Setting Up and Optimizing Amazon PPC Automatic Campaigns

For Amazon sellers, advertising is one of the most powerful tools to gain visibility and drive sales. Amazon PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising is the main component of this strategy, allowing sellers to promote their products in search results and other parts of Amazon’s platform. 

Amazon PPC campaigns see a conversion rate of around 9.58%. This underscores the platform's effectiveness in turning ad clicks into sales and highlights the importance of optimizing product listings to capitalize on this. There are different types of campaigns within Amazon PPC, and one of the most popular options is the Amazon PPC automatic campaign. 

In this blog, we’ll explore what Amazon PPC automatic campaigns are, their benefits, how to set them up, and, most importantly, how to optimize them for maximum efficiency.

Understanding Automatic Campaigns

Automatic PPC campaigns are one of the most popular types of advertising options available to sellers. They provide an easy and effective way to promote products without requiring deep expertise in keyword research or manual bidding strategies. Let’s break down the essential elements of automatic campaigns to understand how they work and why they are beneficial for sellers.

What are Amazon Automatic Campaigns?

Amazon PPC automatic campaigns are a type of ad campaign in which Amazon’s algorithm automatically selects relevant keywords and product placements for your ads. Instead of manually choosing keywords, Amazon’s system uses a combination of factors, such as your product’s details, the content in its listing, and user behavior. It helps you determine where and when your ads will appear.

This means that with Amazon PPC automatic campaigns, you don’t need to spend time researching and selecting specific keywords—Amazon does the heavy lifting for you. The automatic campaign uses broad targeting and gives your ads a chance to be displayed in various places across the Amazon platform, including on search results pages and product detail pages.

Beyond a basic understanding, let's walk through the practical steps of setting up your own automatic campaign.

Steps to Plan Amazon PPC Auto Campaigns

Planning for Amazon PPC auto campaigns is a relatively straightforward process, but understanding the nuances can significantly impact your campaign's effectiveness. Setting up an Amazon PPC automatic campaign is a simple process. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started:

Steps demonstrating how automatic campaigns work:

1. Select the Campaign Type: When creating a new campaign, you’ll select “Automatic Campaign” under the campaign type. Amazon will then guide you through the process of setting up the campaign.

2. Choose Your Product: You’ll be asked to select the product or products you want to advertise. This can be a single product or a set of products in your catalog.

3. Set Your Budget and Bids: Decide on a daily budget for your campaign and the default bid you’re willing to pay for each click. You can also choose an advanced setting that allows Amazon to adjust your bid based on factors like the possibility of a sale.

Mastering budget and bid management is crucial for efficient Amazon PPC campaigns. While manual adjustments can be time-consuming and prone to error, utilizing AI-powered tools like SellerMate ensures your campaigns are always optimized for maximum performance.

SellerMate's recommendation feature automates dayparting with AI precision. Get hourly bid & budget recommendations that automatically create rules customized to your campaign's performance. 

4. Create the Campaign: Once you’ve set up the product, budget, and bid, you can launch your campaign. Amazon will automatically begin displaying your ads based on its algorithm.

5. Set Up Ad Groups: When creating your automatic PPC campaign, start by setting up ad groups. Amazon automatically organizes products based on relevance to customer searches, eliminating the need to manually select keywords. You simply organize your products into ad groups, and Amazon determines the best keywords to target based on product content and customer behavior.

6. Different Structures for Targeting Campaigns: You can structure your auto campaigns by product category, price range, or seasonality, depending on your goals. While Amazon handles keyword targeting, a clear structure ensures your campaigns are efficient and helps Amazon better target the right audience.

7. Adding Negative Keywords: To avoid irrelevant clicks, add negative keywords to your auto campaign. This prevents your ads from showing for unrelated terms, saving your budget. Regularly reviewing search term reports helps identify these terms, which you can then add as negative keywords for better campaign performance.

Amazon auto campaigns are easy to start, but ongoing optimization is key. Regularly review data, add negative keywords, and adjust bids for best results. This strategy utilizes Amazon's automation for increased visibility and sales.

Now that we've discussed how to set the PPC automatic campaigns, let’s discuss what tangible advantages PPC automatic campaigns offer.

Benefits Of Using Automatic Campaigns For Sellers

The appeal of Amazon PPC automatic campaigns lies in their simplicity and ease of use. These campaigns are especially beneficial for new sellers or those who may not have a lot of experience with keyword research. Here are the key benefits:

1. Time-saving: Since Amazon takes care of keyword selection and targeting, sellers can focus on other aspects of their business without worrying about manually adjusting their campaigns.

2. Access to Broad Reach: Automatic campaigns can expose your products to a wide range of relevant customers. Since Amazon’s algorithm uses product content and user data, it places ads where they are most likely to convert.

3. Data Insights: With an automatic campaign, sellers can gather valuable data on how their products perform under different conditions. These insights can help inform future marketing decisions and campaign optimizations.

4. Ease of Setup: Setting up an Amazon PPC automatic campaign is quick and easy. There are fewer decisions to make during the campaign creation process, making it an ideal choice for sellers who are new to PPC advertising.

   
   

Automatic campaigns streamline advertising, saving sellers time and boosting visibility. They offer data-driven optimization and cost-effectiveness, making them essential for growth in today's competitive market.

To truly appreciate these benefits, it's essential to understand how automatic campaigns stand apart from other Amazon PPC options. Let’s explore it further in the next section.

What Sets Automatic Campaigns Apart From Other Campaign Types?

Amazon offers three main types of PPC campaigns: automatic campaigns, manual campaigns, and product targeting campaigns. While automatic campaigns are simple and hands-off, manual campaigns require more effort from the seller.

Automatic Campaigns	Manual Campaigns	Product Targeting Campaigns
As we discussed, Amazon’s algorithm selects keywords and placements automatically based on your product’s content and user behavior. The focus is on maximizing reach with minimal input from the seller.	In a manual campaign, the seller is responsible for selecting specific keywords to target. This allows for more control over the campaign but requires in-depth keyword research and frequent adjustments to stay competitive.	These campaigns allow sellers to target specific products or categories rather than keywords. This is useful for targeting competitor products or similar items.

The key difference is control and effort. While automatic campaigns provide ease and simplicity, manual campaigns give sellers the chance to refine their targeting. The best approach depends on the seller’s experience level, goals, and willingness to invest time in optimizing campaigns.

Also Read Amazon PPC Strategies: Tips and Hacks to Increase Sales

Now, let’s explore how Amazon's system intelligently selects relevant keywords.

How Does Amazon Determine Which Keywords to Focus on For PPC Campaigns?

Amazon's approach to determining which keywords to focus on for PPC campaigns is a multifaceted process that involves a combination of its algorithms, seller input, and data analysis. It identifies which keywords to target in automatic campaigns by analyzing a few major factors. These include:

1. Product Title and Description: Amazon looks at the words used in your product title and description. For example, if your product is a “wireless Bluetooth speaker,” Amazon will consider keywords related to Bluetooth, wireless technology, and speakers.

2. Backend Search Terms: The backend search terms are the keywords sellers input when creating a listing. Amazon uses these to understand what the product is and how it should be marketed.

3. Customer Search Behavior: Amazon analyzes user searches and browsing history to determine what products are relevant to specific keywords. If a shopper searches for “wireless headphones,” Amazon might show your wireless Bluetooth speaker as an ad, assuming it matches the customer’s intent.

4. Competitive Products: Amazon also looks at the behavior of competing products, including their titles, reviews, and keywords. This helps Amazon figure out where your ads should appear in relation to similar products.

By relying on these factors, Amazon ensures that automatic campaigns target keywords that have the potential to drive relevant traffic to your listings. These factors help sellers optimize their PPC campaigns and improve their product visibility.   

With an understanding of the targeting mechanism, let's learn more about the inner workings of how these campaigns function.

How Amazon PPC Automatic Campaigns Work?

Amazon’s Automatic PPC Campaigns are designed to simplify the advertising process by letting the platform handle most of the work for you. This allows sellers to focus on other aspects of their business while Amazon’s algorithm optimizes the ads. Here's a breakdown of how these campaigns work:

1. Product Listing Content Drives Targeting

When you create an automatic campaign, Amazon uses the information in your product listing (title, description, and backend search terms). This helps you determine which search queries and shopper behaviors your ads will be shown for. 

Essentially, Amazon’s algorithm reads your product’s content and matches it with relevant keywords. This makes it easy for sellers since you don’t need to conduct keyword research yourself.

2. Amazon Algorithm Selects Keywords and Placements

Once the product listing is analyzed, Amazon automatically selects the keywords that are most relevant to your product. These keywords are based on various factors like your product’s title, customer behavior, and other products in the same category. 

Your ad will then appear in the most relevant positions, such as at the top of search results, within related product suggestions, or on product detail pages.

3. Broad Targeting for Maximum Reach

In an automatic campaign, Amazon uses broad targeting, meaning your ad can appear in various contexts and places on the platform. This approach helps your product get more exposure without you needing to micromanage where it shows up. The goal is to reach a wide audience of potential buyers interested in your product.

4. Dynamic Bidding Adjustments

Amazon uses dynamic bidding in automatic campaigns, allowing it to adjust your bid based on the possibility of a sale. For example, if Amazon detects that a particular search query has a higher likelihood of converting into a sale. 

It will increase your bid to improve the chances of your ad being shown. Conversely, if the probability of a sale is lower, the bid is adjusted downward to save on ad spend.

5. Regular Reporting for Insights

Once the campaign is running, Amazon provides regular reports to help you track the performance of your ads. These reports show key metrics such as impressions, clicks, and conversions. Over time, you can use this data to fine-tune your campaigns, identify successful keywords, and add negative keywords to filter out irrelevant traffic.

6. No Manual Keyword Research Required

The biggest advantage of automatic campaigns is that they require minimal input from the seller. Amazon’s algorithm automatically determines which keywords and product placements are the best fit, freeing up your time for other tasks. 

However, while you don’t manually pick the keywords, you can still adjust the campaign by adding negative keywords or modifying your bids.

7. Optimizing and Refining Over Time

While automatic campaigns are set to run with minimal input, it’s still important to monitor their performance. You can continually optimize your campaigns by analyzing data from your campaign’s search term reports and adjusting bids, budgets, and negative keywords. 

To maximize the effectiveness of your automatic campaigns, let’s discuss the crucial tips for optimizing your campaign settings.

Tips For Automatic PPC Campaign Settings

Understanding the complexities of Amazon PPC campaigns can be challenging, success in advertising depends on knowing the proper campaign parameters. When setting up an Amazon PPC automatic campaign, consider these best practices to ensure the campaign is set up for success:

1. Start with a Modest Budget: Begin with a smaller budget to test how your ads perform. Once you see which keywords and products are generating sales, you can gradually increase your budget.

2. Use Dynamic Bidding: Enabling dynamic bidding allows Amazon to automatically adjust your bids based on the possibility of a sale. This can help maximize your ad spend efficiency.

3. Focus on a Single Product or Product Group: It’s easier to manage and track the performance of one product or a small group of products. Trying to advertise a large number of items in one campaign can dilute the effectiveness of your ads.

4. Monitor and Adjust Over Time: Even though Amazon does most of the work, it’s still important to regularly check your campaign’s performance and make adjustments as needed.

While automation provides a strong foundation, strategic refinement is essential. So, let's discuss how to optimize Amazon PPC automatic campaigns.

How to Optimize Amazon PPC Automatic Campaigns?

Amazon PPC automatic campaigns offer a convenient starting point, but their true potential lies in optimization. Optimizing Amazon PPC automatic campaigns requires analyzing data and adjusting settings to improve performance. Here are some strategies to optimize your campaign:

1. Refine Your Negative Keywords: While automatic campaigns target keywords based on your product content, sometimes irrelevant searches can trigger your ads. Regularly add negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing on non-converting searches.

2. Analyze Search Term Reports: Amazon provides search term reports that show which keywords triggered your ads and led to conversions. Use this data to identify high-performing keywords and low-performing ones, then adjust your bids accordingly.

3. Monitor ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sale): Keep an eye on your ACOS to ensure your ads are profitable. If your ACOS is too high, consider reducing your bids or adjusting your product listings to improve conversion rates.

4. Adjust Your Bid Strategy: If you notice certain keywords or placements are driving more sales, consider increasing your bid for those keywords. Similarly, reduce your bids on low-performing keywords.

5. Switch to Manual Campaigns for Further Control: Once you’ve collected enough data, consider transitioning to a manual campaign where you can take more control over keyword selection and bidding.

Take your Amazon PPC campaigns to the next level with SellerMate, which helps you optimize your ads, increase conversions, and reduce wasted spend. With its advanced tools and insights, you can easily manage and refine your PPC strategies.

Summing Up

Amazon PPC automatic campaigns are a great tool for sellers looking to quickly launch ads and reach a broader audience without needing extensive keyword research. While these campaigns are easy to set up and manage, optimization is key to ensuring they deliver the best results. 

By refining your negative keywords, monitoring performance, and adjusting your settings, you can significantly improve the efficiency of your Amazon PPC automatic campaigns. This will, in turn, help you drive more sales for your business. Whether you’re new to PPC or looking to simplify your advertising efforts, automatic campaigns offer an accessible and powerful way to grow your brand on Amazon.

With the right PPC strategy, you can turn every click into a potential sale. SellerMate is ready to optimize your Amazon PPC campaigns, ensuring your ads reach the right audience at the right time. Book a demo with us now to start generating consistent, high-quality traffic for your products!

FAQs

Q1. Can I set a budget for an automatic campaign?

Ans- You can set a daily budget when creating an automatic campaign. Amazon will only charge you up to this amount each day. Starting with a modest budget is important to test how your campaign performs and adjust as necessary.

Q2. How does Amazon decide the bid for my automatic campaign?

Ans- For automatic campaigns, you set a default bid for each click, but Amazon also uses dynamic bidding, meaning it may adjust your bid depending on the possibility of a sale. You can also choose to enable options like "up and down" or "down only" for more control over bid adjustments.

Q3. Can I run multiple automatic campaigns at the same time?

Ans- You can run multiple automatic campaigns for different products or product groups simultaneously. However, monitoring performance is important to ensure you’re not overspending or spreading your budget too thin.

Q4. Can I use an automatic campaign for all types of products?

Ans- Yes, automatic campaigns can be used for any product, but they work especially well for new listings or products without established sales histories. This is because automatic campaigns allow you to gather initial data and learn which keywords resonate best with your target audience.