Everyone who has worked in PPC marketing has hit the point of keyword research where their mind goes blank, and they can’t think of more keywords to save their lives. As someone who has often found themselves in this spot over the years, I have a few ways to get the ideas flowing again. I’ll be sharing my tips and tricks for Amazon keyword research in this post.
4 Keyword Research Tips for Strong Amazon Ad Campaigns
1. Ask Which Search Terms Are Important to the Client
A good first thing to do when starting this process with a new client or when a client has a new product is to ask them if there are certain search terms that are important for them. This could give you a good starting point and help you understand the kind of searches that are important to the client.
2. Comb Through Keyword Data in Existing Campaigns
Another good step you can take is to go through the existing campaigns. This will show you what keywords have performed well and those that have not performed well in the past. You can do this by clicking into ad groups and then clicking on search terms. Another way you can do this is by pulling a search term report, as shown below.
This will pull all searches from a campaign type and time period and put them in a spreadsheet that is easy to navigate. Past performance is an important factor to consider when conducting keyword research. If a certain keyword has proven ineffective, there’s no need to waste time and money on it.
3. Take a Look at Product Pages & Competitor Pages
Product pages are also a good place to look. Be sure to look at the page of the product you’re advertising and also competitor pages.
Products with long titles often showcase features and use cases that could be good keywords, especially long tail keywords, such as “Bluetooth speaker for my shower” or “portable outdoor speaker,” from the example above.
4. Use Amazon’s Brand Analytics Tool
I saved one of my favorite tools that Amazon provides for last. This is the Brand Analytics tool in Seller Central. You can find it under Brands in the menu. Once there, you will want to go to Search Analytics and then Top Search Terms.
That should take you to the following page to conduct more keyword research.
This tool will provide you with the top search terms for different reporting ranges. It gathers this data from the top overall searches on Amazon.
I appreciate the ability to adjust the reporting range, as this is great for products with seasonality. So if your product is more popular during the summer months, you can see what was ranking well in June of 2024, for example. You can also type in search terms, such as “waterproof speaker,” to lock in even more.
In addition to providing you with the top search terms, Brand Analytics will also give you the top three clicked-on products and the brand, so this is also a great tool to keep track of the top products and brands for certain searches.
Another cool feature of the Top Search Terms tool is that you can take an ASIN and put it in the Top Clicked Products sections, and it will then give you every search that the ASIN is a top three clicked-on product for.
You can do this with your ASINs in addition to your top competitors’ ASINs. I like to use ASINs that rank high in the category to make sure I’m getting as long a list as possible to look for potential keywords.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you are running out of ideas while compiling a keyword list for Amazon. There are great resources in the ad console, such as search term reports, as well as on the product page and in the Brand Analytics tool in Seller Central. For even more ideas to improve your campaigns, read our previous post, How to Build Your Amazon Ads Keyword Strategy.
