As the e-commerce advertising environment evolves, so too must our advertising strategies. You don’t want to be caught falling behind with an outdated strategy. The basic campaigns and structure that worked to get your account up and running may not continue to perform for you as your brand grows, marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart make changes, and competitors adjust. Let’s look at five advanced strategies we can use when we’re ready to take an account to the next level.
1. Bid Optimizations
Once you have your keyword lists, competitor targeting, and automatic campaign strategies flushed out, we would recommend optimizing the bid for each target in line with your goals. This differs from using different bidding strategies, as some may see with Amazon. With the conversion data attained through the initial testing or previous campaigns’ performance, determine the needed return on that specific keyword for the product you’re directing the ad to.
For example, If you’ve identified the keyword ‘batting gloves’ has a conversion rate of 3% for your men’s batting gloves, and you have a max ACoS goal of 30% and have an average order value of $35, you can determine that a bid of $0.32 is what you’d want to set for that keyword and that product pairing.
The math:
30% ACoS x 3% conversion rate x $35 average order value = $0.315 bid
Doing this for every ad target and every product pairing may seem daunting, but this is where automation tools and rules come into play, as well as a well-designed campaign structure.
2. Campaign Segmentation
The ability to segment campaigns and ad groups based on their goals is critical for more advanced management options. If we want granular control over the bid for each target in relation to the product the ad is delivering, we need to utilize single-product ad groups. Then, by defining all keywords within that ad group with similar intent, we can set different goal levels based on the return of that ad group.
For example, if we’re selling a protein powder, we know there is a diverse group of shoppers that may be a good fit for the product but search differently. Consumers could be shopping for a flavorless protein powder, or they could be searching for a vegan protein powder. While both these searches could be relevant, the intent of these shoppers is different, and the rate of conversion may be different. So, ad grouping all the flavorless keywords into one ad group and then using a separate ad group for vegan-focused searches helps us quickly identify which product value resonates more with shoppers. Then, optimize the bid investment accordingly.
3. Dayparting
We know not all hours in the day are created equal when running ads. People are more likely to shop in their downtime, not at work or on the weekends. A brand looking to advance its advertising strategies needs to look at what time of day its shoppers are most likely to purchase, what day of the week they are likely to buy, and then adjust their bids accordingly.
4. A/B Testing
Once a campaign is created and running, some brands may feel that it’s ‘done.’ It’s not. Campaign optimizations are never done. The days of setting up a campaign and letting it run are gone. Once a campaign is running, we need to routinely adjust factors systematically to see the impact on the results. If we have a different main image in the ad, do people click more? If we try a different call to action, does that drive more views to the product? Rigorios A/B testing of each campaign element is critical to dial in the best performance for that campaign. Brands need to avoid the common mistake of changing too many variables at once since that can muddy the data, and then we’re unsure of what change impacted the results.
5. Audiences
Once we have enough campaign data, we can get a pretty good picture of who the average shopper of a product is. This then opens up audience targeting options. Depending on the marketplace where you’re advertising, audience demographics may differ or be limited. Regardless, these are top-of-funnel strategies that are typically programmatic and have high ad spend investment requirements from the provider or to get enough actionable data. The benefit of audiences is that these strategies can get very granular and target based on real-time shopping behaviors rather than keywords or product targets. This is why it’s critical to have a well-defined strategy and ample data to inform the algorithm who the ideal audience is.
Whether you’re selling on Amazon, Walmart, Wayfair, or any number of other e-commerce sites, ad evolution is constant, and the need to always advance and update your advertising strategies is a never-ending endeavor. Following one or more of these advanced strategies, once you’ve set a good foundational advertising strategy, can help keep your brand at the forefront of your category.
