3 in 1 Case Study: Ultra-competitive PPC Launch
Read time: 5 minutes
As aspiring PPC experts, we often come across clients who have either launched
1) A trending/seasonal product at the wrong time.
2) Multiple variations without deeper research.
3) Launched in highly PPC-competitive niches.
Learn how to deal with all these in a single case study, and how to still maintain a great ACOS.
CLIENT'S SITUATION:
Among the Top 10 Most Searched Products on Amazon Canada (SFR <10 according to Brand Analytics).
- Client launched 4 variations. 3 pack-of-one (priced $8.99 then, $10.99 now) and 1 pack-of-three (priced $15.99 then, $17.99 now).
- Launched at the peak of trend: Hence niche already had extremely aggressive PPC bidding wars (super-high CPC) and cut-throat price wars going on (low profit margins).
- Client had already ordered 4,500+ units. Only 200 for each variation in stock, rest still in transit.
- Landing cost very high, so advertising strategy had to be even more refined
- Goal: sell off all units before the trend dies at overall profit or recover as much investment as possible.
- 0 reviews on listing!
We ran PPC for a while on all variations under the same campaigns.
Analyzed Business Reports. Pack-of-three seemed to convert twice as much as others. It also had the best profit per order, hence keeping PPC bleeding minimum.
Shifted PPC completely to the best-converting and most profitable variation (Pack of three). Daily total orders shot up to 40+ a day. Daily overall ACOS went <25%.
Price raised for other less-converting & less-profitable variations: Capture more profit off the organic orders as they sell out.
All singles in China converted to triples. So now we had less total units to sell off (3 units became one), with more profit per order.
Sales velocity went so high we were at risk of going OOS for the best variation. We increased price by $2, orders still didn’t go down much.
RANKED IN TOP 5 FOR ALL LONG-TAIL KEYWORDS WITHIN A WEEK!
Toughest Part
1) Went OOS on the best variation for a week with trend at peak.
2) Remaining 3 variations converted less, had lower price, hence a very high ACOS (more clicks & less revenue per order).
Shifted PPC back to remaining poor variations to sustain rank on KWs until the best variation got back in stock.
Costly solution, but succeeded.
Best variation got stocked. PPC campaigns shifted back to it, started performing wonderfully again.
RESULTS:
- Main BSR went from 21,000 to top 150. Entered top 5 in sub-category.
- For pack-of-three, $628 spent, $2204 in PPC sales only.
- Ranked top 5 for almost all longtail keywords using PPC only with ACOS of 23% for best variation, TACOS 13%!!
- Avg. 30-40 orders/day.
BUT HOW DID WE DO IT: OUR PPC STRATEGY?
PPC ranking has to be a mixture of aggressive and profitable campaigns by knowing how to find cheap bidding opportunities.
By truly understanding where the ads show.
By understanding where competitors would be bidding less
You can leverage these two aspects to run PROFITABLE PPC ANYWHERE!!
(Hint: Learn how to use Sponsored Display and Sponsored Brands properly).
1. OUR RANKING CAMPAIGNS STRATEGY
Targeted the same keywords from 3 different campaign types to get as much sales and extra boost as possible to ranking. Fixed bidding used everywhere at start to not lose visibility.
- MANUAL EXACT on research-picked keywords we are ranking on. Bid slightly higher than suggested. Top of search placement set at additional 100-150% as this is where the most conversions and sales lie.
- VIDEO ADS Ran Exact on all relevant keywords. Got 16 orders in three days, ACOS under 7.5%. Bid only 20 cents.
Video Ads Tip: For video PPC, Amazon always charges CPC = Bid. If you don’t see any already running video ad on a keyword, there’s no one bidding, set the lowest possible bid to save ACOS, or you’ll just be paying more for the same impressions.
- PRODUCT COLLECTION FROM SPONSORED BRANDS (if selling variations): Requires at least 3 ASINs/variations. Shows like a brand banner even above Top of Search at much lower bids (Cheap bidding opportunity. Barriers for competitors: Need brand registry to even bid here, and then need 3 variations/listings). Ran Exact on all main keywords, bid 33 cents only.
Product Collection Ads Tip: Add your logo, a custom lifestyle image and a catchy title to brand banner when creating campaign for better results. Imagine not just showing above top of search, but being shown with a lifestyle image, your logo and an amazing ad title too!
Top of search according to Amazon’s data is most converting, and second is Video ads due to the space/real estate it occupies on page. These are your main ranking tools.
2. STRATEGY FOR SPONSORED DISPLAY: UNDERUTILIZED BEAST
This has Category Targeting & Views Remarketing. These can get millions of impressions for you in no time even at low bids but will have a very low CVR and low CTR.
Tip: Use a great ad title/copy along with your logo when creating these campaigns to connect with buyers and improve CTR/CVR.
If managed correctly, these impressions alone can bring you more sales than anywhere else. How?
Strategy: We noted down all relevant sub-categories and main category. Targeted all of these with bids of 10 cents only in both. Goal is to keep CPC insanely low to stay profitable
- CATEGORY TARGETING: Don't confuse this with Sponsored Products' Category Targeting!! This is much more efficient as it has a creative that includes your logo and ad title. Got me 300k impressions. $37 in spend. $637 sales. ACOS 5.86%!!! (Return On Ad-spend almost 19)
- VIEWS RE-MARKETING: Almost 1 million impressions in a month. $136 spent. $593 sales. ACOS 23%
3. DISCOVERY CAMPAIGNS STRATEGY: DATA AT PROFIT!!
Massive amount of impressions at low bids. Cover whole niche and get sales from everywhere. Get data at profit. How?
Reverse ASIN top sellers in your niche. Cerebro will show the ‘most frequent words’ at top-right. Copy these.
- Targeted these single word terms In Manual + Product Collection + Video PPC - all Broad - set really low bids (10-30 cents) to keep ads more laser-targeted. Got impressions and cheap sales covering the whole niche, including any new emerging keywords. $400 in sales at 22% ACOS.
- Ran Auto at 35 cents too for the same purpose.
Got tons of useful data with these which was graduated for targeting later.
In short, Sponsored Display and Sponsored Brands helped me bring overall CPC down even in so much competition! While a diversified/well-refined keyword targeting strategy helped me rank without a lot of cost.
Definitely one of the most testing projects so far