3 Ways to Approach Black Friday with Amazon PPC
Keren Dinkin, Copywriter
8 min read -
Published:Amazon is the undisputed top choice for shoppers on Black Friday – the busiest shopping day in the U.S. According to the numbers, approximately 85% of consumer traffic heads towards Amazon on this day.
As an Amazon seller, you should capitalize on the opportunity to boost sales and gain visibility. Black Friday also is an excellent time to attract new customers and sell off your slow-moving stock. All of this requires a well-planned Black Friday advertising and marketing strategy.
Discover how to approach Pay-Per-Click (PPC) during this time of the year to make the most of Black Friday.
Understanding the Difference in PPC Requirements for Black Friday
Pay Per Click is an advertising feature offered by Amazon Advertising that helps sellers increase outreach, boost brand awareness, and generate sales. PPC campaigns cost $0.77 per click on average and yield some of the best returns since you only pay when a potential customer clicks on your ad. It’s one of the most popular advertising platforms for e-commerce vendors behind Google and Facebook Ads.
What makes Amazon PPC unique is that you only pay the second-highest bid amount if you win it. You can also run PPC campaigns to boost your business all year long.
However, the strategies that work during the non-holiday season are less effective during Black Friday — as this is when Amazon witnesses some of the highest customer traffic. So, the competition between sellers is cutthroat despite the high probability of making profits. A regular PPC campaign will be ineffective because:
Consumers Have High Expectations
Amazon is known for its round-the-year offers and discounts. So, during Black Friday, consumers expect mindblowing one-of-a-kind deals that they won’t get any other time of the year. You need to come up with offers that your customers can’t refuse and back them up with ad copy that compels them to make a purchase.
Your PPC campaigns need to create a sense of urgency, be compelling, and cater to the customer expectations at the same time! Finding the ideal marketing offer and ad copy fit is imperative to running a successful PPC campaign during Black Friday.
Sales Timeline is Short
Trends reveal that Amazon kicks off its Black Friday sales window a week before the actual date and continues until Cyber Monday. The sales period is limited — that’s why you need a PPC strategy that’s highly effective, easy to execute, and has a low margin of error. You will not have the time to correct your mistakes.
It is a high-risk, high-reward scenario where your ad needs to be high-converting even if the campaign window is restrictive. Unlike other PPC campaigns, you cannot run Black Friday ads for months.
Bidding Needs to be Aggressive
Because competition is high during the holiday sales period, you need to adopt aggressive bidding strategies to make sales. It’s not the same as your regular, year-long PPC bidding strategies because the end goals are different.
Some of the automated strategies that work well for Black Friday include:
- Maximize Conversions: This strategy focuses on driving the maximum number of conversions for your allocated ad spend. It’s the best for generating outreach and getting traction for your campaign.
- Target Return on Ad Spend: With this technique, you can set a target for the return you want from your campaigns, and they will be automatically adjusted to achieve the goal.
- Target CPA: You can set your target Cost Per Acquisition and get as many conversions as possible without exceeding that limit.
These techniques work because they use Machine Learning (ML) and data analysis to adjust your bids in real-time. This helps you get the most out of your PPC campaigns.
As you can tell, you need to upgrade your PPC strategy to accommodate the unique requirements of Black Friday sales. You must also take customized approaches to your Black Friday PPC campaigns to hit the bull’s eye on your target.
3 Ways to Approach Amazon PPC for Black Friday Sales
It’s never too early to start preparing for your targeted Black Friday PPC ads. While creating dedicated PPC campaigns is common, there are other unique ways that can give you good results, too.
The top 3 approaches you can take are to:
1. Optimize Your Product Listings
Amazon’s algorithm starts shortlisting ads based on the relevancy of search terms used by customers, and most of them are likely to use Black Friday-related inputs. You should update your product listings in its entirety before planning your holiday-special ad campaigns.
Here’s why.
An end-to-end optimized listing will always garner some organic traction during the holiday sale season. Updated product listings will show good results even when paired with a regular PPC campaign.
Start by adding relevant keywords guided by what your customers are searching for in addition to the evergreen ones. Add keywords highlighting “Black Friday Deals,” “free shipping,” etc.
Besides incorporating targeted and long-tail keywords, clearly state the USP of your product so that it can stand out from the crowd. Every seller offers hefty discounts and free shipping. So, highlighting a feature that’s unique to your brand increases your chances of conversion.
Supplement the copy with HD images and videos of your product. Ensure you use only the latest models and packaging so that your customers don’t get confused. Focus heavily on infographics and product demo videos.
Most sellers focus on customizing their ad campaigns and overlook their listings. That’s why product listings adjusted for the holiday sale season have a competitive advantage over the regular ones.
The only caveat is that you have to keep adjusting your listings right up to the sale day because Amazon’s advertising data is not accurate until the last moment. However, if you crack the code to optimize your product listings, your PPC campaigns for Black Friday will show better results.
2. Get Creative with Your Bidding Strategy
Leave no bidding option unused if you want to maximize your sales during Black Friday because the competition will be fierce. While that means you have to increase your bidding budget, the smartest way to go about it is to go for automated bidding options like Maximize Conversions, Target ROAS, and Target CPA, as discussed above.
Dynamic Bidding (Up and Down) is also effective in helping you win over your competition. It’s particularly helpful when you’re running a Sponsored Products PPC campaign because Amazon adjusts your bid value in real-time, depending on the probability of a click converting to a sale.
According to Amazon, Dynamic (Up and Down) Bids delivered 119% more ad-attributed sales than Dynamic (Down) bidding. During Black Friday, it can be the bidding trump card you need to boost sales.
Bid aggressively during peak hours to increase the success of your PPC campaigns. Black Friday offers are valid for a limited period only, and you need to make it count. You could start with your aggressive bidding strategy 30 days before the commencement of Black Friday sales — this approach gives you more control over your PPC spend.
Consider spending your budget on high-value keywords that are specific to your products and search terms used by your audience to get better returns on your ad spend. Spending money on trending keywords is not always wise, especially if they do not cater to your audience or niche.
Use a combination of these bidding approaches and strategies for Black Friday PPC success!
3. Create Dedicated Landing Pages for Your Black Friday Deals
When you’re running Sponsored Ads campaigns for the festival season sales, you should go that extra mile and create a landing page on your Amazon storefront just for your Black Friday offers.
It should be the best standalone landing page you have created.
Start by using persuasive ad copy and targeted keywords. Display your discounts and offers with clarity, high-quality pictures, and graphic elements like infographics. Make it mobile-friendly and easy to navigate.
Also, trigger a sense of FOMO in your customers by incorporating a countdown timer on this page. That will persuade them to make a purchase instead of delaying their decision.
Besides looking good, your landing page must also be optimized to handle heavy traffic. So, load test before taking it live. Never underestimate the Black Friday rush hour shopping crowd.
But, why should you make all this extra effort?
A dedicated landing page for your Black Friday deals has the following benefits:
- Whether you’re running a dedicated PPC campaign or off-Amazon ads, the traffic can be redirected to this landing page to increase your chances of conversion.
- It can provide a seamless user experience to your customers, boosting their confidence in your brand and not just the product you’re selling. You can create landing pages tailored to your target customer demographic
- Enhanced relevance mapping between the PPC ad campaign and landing page ensures a higher quality score. Improved quality scores can significantly reduce your cost per click (CPC), giving you value for money results.
- Capture leads from the shopping rush hour traffic. You can use this later to improve your regular PPC campaigns, gain brand visibility, and increase conversions.
You could combine any of these three approaches with your Black Friday PPC campaign. Or, you could use all three at once. It all depends on your Black Friday sales goal. Ensure that you define your PPC campaign objectives even before you get started so that you can choose the best approach to achieve your goal.
Mistakes to Avoid in Your Black Friday PPC Campaigns
Even the most personalized PPC campaign will fail to show remarkable results if you make these common mistakes. While it’s easy to overlook the finer details in your rush to get on the Black Friday sale bandwagon, use this list to avoid pitfalls.
1. Being Late with Your Campaign Submission
Not submitting your customized PPC campaign on time is a cardinal sin. If you’re too late to the party, you will not have enough time to make amends. Plus, you will miss out on warming up your campaign before the big day.
2. Not Designing a Full-blown Campaign
Not designing a full campaign is a mistake. The sales period may be short, but you still need to design a full campaign if you want your PPC ads to show good results.
3. Only Offering Discounts
Offering discounts on the retail price is not enough. Black Friday is not just about discounts; it’s also about including other exciting offers. Free shipping, BOGO, free gifts, and product bundles are some of the few offers that you should try out. Try creating off-holiday deals, too.
4. Not Considering an Abandoned Cart Strategy
Not having an abandoned cart strategy hurts your sales. Festive season shoppers often abandon their shopping carts, resulting in a loss of sales for you. Send email reminders to your customers with added one-time-only discounts to ensure they make the purchase.
5. Forgetting about Cyber Monday
Black Friday sales lead up to Cyber Monday, which is yet another exciting opportunity to boost sales. Create separate offers with different messaging, but know that the festive sale season begins with one and ends with the other.
6. Not Checking Your PPC Account
Not doing a hygiene check of your PPC account is a common mistake. As an Amazon seller, you most likely run various ad campaigns all year, some of which may not perform well. Keeping them in your account affects your Black Friday campaign performance.
Do a sanitization check of your Amazon PPC account to remove low-performing campaigns and irrelevant keywords, and update your product listings. It gives you a better shot at success.
7. Failing to Create Urgency
Online shoppers will get bombarded with offers and discounts from all sellers, so you need to create a sense of urgency to make them place an order with you. Lightning deals, one-day special offers, countdown timers, etc., can trigger FOMO in your buyers.
Black Friday is an excellent opportunity for you to leverage Amazon’s PPC feature for your business. Get started with your planning today.
