
A very big market of Amazon needs visibility for great success! It is not that only a listing is enough for a great product; customers need to identify it. Here is where effective Amazon keyword research becomes the driving factor for successful product discovery and selling. Keyword research is simply finding out what terms, words, or phrases buyers use to search for a product like yours.
A basic understanding of this concept is important for any seller who wants to survive because it directly affects their product's visibility, brings targeted traffic, and helps grow Amazon sales. This article is there to explain why careful keyword research will maximize your sales potential on Amazon.
How to Grow Amazon Sales with SEO and Keyword Research
Think of your Amazon product listing as a storefront, and your PPC campaigns as strategically placed billboards. Just as a well-placed billboard attracts the right audience, a well-targeted PPC ad, powered by effective keyword research and SEO, brings highly qualified traffic directly to your product.
Amazon PPC is a bidding system. After a customer has typed a search query, an auction begins at Amazon for ads that it considers relevant. Therefore, Ads that win the auction get showcased in prime positions, such as on top of search results and on product detail pages. Advertisers are only charged if the customer clicks on their ad. That is where Amazon keyword research can greatly come to your rescue.
If you bid on interesting but irrelevant keywords, then you will get clicks from shoppers who have no interest in your product. This will cause your wasted ad spending and low conversion rates. On the other hand, bidding decisions will be weighted toward the most relevant, high-intent keywords, wherein each click would be a potential lead that could drastically improve ACoS and grow Amazon sales.
It is actually a symbiotic relationship: good keyword research defines the terms for bidding on PPC, while successful PPC provides valuable data about the performance of keywords, which can then be used to fine-tune your organic Amazon SEO strategy, thereby creating a robust feedback loop for checking Grow Amazon Sales.
Why Keyword Research is the Bedrock of Successful Amazon PPC
Without thorough Amazon keyword research, your PPC campaigns are essentially shooting in the dark. Here's why it's the fundamental building block:
- Targeted Traffic: PPC allows you to jump the line to the first page of search results. But if you are jumping the line with the wrong search terms, then you are only paying for irrelevant views. Keyword research actually helps ensure you are showing your ad to people actively searching for what you offer; therefore, maximizing the conversion of a click into a sale.
- Optimized Ad Spend: Every single click costs money. Unworthy clicks-laden with irrelevant keywords, will eat away your budget. Focusing, instead, on high intent, converting keywords-oriented via research-your ad Spend will be well spent and will return stiff ROI. This helps you to grow Amazon Sales profitably.
- Competitive Advantage: Solid keyword research lets you decipher what your top competitors are bidding on and, more importantly, identify untapped opportunities. You can go for those keywords that are not being pursued by others, or have low competition (and hence low bid price).
- Improved Conversion Rates: The more closely an ad is associated with keywords that perfectly match a buyer's intent, the more likely it is that the buyer purchases the product. Higher conversion rates not only form a good ACoS but also create signals to Amazon's algorithm that the product is indeed relevant, which over time could push the product higher in organic ranking. This synergy helps you to grow Amazon sales through SEO.
- Better ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales): ACoS is a critical metric for PPC profitability. It's your ad spend divided by your ad-generated revenue. By targeting more relevant keywords, you increase conversions for the same (or even lower) spend, thereby lowering your ACoS and boosting your bottom line.
- Foundation for Campaign Structure: Keyword research directly informs how you structure your Amazon PPC campaigns. You'll group similar keywords into ad groups, assign appropriate bid strategies, and create relevant ad copy, all based on the insights derived from your research.
The Step-by-Step Guide: Leveraging Keyword Research for Amazon PPC
Let's break down how to systematically integrate Amazon keyword research into your PPC strategy to effectively grow Amazon Sales.
1. Start with Broad Keyword Discovery
Start by compiling a complete list of keywords. Mix free and paid tools for this initial brainstorming session.
- Brainstorm: What are all the possible ways a person might look up your product? Features, benefits, uses, and target audience, all these should be considered. For example, for a "portable blender," think "small blender," "travel blender," "smoothie maker rechargeable," "blender for shakes."
- Amazon Autofill: Enter the search terms in Amazon's search box and keep a record of all suggestions that drop. These are actual keywords used by real customers.
- Competitor ASINs: Via reverse ASIN lookup (available in most paid Amazon keyword research tools), find out the keywords your biggest competitors are ranking for. This becomes so very important when you want to understand their strategy.
- Free tools (Sonar, Keyword Tool Dominator): Use these to generate a huge number of related keywords based on your seed terms.
- Paid tools (Helium 10, Jungle Scout, MerchantWords): These give you essential information like search volume estimates, competition levels, and PPC bid estimates that enable you to prioritize keywords.
2. Analyze Keyword Data with a PPC Lens
Once you have a massive list, it's time to sift through it specifically for PPC potential.
- Search Volume: Keywords with a decent search volume take priority. This implies demand and impression potential.
- Relevance: This is the utmost. If a keyword isn't 100 percent relevant to your product, do not bid on it, regardless of its search volume. Irrelevant clicks are money wasted.
- PPC Bid Suggestions: Paid tools sometimes give estimates of costs per click. Use them to find out which keywords are more competitive and possibly more lucrative to bid on.
- Competition Level: Some tools signal the competitiveness of the keywords. High competition often demands higher bids. Scan for less competitive keywords that are equally relevant.
- Buyer Intent: Analyze informational versus transactional keywords. For PPC, you want those keywords that denote a bit stronger intent to purchase; e.g., "buy portable blender with USB charger" vs. "how to clean a portable blender".
- Long-Tail Keywords: Just opposite to what is considered wrong, do not ignore long-tail keywords (3+ words). They have low search volume but higher conversion rates, primarily because of their specificity. On the contrary, low competition and CPCs lead them to be perfect for PPC.
3. Structure Your PPC Campaigns Strategically
Your keyword research directly informs how you organize your Amazon PPC campaigns. A well-structured campaign allows for better optimization and budget control.
- Campaign Types:
- Automatic Campaigns: Here comes the great use of this type of campaign for initial keyword discovery. Amazon will try to match your product with relevant customer search terms. Let them run for a few weeks, then go ahead and download the Search Term Report. The report will give you an idea of real customer queries that resulted in clicks and conversions of your product. The "harvested" keywords are very good candidates to be turned into manual campaigns.
- Manual Campaigns: This is where you have exact control. You get to select which keywords to bid on.
- Broad Match - This allows the ad to show for a broad range of variation in the keyword, misspellings, plurals, and related searches. They are good for discovery.
- Phrase Match- This is more restrictive; it contains your keyword phrase in the exact order, with words before or after. They are useful for catching specific phrases.
- Exact Match- Most restrictive; ads will only show for the exact keyword or very close variations. Used for keywords that are high-converting and highly relevant, where you want to control bids very tightly.
- Manual Campaigns: Sponsored Brands (For Brand Registered Sellers): Use high-performing keywords to promote multiple products or your brand's storefront.
- Sponsored Display: Target audiences based on their shopping behavior on and off Amazon. This is not primarily keyword-based but leverages audience data.
- Ad Groups: Group highly related keywords together into specific ad groups within your campaigns. For example, an ad group for "portable blenders" might contain keywords like "mini travel blender," "rechargeable smoothie maker," and "cordless blender."
- Negative Keywords: Crucial for optimizing ad spend. Add keywords that are irrelevant to your product to your negative keyword list. This prevents your ads from showing for searches that won't convert (e.g., if you sell only portable blenders, add "heavy-duty kitchen blender" as a negative keyword).
4. Continuously Monitor and Optimize
PPC is not a "set it and forget it" strategy. Ongoing monitoring and optimization based on keyword performance are vital to grow Amazon Sales consistently.
- Analyse Search Term Reports: Search Term Reports for your automatic and manual campaigns should be reviewed regularly. It shows what actual terms customers typed, and those were terms for which the ads were clicked on.
- Grab search terms that perform well with conversions, and add them as exact-match keywords to your manual campaigns with the right bidding.
- Add search terms that are irrelevant and getting clicks without any sales as negatives.
- Adjust Organic and Paid Bids: You must make the necessary bid adjustments based on performance (ACoS, conversion rate, or sales) for each keyword. Increase the bids for profitable keywords and lower bids for non-profit keywords.
- A/B Testing: Run A/B tests on a number of factors inside your campaigns, such as the ad copy, headlines, and product images, with the goal of understanding what resonates most with the audience for a particular keyword.
- Check Organic Performance: Keep an eye on the organic ranking status, which is influenced by your PPC operation. PPC-induced sales velocity could be a signal to Amazon's algorithm about relevance to keywords, thereby enhancing your organic rankings for your targeted keywords. This works with SEO and PPC in tandem to promote Amazon sales.
Combining Keyword Research and PPC for Maximum Impact
To truly grow Amazon Sales and dominate your niche, integrate your Amazon keyword research with your PPC efforts for a good strategy.
- Keyword Harvesting Loop: Use automatic campaigns as a discovery engine for new, high-converting keywords. Then, transfer those proven terms into manual campaigns for exact targeting.
- Organic Boost: Use these keywords that are performing well in your PPC campaigns for further optimizing your product listings (title, bullet points, descriptions, backend search terms). This dual optimization helps you grow Amazon sales with SEO and paid efforts working in concert.
- Branded Campaigns: If you have a brand, just bid on your own branded keywords to protect your brand presence and capture those customers who are able to look for you.
- Competitor Conquesting: Use or try to incorporate competitor brands or ASINs as keywords in your PPC campaigns (when allowed and strategically appropriate) to snatch away market shares.
For businesses that find managing this intricate dance too time-consuming or complex, leveraging an amazon ppc agency can be a highly effective solution. These agencies specialize in driving optimal PPC performance through advanced keyword strategies, bid management, and continuous optimization, allowing sellers to focus on product development and overall business growth.
Conclusion
In the competitive arena of Amazon, a mere listing of a product is not enough. To really grow Amazon Sales, you must work on a proactive and intelligent strategy, with good Amazon keyword research for PPC at its center. By carefully considering high-performing keywords, properly structuring your campaigns, and optimizing the campaigns due to adaptive performance data analysis, an ad spend can be one of the major avenues toward growth in sales.
Remember, the conversion of clicks to profits is what ultimately matters. Until now, in-depth keyword research should be the fallback for your guiding principle when planning Amazon PPC campaigns, and see how your products get more visibility and sales on the world's largest online marketplace.