Amazon currently has more than 350 million product listings. That’s not quite as much as the estimated 1 billion websites on the internet, but it’s a good fraction of the sum.
Now websites, like Amazon merchants, have two main avenues for showing up in the search results. These are paid and organic strategies.
In SEO, through a search engine, a website can generate organic leads. It takes a lot of time and it’s resource intensive, but it works.
Alternatively, websites can engage in PPC, or pay-per-click advertising, in which merchants bid on keywords to get their ads to show up for specific audiences in the search results.
Amazon is the same way. Merchants can either put in the effort to show up in the Amazon search results or they can pay for a sponsored post.
Here’s the thing about doing it organically, though. Getting a product listing to show up in Amazon is difficult not just because of the number of products, but because of the limited nature of ranking signals.
Amazon, like search engines, uses specific criteria to rank products. If you haven’t noticed recently, products are getting stuffed to the gills with keywords to the point that reading a product listing’s title is almost unintelligible.
Making it work organically on Amazon is absolutely possible, but becoming increasingly difficult. This is also due to the fact that Amazon uses a much more limited slew of ranking signals.
Now, with Amazon PPC, you can circumvent that headache. Fundamentally, Amazon PPC works similarly to how PPC works on search engines.
At its most basic, sellers must bid on keywords. When a shopper enters a query in the Amazon search bar, Amazon gathers and applies relevant criteria and then displays a number of sponsored (and organic posts).
When a shopper clicks on a sponsored post, then the seller pays for the click, hence the name.
Depending on the bids, only certain sponsored posts will be awarded the slots allocated to the PPC search results. Consequently, with an appropriate product and bid strategy, Amazon merchants can circumvent the need for organic Amazon optimizations.
Here’s the thing that makes many merchants put in the time necessary to find the best Amazon PPC agency for their purposes. Amazon PPC, like Google PPC, is a lot of work.
It’s not just the strategy or the keyword research, though, it’s the bid strategy. All of these things take time and resources, both of which many merchants don’t have in surplus.
The main thing, however, is the ongoing optimization part of the process. The way to remain profitable is to ensure that the right keywords are being targeted as well as that the listing is optimized for UX.
If you win the keyword bid and a shopper lands on your listing, but doesn’t buy, you still need to pay. An Amazon PPC agency can take a closer look at performance and improve a listing for conversion optimization.
But on top of that, agencies have the experience necessary to look more closely at targeting criteria so you can go after only the most qualified buyers.
Ultimately, working with the best Amazon PPC agency for your industry and specific case is one of the best ways to ensure ongoing profitability and sustainable growth. Doing it on your own is just a way to spend too much money, quickly.
Now here’s the real kicker. Almost 80% of brands on Amazon report that Amazon PPC is the main driver of their business. So make that your ultimate reason to hire the best Amazon PPC agency for your business model.
