Amazon EU PPC Advertising - Create, Optimize & Profit
Amazon Europe PPC Campaigns - The Formula For Success
Unless you’re a superhero that speaks 5 languages fluently (English, German, French, Italian and Spanish), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns on Amazon’s 5 European Marketplaces presents a real challenge.
In this article, I’ll teach you how to run successful and profitable PPC campaigns in Amazon Europe, even if you don’t speak the language! You’ll learn how to improve your performance as an Amazon EU seller by creating and optimizing pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns.
Step 1 - What marketplaces to run PPC campaigns?
As an Amazon Seller, there is a lot on your plate - sourcing new products, growing sales, tracking performance, monitoring competitors, managing inventory etc. This list could go on and on! This leads some sellers to be reluctant to take on additional work.
For example, a US seller who recently expanded their business to Europe, may decide just to do PPC in the UK: “I don’t speak these languages, so I have decided not to do PPC in Germany, France, Italy & Spain.”
I have encountered sellers like this on a number occasions, and my response is always the same: “Big mistake. You’re limiting your potential sales”.
By not running PPC campaigns and generating sales from this, you will limit your organic sales and ranking.
You also won’t access to highly valuable keyword data provided by Amazon in their advertising reports. This allows sellers to identify:
The most searched keywords in their niche;
Their highest converting keywords; and
Their worst performing keywords.
A goldmine of information to improve your performance!
The cost-per-click (CPC) is also much lower in Europe than in the US! This offers you the chance to get cheaper clicks and traffic to your listings.
Our friends at Prestozon kindly offered us data to back this up, and a special offer for our readers, which we’ll present later in this post.
Source: Prestozon, data is for the 2 months ending July 15, 2018.
Just imagine the sales and profits you can generate in Spain and Italy with an average CPC below $0.25!
Action point #1 - run PPC campaigns in every EU marketplace! If you don’t, you’ll limit your sales, and miss out on cheap clicks and ultra important keyword data from Amazon.
Step 2 - Keyword research
Now that we’ve established the importance of running PPC campaigns in all 5 EU marketplaces, the next step is to do keyword research. This will provide a list of keywords for you to bid on in manual PPC campaigns.
Here is two pieces of advice when it’s time to do keyword research in German, French, Italian and Spanish:
Keyword research should be done by a native speaker - ideally a language professional with keyword research experience. A comprehensive vocabulary is key to ensure all important keywords are identified and only relevant keywords are targeted.
Target long tail keywords - the aim is to first find the highest volume and most relevant keywords / seed terms, and then generate long tail keyword phrases from these. Long tail keywords are great because they tend to have a lower cost per click (CPC);
Translating your English keywords is not recommended – without doing the “research” part, you will fail to identify keywords and limit the potential traffic to your listing. Furthermore, direct translation of keyword phrases (two or more words) from English into another language can produce a phrase that has a totally different meaning than intended – this will drive non-relevant traffic to your listing and hurt conversion rate; and
Understand the difference between keyword research for Google and Amazon - people search on Google for information, services and products, while searches on Amazon are just for products – prioritize keywords that have buyer intent, over more informational keyword phrases.
BONUS: Want our list of software tools to enhance your Amazon Europe keyword research?
When it comes to keywords for your PPC campaigns, more is generally better. Think of it like a funnel - the more keywords you put into your PPC funnel, the more profitable keywords you’ll get out at the end!
You’ll be able to identify these winning keywords (and the losers) by following step 3 below.
Action point #2 - supercharge your EU PPC campaigns by doing comprehensive keyword research.
If you need help with this, I recommend our Amazon EU listing optimization service, which includes detailed keyword research.
Our keyword research methodology involves a number of steps, including analysis of your competitors’ listings, market research, and the use of software and tools to identify the best keywords to include in your listing and search terms.
For each listing, you’ll also get a product title, bullets, description, search terms and a list of PPC terms to target in your advertising campaigns.
Step 3 - Campaign Setup, Management & Optimization
Campaign Setup
Run Amazon PPC From Day 1
Some sellers like to wait until they generate their first few reviews (5-10) before engaging in PPC on Amazon. The belief is that PPC is more effective and will provide a better return on investment (ROI) once your product has these initial reviews / social proof.
However, I recommend beginning PPC immediately when launching a new product in Europe. New products are given a ranking boost by Amazon for about the first two weeks, and running PPC allows you to maximize this opportunity.
Campaigns With Automatic Targeting
Run an automatic PPC campaign when you enter a new marketplace – once a week, download the search terms report from seller central and see what search terms are converting well. It’s a great way to find new keywords during the launch phase. This is also critical to the keyword research phase and should feed back into your listing.
It is advisable to keep auto campaigns running at all times, in order to discover new search terms that customers are using in your niche.
Campaigns With Manual Targeting
For each marketplace, create campaigns with manual targeting using the keywords found in step 2.
When doing PPC, I recommend two types of campaigns with manual targeting:
*Want to know the difference between broad, phrase and exact match keywords for Amazon PPC? Check out this link!
Research campaigns are very important during the launch phase, in order to identify your best and worst performing PPC terms.
As they are identified, you then move your best performing keywords into performance campaigns - and as the number of keywords increase in the performance campaigns, you can shift your budget from research to performance too.
PPC Management & Optimization
It’s important to monitor performance over time to manage, optimize and improve your PPC campaigns. You don’t need to speak all 5 languages to do this for Amazon UK, Germany, France, Italy & Spain.
Here are the 3 steps to follow (none of which require language skills):
Download the search terms provided by Amazon on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis;
Identify your best performing keywords and increase your spend on these, by moving them to a performance campaign and / or increasing your bid; and
Reduce your bid on loss-making keywords or prevent your ads showing up for them again by making them negative keywords.
However, it can be laborious and difficult to manage PPC campaigns, especially for sellers in Europe as there are 5 marketplaces to focus on.
If you are looking for a software to help automate and optimize your PPC campaigns, I recommend Prestozon for both Amazon EU & US Sellers. You can improve performance and save time with their:
Insightful analytics - to identify your top and worst performing keywords;
Keyword suggestions - to find new keywords for your campaigns; and
Customizable automation - save time by automating your keyword bids.
Use code "AMZE" at checkout for a 1-WEEK FREE TRIAL to Prestozon. You'll also get a 10% discount every month if you choose to subscribe!
Interested in A Done-For-You PPC Service?
Are you a medium to large sized Amazon seller and interested in a done-for-you PPC service?
For over 3 years, AMZ Pathfinder has focused entirely on Amazon advertising services for sellers. With a proven process, backed by cutting-edge software tools and an experienced multilingual team, Pathfinder can take your Amazon PPC to the next level in both Amazon's North American and European marketplaces.
Their founder Brent has also kindly provided an offer to our readers - 10% off your first 2 months if you mention AMZ Europe when signing up.
Sounds like a good fit? Check out AMZ Pathfinder.
Summary
Run PPC campaigns in all 5 Amazon EU marketplaces - otherwise, you’ll limit your sales and miss out on highly valuable keyword data from Amazon;
Do comprehensive research to find keywords to target in your Amazon EU PPC campaigns - if you need help with this, I recommend our Amazon EU Listing Optimization service, which provides a list of PPC terms for you to target;
Start PPC from day 1 when you launch a new product, to maximize the boost you are given by Amazon during this period.
A combination of automatic targeting and manual targeting campaigns is recommended - the latter should be split between research campaigns (broad & phrase match keywords) and performance campaigns (exact match keywords).
Software tools can help you automate and optimize your PPC campaigns. If you are a bigger seller, you can consider a done-for-you PPC service.
Questions? Comments? Something you’d like me to cover next?
Let me know in the comments section below!
I have a small favour to ask too - if you like this post, can you please share it on social media? I would really appreciate it!