Want To Market With Amazon Next Christmas? Now Is The Time To Start!
You know who had a great year in 2020? Amazon. We’re talking about record-breaking numbers here! In 2019, the eCommerce giant net a little less than $12 billion. For 2020? We’re looking at something in the area of $90 billion. That’s insane! It makes sense, though. With millions of people forced into quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many folks have turned to Amazon to get their goods without leaving home. For digital businesses, this creates an opportunity for growth because Amazon carries a lot of brand recognition and loyalty. Being on their platform means those shopping your company are more likely to convert because if a multi-national conglomerate of that magnitude wants to partner with you, then you must be worth buying, right? That’s the logic, at least — and it works!
Are you thinking about getting in on all that action? Wise decision! But to successfully market with Amazon for the 2021 Holiday Season, you need to get started now! Why? Because you need time to collect user data, gain sales ranking, and more. One winning strategy to help you get there? The PPC tool.
PPC is a misunderstood tool that helps with indexing, plus gaining and solidifying organic sales rank. While it may not create massive direct click-through sales initially, it ultimately helps your listing as time goes on, accumulating more relevance as Amazon recognizes your brand and its attributes in searches, relevancy, and sales.
The keywords incorporated into your listing not only increase relevancy in the general Amazon algorithm, but paying to bid on those keywords also boosts both relevance and sales. The more relevant your listing to the keywords associated with PPC campaigns, the more favorably the Amazon algorithm (a boolean-based search that recognizes keywords and symbols) will view your listing.
The more impressions your listing garners through PPC, the more favorably the Amazon algorithm will view your brand as relevant to associated search terms while also helping index you further in the desired category in which you wish to be.
When you begin to garner sales through sessions, you’ll start converting. Why? A certain mathematical ratio nearly guarantees it — the .5% Squared Rule! For example: 50,000 impressions = 500 sessions = 1 sale. That is a flat, conservative standard to scale direct PPC-to-sale expectations.
But the impact of PPC doesn’t end there! Here’s why: PPC metrics can only record and report direct clickthrough sales — which is when somebody enters a session, they decide to purchase, and they buy with no interruption.
Although the metrics Amazon feeds the PPC side of sales is accurate, it doesn’t paint a complete picture of these campaigns’ effect on overall sales and rank. For example: someone clicks on a sponsored ad and enters a session with your listing. They decide not to buy it right then, but they copy the URL and send it to a friend, add it to a wishlist, or revisit it later after bookmarking. They may even add it to the cart, but Amazon doesn’t provide in-cart metrics! Whatever the case, they don’t immediately purchase but instead have later sessions on the listing that are irrelevant to what our PPC records. The point being, PPC has an absolute overall effect on overall sales in many different ways — but Amazon doesn’t provide those metrics outside of the direct session that occurs after a click-through on the ad.
Again, this is a long-term strategy, and an increase in sales is evident after effective PPC campaigns begin to run. At that point, your brand is gaining so many things with a small investment in ways that may not scan in the metrics provided by Amazon in Campaign Manager.
Viewed from another perspective, you are actively paying Amazon to make and keep you relevant by using PPC. With the right keywords in place and profitable campaigns associated with those keywords, you are already gaining rank in relevancy—yes, by paying Amazon—but you gain more relevance for that search term with every click.
PPC associated with those valuable keywords and sales, either direct from PPC, as a secondary saved option, or even in relevance to the keywords you are trying to gain organic rank in, only benefits those who invest in them and work towards the algorithm actively. Even if not leading directly to sales, the gains made through PPC campaigns is a soft influence that teaches the Amazon algorithm to work towards your favor.
Getting started with your PPC today might sound a bit overwhelming. Still, if you’re looking to make the kind of sales numbers one might expect from a partnership with Amazon during the 2021 Holiday Season, you need time for this critical tool to do its job and gain your brand a solid ranking — you can’t rush the process. The longer your account is around, and the more data you accumulate, the higher you’ll appear in search results. However, you don’t have to do it alone! SAMA Labs now offers Amazon Marketing services, and our experts know exactly how to get you to the top!
