Product Targeting Isn't What You Think It Is

A lot of people in the Amazon PPC Advertising industry have fallen victim to a major misunderstanding.

They think that Product Targeting means your ad will be placed at the bottom of a product details page in the "Sponsored products related to this item" section, as featured in the image below:

A lot of people think this––and they're not wrong.

But they're not exactly right, either.

It's also a misconception to think that targeting keywords places your ad exclusively on Amazon's SERP (Search Engine Results Page) while targeting products or ASINs places your ad on the product details pages of those ASINs.

The truth is that both targeting types can display your ad in either location.

Don't believe me? See for yourself.

Set up a manual campaign that's only targeting keywords (perhaps you already have one). After running it for a while, open up the "Placements" tab and you'll see something that looks like this:

Notice anything? 

Your Sponsored Product ads are winning impressions and clicks in three different locations:

• Top of Search
• Product Pages
• Rest of Search

If you try this with another campaign that's strictly Product Targeting, you'll see the same thing--impressions, clicks, and orders in all three Ad Placements.

According to Amazon, Top of Search is defined as "the Sponsored Products ads at the top row on the first page of search results;" Rest of Search refers to "ads shown in the middle or at the bottom of search results, and all Sponsored Products ads in the second page of search results and beyond;" and Product Pages means "Sponsored Products placements on the product details page, and all non-search placements such as the add-to-cart page."

So you can see your keyword targeting isn't limited to the SERP, and product targeting doesn't confine your ad to the targeted product's details page.

So what is Product Targeting, really?

Product Targeting simply means your ad is following the targeted ASIN around Amazon wherever it goes. You know, kinda like that stalker in the new hit series on Netflix.

So, if you’re targeting an ASIN, you’re not placing your ad on that specific ASIN's product page, per se.

Your ad could appear on that ASIN's product page, but it also could appear at the top of the SERP next to the targeted product, or it could even appear on a different product’s details page as long as the targeted product is also listed as a "related Sponsored Product."

Make sense?

The same goes for keyword targeting.

That's right. After a customer types in a search term such as "iphone holder for car" and clicks on a certain product, the keywords bidding on that search term are still actively displaying ads on the product details page.

Notice in this image that after clicking on a product, the search terms are now listed as keywords in the URL and are still present in the search bar:

So at the bottom of a Product Page, we see the revolving carousel of "Sponsored products related to this item." It's a whole slew of ads, some of which may be targeting products, others may be targeting keywords, but one important thing to keep in mind is:

Targeting ≠ Placement

So why does all this matter?

Because Sponsored Product ads perform wildly different depending on where they appear!

In the example above (image reposted here for convenience), you can see that the Top of Search placements had an average conversion rate of 25% and an ACOS of 19%, while the Product Page placements had an average conversion rate of just 9% with an ACOS of 55%.

It's a shame, too, because in most cases I've seen (like this one), Product Page ad placements spend the majority of a given campaign's budget, yet they typically have the worst CTR and Conversion Rates (CVR).

If you want to be serious about PPC account management, you can't be satisfied with hitting your target ACOS at the Campaign level until you've also hit your target at the Ad Placement level. Otherwise, you're leaving too much opportunity on the table by overspending where ACOS is above your target and underspending where ACOS is under target.

You might be tempted to think, "It all balances out a the end of the day!"

Well, sure, but you're not maximizing your bottom line revenue by getting as many sales as possible within your target ACOS. You're limiting yourself with an inefficient allocation of your Ad Spend.

To prove my point, I'll leave you with one final example:

With a 75% increase for Top of Search and some bid reductions, we were able to move the majority of this campaign's ad spend to Top of Search placements where the CVR was the highest at 27%.

We were also able to keep the ACOS for Product Page placements within target by significantly cutting our spending there. Product Pages, in this case, had the lowest CVR; in fact, it was two times worse than Top of Search!

The Bottom Line

I've been hearing advertisers mistake product targeting with product page placements for a long time now, and it makes me cringe every time because I know just how much opportunity is being lost. 

Typically, Product Page placements receive the overwhelming majority of impressions, clicks, and ad spend for a campaign; however, it’s also very common to see these placements get the worst Click-Through and Conversion Rates. (Note: that’s not always the case, which is why you need to keep an eye on how each campaign performs in each placement and adjust your strategy accordingly.)

The more aware you are of all that’s affecting your campaign's performance, the better off you will be. Happy optimizing!