the way that others don’t that will help you to achieve your potential and achieve the things that others never will. So with that, let’s begin…
Mindset
A good place to start is by reviewing some key concepts that are often hard to wrap our heads around. One, our “opinion” about whether a given term is going to be a good one is irrelevant…yes it is. The only thing that matters is whether the consumer is likely to use that term to find and buy what you’re offering. Initially, that may be based on a very well developed understanding of your consumer persona and with time, that’s balanced and eventually overtaken by what the data tells you. Let go of what you hope, believe or think and move forward with what’s been proven and what you know. Two, customers aren’t looking for you or your offering. Unless you’re Steven King, J.K Rowling, Apple or Nike, consumers won’t search for you or your offering by name. They have something in mind and they search the keywords they associate most closely with that. Amazon then returns search results for them that are most closely associated what past customers using those same search terms have historically clicked on and purchased most frequently. Those two concepts fundamentally change the way we look at everything from keyword research, to listing creation and maintenance, to advertising.
Targeting
When I speak with most people, they have no trouble whatsoever talking about their “most important” keywords…the terms that are both relevant and specific to their offering and that when used by consumers are most likely to result in a sale. These are important, without question but what about the keywords that are ineffective…the terms that are less relevant, vague or just plain unlikely to convert to a sale based on the data? Those keyword search terms take up valuable space in your listing (front end and back end), eat up ad budget, undermine ACOS/ROAS and “dumb down” the algorithm’s ability to show your listing (either organic or sponsored) to the consumers who are most likely to convert to a sale. The irony is that a good listing may, over the course of it’s lifetime, accumulate 15, 20 or perhaps 25 keyword search terms that prove effective and in most cases that list will be developed in the early stages…however the list of terms that should be avoided (through listing maintenance, negative targeting, etc.) can stretch into the hundreds or more and should be maintained for the life of the offering. Why is it then, that most people pay these terms little attention or ignore them completely, much to the detriment of their listing’s performance.
Diagnostics
This is a “back door” to a valuable resource. Although it’s becoming more widely known, it’s far from common knowledge. There’s a baked-in diagnostics tool attached to every one of your ad campaigns…but you can’t click into it and unless someone shows you how to get there, it’s likely you’d never know it was there. It’s used internally to Amazon and I can’t for the life of me understand why they keep this a secret.
Navigate to your Amazon Campaign Manager Dashboard
In the URL address at the top of your browser, erase everything in the URL accept “https://advertising.amazon.com/”
Type in “diagnosticsHub/ so that the URL now reads “https://advertising.amazon.com/diagnosticsHub/” and hit return/enter. *Note the upper case H. You’ll see something like this…
From the drop down menu, select the campaign that you want to work on. *Note that every campaign you’ve ever had will appear here so it’s helpful to have copied the campaign name so you can just search for it. Click the Submit button.
Assuming there are areas of opportunity specific to your campaign, they’ll appear here. Assess each one on it’s own merit and decide if the recommendation is in line with your goals.
It’s been my experience that this can be a treasure trove of marginal gains.
Siloing
I’ve not only experienced this myself but I’ve seen others achieve great results by “siloing” low and high volume keywords when targeting proven terms. The basic premise is that if you mix extremely high search volume search terms with low volume search terms in the same campaign, the high volume terms will eat up the budget and starve out the low volume terms. Think of a litter of puppies in which the “big dogs” get all the milk and food while the runt(s) struggle to get enough nutrition to develop. In that case, you'd separate the puppies so that smaller dogs could develop normally and eventually flourish…keyword siloing works the same. We separate high and low volume terms into separate campaigns. Here’s two screenshots taken from two of my own campaigns that illustrate what you might expect as a result…
Note that both the high volume performance campaign (WSS_PM/EM_HighVolPerf_V1_111322) and the low volume performance campaign (WSS_PM/EM_LowVolPerf_V1_111322) were created about the same time, have therefore been running for the same amount of time (~ 5 months), are achieving similar ACOS/ROAS, have similar cost per click (CPC) and I’ve selected the same reporting period (last 7 days). However, because I’ve silo’d the terms the way I have, neither campaign is directly impacted by the performance of the other. That wouldn’t have been the case if I’d mixed them into one campaign.
Modified Broad Match Targeting
If you’ve gotten to this stage, you’re familiar with what constitutes exact match, phrase match and broad match targeting but for ease of reference, a brief overview.
Exact Match - The targeted keyword term exactly matches the search query used by the consumer, allowing for common misspellings, plural/singular variations and the inclusion/exclusion of common words (eg, if, and, for, the, etc.). For example, let’s say we were targeting “miniature dachshund coat”. An exact match would include “miniature dachshund coats”, “miniature dashund coat”, “a miniature dachshund coat”, etc. Exact match allows for very little variation.
Phrase Match - Includes all search queries covered by exact match but also allows for additional words to be used before or after the targeted keyword term. Assuming we’re still targeting “miniature dachshund coat”, a phrase match would include everything above but would be expanded to include terms like “the best miniature dachshund coats”, “miniature dachshund coats for winter”, etc. Phrase match allows for expansion but requires that the exact root target be included.
Broad Match - Includes all search queries covered by exact match and phrase match but also allows for keyword substitutions (based on historic consumer search data in which consumers used alternate words but were interested in the same offering) and complimentary search queries (ie. the consumer searched for X but based on historic consumer search data, might logically also be interested in Y). Again, assuming we’re still targeting “miniature dachshund coats”, a broad match would include everything above but would be expanded to include terms such as “weiner dog coats”, “winter jackets for sausage dogs”, “books on how to care for a miniature dachshund in Canada”, etc. Broad match allows for extensive variation, potentially to the point of irrelevance.
Now most people assume that exact match is at one end of the spectrum and broad match is at the other with phrase match filling the gap in between…that’s inaccurate. Although it’s true that exact match is at one end of the spectrum and broad match is at the other, phrase match occupies a space very close to exact match and the chasm between phrase match and an broad match is vast. That’s where modified broad match comes in and again, for the life of me I can’t understand why this isn’t common knowledge.
Let's say I’m targeting “teak cutting board” but with phrase match, I'm not capturing logical variations of that such as “teak chopping board” or “teak cooking tools” so I opt for broad match. That results in search queries like “plastic cutting boards”, “caring for teak wood” or “teak cooking utensils”, none of which are likely to produce consistent, meaningful sales. I may choose to use modified broad match in this scenario. I would set up my campaign similar to any other campaign and select “broad” as the match type but I would include a “+” immediately before any words that I want to indicate are “required terms”. For example, I could target “+teak cutting board”. This would dictate that the consumer search query must include the word teak but that broad match variations for cutting and board are acceptable. I could even go so far as to target “+teak +cutting +board” which would dictate that the words teak, cutting and board must be included in the consumer search query but in any order and that additional broad match variations should also be targeted so long as they included those 3 root words.
This methodology is sometimes difficult to wrap your head around and requires some thought and careful consideration of the relevant terms associated with your listing. That said, when it’s implemented appropriately, it can be a highly effective tool.
I’ll end this article there. Hopefully it’s served to provide some helpful reminders, a different take on things…even a hidden gem or two. Questions or comments?…reach out or comment and don’t forget that I’m always available for 1-on-1 consulting. If you like this content…like it, share it. Everything helps me to identify the direction we take in the future.
Next on Purple Patch…back to basics. Why your potential superpower might currently be your greatest weakness.