Partner spotlight: Sellics shares their Amazon Ads strategy

We founded Sellics in 2014 with a simple idea. We understood instinctively that wherever there are searches there is SEO. We wanted to develop a product that would help brands selling on Amazon improve their visibility and ultimately grow their business.
But when we did the market research, we didn’t find anyone doing that. At that point, we knew we had an opportunity to provide something that could be really useful for these brands. With just enough money to cover three months’ rent, we decided to give it a shot and, very quickly, realized we were right. We’ve come a long way since then but what hasn’t changed is our commitment to stay on the cutting edge.

In a way, we’ve evolved in tandem with Amazon and Amazon Ads, now offering an all-in-one solution for success with advertising, business reporting, and analytics, with SEO at the center. We’re proud to serve sellers, vendors, and agencies around the world with software solutions tailored to their needs.

Getting started with Sellics is simple: We welcome new users with a no-obligation trial and account audit. We offer plenty of self-service resources but also employ a full-time customer service squad. Our aim is to make success in Amazon’s store as easy as possible for our customers.

The advertising opportunities with Amazon are growing, and that’s a great thing for vendors and sellers. Each format has a unique role. While Sponsored Products is a great performance channel, it’s just one component of a holistic strategy. For the same reason you can’t assemble a basketball team with five forwards: Dunking is great, but someone has to pass you the ball first.

Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display ads should be the next go-to for brands selling on Amazon that are on the path to building a full-funnel marketing strategy. You can work your way up to awareness with Sponsored Brands and down to both retention and referral with Sponsored Display.

I know that new formats can be intimidating, but it’s a mistake to let daily optimization tasks keep you from investing in your brand. Instead, consider implementing software that can do the optimizing on your behalf.

One of our customers, an electronics company, was overwhelmed managing around 200 ad groups per each country they were advertising in. It was a challenge just to keep up, let alone do their best. One month after partnering with Sellics' Advertising product, they were able to add over 4.5K keywords with our autopilot automation solution and create efficiencies that led to tripling their orders and reducing their advertising cost of sales (ACOS) by 20%.

But perhaps most importantly, they won back much-needed time that can be more thoughtfully reinvested in their business. When you have a reliably profitable strategy in place, there’s really no reason not to increase your coverage to develop a truly full-funnel approach.

First, I’d suggest establishing your goals and letting that determine your targeting strategy.
For both ad formats, you’re likely to have customer acquisition and sales-oriented campaigns. But for Sponsored Brands, you may want to add brand awareness. And, for Sponsored Display, you might consider remarketing, product awareness, or building brand loyalty.

For keyword targeting, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of conducting proper keyword research and constant auditing for optimal performance. In terms of what to look out for, I’d suggest not shying away from branded keywords and generally keeping an open mind.

For example, for a Sponsored Brands brand awareness campaign, you’ll want to target more general category-level keywords, including branded search terms. In this case, a broader target works because impressions will be one of your main KPIs.

If you’re creating a Sponsored Display sales campaign, I’d recommend targeting your own Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs) with complementary products while also targeting other similar brands’ products, especially if you can add a deal badge for your own products, as both strategies can help increase sales.

In both cases, you’ll want to select your placements using placement modifiers for bids, to increase the opportunities for your ads to appear in product detail page placements and in top of shopping results, respectively.

2. Your ad campaigns are a source of vital information that can and should inform your strategy. Not just your ad strategy on Amazon, but your greater marketing strategy.

The new-to-brand metrics for Sponsored Display and Sponsored Brands represent a significant learning opportunity. For example, once you learn which products bring new customers most often, you should consider building a customer acquisition campaign highlighting those ASINs.

Also, more broadly, dive into the metrics on each campaign, if you can. There is a wealth of information there. Assessing your account health will help you find out where you can create efficiencies and how to learn from your mistakes. Identifying and eliminating wasted spend on non-converting keywords, for example, is the lowest-hanging fruit to increase your profit right now.

3. Finally, if you don’t have time to perform these deep dives yourself, we’re here to help.

We have a wealth of (free) tools available, including the Sellics Grader and Sellics Benchmarker for Amazon PPC that can tell you where you stand now, with tangible tips around how to improve.