Product targeting is an option in Sponsored Product and Sponsored Display campaigns.
Instead of using keywords, you can use product targeting, also called product attribution targeting (PAT), to target specific goods, categories, or brands. One example is ASIN targeting, which allows you to target a product detail page instead of a keyword in your Amazon PPC ad campaign.
You will be targeting specific ASINs per bid in this situation.
The key to creating a high-performing campaign for Amazon PAT (Product Attribution Targeting) is to filter and gather relevant ASINs. Without relevant ASINs/Product Targets, then you won't have the building blocks to start an effective Amazon Product Targeting campaign.
Because Product Targeting allows sellers to bid on specific Amazon product pages, it helps the advertisers to laser-focus their ad spend. If you click on "Target" on a certain ASIN in the screenshot below, you can see a list of ASINs for which your campaign will be bidding.
Using Product Targeting you can also focus on taking out the competition by offering a superior offer directly on their listing. This in effect can take sales from your competition directly, because, in the end, the Amazon marketplace is a zero-sum game.
Search from Amazon Search Bar
This is probably the most obvious method for Amazon sellers to find ASINs related to their products. In this method, you will just go to the Amazon home page and conduct a search.
The key here is search terms relevancy, I would not choose keywords that are
1) too broad or
2) loosely related.
You want to pick a keyword that is just right, use long-tail keywords that are relevant to your product.
Another method is to use your actual Amazon PPC campaign data, filter for a relevant keyword with the most orders, reasonable ACoS, and a high conversion rate. You can do this by downloading your Amazon advertising report.
Once you have settled on the search term to use, enter the search term on the Amazon search bar and click search. In our example, we use "baby wall mount"
On each product result, you can right-click on each product, and copy their link address. The ASINs is within each link for example:
"https://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-Motorola-Babysense-HelloBaby-Universal/dp/B082NSVGGB/"
Collect all the links into a spreadsheet and extract the ASINs by using the below formula:
=MID({extracted link},FIND("B0",{extracted link}),10)
Search from Category on your Product
You also can use the Amazon category tree as a way to find relevant product targets/ASINs.
A few years ago I would not recommend using this method as a lot of sellers were gaming the category system by adding their products to none related categories to expand their reach. Now, Amazon has caught on, they now have a very strict enforcement policy for having the product in the right categories by either:
Automatically move products to the correct category
Forcing the sellers to change their category
Removing subcategories on a product
To find the category on your product page you will go to your product listing page, let say this is the product I am selling (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082NSVGGB). You will scroll down to the section "Additional Information", click on the category in the best seller rank.
On the result on the category, Just like in the previous method, collect all the links on the result via right-clicking>> "Copy link address", then use the formula to extract the ASINs.
Search Using Amazon PPC Suggestions
This search method will rely on Amazon Advertising's suggestions.
When you create an Amazon PPC campaign with the product targeting option selected, the individual products option gives a list of suggested ASINs to be targeted. Click on "Add" on a certain ASIN in the screenshot below to bid on them directly.
It is highly recommended that you do not "Add all", on the suggested ASIN, you should be manually vetting them out. Not all ASINs on the suggestion should be an ASIN you should be targeting. You filter these suggestions on the list by:
Product relevancy
Competitive Offers, bid on ASINs you know that you have an advantage over, in terms of price, # of reviews, and reviews rating.
Search from within a Product Listing Page
You can also use your own product listing page or a direct competitor's listing page to source your product ASINs.
This method makes logical sense as the competition or related listing that is advertising on your product listing page means that the customer segment is interrelated. You want to more or less "fight back" by having your product advertise on their listing as well.
Right-click on the result and collect the link, extract the ASINs. If you have read this far I think you know how to collect the link and extract the ASIN.
How to Scale-out this Process
The methods that I mentioned works, and by creating a sponsored display campaign using the ASINs collected you can create a very focused Amazon PPC PAT campaign with low ACoS and high ROI.
The downside to the method is that it is very much a manual process and not quite scalable if you are launching more than one product. There are two ways you can scale out the collection of ASINs for your Amazon PPC campaigns.
1. Hire a VA
Hire a VA (Virtual Assistant) from low-cost countries such as the Philippines for as low as $4/hr. You train the VA on the exact same method that is thoroughly explained above. A freelancer website like FreeUp, will have a large supply of freelancers that have experience on the Amazon marketplace, so you will probably find qualified VAs very quickly.
2. Automate the Process
Automating this process is probably my most preferred method in terms of collecting ASINs on the Amazon website. A service like Datahut can web scrape a large amount of ASINs on the Amazon marketplace for a fair cost.
This service is highly tailored so even if you do have some other ways to collect Amazon ASINs than the aforementioned methods they can provide the advice, and technical expertise to make your ideas a reality.
Conclusion
To summarize, we strongly advise Amazon sellers to implement product targeting campaigns! These are a great "backup" to your keyword targeting efforts, and if correctly tuned, can result in high conversions and an increase in sales. We hope this guide has given you the framework to scale your Amazon PPC via product and ASIN targeting, as well as how to apply it to competitors’ research.
About the Author
Rick Wong is the founder of SellerMetrics, an Amazon PPC Software. Having worked in some of the world’s largest financial institutions in Canada, he ventured into Amazon selling in 2017 and sold his Amazon business four years later. He currently resides in Hong Kong with his wife and 1 yr old daughter. On days that he is not in his office, you can find him playing golf with his friends or watching the newest show on Netflix with his family.