And while how you set up—and subsequently run—your PPC campaigns is extremely important, so too is a less common seller question, “What are your PPC ad options and how do they work?” 

Today, I am going to show you three different types of Amazon Ads so you can optimize your ad spend and move to profitability. 

Sponsored Products - Keyword Targeting

First off, all of the types of ads we cover today are PPC—pay per click—ads. In the PPC method, a seller bids a dollar amount on specific targets related to their product. Then, their ad appears as a sponsored listing when shoppers search or visit that target. When the shopper clicks the seller’s sponsored ad, the seller pays their bid amount to Amazon, regardless if there is a sale or not. 

Sponsored Products - Keyword Targeting type ad campaigns are the most common ad type on Amazon. You can grab our full breakdown of Keyword Targeted ads (along with tons of tips ‘n tricks) here. 

With this specific campaign, sellers target keywords—words or phrases that shoppers use to search for what they want to buy. Essentially, you pay Amazon to appear when a shopper searches for terms related to your product in the hopes of converting that customer. 

For example, if you sold a set of whiskey glasses, you might choose the keyword “whiskey glass set” to be your main keyword. You would then bid on that exact phrase—whiskey glass set—in Seller Central. When a shopper searches that exact (or similar) keyphrase, your product appears in shopper search results. 

Of course, you don’t want your product to appear just anywhere in search results. You want your product to appear at the top of page one of search results, which means you must outbid most other sellers who also wish to rank for that keyword. Where your product appears in search results for a given keyword is called rank. 

If you successfully outbid all or most other sellers, when shoppers search that keyword, they find your listing in the top row of page one as a sponsored ad, like so:

The Sponsored badge indicates to customers that that product listing is a paid ad. They can still buy your product as normal once they click on it, however you will pay Amazon your bid amount for that cick. 

For the most part, the top three to four spots within a search query are for sponsored ads, however that’s not the only place they appear. Depending on the specific product market or niche, there may be other sponsored ads laced in with the organic—non-sponsored—listings scattered throughout the rest of search results, even on pages beyond the coveted page one. 

The exact amount of sponsored spots varies by product category. 

Keep in mind that it’s not Amazon’s job to deduce what keywords and search terms are relevant to your product. It’s your job to conduct extensive keyword research to determine what search terms shoppers associate with your product type and/or how they find your product type on Amazon. 

That’s where we come in. There are dozens of ways you can research keywords potential shoppers are searching. You can even learn what features shoppers want from your product based on their keyword searches!

Our Amazon FBA Mastery membership can take you through all of that and more. Whether you need product ideas, help building your product listing, PPC tutorials, or assistance growing your brand, our training has you covered (in 100+ video lessons). We’ll even show you how to set all of today’s promotion types up. Learn all the ways we can help you achieve your Amazon FBA goals at JOD.com/freedom.  

Sponsored Products - Product Targeting

If keyword targeting PPC ads are meant to target specific words or phrases shoppers search, product targeting PPC ads target a specific product that exists on Amazon. 

With product targeting, you pay Amazon to have your product appear in the Products related to this item section of another seller’s Amazon listing. 

Your products might also appear in a section entitled 4 stars and above. 

However, anytime you see a product in either the Products related to this item or 4 stars and above section with a Sponsored badge, that seller has paid Amazon to exhibit their product there (note not all products in these sections are sponsored, some recommendations come from Amazon’s algorithm). 

When you set up a product targeting PPC campaign, you would select the same type of product as your own and hope that shoppers who visit the targeted listing will actually prefer (and buy) yours. 

You might also choose to appear on products that pair well with yours in the hopes the shopper will buy your companion piece. For example, if you sold a disc golf backpack, you might create a product targeting campaign on a set of disc golf discs.

Back on whiskey glass set example, notice on this Products related to this item section that the first product in each visible row gets the Sponsored badge. This tells us there are multiple sponsored products within this section.

You can scroll for quite a while to see several other sponsored options of this product. 

Unlike keyword targeting where your bid amount determines how high your sponsored product ranks in search results, with product targeting, your bid amount determines what page your product leads within these scrollable, related products. 

Keep in mind that these two types of sponsored product ads are…well, for one, the most common types of Amazon ads, and two, open to any Amazon seller. However, there are some types of ads that are restricted to a select few.

Brand Registered Ads

These types of ads are reserved for sellers who are Brand Registered. 

You can apply to become brand registered here, however it’s not as simple as applying. You must either have a trademark for your brand name OR apply to receive your trademark using Amazon’s IP Accelerator.

It will cost you some money to become trademarked and brand registered, however it’s worth it. Access to Amazon’s Brand Registry means access to:

• A+ content on your product listing
• Additional support and backing from Amazon in the case of hijackers
• Brand registered ads

We recommend that all of our students get their brand trademarked when it is financially feasible for their business (there is nothing wrong with starting without a trademark and securing it at a later date).

Amazon’s brand registered ads follow the same format as the rest of their PPC ads: you place bids for your product to appear under certain conditions, and when a shopper clicks on your sponsored product, you pay your bid amount to Amazon. 

That said, brand registered ads take on a different format compared to other PPC ads.

Sponsored Brand Ads allow sellers to feature advanced ad creatives—such as video—in their ad. You might have seen these types of ads in Amazon search results already:

You might have also noticed some Amazon search results return sponsored brands—these are called Store Spotlights, they are also sponsored brand ads.

Sponsored Display Audience ads, on the other hand, allow sellers to run ads for their Amazon products both on and off of Amazon, such as is the case with this Yahoo ad:

These ads are highly specific too; you can even target by life events such as customers who are recently married.

Everything we’ve just covered has been incredibly high level. There’s so much more to learn about PPC beyond the types of ads. 

Our Amazon FBA Mastery membership has the full PPC how-to, with step-by-step setup guides, multiple optimization strategies, and how to read and adjust the literal dozens of PPC metrics you need to know in order to get your product in front of the right shoppers and profitable quickly. 

If you are truly dead set on turning your life around and building a life of financial freedom for you and those you love, visit JOD.com/apply. There, you can speak with a member of our team who will show you all the ways Just One Dime can help you achieve your goals and help you decide if we are the right fit to get you there.

Which type of PPC ad are you most interested in running? Let me know in the comments.