What Is Amazon Bid+ (And 3+ Things Every Seller Should Know)

What is Amazon Bid+?

Amazon Bid+ is a powerful advertising feature that allows sellers to increase their visibility and chances of winning the Buy Box by automatically boosting their bids in eligible auctions.

Companies have increased their Sponsored Products Ads budgets by 165 percent, proof that Amazon now plays a fundamental role in product advertising. With its growing role as an advertiser, Amazon’s developed a series of new tools for its ad platform, including Amazon Bid+. Curious about Amazon Bid+, from what it is to whether you should use it?

Keep reading!

What is Amazon Bid+?

Amazon Bid+ is an advertising feature for Sponsored Products Ads. When enabled, Amazon Bid+ can help your ads appear at the top of search results. How?

When you use Bid+, it increases your bids by up to 50 percent to improve the competitiveness and potential visibility of your ad. For example, if your initial bid is $.30, Amazon Bid+ can increase your bid to $.45.

How does Amazon Bid+ help a seller?

Amazon Bid+ helps your Sponsored Products Ad, which advertises a single product from your company, appear at the top of search results. Keep in mind, however, that Bid+ only helps.

It doesn’t guarantee a top spot. A number one spot for your Sponsored Products Ad can lead to several benefits, though. Sponsored Products Ads, for example, have the highest sales-per-click.

Even better, the first three products earn almost 65 percent of all clicks.

3+ things you should know about Amazon Bid+

Before you start using Bid+, it’s essential to understand how the advertising feature can affect your ad campaign. That way, your team can make an informed decision when it comes to enabling Amazon Bid+. Here’s a look at four key aspects you’ll want to know about before using Bid+:

1. Amazon Bid+ is only available for manually targeted campaigns

What makes Amazon Bid+ different from the average Sponsored Products Ad campaign? When you enable a campaign to use Amazon Bid+, you’ll find that this tool relies on manual targeting. What does this mean?

While automated targeting compiles a list of keywords for your ad, based on factors like your products or audience, you must research and select the best-suited keywords for your product with manual targeting. Instead of letting Amazon build a list of keywords for you, you make your list. This means that instead of relying on a pre-determined algorithm to choose relevant keywords, you must discover the terms most relevant for your product and target audience on your own time.

2. Amazon Bid+ only applies to campaigns

If you turn on Bid+, please note that this feature only applies to ad campaigns. That means it will affect all the ad groups in a campaign, as well as the keywords in those ad groups. Only want to use Amazon Bid+ for specific ad groups?

Create a smaller campaign with the specific ad groups and keywords that you want to optimize using Bid+. Aim to include keywords or phrases that tend to have a higher conversion rate. This proactive step provides your business with greater control over your ad spend.

It also eliminates the trouble of investing in ad groups that have a lower value when it comes to securing sales. Before enabling Amazon Bid+ on a campaign, evaluate its value. It’s also worth evaluating your current bids and ad costs to see how much more you could pay with Amazon Bid+ active.

3. Amazon Bid+ doesn’t include comparison reporting

As a business professional, you know how important comparison reporting is when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of your ad campaigns. As a result, it’s natural to want to use comparison reporting for Amazon Bid+. With comparison reporting, you could see how it improved your overall campaign.

Unfortunately, Amazon Bid+ doesn’t include comparison reporting. There is a workaround, which can help your company assess the effectiveness and future value of Bid+. You can create a comparison report by collecting the data manually.

Start by launching your campaign without Bid+, gather a few weeks of data, and then enable Bid+. Track your data for the same period. Use the collected information to compare the results.

For some business leaders, the inability to launch a compare and contrast model poses a significant disadvantage. That’s why it’s vital to know about this potential issue beforehand.

4. Amazon Bid+ doesn’t guarantee a top position

You may think that investing in Bid+ is a surefire way to send your business straight to the top of Amazon search results. With Amazon Bid+ that isn’t the case, unfortunately. Using Bid+ doesn’t guarantee your company a top position in search results.

Since Amazon uses various other factors to evaluate who wins this top spot, you won’t automatically rank as the highest because you’re using Amazon Bid+. The inability to ensure a top position on the site can skew your advertising costs since you’re spending more to earn more revenue, but without the confidence of knowing if these sales will occur. Before you invest in Bid+, calculate the maximum amount you can invest in each click while still making a profit.

With this proactive step, you can avoid spending your company’s budget ineffectively.

Should sellers use Amazon Bid+?

Now that you know a little more about Amazon Bid+, are you ready to know if investing in this marketing strategy is right for your business? While this advertising option has potential for some companies, it’s not suited for everyone. Do you seem to have a firm grasp of the Amazon Bid+ system?

If not, it’s best to leave it disabled. While Amazon Bid+ is an excellent tool for educated sellers and marketing agencies, it can cause unknowing business leaders to go over-budget on their advertising cost.

Now, if you’re familiar with advertising on Amazon, plus have some background with Amazon Bid+, you may have success with the feature. Before enabling it, however, calculate the most you can bid without going over budget.

You can also partner with an advertising agency for Amazon. An agency that specializes on Amazon can help your company in several ways. For example, they can help your business discover high-value keywords, as well as build a cost-effective ad strategy.

When should sellers use Amazon Bid+?

Not sure if you should use Amazon Bid+ in your digital marketing strategy?

You’re not alone! As it’s useful for a variety of different scenarios, it’s important to know when you should enable it on a campaign. Here are a few reasons you may want to try Amazon Bid+:

• For new products
• For best-selling products
• For keywords that convert on a consistent basis
• For products struggling to gain visibility in search results

It’s also helpful to follow the industry’s best practices for advertising on Amazon:

• Conduct audience research
• Complete a competitor analysis
• Research keywords
• Follow product listing standards

With these proactive steps, your business can develop a results-driven ad campaign for Amazon. You can also determine whether Amazon Bid+ is a feature worth using in your next product promotion.

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