Amazon PPC Campaign Structure | How to Structure Your Sponsored Ads Campaigns

Matt Clark

Learn Amazon PPC campaign structure including how to structure Amazon Sponsored Ads campaigns to beat your competition: Cherie Yvette is a leading expert in Amazon advertising. Watch as Cherie reveals her proven strategy for staying ahead of changes to the algorithm on Amazon, the step by step process to creating a structured advertising campaign, and the benefits that structured campaigns have to profits and conversion rates.

Jason Katzenback, CEO and Co-Founder of Amazing.com, interviews Cherie Yvette in the second video of Amazing.com’s limited-time free training series. Cherie reveals how sellers can gain mastery in sponsored advertisements on Amazon, while staying ahead of the algorithm.

When it comes to competition on Amazon, Cherie reveals that there isn’t really a threat as long as you input some law and order into what you are doing. The way sellers structure Amazon advertising campaigns can help to preserve the peace in their business. For the past two years, Cherie has been able to secure the top ad position in an incredibly competitive market. She has been able to grow sales for the same ASINs three times over.

Winning with Amazon’s Algorithm – Amazon PPC Campaign Structure

Cherie shares that when you create a good campaign structure, you can win with Amazon’s algorithm. No matter what new competitors arise or how the market changes, your campaign structure will help you keep a strong sales history. This will allow your campaigns to rank, scale, and continue to perform profitably.

The number one priority is the law of the algorithm—show the algorithm that your ads will consistently click and convert at a rate higher than competitors. Amazon moves at a face pace, like a locomotive, and every time the train stops there are new sellers and competitors coming to take your business.

Your goal is to establish a high-quality score with Amazon before these competitors ever show up. In the end, the algorithm chooses the winners and the losers. By appealing to the algorithm before your competitors ever show up, you ensure you’ll be the winner every time.

Steps to Creating a Winning Campaign Process

Select the most profitable keywords, the ones with the highest sales volume.
Run a recent search term report.
Sort that report by campaign.
Order from highest to lowest.
Find the keywords that have driven the highest sales volume.
Within those keywords, look for seed keywords (the short tail, two to three keywords phrases that have worked to convert profitably).
Separate the seed keywords into their single keyword ad group.
Segment each ad group by match type with one keyword – If you are advertising red bandana, create a broad red bandana ad group, and a phrase red bandana ad group. Each group would only have the keyword red bandana.

It is not necessary to segment all keywords into single ad groups, just the keywords that are driving the majority of orders. This is usually the top 20% of keywords. You should have around 6–8 single keyword ad groups per product campaign.

Benefits of a Structured Campaign

Separating top-performing keywords into single ad groups creates the opportunity for more traffic. Broad and phrase match keywords mine new long tail search terms for campaigns. This is how you will discover new keywords.

A structured campaign will reduce the amount of time you need to put into researching new keywords. Instead of relying on guesswork, this structure allows you to use keywords that have proven to convert sales.

The next step is to mine search term reports every month to find new long tail keywords generated from the single ad groups. Every month you will have a report full of new keyword variations to help you convert sales and stay ahead of the algorithm. After a search term has produced two or more orders, it should be ready to add to a campaign.

Scaling Your Advertising Campaigns

The new search terms you discover should be added to their own ad group. This ad group becomes the “scale” group. 80% of Cherie’s own sales come from her scale ad group and her single keyword ad groups.

This creates a cycle in which you can separate the high-volume keywords into single ad words and allow you to get higher relevant scores, higher click-through rates, and better conversion rates. Adding the long tail keywords into another ad group allows you to strength sales history, increase ad rank, and drive organic visibility and growth.

Tips for Success

Let existing ad groups and campaigns run, unless they are doing terribly.
Amazon’s algorithm does not reward change, so keep campaigns running that have an established history.
Put new single keyword ad groups into existing campaigns that have higher bids than the originals.
Add the keywords you mine from your search term report to a scale ad group inside of the same campaign.

Cherie’s next video will reveal how to make campaigns more profitable by proper cost management. She’ll share what you should be tracking instead of the standard A cost and why it’s important to prioritize low advertising costs. Join us!

Amazon Sponsored Products Tutorial 2: How To Structure Your Campaigns For Better Results – Full Video Transcript

Jason K.: Hey, there. I’m Jason Katzenback, CEO and co-founder of Amazing.com.

Cherie Yvette: I’m Cherie Yvette, a leading Amazon advertising expert. Welcome back to the second video in our free training series, teaching you how to gain mastery over Amazon’s sponsored ads.

Jason K.: If you’ve not already watched the first video in this series where we cover how to deal with the crowded Amazon marketplace and when, you’re going to want to do that now. Please stop this video and click the link above to watch that video. If you’ve already watched video one, then you’re in the right place.

Cherie Yvette: In video one, we talked about the increasing competition on Amazon and how to cut through the crowd and how to quickly get velocity and rankings for your sponsored ads to beat out your competitors.

Cherie Yvette: Today, I’ll be sharing with you my proven strategy for staying ahead of the constant algorithm changes on Amazon and how to structure your sponsored ads campaigns for easier management, saving you a ton of time and money.

Jason K.: Please make sure you stay until the end of this video because Cherie’s going to give you the campaign structure that currently works best with the algorithm to get the most traffic at the best price so you can scale profitable. Cherie, take it away.

Cherie Yvette: This is the Dodge City Peace Commission, a group of lawmen, assembled by Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp. Dodge City was the center of commerce in the 1870s and was known as the wickedest town in the West. Dodge was a den of thieves and rowdy cowboys and cutthroats passing through from the Texas Cattle Trail. Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp led the charge for frontier justice, and in the end, the bad men proved to be not quite so bad when they went up against the Peace Commission. You’ll find that the majority of your Amazon competition isn’t really a threat, especially when you put law and order on your side.

Cherie Yvette: In this video, I’m going to show you how to structure your advertising campaigns to preserve the peace in your business. Now, these are the lifetime stats in one of my accounts. This is an incredibly competitive market, and I’ve been able to secure the top ad positions for nearly two years. Now, here is the same campaign year to date, and you can see that my ACoS and my average CPC has stayed pretty much the same year over year. In fact, total sales have grown 3X on the same ASINs, and we are profitable.

Cherie Yvette: When you create good campaign structure and win with the algorithm, it doesn’t matter how much the market changes or how many new competitors enter the space. When you have strong sales history, your campaigns will continue to rank, scale, and perform profitably.

Cherie Yvette: Bat Masterson was always on the right side of the law. He was famous among other lawmen for his steady nerves and coolness in times of danger. Like Bat, we’re going to make the law our number one priority and show the algorithm that our ads will consistently click and convert better than our competitors.

Cherie Yvette: Amazon is moving at the pace of a locomotive, and every time the train stops, there’s always a new batch of cowboys, cooks, and cons looking to take your business. The key to success with Amazon advertising is to establish a high quality score long before these bad men show up. Winning with the algorithm makes your competition less of a threat because in the end, it’s the algorithm that chooses the winners and the losers. It is the peacemaker.

Cherie Yvette: Anytime something isn’t working in your campaigns, it’s almost always a structure issue. I’ve never met a competitor that can’t be beat with better strategy and better campaign structure. Most people just throw time and money at their advertising campaigns, which isn’t sustainable on a personal or a business level, and with advertising, the right technique can save you a ton of time and money.

Cherie Yvette: We’re going to start out by selecting our most profitable keywords that have high sales volume. We’re going to run a recent search term report, and we’re going to sort that report by campaign, and then by orders highest to lowest.

Cherie Yvette: Next, we’re going to select the keywords that are driving the highest number of sales profitably. Now, within that, we’re looking for seed keywords in that report. We’re not looking for search terms. We’re not looking for the long tail. We’re looking for the short tail, two to three keyword phrases that have been proven to convert profitably for us because we’re looking for volume, and we’re looking for velocity.

Cherie Yvette: The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to separate those keywords into their single keyword ad groups, and we’re going to segment each ad group by match type with one keyword. For example, if you’re advertising on red bandana, you would have a red bandana broad ad group and you would have a red bandana phrase ad group, and then each ad group would only contain the keyword red bandana.

Cherie Yvette: Now, you don’t want to segment all of your keywords into single ad groups, only the top 20%, just the keywords driving the majority of your orders. Initially, you shouldn’t have any more than, say, six to eight single keyword ad groups in a product campaign.

Cherie Yvette: When you separate your top-performing keywords into single ad groups, they’re going to get significantly more traffic, and your broad and phrase match keywords are going to mine new long tail search terms for you, which is going to power your keyword discovery process.

Cherie Yvette: This campaign structure eliminates the guesswork from extensive keyword research or selection and allows you to target keywords that are proven to convert to sales, so every single month, you’re going to mine your search term report for these new long tail keywords that are generated from your single groups. This will provide you dozens, and depending on the product, sometimes hundreds of new keyword variations each and every month that are proven to convert to sales. I like to add these search terms to my campaigns after they’ve produced two or more orders.

Cherie Yvette: Now, you segment these new search terms as exact match into their own ad group. I call this ad group “scale.” This is my search strategy, so when it comes to keyword-based search traffic, about 80% or more of my total orders and revenue are driven from single keyword ad groups and my scale ad groups. That’s across all campaigns, all products, all accounts.

Cherie Yvette: It’s kind of a nice cycle, once again, when you separate your high volume keywords into single ad words, they’ll perform significantly better, and then you’re going to get higher relevant scores, higher click-through rates, and conversion rates. Then when you continually add these long tail keywords that are proven to convert to sales into another ad group, you strengthen your sales history, your ad rank, and you start to drive organic growth and visibility.

Cherie Yvette: So far you’ve leaned how to rank your ads in the top position and how to structure your campaigns to hold those positions. In the next video, I’m going to show you how to manage your advertising cost to make your campaigns more profitable.

Cherie Yvette: On this strategy that you’re going to implement today, here is another note that’s very important: Don’t pause any of your existing campaigns or ad groups, unless they’re performing terribly. Leave your existing campaigns running. Algorithms don’t like change, so you don’t want to shut down the keywords that have established sales history. Create your new single keyword ad groups inside of your existing campaigns with higher bids than the originals. In 30 days, when you mine those new search terms out of your report, add those keywords to a scale ad group inside of the same campaign.

Cherie Yvette: Your new keywords and ad groups will gain momentum over time and just naturally phase out your old keywords.

Jason K.: Thank you, Cherie, for that incredible training on how not to let constant algorithm changes affect your profitable ads.

Cherie Yvette: You’re welcome, Jason, and I hope that gives everyone some great ideas and clarity.

Jason K.: As a reminder, please make sure you download the Roadmap provided underneath this video, as this free training series will be going away in a few days, and you don’t want to miss them.

Jason K.: By entering your email below, not only will get you access to the Roadmap, but we’ll also be able to send you a reminder in a few days for when video three is released.

Cherie Yvette: In the next video, I’m going to share with you why you need to prioritize lowering your advertising cost and what you should track instead of the standard A cost. It’s really about making sure your advertising spend works for you and has the most impact on your business.

Jason K.: Yes. This is a really, a controversial thing to say, but the truth needs to be told. Ad cost is a myth. It’s not an actionable metric.

Cherie Yvette: Yes. That’s exactly right, Jason, and in video three, I’m going to share with you exactly how to manage your campaigns with another key metric that is actually overlooked that will actually lower your A cost. I can’t wait to share this with you.

Jason K.: Check your inbox for video three in a few days, and again, make sure you download the Roadmap below this video right away. This free training series is going away in a few days, and you don’t want to miss out.

Cherie Yvette: We’ll see you in the next video.

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