An Advanced Guide to Amazon Marketing Services
Explore the different types of services included in Amazon Marketing Services or AMS and how you can use them to your benefit as a seller on Amazon.
AMS or Amazon Marketing Services is a pay-per-click platform for the ecommerce giant, that many qualifying sellers seem to underutilize. AMS helps sellers get visibility for their products from relevant visitors based on a number of factors. These include products, keywords, and the shopper’s interests. The AMS platform includes the following services:
- Product display ads
- Amazon pages
- Sponsored product ads
- Headline search ads
How Can I Qualify for AMS?
Amazon Marketing Services are only available to approved accounts with specific credentials. To qualify for AMS, you need to have:
- A Kindle direct publishing account
- A vendor express login
- An advantage central login
- A vendor central login
You can also request an invitation to represent a vendor. Indeed, many sales recruitment agencies often have candidates that specialize in optimizing Amazon PPC for different vendors. Many people make a professional living out of PPC optimization, including for AMS.
The Easiest Way to Access AMS
The easiest and most direct method to get access to Amazon Marketing Services is through a vendor express login. In the vendor express model, the vendors sell their products directly to Amazon, who then becomes the seller. In this case, control of your product listings rests with Amazon. Here’s how you can access AMS in four easy steps using vendor express:
- Create a vendor express account
- Add a product or products to vendor express
- Accept the purchase order raised by Amazon
- Register for Amazon Marketing Services
Now that you understand how to access AMS as an Amazon vendor, it is time to look at what services it offers you.
Types of Amazon Marketing Service Ads
AMS allows you to run three different types of ad campaigns as a vendor. These include headline search ads, product display ads, and sponsored product ads. Read on to find out more about them.
Headline Search Ads
Headline search allows you to create an ad promoting a maximum of 3 products and select a landing page for the people who click on it. You can choose from between 3 options:
- Create a page promotes up to 3 products and assigns a landing page
- Your Amazon page only promotes a single product and lands on your Amazon page
- Custom URL allows you to add a custom landing page on Amazon for people who click on the ad
The next step is to set a budget for your campaign (a minimum of $100) and a name for it. You will also need to select how long you want the campaign to run. Following that, you will add keywords to the campaign, and decide how much you want to bid on them.
AMS recommends starting with around 30 to 40 keywords at first, whether manually or through a spreadsheet, with 1 to 2 words at most in each keyword. There are three types of matches you can expect:
- Broad matches that include words before, after, or between the keyword
- Phrases that include words before or after the keyword
- Exact match to your keyword or keyphrase
If your ad appears on the top of the first page of search results, it means your bid was successful. You can use Amazon’s guidelines to create an ad. Your ad copy can contain words like “new” and “exclusive”. You can use calls to action like “Save Now” or “Buy Now”. The product detail page will contain any claims you make. However, you must avoid making claims you can’t support like “the #1 Seller”
Product Display Ads
Product display ads are a PPC service from AMS that drives traffic to a specific product page on Amazon. These ads make use of products or interests to target relevant shoppers. These ads are visible on the right side of a product page on Amazon below the Buy Box. Unlike sponsored product ads, product display ads target a specific brand, instead of a product. Product display ads use two targeting methods:
- Product targeting allows you to select the pages you want your ad to be visible on. It lets you select specific Amazon standard identification numbers and products related to them to display your ad
- Interest targeting allows you to choose specific shopper categories or interests to display your ad
Product targeting is very useful if you want to steal away customers from your competitors and similar products priced higher than yours. After adding the specific keywords, UPCs, and ASINs, you can move on to the campaign settings. Here you will give a name to your campaign, set bids, and define the duration and budget.
After 24 hours of your campaign going live, AMS will start generating performance data. It will give you various metrics and analytics including CTR, impressions, clicks, detail page views, total spend, units sold, the average cost per click, and several others. You can use these metrics to improve and adjust your campaign for better performance.
Sponsored Product Ads
Sponsored Product Ads are a fairly straightforward and popular service on AMS. This type of ad gives sellers more control over Amazon merchandising. It allows you to boost the visibility of your product with a targeted ad whenever a shopper searches for the keywords that you bid on. You only have to pay when the visitor clicks on your ad and lands on the Amazon page where the product is listed. You can manage sponsored product ads in seller central.
Conclusion
Amazon Marketing Services or AMS offers vendors the opportunity to increase their product or brand visibility, and thereby generate more sales. However, optimizing pay-per-clicks does come with a learning curve. If you can’t devote enough time to AMS, try getting a PPC contractor from your local recruitment agencies. Their professional experience with writing ad copies and optimizing costs per click will definitely help you generate more clicks and sales.