The Full Question:
Can you sell on Amazon without PPC?
The Answer:
Yes, you can though you are missing a few tricks if you do.
Firstly, (and not a trick), when you run ads you get instant exposure to your product and brand. It’s a great leveler. Your product can appear against others that have been selling for years and compete with them. And many buyers like to find something new.
The first trick you are missing if you don’t advertise is that PPC is one of the best ways to get the algorithm to map/align keywords to your product. This means that more search phrases will be linked to your item when people shop which makes more visible.
The search terms that people use get a boost in organic rank when you first get a sale for them (or during launch when you initially get clicks). The algorithms don’t know if your product isn’t selling as much as it could if it cannot be found, and Amazon wants to sell and make money.
So, each time your product gets a sale for a new search term/branch of search terms/groups of search terms, you will get an initial 7–10 day boost in rank. Targeting those search terms as Exact match keywords in ad campaigns is a great way to drive more people to your product and show to the algorithms that it does sell, can sell better than similar-aged competitors and should therefore rank higher organically.
Some Benefits You Might Not Have Considered…
When you advertise and look through the search terms people are using to a) find product and b) buy it, you are getting access to real data that can be used for other areas of your business such as selling on your own website and using SEO to interest regular search engines. It gives you the key language people use to search for your type of product which can then be replicated in your listing content so that when they land on your product page, they see a match for what they are seeking.
Advertising gives you lots of feedback, for example, does your main image attract clicks, is your pricing right, is your title compelling people to take a closer look, do your bullets convert, are your images good, and so on? You won’t get that feedback from organic sales because there is no feedback data for organic sales on Amazon other than the bare minimum.
Is PPC important? Can you sell on Amazon without it? Perhaps and perhaps.
But if your product isn’t showing up near the top of page one it will likely not sell well unless it is a subjective purchase where people are prepared to look further than the opening content of an Amazon search results page.
And if you aren’t advertising you cannot easily take advantage of grabbing keywords from other ASINs. When a shopper first clicks on a competitor product and then finds your ASIN on that page, and then they decide to buy yours, whatever search term they used to land on the original item will be attributed to your listing - AND - if you sell enough items from the competitor product the algorithm will begin to align keywords from that listing to your own product.
Is that worth a bit of extra cost and time running Amazon PPC? If you think no, then I will do it for you ;)
Need help with your Amazon PPC Management?
If you can't stand the stress of managing them anymore, or you wish you could get on and focus on what you love about your Amazon work, feel free to get in touch at heath AT amazonalchemist.com. I might be able to help.
Tags - Amazon PPC Bid Management - Amazon Broad Campaigns - Amazon High ACoS - How to Control Amazon PPC Spend?
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