Why You're Not Getting Orders Despite Optimized Amazon Campaigns

Here’s the thing: The search terms are driving the orders, not the keywords you're targeting. Yet, many advertisers are optimizing keywords, completely overlooking the real source of conversions, the search terms that you can find in the search term report.

Keywords are targeted through Exact, Phrase, or Broad match types. But if your ad spend is heavily weighted on Phrase or Broad match types, you might be missing the full picture. 

These match types, especially Phrase and Broad, are somewhat similar to Auto Targeting. Amazon’s algorithm is doing the heavy lifting, finding "similar" search terms to bring you clicks or orders. Sounds useful, right? But there’s more to it.

Phrase & Broad match types should be used to harvest new keywords that you can target later in Exact Match campaigns.

Pro tip: Keep these harvesting spends to no more than 30% of your total keyword + auto targeting budget. Don't go beyond that!

Now, here’s the weekly hygiene you shouldn’t skip:

- Check your Search Term Report at least weekly (if not daily) and identify terms that have brought in 2-5+ orders. Add those winners to your Exact Match campaigns. This way, you double down on keywords that actually perform, while keeping full control of your bids.

- Know your Click Per Order (CPO): Track how many clicks it takes, on average, for a keyword to convert into a sale. If you find search terms that exceed your account-level CPO, negate them, either from that Ad Group or across your account.

Long story short: Harvesting search terms and negating underperformers should be a regular activity. Don’t get lazy and let more than 30% of your ad spend drain away into Phrase, Broad, or Auto campaigns.

Bonus tip:

If someone says "Spend more on long-tail keywords and ignore short-tail"? Don’t do that!

Keep long-tail and short-tail keywords in separate campaigns, so you can control your spend and bidding strategies. Why? Because we’ve seen it in Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC): most orders come from customers who perform multiple searches before buying a product.

AMC also reveals the first & last search term combinations that result in the most conversions! Intrigued? Feel free to reach out. We can help you uncover these insights.

Apart from sponsored ads, I regularly share tactics & strategies to leverage Amazon DSP & AMC, stay tuned here - https://lnkd.in/d3SYuuyN