If you’ve been slacking on using Amazon Keyword Tools when selling online, you’ve got to fix that right away. Knowing what terms buyers are searching for can make the difference between being in the red or in the black. But first, read up on why RepricerExpress thinks it’s so important to do so.
The Importance of Amazon Keyword Tools
Let’s look at fishing for a second. There are essentially two different ways you can catch fish:
- Putting out a big net and hoping to catch as much as possible, even if there might be some gruff along with your catch.
- Using a very specific type of bait to target a certain type of fish, even though you might be narrowing the quantity of fish you haul in.
Using Amazon Keyword Tools is like the second method of fishing. You’re using data as one of your tools to target customers as specifically as possible, looking for the right kind of ‘bait’ to sell products that a key demographic will find attractive. This data is real, it’s in real-time, and it’s one of the many resources you should be using in building your business exponentially.
But — how to you maximise its effectiveness?
Get a Catalogue Campaign Going for Organisational Purposes
In order to get the best idea possible of which Amazon keywords will suit your products, you’ve got to first set up a catalogue campaign in Sponsored Products. This will enable you to get your catalogue represented so that you can start poaching the best keywords that suit your purposes.
From there, grab a copy of the Search Term Report (Advertising Reports section in Seller Central) so you can see the data on each keyword term. While you won’t be able to see the direct association with SKU and keyword, you’ll be able to get a pretty good idea of how certain keywords behave in general.
Research Keywords for at Least a Week
In order to get a decent sample size, you’ll have to keep looking at your keywords for at least seven days. Going at it for at least a week will give you a solid idea of which keywords are consistently performing highly, and which ones are more of a fluke. To get a really good idea of keyword performance, we recommend creating an Excel spreadsheet where you can track the data on each one you harvest. Here are some areas you’ll want to focus on:
- Sales: This one’s a bit of an obvious one. The better a product sells, the likelier the higher the number people searching for it.
- Orders: This one’s not quite as reliable as sale numbers, but it’s pretty darn close. It means that hits are converting to potential sales, but it shouldn’t be taken as the Holy Grail because orders can get canceled for any number of reasons.
- Clicks: Out of the three, this one’s the weakest. It shows that people are clicking on a particular keyword, but not what they’re doing after that. Still, it shows interest in a product/SKU.
Add a Manual Campaign to Your Arsenal
Okay, you’ve got a body of keywords that are high-performing in regards to the products you’re selling or are interested in selling — the next step is to create a Manual Campaign to add SKUs to bid on for each keyword. Never skip this step because creating a Manual Campaign is crucial.
Why?
It offers tangible data on a keyword’s success or failure. Because keyword harvesting is a dynamic process (re: constantly changing according to the market’s moods and preferences), you’re always getting real-time data as to what works and what doesn’t. And when it comes to creating a successful Manual Campaign, we recommend starting with two to four dozen keywords.
Finish Things Off by Bidding
It’s okay if you haven’t heard of Advertising Cost of Sale, but it’s definitely a metric you should be following. It gives you the thresholds available where you can choose where to set your baseline. For example, an ACoS of 20-25% is a pretty standard number, but you can even push things to as high as 40% if you want. Remember, the lower the ACoS percentage, the lower the cost of the bid.
Final Thoughts
Once you’ve successfully identified which keywords are the magic ones for your business, the next step is to implement them into your product descriptions. And once you do that, you’ll have to be prepared to tweak your prices to compete aggressively with other sellers. RepricerExpress can easily do that for you, but only if you sign up for your 15-day free trial first.
