Amazon sponsored products management

[Tomybay]

Hi all,

I'm finding myself spending more and more money with Amazon PPC and even though I have quite an "ok" result, I still feel that I can do better (with a bit of more time..).
However, as most of you know, analysing all the daily/weekly PPC reports from Amazon is a real time consuming, so I thought to get some help (managing& optimising ) from a freelance or a company, specialising in that field.

Anyone have any experience with sponsored products manager?

Would be much appreciated.

 

[Page]

Is there such a thing ?

 

[Tomybay]

Yes, there are some companies that offer this services (similar to google ppc management)

Some also offer different types of software that supposed to make your life easier managing Amazon sponsored products. The question is, if anyone have any good experience (or bad) with this available options?

As I said, without noticing, it become quit a big expense for us, so want to be sure we are on the right way..

 

[Page]

Can you give me a couple of examples of firms that do this type of stuff

 

[Page]

Our view on ASP - is that it no longer pays in a general sense
Maybe some are maybe making it work but read lower down

Amazon must be laughing their cotton socks off - they get an advertising rake and then a sale rake and even if the buyer does not buy the item from the ASP the click through

WOW - and all on their own site

The way we see it - is that Amazon have gone through and are going through some serious changes that affect sales
There is nothing you can do about this - it is whether you can still make it work within the new infrastructure

So if we look at ASP - you can spend on them - but then even when someone has clicked and gone to that listing - they are surround by images of other similar products and customers have bought these and even more ASP's

This is TOTALLY different from say google adverts that then take you to a web site and away from everyone else selling similar things

In the long run the market will find its own level on ASP's but at the moment with the Chinese flooding in and also new sellers all the time
They are all trying to get an edge on Amazon and up there and thinking - I will spend on ASP to get noticed

But the days when this mattered except in the very immediate return on spending and sales are over

Because even if you do get to the top of the pile - they are surround by ASP's and people trying to knock you off your perch etc etc
Just as you have done to others

 

[Mr D]

You can compete with ASP or you can try competing without ASP. Which one gives you more profit?

 

[Jayser100]

My main concern recently has been the potentially negative effect ASP can have on your listings. As I'm sure you know, if your product keeps appearing in search for a particular keyword term but nobody buys it, your item will get bombed down the search results, because the Amazon algorithm will decide your product is probably not what people making that search actually want. Because of this, if you're not careful, I think ASP can actually harm your products because all it does is make your item appear a lot more without actually being purchased.

It's not easy to know to what degree ASP results integrate with normal results for a given product such that the item's search 'rating' is affected but I believe it almost certainly is.

It is therefore very important that you use negative keywords to ensure your item isn't appearing on searches where the customer clearly isn't going to want your product.

By way of example, I discovered that my sunglasses were showing up when people were searching for 'prescription sport sunglasses' , because Amazon was taking my ASP search term 'sport sunglasses' and picking it out as relevant. As my sunglasses listed for that term cannot be used for those who need glasses, it is pointless for the ad to show. All I had to do, of course, was add words like 'prescription', 'spectacles' etc. to the negative keywords list to stop that happening.

I think relevancy has never been so important on ASP as it is now - you really have to get that right, and carefully manage your click bids. People are getting desperate and bidding stupid money - I just keep mine at the maximum I'm prepared to pay and if that means the ad rarely shows, so be it. It could get to the point where people push bids up so high the whole ASP thing simply isn't worth it, but certainly in my game (sports sunglasses) we're not there yet. There are plenty of long-tail keywords that my rivals haven't worked out yet and I can still get those relatively cheaply at the moment.

 

[Mr D]

Ah yes the negative words. Sadly underused.
Darn useful though.

 

[Tomybay]

Can you give me a couple of examples of firms that do this type of stuff

CPC Strategy for example. Watched one of their sponsored products webinars. However, after a short chat with them I realised that our budget is not there yet.

It will be worth it (maybe..) only if you spend couple of thousands every month on your ASP campaigns.