Amazon Search Product Targeting Enhanced by Ignite

The majority of Amazon PPC campaigns are keyword targeted, but Amazon also allows brands to target specific products, categories, competitor brands, or other product features that are similar to the product being advertised. Product targeting can be an effective tactic to steal market share given the majority of placements are served on Detail Pages as opposed to keyword targeted search results pages.

Product Targeting Best Use Cases:

• Target competitor ASIN’s or products within a related category to reach in-market shoppers.

• Expand reach beyond Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products Keyword Targeting.

• Leverage as an alternative to competitive and inefficient keywords during peak periods.

• Drive visibility within a new category or for a product that has lower category ranking.

Product Targeting ads will be served according to ASINs, attached to a specific product, or related category. On campaign setup you can choose which to leverage, and although there can be overlap, to help differentiate:

• Category targeting can be viewed as lifestyle, appearing against products that are grouped by similarities e.g. like women’s cycling shorts.

• Individual Products (ASIN) targeting can be viewed as in-market, appearing against a specific product that is similar to the one you are selling.

For some categories you can further refine targeting, for example with Toys refine by product target age range and Books by genre.

Acorn-i Product Targeting campaigns delivered ave. 0.31% CTR and 16% ACoS during trending past 4-months for clients.

How to Enhance Product Targeting Effectiveness:

The Amazon campaign setup UI will suggest categories and products to target according to the product being advertised. Amazon’s algorithm will match and suggest similar products or you can search by product name or upload a list of products to create a specific target cohort. We conducted a test to measure how effective Amazon suggested targeting is vs a list of products developed using Ignite, our proprietary insights and reporting tool.

Setup:

• Conducted tests across two categories, Grocery : Drinks, and Health & Beauty : Personal Beauty, for two challenger brands.

• Each campaign had two ad groups setup, one targeting Amazon suggested products and one targeting a list of products created by Ignite, method in below video.

• We excluded all partner brand terms so that performance was driven from competitor products and not via ads served on advertised product variations or brand.

• All other campaign settings were equal including bid prices.

Results 1-14 days (measured according to Amazon Vendor conversion attribution window):

• Drinks Campaign:

  • Ignite powered terms drove 1.5x volume of impressions with a 2x (0.34% vs 0.17%) CTR. Total sales were higher but at a 32% ACoS vs Amazon powered ACoS of 12.45%, albeit at lower scale.

• Beauty Campaign

  • Ignite drove 50x volume of impressions than Amazon algorithm terms, a CTR of 1.12% and ACoS of 5.52%. Amazon line item did not deliver any notable scale and zero sales.

As a result of initial testing, above, and subsequent testing over following 40 days, Product Targeting campaigns supported by leveraging Ignite insights continue to drive more scale, engagement and sales for client campaigns. The average ACoS achieved for all clients is 16% across a trending 4-month period. Amazon algorithm and suggested products is an effective feature alternative to keyword targeting but to enhance performance clients can follow these steps when using Ignite: