If you are running an ecommerce business, getting your online store on Amazon is probably your best bet at reaching as many customers as possible.
According to research, 66% of consumers begin to search for products on Amazon, which means that Amazon has even surpassed Google in that aspect. And it looks like Amazon’s growth is not stopping any time soon. Over 200,000 new third-party sellers have joined the platform in 2020, which represents a tremendous increase of 45% from 2019.
That means there is more competition, but also more shoppers.
In order to get your products in front of the eyes of potential customers, you need to put together an effective Amazon marketing campaign. Now, the two building blocks of every Amazon success story are Amazon SEO and Amazon PPC. While you will often see these two pitted against each other, in reality, you need both. And in a lot of ways, they complement each other.
Let’s take a closer look at what each of the two does and why you need to rely on both in order to grow your business.
Amazon SEO Vs Amazon PPC: The Differences
Ultimately, both Amazon SEO and Amazon PPC have the same goal, which is getting your product at the top of the search results pages and boosting your sales as a result. However, the way they go about it is very different.
Amazon SEO refers to a set of practices and actions that you need to implement in order to improve the ranking of your products in an organic and free way. The two main components of Amazon SEO are:
- Keyword optimization – finding and implementing the most relevant keywords inside the product title and the product listing
- Listing optimization – implementing the aforementioned keyword, as well as relevant and useful product images, videos, graphics, and text in order to improve your click-through rate (CTR) and your conversion rate (CR)
Amazon PPC is a way of advertising your product on Amazon and generating paid traffic in order to drive sales. Being a paid method, Amazon PPC provides instant results; however, it’s only really effective if you’re working with a freelancer or an agency that understands it well. That being said, let’s check out some of the pros and cons of both, as well as ways in which they work together.
Amazon SEO Pros:
- It’s free – Being an organic method, Amazon SEO won’t cost you money. You only need to invest your time and knowledge into optimizing your product listing. When a potential customer clicks on your products, you won’t be charged anything.
- Organic ranking is more trusted – To most shoppers, the difference between sponsored and organic results is obvious, and they are more likely to click on the latter.
- It produces long-lasting results – It will work even after you have added the product to your store, keeping it at the top of the search results page, provided that you continue to optimize your product listing to keep up with algorithm changes.
- It makes Amazon PPC more effective – With Amazon PPC, Amazon selects keywords from your listing and matches them to customer search queries. This means that your product titles and listing need to be optimized; otherwise, you won’t get your money’s worth with Amazon PPC.
Amazon SEO Cons:
- It takes a lot of time – With Amazon SEO, be prepared to play the long game. It can take a long time before you see any real improvement when it comes to your product’s ranking, especially if it’s just been added and doesn’t have any user reviews yet.
- You need to keep optimizing constantly – In order to maintain good rankings for your products, you need to keep up with all the algorithm changes, such as the newly introduced A10.
- It requires you to learn the necessary skills – Apart from working knowledge of SEO, you also need to learn a lot of technical subject matter in order to optimize your listings properly.
Amazon PPC Pros:
- Immediate results – It takes only a few hours to see Amazon PPC bring results, provided that your listing is optimized.
- It’s an essential element of every marketing strategy – When there is a lot of competition, you need to rely on paid methods in order to get your foot in the door, so to speak.
- PPC ads rank above organic results – It’s getting clear now that Amazon is starting to favor paid ads, which makes PPC ads more important than ever.
Amazon PPC Cons:
- Not everyone can afford it – Results will disappear the moment you stop paying. That’s bad news if you don’t have much in terms of marketing budget, or if you are selling products in very competitive categories, such as beauty or home and kitchen.
- Slim profit margin – You are paying for every sale you make, which means that the advertising cost of sale (ACoS) is something you need to keep an eye on. If it’s over 10%, then you are not really making any money.
- It’s not a long-term solution – The ultimate goal of Amazon PPC is to get your brand some exposure so that it leads to organic sales. If this is not happening, you need to rethink your strategy.
How Amazon SEO and Amazon PPC Complement Each Other
Amazon PPC and Amazon SEO support each other and produce best results when used together. Amazon SEO boosts the effectiveness of Amazon PPC because ads are shown to customers based on how you have optimized your product title and listing, which is a part of Amazon SEO. And, of course, well-optimized product listings help secure higher click-through rates and higher conversion rates.
On the other hand, Amazon PPC boosts organic ranking because of the increased number of sales. Apart from a well-optimized listing, another key ranking factor on Amazon is sales. Amazon PPC does this by driving more traffic to your products, which results in your product being sold in higher numbers.
Bottom Line
As you can see, Amazon SEO and Amazon PPC are very different, but they are used with the same goal in mind. They are at their most effective when they are combined, especially because there is a lot of overlap between them. That’s why you need both.
