Do you need help with the frequency of auditing your Amazon ad performance?
If your answer is “occasionally” or “never,” you might miss significant opportunities to boost your sales and profits.
What is an Amazon Advertising Audit?
An Amazon advertising audit thoroughly reviews your current advertising strategies, goals, metrics, and outcomes. This process helps you pinpoint what’s practical, what needs improvement, and how to enhance your Return on Advertising Spend (RoAS).
Think of it like maintaining your garden!
Just as you wouldn’t neglect your garden for an entire season without weeding, watering, and pruning, you shouldn’t let your ads run for months without conducting regular audits.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss why regular Amazon advertising audits are vital for your success as an Amazon seller and how to perform them effectively and efficiently.
Table of Contents:
- The Importance of Ongoing Amazon Advertising Audits
- Requirements for Conducting an Advertising Audit on Amazon
- A Comprehensive Amazon Advertising Audit Checklist
- Final Thoughts
The Importance of Ongoing Amazon Advertising Audits
Regular audits are a fundamental aspect of managing successful advertising campaigns on Amazon. They help you understand how well your ads perform and enable you to make informed decisions to optimize your campaigns.
Here are some key reasons to conduct regular Amazon advertising audits:
Discover New Opportunities
You can identify new keywords or product opportunities to target by periodically analyzing your search terms and product reports. For example, if you notice the keyword “aluminum water bottle skinny” performing well in an automatic campaign, consider moving it to a manual targeting exact match type for better control and improved results.
Evaluate Campaign Results Against Goals
Setting clear goals is essential for any advertising strategy. Regular audits allow you to assess whether your campaigns meet these objectives by comparing key performance indicators (KPIs) against benchmarks. For instance, if your goal is brand awareness, focus on whether your campaigns generate enough impressions. Reduce your Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS) to increase profit margins.
Optimize Budget Allocation
Effective budget management is crucial for successful advertising. Ongoing audits help you analyze your budget allocation across different campaigns, ad groups, and keywords. By identifying high-performing and cost-effective strategies, you can reallocate your budget to maximize impact and ensure that every advertising dollar is well spent.
Identify High-performing Products
Audits can help you determine which products perform best and allocate your advertising budget accordingly. For example, if you sell clothing online, use an audit to identify which products generate the most conversions and profit. Focus your ad budget on these high-performing products while keeping a small budget to test strategies for the lower-performing ones.
Perform Seasonal Adjustments
Sales on Amazon fluctuate with seasons, holidays, and other factors. Regular audits help you identify these seasonal changes and adjust your advertising strategies accordingly. For instance, there might be a higher demand for outdoor products during summer, while winter sees increased interest in cold-weather essentials. Adjust your ad campaigns to capitalize on these trends and improve your sales and ROI.
Requirements for Conducting an Advertising Audit
Managing campaigns, ad groups, keywords, products, and budgets on Amazon involves many variables. This can be overwhelming. It’s not always clear where to start or what needs improvement. Sometimes, everything is going well, and significant changes aren’t necessary. However, making too many changes too quickly can be harmful.
Before diving into the audit framework, it’s crucial to understand that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. You can create a repeatable and practical framework by focusing on your goals and asking critical questions about optimizing performance.
Understand Campaign Dynamics
Before making any changes, have a broad understanding of your campaign dynamics. Ask yourself:
- Is the campaign ACoS meeting expectations?
- Can you generate consistent sales at the current ACoS?
- Are sales growing over time?
These questions will help you determine where to focus your efforts. For example, expand your reach to increase revenue if your campaigns are close to your target ACoS. If ACoS is too high, reduce wasted ad spend to increase RoAS.
Prioritize Optimization Efforts
After understanding your campaign dynamics, you’ll likely have multiple optimization options. However, it’s not adequate to apply all optimizations at once. Prioritize changes based on your goals. Focus on adjustments that will quickly get you closer to your goals and address significant issues first.
Remember, you can’t optimize all KPIs at once. For example, optimizing for impressions may increase ACoS, while optimizing for ACoS might reduce impressions. Additionally, if you make too many changes at once, you won’t be able to identify which actions led to improvements. Take a logical approach, making changes slowly and observing their effects.
Amazon Advertising Audit Checklist
Here are some questions to guide your audit and analyze your campaign performance:
Is ACoS Above Target?
Check if your campaign ACoS is meeting or trending towards the target. If not, pause bids on high-ACoS keywords or products. If performance is on track, give the campaigns more time to become effective.
Is Your Campaign Structure Easy to Navigate?
Organized campaigns are more straightforward to optimize. Group similar products, use consistent naming conventions, and create separate campaigns for different products. This structure helps you apply different bids, budgets, and strategies more efficiently.
Are You Targeting the Right Keywords?
Regularly audit your automatic campaigns to ensure they target expected keywords. If not, optimize your product listing with better keywords. For better control, move high-converting keywords from automatic to manual campaigns.
How Competitive are Brand and Product Ad Spaces?
Analyze how many sellers are bidding on your brand keywords. If there’s competition, defend your brand by bidding on your keywords. If traffic volume for your brand keywords is low, reconsider bidding on them.
Are High-converting Keywords Increasing Year on Year?
Track the growth of high-performing keywords to allocate your advertising budget more effectively. Focus on keywords that perform well but aren’t ranking organically at the top. Allocate more funding to these keywords to improve their ranking.
Is Advertising Running on Duplicate Keywords?
Find duplicate keywords in your campaigns and analyze their performance. Keep the highest-converting targeting option and pause the rest.
Are You Under-Spending on Your Campaigns or Ad Groups?
If campaign or ad group spending is below your daily budget, check for deliverability issues, defensive bidding, or low traffic volume. Adjust bids and budgets accordingly to maximize sales.
Are You Optimizing Your Bids for Better Ad Placement?
Amazon Sponsored Product ads appear in three spaces: the top of the search, the rest of the search, and the product page. Adjust your bids to capture the top of the search for maximum visibility, or reduce bids if your product ranks organically high.
Are All Products or Search Terms Delivering Results?
Identify under-performing search terms and experiment with increased bids. If they still don’t perform well, pause them. Keep ads on keywords that deliver results and add non-performing keywords to the negative list.
Which Products Perform Best in a Campaign or Ad Group?
Audit your products to identify high and low performers. For underperforming products, ensure you target relevant keywords, improve listings, and competitively price your products. Manage budgets separately for high and low-performing products.
Are You Targeting Competitors’ Branded Keywords?
Targeting competitors’ brand keywords can attract their customers to your products and increase brand visibility. Consider this strategy to boost your brand’s visibility.
Are You Using Bid Modifiers Correctly?
Amazon offers three bid modifiers: Dynamic Bids – Down Only, Dynamic Bids – Up and Down, and Fixed Bids. Choose a suitable modifier based on your goals. Use “Down Only” to reduce ACoS and “Up and Down” for product launches. Avoid fixed bids to prevent budget overspending.
Final Thoughts
Regular Amazon advertising audits uncover optimization opportunities that can lead to significant improvements. Sometimes, the connection between actions and results isn’t clear, requiring testing and observation. Consider increasing bids, adjusting prices, or turning off ads for underperforming products when sales drop.
How eMarspro Can Assist You with Amazon Advertising Audits?
At eMarspro, we understand the complexities of managing successful Amazon advertising campaigns. Our experts are dedicated to helping you maximize your Return on Advertising Spend (RoAS) and achieve your business goals. Here’s how eMarspro can assist you with regular Amazon advertising audits:
Comprehensive Audit Services: We offer thorough audit services to review your current advertising strategies, goals, metrics, and outcomes. Our detailed analysis identifies areas for improvement and new opportunities to enhance your campaigns.
Seasonal Adjustments and Trend Analysis: We help you stay ahead of seasonal trends and market changes by adjusting your advertising strategies to align with seasonal demands, ensuring your campaigns remain relevant and profitable throughout the year.
Advanced Analytics and Reporting: Our advanced analytics and reporting tools give valuable insights into your campaign performance. We provide transparent, actionable reports highlighting key metrics and trends, enabling you to make informed decisions and track progress.
Customized Strategy Development: Every business is unique, and so are its advertising needs. We work closely with you to develop customized strategies tailored to your specific goals and market conditions, ensuring that your campaigns are optimized for success.
Continuous Monitoring and Optimization: Amazon advertising requires ongoing attention and adjustment. Our team of Amazon consulting experts continuously monitors your campaigns, making necessary tweaks and optimizations to keep your ads performing at their best.
Expert Support and Guidance: Our experienced professionals are always available for support and guidance. Whether new to Amazon advertising or looking to enhance your existing campaigns, eMarspro offers the expertise and resources you need to succeed.
Partner with eMarspro to take your Amazon advertising to the next level. Contact us today to learn how we can help you achieve your advertising goals and drive business growth.
