First off, congratulations! You have done the sourcing and your product is probably on the way to Amazon fulfillment centers.
But that’s just half of the battle won. The remaining half depends on how big a splash you make in the market and following this strategy, you can make a big splash oh right!
Let’s list down the life-cycle of any product on Amazon.
- Launch
- Scaling
- Maturity
- Stability
This article focuses on the launch stage where you just started selling and want to make a big splash in your market.
Table of Contents
Misconceptions about PPC for Beginners
To start off, let me clear some myths with PPC first…
- I am LOSING money with high ACOS with PPC! HELP!
Your product just launched and its new to the market. It is perfectly normal to see high ACOS (100%-200% even) in the first month of your PPC campaign.
Just remember that the main goal of PPC at launch is to get organic ranking on as many relevant keywords as possible. The main goal of PPC at launch is never to make a profit! Your profit will come from the organic purchases from the organic ranking from your PPC sales.
- I have stopped running PPC because its just costing me too much!
95% of sellers think this way, and its so happen that 95% of these same sellers fail on Amazon.
Never stop running PPC! If you must, reduce the budget to keep the cost low. The moment you stop running PPC, you will find that you will lose the organic rank which you have worked so hard on for the past few weeks.
Trust me, just don’t stop running PPC.
- Once I have set up my PPC Campaigns, I can leave it as it is!
Once again, wrong.
People change the way they search for product over seasons and time. Keywords are dynamic and you need to tweak your campaign according to your customer’s search behavior.
This is not a set it once and leave it kind of tool unfortunately.
Finding Relevant Keywords to Target in PPC
Finding the relevant keywords to target is significantly easier nowadays with the reverse ASIN tool offered by Helium 10, Cerebro.
Helium 10 have made this step so much easier with Cerebro. I have not found any other tool that matches the caliber Cerebro brings to the table.
Imagine fast-forwarding the whole auto campaign that used to take weeks to find highly relevant keywords at a click of a button and fraction of the cost! That is a revolutionary breakthrough in keyword research if you ask me.
Helium 10 contains way more than Cerebro and you can read more about our Helium 10 review here.
P.S. There’re discount coupons in there, so its a win-win for all of us.
You will need a paid version to carry on. Sorry to say that staying free here will do more harm than good for your FBA business. Investing in this one tool is all you need.
Finding the Keywords
- Enter the ASIN of your top performing competitior into Cerebro
- Enter “Get Competitors” and key in the next top 9 competitor as suggested in Cerebro
- Hit Get keywords and let Cerebro scan
Setting up Keywords Filter (Paid Version Only)
- Search Volume -> Set Min to 200
- Organic Rank -> Set range from 1 to 20
- Set Match Type to Organic Only
- Expand advance filers and set Competing Products range to 3 to Max
- Click Apply and let Cerebro Filter
Filter out Irrelevant Keywords
While Cerebro helps you filter out the keywords, there will still be some odd keywords that is totally irrelevant to your product.
Example: Bug zapper keyword appearing for a BBQ product.
So remove those manually. Then save those keywords into an excel list. Those are the keywords that you would want to target in your PPC campaign.
P.S. I hope you will realize that those same keywords need to be in your listing title, bullet points and description too!
Let’s say our keyword list are the following. (This will help you understand how to set up your PPC campaign in the next section.)
- Grilling accessories
- BBQ grill
- BBQ accessories
- BBQ grill accessories
- BBQ grill black accessories
Main keyword = 1 or 2 words keyword
Accessory keyword = 3 or more words keyword
Setting up the Aggressive PPC Campaign
All campaigns run for 7 days and optimize every 7 days for the first month or two. You should start seeing some top 20 organic rank on some of the keywords.
Set Up Auto PPC Campaign
- Set a budget of US$20-US$30/day, Dynamic Bid Down only
- Leave Keyword bid at 50% above suggested bid
- Input negative Exact List as the above keywords [Grilling accessories, BBQ grill, BBQ accessories, BBQ grill accessories and BBQ grill black accessories]
Set Up Manual Exact Match Campaign
- Set budget of US$50/day, Dynamic Bid Down only
- Keyword bid at 50% above suggested bid
- Target Main Keyword List as gathered above [Grilling accessories, BBQ grill and BBQ accessories only]
Set Up Manual Phrase Match Campaign
- Set budget of US$30-US$40/day, Dynamic bid down only
- Keyword bid at 50% above suggested bid
- Target Accessory Keyword list as gathered above [BBQ grill accessories and BBQ grill black accessories]
- Input negative exact list for Main Keyword [Grilling accessories, BBQ grill and BBQ accessories]
Pair Aggressive PPC with Coupons for Increased Momentum
Make sure to run your PPC launch campaign with a digital coupon to see the full potential of this launch.
So at what price shall it be?
Your check-out price after applying the coupon should be at break even +10% price.
Example: Break-even [Landed Cost + FBA Fees + Amazon Referral Fee] price is US$10. If you offer a 10% coupon, you should be listing your price as US$12.6
US$10 for the break even, US$1.6 for the 10% coupon with $0.6 coupon fees and an additional US$1 as your PPC cost absorber.
This is a good guide, but do play around with your price as every market is different.
Conclusion
Remember once again, all campaigns run for 7 days and optimize every 7 days for the first month or two. You should start seeing some top 20 organic rank on some of the keywords.
Once you are satisfied with the launch, proceed to the next stage of scaling up your product with the next PPC strategy.
When changing PPC strategy, it is always a good idea to shut off the old ones AFTER you have activated the new campaign.
The folks over at Pageoneify employs this exact PPC launch strategy which I strongly suggest you check them out if it’s your first time!
This also works best with the tips to get reviews discussed here. Make sure you implement them as well to get reviews in the process!
Note: It is always far better to get sales with reviews on your listing already. This method is for you to consider when just starting out before your first review is in.
Happy Launching!