Subject: How to Optimize an Ad Group with High Spend and Low Sales ?
Hi Friends,
I'm a new seller and I'm having some trouble optimizing my PPC campaigns. I'd really appreciate some guidance from the community.
I have one particular Sponsored Products ad group that has spent $16 over the last day but has only generated 1 sale.
Here are the details:
Campaign Goal: Sales
Default Bid: $1.24
Placements: All enabled (I'm using the default bid adjustments for now).
Number of Keywords: 10 (A mix of broad and phrase match types).
ACoS: It's currently around 201%, which is obviously unsustainable.
I've already tried:
Checking the search term report to add negative keywords.
Pausing keywords with the most clicks but no conversions.
Despite this, the performance hasn't improved much. My main questions are:
Bidding Strategy: Should I lower my default bid significantly, or is it better to adjust bids at the keyword level based on performance?
Keyword Match Types: Should I start with exact match keywords to have more control before testing broad/phrase?
Placements: Should I manually adjust bid adjustments for search top, product pages, etc.?
Other Factors: Could the issue be with my product listing (images, title, bullet points, price) rather than just the ads?
Any best practices or things I should check first would be extremely helpful. Thank you for your time and wisdom!
Best regards,
Kate
Subject: How to Optimize an Ad Group with High Spend and Low Sales ?
Hi Friends,
I'm a new seller and I'm having some trouble optimizing my PPC campaigns. I'd really appreciate some guidance from the community.
I have one particular Sponsored Products ad group that has spent $16 over the last day but has only generated 1 sale.
Here are the details:
Campaign Goal: Sales
Default Bid: $1.24
Placements: All enabled (I'm using the default bid adjustments for now).
Number of Keywords: 10 (A mix of broad and phrase match types).
ACoS: It's currently around 201%, which is obviously unsustainable.
I've already tried:
Checking the search term report to add negative keywords.
Pausing keywords with the most clicks but no conversions.
Despite this, the performance hasn't improved much. My main questions are:
Bidding Strategy: Should I lower my default bid significantly, or is it better to adjust bids at the keyword level based on performance?
Keyword Match Types: Should I start with exact match keywords to have more control before testing broad/phrase?
Placements: Should I manually adjust bid adjustments for search top, product pages, etc.?
Other Factors: Could the issue be with my product listing (images, title, bullet points, price) rather than just the ads?
Any best practices or things I should check first would be extremely helpful. Thank you for your time and wisdom!
Best regards,
Kate
2 replies
Seller_CW0P5hgbsiqWX
Let's go back a few steps. Do you understand advertising? Looks like you have fallen into Amazon traps.
- The bottom line in advertising that no one will tell you is this. Advertising will not help sell a product that no one wants, and if you have a good product, it is not necessary.
- Never buy advertising until you have test sold the product for at least a month. That way you have a base line to know if the advertising plan has any effect.
- Amazon selling is simple. Sell only products that buyers want and need and sell then at the lowest price. These products sell themselves with no additional advertising necessary.
- Can you find your own product on the Amazon website quickly as a buyer. Can it be found simply by entering 3-4 words in the Amazon browser? If not, neither can any potential buyer. Amazon always suggests spamming the title, but there is a reason. Potential buyers can't find it. But Amazon has the solution, buy some advertising.
- Keywords, the truth. They are not what they used to be 25 years ago. There are only so many words in the English language. What words do you think you can use that are not already being used by 100,000 other sellers? Some sellers even pay a service to create key words for them, but they do not realize the words generated for them are the exact same words purchased by a competitor. A short, 3–4-word title is far more effective than 100 keywords.
- Good bullet points and photographs are always a benefit to a listing, but so is an effective description. It is called Writing to an Audience. Theer is a science about it. The test should draw the potential buyer in to read more.
- Bidding Strategy: It should be called Your Asking Price.
FBM SELLERS- You know how much you paid for the product. You know how much the Amazon commission is. You know how much the shipping is going to be to any address in the USA. You know what your desired profit is. Add them together and you get the Offering price. If you cannot sell the product as one of the 3 lowest price sellers, don't buy the product to sell in the first place.
FBA SELLERS- You know how much you paid for the product. You know what your desired profit is. You DON'T know how much the Amazon commissions and assessed fees will be. Amazon will charge them even before the produce even sells. Sellers who do not pay attention to their bottom line always find Amazon is the one who actually takes all of a seller's product, leaving them nothing.
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Now, add up all the fees you have encountered so far, divide it by how many products you have left to sell, and increase the cost by that much. You may still make a little profit if potential buyers will pay that price.
Amazon is good at telling sellers what to do and how to do it., but sellers do not realize, Amazon is not telling them how to make a profit. Amazon is telling them what services to buy. Understanding how to make a profit in online sales is what each seller brings to the site.
Cooper_Amazon
Good Evening @Seller_FIw2qNVMQ308K,
It looks like you were able to get some great advice from @Seller_CW0P5hgbsiqWX on this topic.
If their response helped you, feel free to mark it as “Most Helpful reply” using the 3 dots in the corner of their post. Just in case others have the same issue, the Most Helpful Reply feature brings the selected response right to the top of your thread. Sellers will be able to see the answer right away as your discussion will have a green checkmark when searched within the forums.
I additionally have some more resources you can explore to see if you are able to boost your sales:
- Have you by chance checked out the Getting started guide for Amazon Advertising to ensure everything has been created to set you and your products up for success?
- Are you following your Amazon Ads strategy? Are you trying to build your audience?
- I also wanted to link the Amazon Ads ASIN selection and promotion strategies blog so you can check out some of the tactics to setting up great promotions.
Besides taking a look simply at the campaign and ads side of things, are your listings are as optimized as can be? I did a spot check on a few of your listings and see that you are selling in a pretty popular category so optimization and strategy will be important on setting yourself apart from other sellers.
- This blog shares: How to boost Amazon listings to drive more sales: 9 tactics
- Are you amplifying your sales - Walk through Seller University Video Tutorial
- Are you using your search terms effectively. Check out this help page to double check.
- Great Detail Pages Drive Sales - How is your detail page doing?
- Can you improve product details and bullet points?
- Have you thought about creating detail page videos?
- How about providing your customers with a 3D shopping experience using 3D imaging?
Above I have shared a hefty amount of resources I would love for you to check out and explore. If you have any questions about these processes, please let me know, or you can reach out to Selling Partner Support at anytime. I hope all this feedback helped and may the sales continue to be with you. Cheers and have a fabulous rest of the week.
Sincerely, Cooper_Amazon
