In this post you will learn about new types of campaigns that Amazon has just launch recently: Product Attribute Targeting and Enhanced Auto Targeting. There is some money can be made improving your Amazon Search Terms through Amazon Product Targeting.
We will show you through these new Amazon campaigns including how to create them and what we can do with them. So, stay tuned and let’s get started!
1. What are the new Amazon campaigns.
PAT – Product Attribute Targeting
It is the Amazon’s newest product targeting capability. Amazon used to do this for themselves, however they opened full control to every seller.
By using Product Attribute Targeting, sellers and vendors can get their ads to appear (or bid on):
- Specific listing or PDP (product detail pages)
- Specific categories
Sub-category targets can be further refined by brand, price range and star rating. However, PAT can only be used at the Ad-group level in a manual campaign.
You can also negate Target Search Terms (ASINs), but only at the Ad-group level.
Product Attribute Targeting (PAT)’s Ads can appear as the Sponsored Product Ad in pages. Examples; Search results, Product details, Add-to-cart, Check out and Thank you pages.
EAT – Enhanced Auto Targeting
Enhanced Auto Targeting (EAT)’s is Amazon’s newest iteration of automatic campaigns. With Enhanced Auto Targeting there are now 4 different default Amazon product targeting options within auto campaigns including:
- Loose Match (queryBroadRelmatches): Targets loosely related Costumer Search Terms.
- Close Match (queryHighRelMatches): Targets highly relevant Costumer Search Terms.
- Substitutes (asinSubstituteRelated): Targets PDP of product that are substitutes (direct competitors).
- Complements (asinAccessoryRelated): Targets PDP of products that are complements or accessories.
Enhanced Auto Targeting is great because it can show up pretty much everywhere and allows you to buy mixed data (Amazon Search Terms and ASINs) that you can use both in your manual campaigns (Keyword and Product Targeting). It is also easy to setup and it gives intelligence on keywords and search terms that are related listing. In addition it gives intelligence on what products you should or should not target.
Auto targeting will continue to work as it used to, however, it will now allow you to adjust each of the 4 targeting bids within Campaign Manager. As a result, it will also allow you too define budget allocations and more savings.
The EAT Search Term reporting split, Broad, HighRel, Substitute and Accessory will allow us to better understand Amazon Brand Management algorithm and find new opportunities. For instance, listing optimization, product ideas and Amazon product targeting.
2. How do we create Amazon campaigns?
Creating a Product Attribute Targeting Ad-Group
Create an Ad-group and select “Product Targeting”.
- Go to create a normal group.
- Go to select a product.
- Select your default BID.
Then you will have 2 options: Keyword Targeting, as it always was, or the new feature called Amazon Product Targeting.
Selecting Product Targeting Beta. You will be offer 2 different type of targeting:
- Categories
- Select Suggested Categories
- Search for specific ones
- Whenever you use the selected category, you have an option to “Refine”. You can refine by brand, price range and star rating.
- Individual products
- You can add products suggested by Amazon
- Search by name, ASIN, or SKU
- Enter your own list of ASINs
Use proper Amazon campaigns and Ad-group structuring
A proper Product/Campaign/Ad Group structure will go a long way in helping you better understand and manage your data, including helping you scale faster and better while keep control of everything.
Considering you already have an EPBA set-up, and systems in place to manage it for each parent/product.
But what is EPBA? EPBA is one campaign (Exact, Phrase, Broad, Auto) for each keyword match. Therefore, each Amazon campaign targets a specific type of keyword and each campaign is assigned a specific budget. In addition it splits down the matches by campaign level allowing you to keep the Negative terms centralized at Campaign level and you can create a different Ad Groups for each Amazon campaign.
Remember to create a naming system that is either easy to recognize and scalable.
Adding a Product Attribute Targeting campaign
Then you go to add the 5th Amazon campaign, PAT, to your EPBA set.
Each PAT campaign will have 4 Ad-Groups:
- DEF (Defensive)
- ASIN (Competitor Products)
- BRAND (Brand Targeting)
- CAT (Sub Category Targeting)
Now let’s examine each of these Ad-groups.
DEF – Defensive Ad Group
Here you are targeting individual products and you will need to enter all ASINs manually.
Target every ASIN in your catalog. You should include parent ASIN’s and any related video or video review ASIN. Yes, videos have ASINs too, and can be target. As the products, the ASINs is in the video URL.
ASIN – Offensive Ad Group [exact]
Here you are targeting individual products and you will need to select all the products Amazon suggests.
Set the Default BID at about 80% of what you have used for DEF Ad-group.
When creating it, you need to negate all your Brand from this Ad Group (Ad-Groups level → Exclude brands). This technique is called Search Term Isolation and it will save you a lot of money on the EPBA stuff and you can just adapt it and use it in the Amazon product targeting.
BRAND – Research Ad Group [phrase]
This is compared phrase matching campaigns. Here we are targeting all brands within your “Suggested Categories”.
For each Category, select all brands that Amazon allow you (about 50 brands) and add 4 refinements:
- Higher price | Lower rating – bid 100% of DEF Ad-Group
- Lower price | Lower rating – bid 80% of DEF Ad-Group
- Higher price | Higher rating – bid 60% of DEF Ad-Group
- Lower price | Higher rating – bid 40% of DEF Ad-group
When creating it, add your brand as Negative Target (Ad Groups → Exclude Brands) and all suggested ASINs (Ad-Group level → Exclude Products).
CAT – Research Ad Group [broad]
Here you are adding all your “Suggested Categories”.
For each Category, add 4 refinements:
- Higher price | Lower rating – bid 100% of DEF Ad-Group
- Lower price | Lower rating – bid 80% of DEF Ad-Group
- Higher price | Higher rating – bid 60% of DEF Ad-Group
- Lower price | Higher rating – bid 40% of DEF Ad-group
When creating it, add your brand + all the brands as Negative Target (Ad Group level → Exclude brands) and all Suggested ASINs (Ad-Groups level → Exclude products).
EAT – Research Ad Group [broad]
The last one is Enhanced Auto Targeting. It is one of the new auto targeting launched by Amazon.
You must create this Ad-Group within a new existing AUTO campaign (only for campaigns created before 15th of November 2018). However, if you created your Amazon auto campaign after this date, you shouldn’t worry about this.
Set default bid at about 40% of what you have used for DEF Ad-Group.
3. What can we do with these Amazon campaigns?
Download the “Search Term” report
Try to look at the last 30 – 60 days of data (Custom report period)
Use XLS filters to work on only one EPBA + PAT at once.
Mine the good stuff
You should identify Amazon Search Terms and ASINs that have performed well in terms of profitability. You should bid on them directly.
Amazon Search terms
Add them to:
- E in Exact match
- P in Phrase match + Negative Exact [campaign]
- B in Broad match + Negative Phrase [campaign]
ASINs
Add them to:
- ASIN Ad-Group
- CAT Ad-Group only as Negative Target (exclude product)
- BRAND Ad-Group only as Negative Target (exclude product)
- EAT Ad-Group only as Negative Keyword
Remember: The search term report gives you the ASIN on lower case and Amazon will reject the ASIN lower case. Therefore, before you add negative targeting in the campaign manager, you need to change them to capital letters.
Negate the bad stuff
You should identify Amazon Search Terms and ASINs that have NOT performed within profitability (either high ACoS or too much spend without a sale).
Amazon Search terms
Add them to:
- P in Negative Exact [campaign]
- B in Negative Exact [campaign]
- A in Negative Exact [campaign]
ASINs
Add them to:
- CAT Ad-Group only as Negative Target (exclude product)
- BRAND Ad-Group only as Negative Target (exclude product)
- EAT Ad-Group only as Negative Keyword
For instance, if we are selling a product for $10 with a profitability of 50%,we have $5 of profit. So it doesn’t make sense to spend $6 when I would get $5 in my pocket.
Download “Bulk Operation” file
- Make sure the time frame you select matches previous reported timeframes (30 – 60 Days).
- Use XLS filters to work on only one EPBA + PAT at once.
- In column B [Record Type] make only visible: Keywords and Product Targeting.
- Everything else we do not want to change.
Edit bids
We should identify keywords and Targets that have NOT performed within profitability (either high ACoS or too much spend without a sale).
Too much spend without a sale:
High ACoS:
- Set bid to: (Sale Price * Target ACoS%) * CR%
CR = Conversion Rate of that Keyword
Upload edited “Bulk Operation” file
Once you finish theses modifications on the Bulk Operation file, you just need to re-upload it on the platform.
How often should we up-to-date Amazon Campaign data?
We advise you to repeat these last 6 steps as often as you can. It will depend how many people are working on this with you. Everyday would be great, however once a week is a very good time to do as well.
