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Product Targeting Strategies with Elizabeth Greene

Published on June 27, 2024

About this video

In this episode, my colleague Elizabeth Greene from Junglr agency shares the latest strategies for product targeting coming from her experience.

Topics we cover in this video:

1) comparison of results between category level and ASIN level targeting

2) how to run an auto campaign to discover whether product targeting or keyword targeting would work better for your product

3) learn the workaround way for negating products from product targeting campaigns

4) why is it recommended to target your own products?

5) how to decide which products to target

6) methods for targeting by brand and age range

7) selling complementary products through product targeting and unlocking the upsell potential for your product portfolio

8) methods for stealing market share from competitors

9) first results of using product targeting with sponsored brands campaigns

Have any questions? Contact Elizabeth at https://www.junglr.com/

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Transcript

hi everyone this is Yelena from Amazonia PBC and today with me I have a very special guest Elizabeth Green from jungler is here to talk to you about product targeting strategies and some methods that she uses in her everyday work um Elizabeth thank you for being here with me today and welcome to the show yeah thanks so much I'm really excited to do this this is actually my first time doing one of these things so I'm excited this will be a lot of fun me too I noticed that you were very active on Facebook groups especially for PPC Consultants which is where I uh was drawn by some of your posts and I wanted to pick your brain around product targeting and maybe we can share some value to our community around that um so can you tell us a little bit more about yourself how you started um about your agency and what the services that you provide yeah so um our agency's name is jungler we've honestly as far as like really getting into the business and starting like okay this is 100% we're doing we're relatively new to the game um we've been around Amazon for a while actually it's uh my husband and I are the ones who co-founded it um so a little while ago we saw we've seen a huge need and been working with some sellers um and there's a lot of people who just don't have time for PPC or maybe I mean it's a whole animal in itself as I'm sure you know and um it's really something that you can really get down into and learn every single nut and bolt and the more we learn there's always new testing and things to do so we decided to just go full force on that and really provide value to clients and um so we offer uh full service Amazon um PPC management so we also handle AMS we do all the EU markets as well and um handling like sponsored Brands and there's quite a few more that goes into it other than just sponsored products but uh so we offer all of those Services uh to the clients interesting so out of all the campaigns that you manage uh specifically our Focus today is going to be uh product targeting so can you tell us like generally speaking what's your experience with product targeting ever since you started it and versus all the other targeting types what the results are when they're compared toh yeah it's a lot like um keyword targeting in my experience as far as you'll see better conversions the more targeted you are with you know with the other listings that you're targeting so um I I've you want to look on Amazon and see how the product appears look at the reviews relative to yourself as well as the price point relative to yourself because when the when the C customers are seeing your listing like it it's displayed at the bottom of the screen um a lot of times you may have a more premium product but unless your first image really displays that or your reviews really display that the customer is not going to be able to see um you know your additional images or your branding content when you know when they're just seeing the first image so you want to make sure that you have a listing that really can stand out or will stand out against whoever that it is that you're targeting um so we found uh a much better result if we get more specific with uh which listings it is we're targeting and really analyzing how our product Stacks up against that one so that being said you consider like for example as level targeting to be more efficient compared to category level targeting yeah it's definitely more efficient um you tend to have much better results the there's uh a lot of people who the Autos definitely Target other listings as well and those you may find ones that can convert so that's another thing a lot of people will put up an auto and then scrape any converting keywords and then retarget those in a manual you can also do that with asens and that's a great way if if you're not really sure which products to Target and you you know you never dealt with product targeting before you can just go with what's working and retarget you know just kind of ease into it that way and that's a good way to do it um but a lot of Sellers and that's that's a big thing on the groups is how do I negative targeted asens in an auto because I have all these asens popping up and they're not converting that happens a bit with the category targeting if you're not refining it so in in a lot of ways Amazon will just blast you out there but oftentimes they'll blast you to things that are not relevant They Don't Really convert there sometimes you're like why am I on this listing it doesn't even make any sense um so that's it it's definitely it's it's again a lot like keywords the more targeted the more relevant you are oftentimes the better those metrics will be the you know the cost per clicks or the conversion rate um which translates into better a cost so I agree that's exactly our approach as well so when we have like an entirely new account we start by running automated campaigns just to figure out which kind of approach whether keyword targeting or product Target is going to work for this account unless we don't have like a general idea of coming from a client telling us what should we uh focus on but like for example if you let an automated campaign run and you see a lot of faces in the list and your search thems report then it that might be a good indication that product targeting would be the logical Next Step especially with those asens that you already have the data for so it's definitely a great tip for someone to test so when do you use category targeting and going back to category targeting are there any cases in which you would like to test it out and see uh what kind of conclusions can you draw from a campaign that's using category targeting yeah so we have used category targeting most times when we have a seller who's looking to get a very aggressive launch um a lot of times people use say sponsored Brands and they say oh we're creating brand awareness at category Target we'll just blast you out there but it will blast you to say a subsection um so you have a little bit a tiny bit more control possibly um than an auto um and you can also you might you know you might have a couple subcategories that your product can fit into and you can Target say both of those um so you can get yourself really cast a really wide net um however without any control over where your product is showing up a lot of times you may show up under a top comp compor who has a much better price and they might have a little bit higher review count and you're just not going to convert as well on those products unfortunately um but it is something we use when we're looking to just we know we want to go hard and fast and we just W to they are good to say gather the data so if you put like a a decently high bid and you just blast it out there um you can come back with what works and then you know keep refining that or perhaps take those and then stick them in a more targeted as um cat category or as campaign um so that is a technique if we were just we we just need to pay for the data we want to get out there we're just you know we want to go full force that is something that can be done and you can Le scrape a lot of those asens quicker but you're going to have to pay for that um so if you're okay with doing that and that's you know that's something that you want to do that's fine um but just you know realize what comes along with that um another thing we will do is if we would just want Garner somewhere asens we're not worried so much about um doing it hard and fast what we can do is you can set parameters on the category targeting you can refine the um by review count and you can also refine by price point if depending on where your price point is sitting and where your uh star rating is sitting oftentimes it will severely restrict how many asens you show up under so even when you're creating the campaign and you put those refin ments on there it'll say you know if you put these refinements you're not going your impressions are not going to be that High um especially if you're at the higher end of the pricing scale in your category the number of products that are perhaps above your price point is going to be much less uh however if you're not worried so much about just you know getting a lot of eyes on your product you want eyes that are going to convert um those tend to do pretty pretty well and it it also depends on how many products are in your category so if you have a lot of products in in that category you will have you know many more asens for Amazon to choose from to show you up under versus if it's a you know very small category there's not as much competition um you know there's there's less of those especially if you start you know really refining it so that that's something to take into consideration it that technique does work better or I should say you have much more for Amazon to choose from if you're in a very high competition Niche um so that's just something to to note yeah well when we look back at the last six months like everything that all the features that Amazon recently rolled out majority of them oriented towards competitive uh strategies competitive targeting well uh basically probably because they have limited amount of placements and the competition is becoming more and more fierce so we have to develop those strategies to fight it to fight the competition all starts of course with a good product good quality product and a good offer in general so that customers can choose us um when it comes to category targeting we've also seen that it works really well but it's also expensive it works really well in terms of that aggressive um aggressive approach entering a new market category targeting works really well when you have a product that isn't you know entirely covered through keyword targeting meaning if it's a new product Market that customers don't know it it exists yet and it becomes like a blend of two different products that this is like a third version of something that of two things that already existed uh those are the cases where we see it's um it's pretty effective when the category targeting works even better than automated campaigns for some reason so um as long as you have that kind of tolerance to towards the cost that it generates then it might work um when it comes to product exclusions that's uh you me something you mentioned you know how do we negate something that um when you when you have an asent that's unprofitable in your search terms reports do you have any specific approach any advice for people who want to exclude those asens make sure that they don't show up anymore you mean from the Autos uh yes unfortunately there's really no um direct way to do that Amazon gave it to us for a second and then they took it away um I wish there was something we could do because that would solve a lot of problems um the best way so asens typically are pulled through um compliments and let's see it's close match L match compliments and substitutes so they're they're um they're pulled through those the complements and the substitutes um so you can lower those you know those bids um if you click into your autos and then if you click on targeting you'll see those four you know Amazon has given us a little more control over Autos now um that we can set individual bids for the specific um targeting types so if you lower those bids until you're profitable on the um close yeah compliment and substitutes um then you can kind you can at least bring down what you're bidding on those asens you know you'll bring down everything as a whole so there is that um there is a technique out there that people have tried um possibly going to the you're searching that Ace on Amazon and you can go to the listing um and perhaps say the brand name or anything that is any words that are very specific to that as people have um negative phrase matched that inside of the Autos I don't really prefer that technique so much first off you're clearing quite a bit um it doesn't always work 100% And so there there's some speculation as to whether you know how Amazon is pulling those Asin if they're if they're looking at you know the the wording in the listing or how exactly they choose what to show you under um some people are reporter that works some people said it doesn't work at all and then you are potentially clearing a lot of stuff and you want to be super careful with which keywords you're pulling from that um that listing to negative phrase match because you know you can clear a bunch of stuff and you just end up um getting rid of a bunch of sales so um Autos are great and they I mean they definitely give you a lot of placement you can you we always keep Autos running oftentimes we might even keep a couple Autos running for a specific product but um you want to make sure you're adjusting those Autos towards profitability because you want to start getting more and more targeted with your manuals as you learn what works um and you can you know you can spend your money there um so I would just keep adjusting those bids those targeting bids until you can get that um you can get that targeting type profitable is that's how I would approach that yeah it's a it's a little different approach but what you just mentioned like negating the brand name was something that we also do but only cases when when it really repeats a couple of times when you see that certain brand is giving you bad sales in terms of very expensive sales or no sales at all just generating cost and usually you can see like a pattern within the last 30 days that a certain brand just stands out that's the case when we exclude it otherwise um if it's not really uh causing a lot of damage we just um approach with a bit adjustment that's that's like combination of of two things um do you ever Target your own products through product targeting yes yes so there's um there's a couple things you can do with that uh you can depending on how competitive your Niche is and how you want to approach it um you especially if you have say a product that has variations um you might just stick another one of those variations down there um just to try and because your your competitors are going to show up there you have competition showing up there you might as well be showing up there and yes you'll pay for that click but they would have clicked off on a competitor um so at least they're being redirected to your product so that that's a technique um another thing you can do is cross- sell products so perhaps you have one product that's very complimentary to another a lot of times if you're rebuilding a brand you have you know a whole Suite of products that are very complimentary to each other you can actually Target your own Asim with that um especially products that are often bought together that would be a good one to Target I mean you could if you wanted to go crazy with it and say I don't want anyone to show up under my listing you know I wna you know I want to own this space um you could do very high bids they even Target the variations plus the compat product and really just try and push out competition there um it depends if you're willing to pay for those clicks but that's definitely something that's not a bad idea if you just want to own your listing yeah that's that's also what we do we try to protect the listings from the competition as much as possible because you have couple of layers of competitors products below your on your on your own product detailed page which is sometimes very annoying and and kills of conversion rates you know that's one of the conversion rates haacks that we also advise um ad advertisers to do is to Target their own products especially if you have like a complimentary portfolio where something would be a good off sale for where where a product would be a good off sale for for another product so um when you choose products to Target on an asent level targeting do you have any methods how do you the favorite things favorite approaches to how do you choose which asence to Target it depends on um what I'm looking to do with that specific product so say I have a client that says Okay I want to I want to get out there we're going to be aggressive we're willing to spend while I I will be much more um lenient with the products that I'm looking to Target versus the client that says I'm really worried about a cost I'm worried about profitability I want to get out there but I want to be um um I I'm not willing to spend so much um I'll be much more judicious with the the as since that I'm looking to Target and actually um what I do I find super um helpful is when I'm doing a keyword research for my product I always any keyword research I always look at the front page um I use multiple keyword research tools but there's really no substitute for seeing what the buyers see when they're looking at your product so that's one thing I love for um I might type in a keyword always use um an incognito window when possible if you're just you know say you're clicking the link off of heling 10 it's a lot easier you know just to click it and see what happens um but main keywords I always search in in cognito window and one thing I'm looking for when I'm looking at the competition is okay so what are their price points what are the star ratings for this how does the listings show up and if I see any asens and I'm like okay you know it makes sense I fit here if I see anything I always keep a notepad open and I'll click over and I'll create like say subsections so okay this one has you know I might say like better you know our listings better on this one well um you know okay so the price points the same okay maybe the price Point's a little higher but our star rating and because um when you put asens inside of a category targeting campaign um you don't it will just show up as an as you don't get to see what that as actually is uh Amazon just updated their search term tab which is really awesome you can see what the products look like so that's very helpful but that only shows you what got clicked on um it doesn't show you anything that's maybe not getting any Impressions so I might say okay well I'm not getting Impressions on this Asin but is it worth it for me to bump up this bid to try and get impressions how relevant am I really am I targeting if you just you know say you just scrape a bunch of asens and you in a campaign well maybe you targeted complimentary products those are harder to get impressions for um that's a really good technique to do um so not only using your own complimentary products on your own listings but going out and seeing um I'm selling bath salts maybe you know so maybe it's bath salts that are really good for like foot scrubs or something like that well I might go and Target foot baths because somebody who's looking for like a foot spall probably is going to buy my product so it makes sense to cross reference those but those are much harder to get Amazon to say okay you're relevant for this because they're just looking at the keywords and going it's kind of relevant but it's not so sometimes you need to really push those um push those bids to get any eyes on the product and get eyes on that placement but if I'm looking through and I just see everything thrown in a single campaign okay so this one doesn't have any Impressions doesn't is that is that because it's a complimentary product that I really need to push or is that because you know there might be some other reason there or maybe I just accidentally scraped another AC and that doesn't make any sense and I just want to pause it well I'm gonna have to click on that go search on Amazon see what the product is there's really no way for me to see that versus if I segment everything um into categories like say so I'll have a separate campaign or you could even do ad groups um we do campaigns but um for complimentary product versus you know ones that I really really want to Target know these are ones that I have a much better uh offer on so I'm willing to pay much more for these because ideally the conversion should be better versus ones or um another technique you can do it's it's expensive but if you really want you know you say there's a keyword that I really want to go after I 100% like this is my main keyword I'm willing to pay for it one thing you can do is to go um search that a or search that keyword on Amazon um and C need a window again because you don't want any skewed data in there and you can scrape all of the asens from the first page and then you can throw those in a campaign that you know it can get expensive because there's obviously going to be a lot of asens or a lot of listings there that may have a better price point they may have a better star rating um so you know you're going to pay more for those but you're going to show up on everybody's page for somebody who's clicking I mean you could even do the second page um but those I would also want to segment into their own campaign because I realize these are something I'm going after but it's going to be you know I'm GNA spend more for this but because I have those asens segmented into their own group I know I'm willing you know I'm much more tolerant of say what the bids are what the budget is what the a cost is in this versus if I just threw it all together well then you know I might be adjusting bids and I wouldn't really be able to um really understand what it is that I'm looking at okay is that structured like one product per campaign or you put them all together in one um you mean as far as the individual the asens that you you yourself are advertising you mean uh yes like for example when you have like a product that you really really want to go after want to show up on their product detail page would you recommend separating them in their own uh campaign so that we have more control over how much budget you allocate to them yeah so I like um yeah I like SE segmenting everything I personally have been building out um using and and this is across pretty much everything um one campaign one ad group um there's nothing wrong with ad groups ad groups are fine um I I got turned on to it by um another really good um management I'm sure you've heard of her um uh Destiny but um the reason for that is because when I go into the um the account I can see everything top level so if you have multiple um multiple ad groups and you have to click down into The Campaign which ad group right and because of the sheer volume that I'm managing it makes my life much simpler and then the other reason is I can set specific um campaign budgets and if later on I want to go in or do percentage adjustments or certain you know bidding strategy um I know that that's only going to affect whatever keywords I've put in there versus you know just having one I've seen it where they have one campaign with multiple ad groups um and it get that gets tricky to scale from my experience um so I find it much easier to segment so for management purposes you would recommend uh this structure one campaign one ad group only in it but when it comes to targeting options would you recommend just targeting one as in that one campaign or you could so single in single campaign that's something you could do your um The Impressions in the sales volume would not be as high typically uh Ace and targetting because the way they are in their placements they don't have as high high of an Impressions some categories you'll you'll end up with quite a few uh sales from asent targeting um sometimes the sales volume oftentimes is going to be a bit lower just due to the nature of the targeting so um I can't what I have done uh you might have a product that's very well ranked but they might have like a million different variations what I have done is I've gone in there and I've scraped the asens for every single one of their variations and I'm like I want to show up everywhere you know anytime a a customer clicks on any of the different V variations every time they're browsing this I want to show up and you know so then they say hey this thing keep you know they're more likely to click on my product um The Impressions you know aren't going to be that high for that especially you know some variations people just don't really click on um but that is something I've done and SE me segmenting that into its own campaign um just gives me for me as a man you know backend management perspective um I'm able to see exactly what that is and I know this is something I'm going after um and I'm able to quickly just identify that and say okay how is this going I'm even getting Impressions on this thing um to Z don't even think I'm relevant I'm relevant you know to this product so from um just a structure you know a management perspective to me that makes sense structurally you know you could give it its own ad group um or you you could just throw it all in together um I don't really think that makes much of a difference but it does help you identify things much quicker um it saves a lot of time so yeah um I just wanted also to add a quick tip like for example when you are just specifically uh chasing for that one competitor's asent that you're after um sometimes it will make sense to advertise just your cheapest variant or the ones that's best selling that's like strongest variant because that's how you create the biggest window for new customers to to get familiarized with your brand which is something that makes a lot of sense when you're going after specific Brands so talking about going after specific Brands um in which cases would you advise using brand targeting or maybe age range targeting options the you mean for the like the category with The Branding targeting yes like when you have an option to filter out just specific brands have you tested it out did it work for you um I've mostly gone after asens to be honest I haven't tested that as much just because some of the brands are pretty broad um you know brands that offer quite a few products to be honest I haven't done that as much I have targeted a brand um in a way but being much more specific like like I shared before with like going in and targeting every single variation and then they might have or quite a few products um in that specific brand I would go and pull out whatever asens are relevant to the product and you know put those in their own campaigns to kind of segment and Target them there um to be honest I haven't played with brand targeting as much to me it's a bit more of a shock on blast um so with category targeting I can have some refin um brand targeting I suppose you can as well but um it I guess you would get a little more I guess the short answer is no I haven't test I haven't tested it as much um but yeah we have tested it it's not very like you write about uh some Brands having a very wide product portfolio so you can't really diversifi which products are relevant for product targeting which aren't which is one of the main downsides of brand targeting but when it comes to age range uh ranges that's something that can come in handy especially if you know who your audience is it's like um the only yeah uh in my opinion the only currently available audience targeting feature that we currently have I think that they will roll it out sometime in the future but you know if you if you know specifically that your product is um targeting Baby Boomers then you can you know just filter out the rest of the people out of the targeting just to make it more effective but still you need to spend some money to test things and really figure out what works what does it so it all comes down to that yeah I suppose delving into brain analytics you would get some of those metrics as far as the the audience you're looking to Target or age range um you also mentioned upselling your own products with product Target so um what are the ways in which someone can really ensure that uh can you give us like a couple of examples but it's worked really well for you for your brand um yeah mostly we've seen the best upselling when um so you might have a complement a product that goes very well with another one but may not necessarily be something that some body needs to purchase with the other product um I'm trying to think of a an example that's not exactly what it is that we're dealing with um okay so maybe like weights like say you're selling like um hand weights with ankle weights okay well technically those are complimentary but somebody who's looking for you know just the typical one that you know they might be using with their hand may or may not want something for their ankles they might say oh yeah I forgot you know I can do this other exercise with this or perhaps um hand weights with um the resistance bands yes they're complimentary yes it's possible to get conversions but it might not actually be something that um the the you know the customer or the buyer may or may not be looking to purchase those two items together um not a bad idea to do that however like I said the numbers may or may not be there um one thing that would be very complimentary I'm trying to think think um so if you were selling like backdrops but you had um like those backdrop or like Photo props those are very complimentary most likely somebody who's looking for a photo especially if it's for an event um is definitely looking for something you know oftentimes to go along with that foot because those are very popular so you would tend to see much better upsells on that type of product something that the the buyer is definitely looking to purchase with you that item um we tend to see better better numbers on those that's definitely a great tip um we also look at the frequently bought together section if there's any clues there as to what Amazon is uh you know suggesting that we that that customers are buying together they obviously have the data and they're sharing it with us yeah but at the same time also look at for customers for clients who have their own e-commerce websites uh you know just historically the customers what they're buying together might be a good clue what to put together in product targeting on Amazon as well because um if you don't have like already a general idea what works best together so that's some that's a good idea for for like an upsell um when it comes to using sponsor Brands campaigns with targeting product targeting with the sponsor Brands campaigns can you share some ideas what has worked for you and your your experience coming from that yeah so um we've used those and to be honest I'm not 100% sure where the where they show up um I've looked into it kind of tried to research it's very interesting because you have the option to put a headline um however from what I've seen or at least the ones that I've run and you know try and look at those asens and see where it's showing up um it it looks like they might be showing up under that um what is it four stars or above but those are the sponsored um I've seen our show up there um which doesn't include the headline you've you know you've specified so that's a little strange um I know yeah the The Impressions tend to be you know relatively low for those um just due to placements and I I think um the placement options are just less like with the ace and targeting you have several carousels at the bottom of the listings now um but it's a good just additional like if you're if you're really trying to go hard after um a certain as or perhap you know a certain group of asens um it's just another one to throw up there just to get you know just get every single placement possible yeah well typically with sponsor Brands you get those premium placements that's um something that one of the main advantages of these campaign types um have you compared the performance of sponsor Brands versus sponsor products for product targeting I have not I need to I I did quite a few um recently and I'm waiting for you know to really be able to look at the numbers because right now I think they're a bit too new for me to really do a cross comparison well I've found some interesting conclusion when we did test out the comparison between the two and really works well for uh for accounts where you want to take away market share from competitors and then you have some very specific acents that you want to Target and you do that through sponsor Brands campaigns they generate usually a good amount of new to Brand sales which comes really relevant for brands that have well customers that have repeated purchases over time that people when they come back and purchase again organically even without PPC so using sponsor Brands campaigns generally is a very good campaign type for new to Brand sales so that's also like a Twist to product targeting as well like um implementing that uh competitive strategy but with with The Branding elements that also sponsor Brands gives but like you said like you like you mentioned like we don't really know for sure any time where they're showing up and how exactly are they being triggered like if you use asent targeting um does it mean that your sponsor brand ads are going to show up in the search results page on the product detailed Pages what are the specific placements that's U something that we don't know yeah the only one I've seen for sure that's shown up is that um the product you know it's above four stars products and that is the first care L um so I did see one that I was I was using as and targeting I saw that show up there which I don't remember if I've been able to get that placement before with a and targeting I couldn't say one way or the other I'm trying to remember um because I've seen that placement before and that one is premium um and it's if you're above four stars it looks good um it does say you know they have that little grade out that says sponsored but most times you know buyers don't know one with we we know we see it we see everything and we notice all the little okay this is sponsored this is sponsored how do I get there but most buyers they just you know they just see the page they're not looking for that um so I did see one of mine show up there I keep looking at you know it's okay you know where where am I showing um I have seen that um what is it it's sponsored sponsored display but through AMS where you can put you know the little thing I've seen I've seen that pop up once or twice on through an asent targeting um on on a listing but that's not that's not a guarantee and then I was like oh great we have this placement and then it went away like the very next refresh so um that's something I've seen with as in targeting but it's it's not controlled unless you have access to AMS there's there's no guaranteed way to get that get that placement unfortunately well that's how it works right now but I'm hoping that they will transfer a lot of things to seller centrals that it becomes accessible to more people um okay Elizabeth do you have any tips or any specific um you know case studies maybe examples that you would like to share U additionally with our audience um trying to think case studies as [Music] in just in general or yes not necessarily for product targeting like number one tip if someone ask you what's the one thing that they should not the one mistake that they should not make with their Amazon advertising what would it be my main my main thing is um relevancy when you are I'm handing a lot of product launchers right here I'm kind of in a weird spot where I've got a lot of things churning really good and then I'm also doing launches so I have less of the in between you know still navigating um so with the launches I've you know been doing a lot of keyword research um looking okay where does this product fit um Amazon PPC it's it's a lot simpler than say a Facebook ad because you have less creatives um but that doesn't mean that buyer psychology doesn't come into play um so I am a big believer um preach a lot on looking at the front page and what the Shopper sees when they're looking at that specific keyword um so really getting trying to get into the head of buyers on does my product fit on this page and if it does where would it fit um and then also recognizing the more varied the products are on that page um it doesn't mean it's not a place that you can't show up but your conversion rate typically is going to be much lower than if you have a page um that really makes sense for your product so in the beginning as far as keywords that I would Target aggressively I I would look for the um the most relevant keywords to the product is is something I definitely focus on um the main my first when I first get a new product client sends me this okay we're gonna launch this my first objective is to say what is the most high volume relevant keyword that's where I start um and once I figure out that I kind of I I build out around that um so for me it's okay let's do a couple reverse asense let's look at the main keywords okay what's in competitor's listing let's throw that into a keyword tool look at search volume search volume isn't everything um none of the keyword tools the numbers are not exact um but you can get it relevant to the other keywords you're looking at so I W to I want to do as much as I can search by search volume look at a couple lists and then go down that list and say what what is most relevant to my product and I look in that page sometimes that keyword is going to be a much lower search volume than you might want to look into you know sometimes a lot of people are worried about search volumes so um if you're saying cutting board you know sell say you're selling um a wood cutting board and obviously cutting board that's the highest you know so okay I want to be on cutting board because look how many sales I can make there's plastic cutting boards there's wood cutting boards there's ones with accessories there's ones without it I mean that is so varied and often times for cutting board the people who are up there at the top most times you look at the price point is like how do you make money selling that but you know they're they're up at the top you can't compete with that um so if it was a bamboo wood cutting board that might be your you know your highest relevant main you know main keyword the highest volume with the most relevancy right um that's something I would I would find that and I would say okay let's look at the ecosystem around and then let's start you know where do I fit this is this is my market you know that's this is the buyers that are looking for my product I want to get in front of the buyer that wants to buy mine you know not oh I want a cutting board no I want you know this is what I want let's show it to those buyers um and most times your numbers will be much better for those than if you just you know you try to blast it out there I agree I've seen it so many times in accounts it's it's a very common mistake um Elizabeth thank you for being a guest on our show today and um if anyone wants to reach Elizabeth for any advice um or consultation I will share a link to their website and and the video description and um I hope you had a lot of value from this video and we'll make sure to um post it as soon as it's as soon as we can okay great thank you so much it's been a lot of fun I enjoyed it me too okay bye bye

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between ASIN-level and category-level product targeting, and which performs better?

ASIN-level targeting places your ad on the detail page of a specific competitor product you have hand-picked, giving you full control over where your ads appear and which listings you compete against. Category targeting casts a much wider net across an entire product category, with Amazon deciding which detail pages to show your ad on. ASIN targeting tends to produce better conversion rates because you can select competitors where your listing has a clear advantage in price, reviews, or offer quality. Category targeting is more useful when you want aggressive reach quickly, such as during a launch, or when you need to gather data before you have enough information to identify the best individual ASINs to pursue.

How do you use an auto campaign to identify good product targeting opportunities?

Auto campaigns automatically surface ASINs where your product is already converting, which tells you Amazon has already matched you as relevant to those listings. By reviewing the search terms report from an auto campaign and filtering for ASIN-format results, you can identify which competitor detail pages generated actual sales. Those converting ASINs are then the strongest candidates to move into a dedicated manual product targeting campaign, because you are acting on real purchase data rather than making assumptions about relevance.

How can you reduce wasted spend from poorly performing ASINs in an auto campaign when you cannot directly negate them?

Amazon does not currently offer direct ASIN negation in auto campaigns, but there are two practical approaches. The first is to lower the bids on the specific auto targeting types that are generating unwanted ASIN traffic, which are primarily the substitutes and complements match types. Reducing those bids limits how aggressively Amazon shows your ads across unrelated product pages while keeping the better-performing targeting types active. The second approach, negating the brand name or distinctive keywords from a poorly performing listing as a phrase match negative, is sometimes used but carries risk because it can inadvertently block broader relevant traffic and should only be applied when a specific brand or term is consistently generating cost with no return.

Why is it worth targeting your own product listings with product targeting campaigns?

Without defensive product targeting, the sponsored placements on your own detail pages are available for your competitors to buy. Targeting your own ASINs with Sponsored Products and Sponsored Display fills those placements with your own brand, keeping shoppers within your product selection instead of redirecting them elsewhere. If you have complementary products, targeting your listings with those related items also creates an upsell opportunity that increases average order value. Sellers willing to bid aggressively on their own listings can largely push out competing ads and own the sponsored real estate on their own pages.

What criteria should guide which competitor ASINs you select for product targeting?

The goal is to find listings where your product has a visible advantage that will influence the purchase decision. The most useful factors to compare are star rating, review count, and price point. If your listing has more reviews, a higher rating, or a more competitive price than the ASIN you are targeting, a shopper who lands on that competitor's page and sees your ad is more likely to switch. Targeting a competitor who outperforms you on all three dimensions tends to produce poor conversion rates and high ACoS. Searching your main keywords in an incognito window and reviewing the first page of results is a practical way to evaluate which listings your product would stand out against before committing ad spend.

How does complementary product targeting work, and what makes it succeed or fail?

Complementary product targeting places your ad on the detail page of a product that is typically bought alongside yours, reaching shoppers who are already in a buying mindset for related items. It works best when the two products have a genuine and obvious relationship, where a buyer of one product would naturally consider buying the other in the same session. When the connection is more loosely related, impressions tend to be low because Amazon's system does not strongly match the two, and bids need to be pushed higher to get visibility. The frequently bought together section on your own or competitor listings is one of the most reliable places to identify which complementary products are worth targeting.