Advertising First Time Setup & Segmentation

Master Ad Setup

Summary: This is an SOP that shows the things that should be done on the ad setup process.

Reading/Execution Time: 30-60 mins

Advertising Setup SOP Outline

1.- Segmentation and Keyword Research

1. Create an Empty Segmentation Sheet

2. Gather ASINs to Advertise Using Business Report

3. Find Keywords and ASINs to Target

4. Check for Duplicates

5. Build the Segmentation Sheet

2.- Optimizing, Renaming and Organization

1. Optimize the old campaigns

2. Rename and organize the old campaigns

3. Create or rename portfolios

3.- Strategy, Ads Creation, Bidding and Budgets

1. Ads creation strategy based on the budget

2. Create new campaigns

3. Bidding Strategies

4. Budgets

4.- Task Completion and Communication

1.- Segmentation and Keyword Research

b. Gather ASINs to Advertise Using Business Report

1. Open Business Reports - Nr.1 and Nr.2

2. Click on Detail Page Sales and Traffic By Child Item - Nr. 3

3. Order by Product Sales - Nr.4

4. Choose best 10 Top Sellers products - Nr.5

1. This step might change depending on the size of the account. It can be to 50, top 100

We need to differentiate the Parent ASIN from the Child ASIN. In the image above you can find the Parent ASIN Marked in Red and the Child ASIN marked in Green.

c. Find Keywords and ASINs to Target

Follow the SOP: How to Conduct Keyword and ASIN Research

d. Check for Duplicates

Check for duplicate keywords to not to have the same keywords targeting the same ASINs in different campaigns when we do the ad setup.

Follow the SOP here to find the duplicate keywords that you might have in your segmentation sheet before creating new campaigns. This way we will be able to keep the setup clean with min duplicates.

e. Build the Segmentation Sheet

In the image below we have the segmentation sheet with 7 important columns

1. ASIN COMP - We target Competitor ASIN

2. KW BROAD - We target Short-tail Keywords - 2 max 3 words

3. SV - Search Volume

4. KW EXACT - We target Long-tail Keywords - 4 or more words

5. KW SELF - We target our own brand related keywords

6. ASIN SELF - We target our own brand related ASIN

This is an example of how a final segmentation should look like:

Segmentation Glossary

• ASIN COMP: Take the ASINs from the competitor products you decide to target and add those ASINs on this column.

• KW BROAD: Take the KW with 2-3 words you decide to target and add them on this column

• SV: Take the Search Volume from Helium10 or Search Query Report (monthly) and add them on this column

• KW EXACT: Take the KW with more than 4 words (long tail KW) and add them on this column

• KW SELF: Use ONLY Brand related keywords in Broad Match. There’s multiple ways to find the brand name. Make sure that you add the brand name KW only on this column. See the below image:

ASIN SELF: Use all of the ASINs from (Child) ASIN column from “Detail Page Sales and Traffic By Child Item” on the Business Report. See the (Child) ASIN column on below image:

Here is a very good example of doing a Segmentation, KW Research, Renaming and some Optimization

UR Distributor Ad Setup

2.- Optimizing, Renaming and Organization

Most of the clients that we start working with already have active campaigns on the account and we want to keep all the campaigns that are converting well active and pause all the unnecessary ones.

Our final goal is to only create campaigns that are missing in the account. To do that, we need to complete 3 important steps:

a. Optimize the old campaigns

1st Filter - Active Campaigns | 0 Orders | Data Range - Select Manually Last 60 days

Create a new Google Tab in your segmentation sheet named Actions. Export all the campaigns in that sheet. After that, you can select all campaigns and pause them.

We do that because we want to pause all the campaigns with no sales in the last 60 days to clean the ads and to have a better view on what’s missing.

2nd Filter - Active Campaigns | ACOS > 150% | Orders > 0 | Orders <5 | Data Range - Select Manually Last 60 days

Export all the campaigns in the same Actions tab. After that you can select all campaigns and pause them.

We do that because we want to pause all the campaigns with slow sales and high acos and to create campaigns according to our own strategy. We don’t want to pause campaigns with more than 5 sales in the last 60 days ( even the acos it’s more than 150% ) because we can optimize them.

NOTE 1:

Never pause a campaign with a high amount of orders >5 in the last 60 days even if the ACOS it’s high. We need to protect the account and we don’t want to lose traction on the ads. There’s another strategy to pause this type of campaigns but this strategy will take a lot more time to do it and will be taken by the member of the team who takes care of the weekly check in.

NOTE 2:

Some accounts might have more than 150% ACOS goal. In that case, check the goals first before pausing anything and ask.

b. Rename and organize the old campaigns

After we finish the optimization we will remain with the ads who deserve to be renamed. These ads will remain active and will be part of our strategy.

Naming convention file SOP - Advertising - Naming Conventions and Creation Guidelines

To start the renaming use the “Rename” sheet on your segmentation sheet.

In this tab you will see 3 columns:

• Old Campaigns Name

• New Campaigns Name

• Portfolios

The last step it’s to export all the old campaigns that are already optimized and put them on the list.

Each campaign has to have a portfolio. When we rename the old campaigns we need to assign it a portfolio. The only campaign that doesn’t accept portfolios is the Sponsored Display Audience campaign.

The final result should look like this:

c. Create or rename portfolios

For a better organization, we should have portfolios on all our accounts. To create a portfolio you need to click on the left blue button + Create a portfolio

IMPORTANT NOTE: Because we cannot remove a portfolio, we need to rename all the old portfolios before starting to create new ones.

d. Budget Caps on Old Portfolios

We need to check if we have a budget cap on the portfolios that were created before us. Before removing, make sure to understand client's goals.

Click on a Portfolio (1) and after that click on Modify Portfolio (2)

Portfolios offer us 2 types of Budget Caps.

1. Data Range - Specific budget for a custom date range.

2. Recurring Monthly - For a monthly budget cap

IMPORTANT NOTE: Before removing any budget cap, make sure to communicate with the Brand Management to confirm if that was an intended action from the client and if we can remove it or not. Do not remove any budget cap without any confirmation and make sure to mention that in step 4 of this SOP!

3.- Strategy, Ads Creation, Bidding and Budgets

NOTE: Strategy and Ads Creation (any changes we make directly on accounts) needs to be done after the onboarding call. We must communicate with the Brand Management to ensure that the client is onboarded and we have the most up to date goals.

NOTE FOR INTERNS: Make sure that all of your work will be only on the Google Sheet. You need to have an approval from a POD leader in order to make changes directly into account.

a. Ads Creation Strategy Based on the Budget

The most important thing that we have to have when we start a strategy it’s the budget. Most of the time, we receive a monthly budget from the client but sometimes we have a weekly budget. To have a better view on how many campaigns we should create on an account we need to convert this monthly or weekly budget into a daily one.

• If the monthly budget it’s $3000 our daily budget it’s 3000/30 = $100 / day

• If the weekly budget it’s $700 our daily budget it’s 700/7 = $100 / day

Here are some mathematical calculations to find out how many campaigns we can create with how much budget.

• For example with a $100 budget / day we can create 10 new campaigns with $10 each one. $10 it’s the recommended budget to start a campaign with.

• As a recommendation, because the budget will not spread equally each day we can have a 20% more on the current budget (This can only be applied on the new ad setups)

• For example, if our budget it’s $100 a day we can consider that the budget it’s $120 and we can create a total of 12 new campaigns with $10 each.

NOTE: We should only create campaigns that are missing for a specific ASIN or Segment. We shouldn’t create duplicate campaigns as we already checked this on part 1.d.

Here is one example of an ASIN (B12345678) with two active campaigns in the account;

OLD campaigns that we already renamed with a good ACOS;

• SP - Auto - Notebook - B12345678 - MAG

• SP - KW - Broad - Notebook - B12345678 - MAG

NEW campaigns that we can/should create;

• SP - ASIN - COMP - Notebook - B12345678 - MAG

• SP - CAT - Notebook - B12345678 - MAG

• SD - VCPM - ASIN - COMP - Notebook - B12345678 - MAG

We can create more or less campaigns based on the budget we have. In this specific example, we didn’t need to create an Auto or Broad keyword campaign since they were already in the account. We ONLY apply this strategy for new accounts setup.

b. Create New Campaigns

So until this points, we have;

• Done a keyword and competitor research

• Found Duplicate Keywords / Campaigns

• Created a Segmentation Sheet

• Got an approval on the onboarding compilation from Brand Management

Now it’s time to take action. We can go ahead and create the campaigns that segmented in our segmentation sheet. When you are creating campaigns and adding keywords, Amazon will ask you to enter a bid for each keyword. So take a look at the bidding strategies step next.

c. Bidding

Bidding can be very different depending on:

• Client Goals

• Product Price

• Both Client Goals and Product Price

Always go with lower than suggested bids on the high volume keywords and drop your comments on the part 4 of the SOP if any bid might require boosting or monitoring.

Bidding Rules

• If the product price is less than $15 we should start with a bid <0.8$

• If the suggested bid is higherthan $1 we should limit it at $1 maximum

d. Budgets and Estimated Campaigns

How many campaigns can we create with a specific budget ?

For more than $5000 a month, please calculate based on the table above

Example calculations;

• $6,000 a month budget we can create $5000+$1000 = 21-31 campaigns

• $10,000 a month budget we can create $5000+$5000 = 36-50 campaigns

Example:

If we have a monthly budget of $3000 a month and 3 ASIN to be advertised, we should create 4 campaigns for each ASIN in a total of 12 campaigns.

Budget Allocation

The budget is flexible and can be changed based on research and/or results.

• 70% Sponsored Products Ads

• 20% Sponsored Display Ads

• 10% Sponsored Brand Ads

NOTE 1 

• If the monthly budget is very low ($500 / month) we can focus first on 100% Sponsored Products Ads.

• If the monthly budget is medium ($1000 - $3000 / month) we can spread 85% Sponsored Products, 10% Sponsored Display and 5% Sponsored Brands

• If the monthly budget is high (>$5000 / month) we can use our main rule 70% 20% 10%

NOTE 2

This budget allocation can also depend on the number of the products.

EX: If we have an account $3000 / month budget and 5 different ASIN to be advertised and we need to create Auto campaigns and KW campaigns for each of the ASIN so we can allocate 100% of the budget on Sponsored Products.

NOTE 3

All the above stats are only examples. We need to understand the account and make a plan based on what we find.

EX: If the account has a lot of SB - Video campaigns that are working great we can expand our budget here and test more SB - Videos even if we can reach 30% of our budget.

NOTE 4

SB headline is not the best option for newly launched products, so try to stick with SP, SD and SB video if any.

4.- Task Communication and Completion

After a successful ad setup, go to the ad setup Asana task, copy/paste the below template and comment on the task before marking it complete.

Copy-Paste Below and Edit

1. Confirm:

• Weekly budget considered: xxx

• TACOS goal: xxx

2. List of ASINs which we setup advertising for: Link here

3. Segmentation Sheet: link here

4. Strategy we applied:

• Push most of the budget towards branded kw to increase sales efficiency.

• Added those campaigns since they were missing

• Didn’t add XX campaign types to avoid campaign duplication

• Etc etc…