Amazon Advertising: 7 Steps to Create High-Converting Ad Campaigns

Amazon Advertising

Amazon Advertising is one of the most powerful tools to increase product visibility and drive sales. Whether you’re new to the platform or refining your strategy, understanding the different ad types – like Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display – is crucial.

In this blog, I’ll guide you through the ABCs of Amazon advertising, covering everything from setting clear goals to measuring your ad performance. Drawing from my experience as an ex-Amazonian and our daily work with Boom Commerce clients, I’ve seen firsthand how mastering these fundamentals can transform your business.

You’ll find personal tips, expert insights and a downloadable campaign strategy guide to help you launch ads that not only increase sales but also boost your organic rankings. Let’s dive into the world of Amazon Advertising and get your campaigns performing at their best.

Why Amazon Advertising is Essential for Sellers

Here’s something I’ve seen with every single successful seller on Amazon: they run killer ad campaigns. You might think organic growth alone will get you there, but what comes first, the chicken or the egg?

When you’re just starting out, you don’t have an organic ranking, which means limited visibility. That’s why pushing your visibility with ads is a no-brainer. It’s the key to building long-lasting Amazon sales performance and boosting your organic ranking at the same time. Trust me, I’ve seen it work time and again.

Amazon Advertising

What not everyone realizes is that running ads not only boosts paid sales, but also improves your organic rankings. When a customer buys through an ad, Amazon sees that your product is converting and starts ranking it higher organically.

It’s a cycle that keeps spinning once it starts. More visibility leads to more sales, which in turn boosts your ranking, bringing in even more visibility. Over time, this means more sales while having a constant ad spend ratio.

1. Setting Your Amazon Advertising Goals

Before jumping into campaign creation, take a moment to define your goals. What are you hoping to achieve?
At Boom Commerce when launching a new product on Amazon, our initial goal is simply visibility. But once we start seeing consistent traffic, our focus shifts to conversion optimization and driving more sales. You’ll need to do the same for your business.

Some common goals include:

  • Increasing visibility for new product launches
  • Optimizing Profitability ones ads are picking up
  • Driving sales during peak shopping seasons
  • Improving organic ranking through a steady stream of paid conversions
2. Types of Amazon Ads

Amazon offers several types of ads. Here’s a breakdown to help you choose which ones work best for your goals.

Sponsored Products

These ads are my go-to for anyone just starting out or looking to drive direct sales. They appear right in the search results and on product pages, which means prime visibility.

Benefits of Sponsored Products:

  • Immediate impact on sales
  • Perfect for targeting specific keywords
  • Operates on a cost-per-click (CPC) model
Sponsored Brands

If you’re working on building your brand’s presence on Amazon advertising, this is a powerful tool. Sponsored Brands let you showcase your brand logo and multiple products, helping you connect with shoppers in a more visual and memorable way.

Benefits of Sponsored Brands:

  • Strengthens brand awareness
  • Helps tell your brand story while driving sales
  • Also uses a CPC model
Sponsored Display

Sponsored Display ads can be a game changer, especially if you want to remarket to people who have already viewed your product but didn’t buy.

Benefits of Sponsored Display:

  • Targets customers both on and off Amazon
  • Perfect for retargeting or reaching new audiences
  • Increases visibility even on external websites

My Pro Tip: Start with Sponsored Products to get your feet wet, then branch out to Sponsored Brands as a second step and Display Ads once you’re comfortable. Each ad type serves a unique purpose in building your presence.

3. Cost-per-Click: How It Works

Amazon’s ads operate on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, meaning you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. This gives you full control over your budget since you’re not paying for impressions, just for actual engagement.

But it’s essential to minimize unnecessary bids and concentrate your budget on the most impactful ones, ensuring smart spending and maximizing results.

Here’s how it breaks down:

  • Bidding: You decide how much you’re willing to spend per click. Set a maximum bid, and Amazon will try to place your ad without exceeding your limit
  • Competition: The more competitors bidding on the same keyword, the higher the CPC
4. Keyword Targeting: Auto vs. Manual Campaigns

When setting up your ads, you can choose between automatic or manual campaigns – but it’s absolutely necessary to use both campaign types. Personally, I always implement both for my clients because each offers distinct advantages.

Automatic Campaigns

Amazon advertising selects the keywords and ASINs for you based on your product listing, covering a wide range of total placements. This is a great way to gather data when you’re just starting out.

Benefits of automatic campaigns:

  • Saves time
  • Generates valuable insights into keyword performance

But automatic campaigns can sometimes pull in irrelevant keywords. That’s why it is important to review and optimize them constantly.

Manual Campaigns

You get full control with manual campaigns. You choose the keywords and make sure they align perfectly with your products. As a keyword research tool I always recommend Helium10.

Benefits on manual campaigns:

  • You can target specific search terms for better conversions
  • Full control over ad spend and keywords

My Pro Tip: Run an automatic campaign for a couple of weeks, then review the keywords that are converting well. Use this data to set up a high-performing manual campaign that focuses on those winning keywords.

5.  Negative Keywords: A Basic Must-Have

One of the easiest ways to save money on your automatic campaigns is by using negative keywords. These are keywords you don’t want your ads to appear for. Using negative keywords isn’t a hidden gem – it’s a fundamental strategy.

For example, if you’re selling steel water bottles, but Amazon is showing your ad for “glass water bottles,” that’s a waste of ad spend. People will click, but never buy, and your ad cost will explode – worst scenario ever. By adding “glass” as a negative keyword, you make sure your ad isn’t shown to the wrong audience.

Benefits of negative keywords:

  • Saves your ad budget
  • Improves targeting for better ROI
6. Example Campaign Setup

Ready to get started? Here’s a basic ad strategy you can follow:

  1. Do keyword research (or use the one you already did while setting up your listings).
  2. Launch a manual campaign using the researched keywords.
  3. Launch an automatic campaign and run it for a couple of weeks to gather data.
  4. Use negative keywords to exclude the search terms of your manual campaign.
  5. Review the auto results and identify which keywords are driving sales.
  6. Create a manual campaign targeting those high-performing keywords.

By following this process, you can gradually optimize your campaigns and reduce wasted spend.

Pro Tip: Download my free campaign strategy guide to get a detailed, step-by-step plan for setting up both automatic and manual campaigns.

7. How to Measure Your Ad Performance

Once your ads are live, it’s time to monitor how they’re doing. The metrics I focus on most are:

  • Impressions: How many people are seeing your ads.
  • Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of people who clicked on your ad after seeing it.
  • Conversion Rate: The percentage of clicks that resulted in a sale.
  • ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale): This tells you how much you’re spending on ads for each dollar of revenue.

My Pro Tip: ACoS is one of the most important metrics to watch. Ideally, you want this to stay below 30%. If it’s higher, it’s time to review your keywords and bids.

Ready to Crush It with Amazon Ads?

If you want to scale your business on Amazon, mastering advertising is a non-negotiable. With the right mix of Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Display Ads, you’ll be able to drive traffic, boost sales, and grow your brand.

Remember, it’s not just about running ads but optimizing them – start with automatic campaigns, refine your keywords, and set up manual campaigns for better conversions.

Use negative keywords to save your budget and monitor key metrics like ACoS to ensure you’re maximizing ROI. With the right approach, Amazon ads can be a powerful tool to scale your business.

Let’s make it happen together. Download my free campaign strategy guide and start optimizing your Amazon advertising today!

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