The Ultimate Guide to Conduct an Amazon PPC Audit

Are you looking for an Amazon PPC Audit Guide? As Amazon Audit free tools are not enough for complete in-depth Guidelines. An Amazon PPC audit is essential to identify areas of improvement in your ad campaigns. 

It helps uncover wasted ad spend, discover new keyword opportunities, and optimize targeting strategies. Regular PPC audits ensure your campaigns stay efficient, competitive, and aligned with your business goals.

Benefits include identifying wasted ad spend, uncovering new opportunities, improving overall ROI, optimizing campaign structures, refining keyword targeting, enhancing ad creatives, and adjusting bids for better performance. Regular audits ensure continuous growth and the ability to stay competitive in the ever-evolving Amazon marketplace.

Conducting an Amazon PPC audit is essential to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of your advertising campaigns on the platform. By partnering with a reputable Amazon PPC Agency, you can gain invaluable insights into your current campaign performance, identify areas of improvement, and ultimately optimize your return on investment. 

Step 1: Setting Goals and Objectives

Specific and measurable goals for an Amazon PPC Audit include:

• Reduce ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales): Aim for a specific percentage reduction in your ACoS to improve the efficiency of your ad spend.
• Increase ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): Set a target for increasing ROAS, ensuring that your ad campaigns generate a better return on investment.
• Optimize campaign structure: Establish a goal to better organize your campaigns for easier management and improved performance.
• Enhance keyword targeting: Set a target for discovering new high-converting keywords and refining existing ones to improve ad relevance.
• Improve ad creatives: Increase click-through (CTR) and conversion rates (CVR) by enhancing your ad copy and images.
• Monitor budget utilization: Establish a goal to maintain optimal budget allocation across campaigns, ensuring efficient use of resources.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for an Amazon PPC Audit include:

1. Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS): This metric represents the ratio of ad spend to revenue generated, helping you evaluate the efficiency of your ad campaigns.
2. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): This KPI measures that for every dollar spent on advertising, revenue is generated, allowing you to assess the profitability of your campaigns.
3. Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of users who click on your ad after seeing it, indicating the effectiveness of your ad creatives and targeting.
4. Conversion Rate (CVR): The percentage of users who click on your ad and make a purchase, reflecting the effectiveness of your product listings and ad targeting.
5. Cost per Click (CPC): The average amount you pay for each click on your ads, helping you monitor and optimize your ad spend.
6. Impressions: The number of times your ad is displayed, providing insights into your ad visibility and reach.
7. Clicks: The total number of clicks your ads receive, indicating the level of user engagement with your campaigns.
8. Sales: The total revenue generated from your ad campaigns, helping you evaluate the overall success of your PPC efforts.

Step 2: Analyzing Campaign Structure

• How Review Existing Campaign Organization Conduct During PPC Audit

Steps to guide on how to review an existing campaign organization for an Amazon PPC audit:

1. Review your campaign structure: Start by examining the overall structure of your campaigns, ad groups, and product targets. Ensure your campaigns are well-organized, with a clear objective and targeted audience. Proper organization and segmentation help improve performance and make ongoing optimization easier.
2. Analyze keywords and match types: Investigate the keywords you are bidding on and their match types (broad, phrase, or exact). Identify low-performing keywords that are consuming your budget without delivering results, and consider either removing them or adjusting their bids. Additionally, look for new keyword opportunities that can drive more targeted traffic.
3. Evaluate your ad spend: Review your advertising cost of sales (ACoS) to determine the efficiency of your campaigns. Analyze your campaign budgets to ensure you’re not overspending or underspending. Compare your ACoS to your target ACoS, and adjust your bids accordingly to reach your desired profitability.
4. Examine your product targeting: Check your product targeting settings, including ASIN and category targeting. Make sure you are targeting relevant products and categories that can drive conversions. Remove any irrelevant targets that are wasting your ad spend.
5. Analyze performance metrics: Assess key performance metrics, such as click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), and cost per click (CPC). Identify trends and areas of improvement in these metrics, and make necessary adjustments to optimize your campaigns.
6. Review your ad creatives: Evaluate your ad creatives, including headlines, images, and descriptions. Ensure they are engaging, relevant, and aligned with your target audience’s preferences. Update or test new creatives if needed to improve ad performance.
7. Optimize your product listings: Make sure your product listings are optimized with relevant keywords, high-quality images, and persuasive copy. This improves your organic search ranking and increases the likelihood of PPC ad conversions.
8. Monitor negative keywords and placements: Review your negative keywords and placements to prevent your ads from appearing for irrelevant searches or on unrelated product pages. Continuously update your negative keyword lists and placements to maintain campaign efficiency.
9. Conduct competitor analysis: Analyze your competitors’ PPC strategies to identify potential opportunities and threats. Look for new keywords, targeting options, and creative ideas that could enhance your campaigns.
10. Set up a regular audit schedule: Regularly audit your Amazon PPC campaigns to ensure ongoing optimization and performance improvement. Establish a schedule (monthly or quarterly) for conducting audits and making necessary adjustments.

• Assess ad groups and product targeting During PPC Audit

Here’s how you can assess ad groups and product targeting during an Amazon PPC audit:

Review ad group organization: Ensure your ad groups are organized based on logical themes or product categories. This helps maintain a clear structure and simplifies the process of optimizing bids, keywords, and product targets.

Examine ad group performance: Analyze the performance of each ad group by looking at key metrics such as advertising cost of sales (ACoS), click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), and cost per click (CPC). Identify underperforming ad groups and investigate their poor performance, such as insufficient budget, weak keywords, or low-quality ad creatives.

Evaluate product targeting settings: Review the product targeting settings in your ad groups, including ASIN targeting and category targeting. Ensure that you’re targeting relevant products and categories that are likely to drive conversions.

Identify irrelevant product targets: Look for those that are irrelevant to your campaigns or not converting well. Remove these targets to prevent wasting ad spending on low-performing products.

Analyze performance by product target: Assess the performance of each product target by examining its ACoS, CTR, CVR, and CPC. Identify high-performing targets and consider increasing their bids to capitalize on their success. Conversely, lower the bids for underperforming targets or remove them entirely if they consistently fail to generate results.

Assess negative product targets: Review your negative product targets to ensure that your ads are not appearing on irrelevant or low-performing product pages. Regularly update your negative product targets to maintain campaign efficiency.

Optimize ad creatives for targeted products: Make sure your ad creatives, such as headlines, images, and descriptions, are optimized for the products you’re targeting. Ensure your creatives are engaging, relevant, and resonate with your target audience.

Monitor competitor product targeting: Keep an eye on your competitors’ product targeting strategies to identify potential opportunities and threats. Look for new targeting options and ideas that could improve your campaigns.

Test and refine targeting strategies: Continuously test and refine your product targeting strategies based on performance data. This can include experimenting with different product targets, adjusting bids, or trying new ad creatives.

Step 3: Keyword Research and Optimization

Evaluate Current keyword Performance

Here’s how to evaluate current keyword performance during an Amazon PPC audit:

1. Review keyword list: Examine the keywords you bid on in each ad group. Ensure your comprehensive keyword list includes relevant keywords that accurately represent your products and target audience.
2. Analyze keyword match types: Investigate the match types (broad, phrase, or exact) you use for each keyword. Determine whether the chosen match type is appropriate based on the keyword’s performance and your advertising goals. Adjust match types as needed to improve performance.
3. Check keyword performance metrics: Examine key performance metrics for each keyword, such as advertising cost of sales (ACoS), click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), cost per click (CPC), and impressions. These metrics provide insights into each keyword’s effectiveness and help you identify trends and areas for improvement.
4. Identify high-performing keywords: Look for high CTR, CVR, impressions, and a low ACoS. These keywords are driving sales and should be prioritized in your campaigns. Consider increasing bids for high-performing keywords to boost their visibility and capitalize on their success.
5. Spot underperforming keywords: Identify keywords with low CTR, CVR, impressions, and a high ACoS. These keywords may be consuming your budget without delivering results. Consider lowering bids, adjusting match types, or removing underperforming keywords from your campaigns.
6. Review negative keywords: Examine your negative keyword lists to ensure that your ads are not appearing for irrelevant or low-converting search queries. Continuously update your negative keyword lists to maintain campaign efficiency and reduce wasted ad spend.
7. Conduct keyword gap analysis: Look for potential gaps in your keyword list by comparing it to your competitors’ keyword strategies and using keyword research tools. Identify new keyword opportunities that could drive additional targeted traffic to your campaigns.
8. Monitor keyword performance trends: Keep track of keyword performance trends over time to spot changes in consumer behavior or market conditions. This information can help you make informed decisions about adjusting bids, adding new keywords, or pausing underperforming keywords.
9. Test new keywords: Regularly test new keywords and monitor their performance to uncover hidden opportunities and stay ahead of the competition. Use various keyword research tools and techniques to find relevant keywords for your campaigns.

• Remove or adjust underperforming keywords

Here’s how to remove or adjust underperforming keywords during an Amazon PPC audit:

1. Identify underperforming keywords: Review your keyword performance metrics, such as advertising cost of sales (ACoS), click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), and cost per click (CPC). Look for keywords with low CTR, CVR, impressions, and a high ACoS, as these are likely underperforming.
2. Analyze search term reports: Examine your search term reports to identify the actual search queries that triggered your ads. This helps you understand your keywords’ relevance and whether they effectively reach your target audience.
3. Consider keyword match types: If a keyword is underperforming, its match type (broad, phrase, or exact) could contribute. For instance, a broad match keyword might be triggering irrelevant search queries. Consider changing the match type to phrase or exact to increase relevancy and improve performance.
4. Adjust bids: Lowering the bids for underperforming keywords can help reduce ad spend without completely removing the keyword from your campaign. Monitor the performance of adjusted keywords to see if the reduced bids lead to better results.
5. Pause or remove keywords: If a keyword consistently underperforms even after adjusting bids or match types, consider pausing or removing it from your campaign. This helps eliminate wasted ad spend and allows you to focus on high-performing keywords.
6. Evaluate negative keywords: Ensure that your negative keyword lists are up-to-date and include irrelevant search queries that triggered your underperforming keywords. Regularly update your negative keyword lists to maintain campaign efficiency.
7. Test new keywords: As you remove or adjust underperforming keywords, test new keywords that might be more relevant and effective. Use keyword research tools and competitor analysis to find potential high-performing keywords.
8. Monitor performance: Continuously monitor the performance of your adjusted and new keywords to ensure they are delivering the desired results. Make further adjustments as needed based on performance data.

V. Step 4: Ad Copy and Creative Review

Analyze ad headlines and descriptions

Here are complete steps that you can follow for analysis of Ad headlines and descriptions:

• Review ad copy for relevance: Check if your ad headlines and descriptions accurately represent your products and are relevant to the targeted keywords. Your ad should align with potential customers’ search intent and address their needs or pain points.
• Evaluate ad copy for clarity and conciseness: Assess whether your headlines and descriptions are clear, concise, and easy to understand. Avoid using overly complex language or jargon that might confuse your target audience. Keep your ad copy focused and to the point.
• Check for compelling value propositions: Ensure that your ad headlines and descriptions highlight your products’ unique selling points and benefits. Emphasize features that differentiate your products from the competition and showcase their value to potential customers.
• Analyze ad performance metrics: Review key ad performance metrics, such as click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CVR), to gauge the effectiveness of your ad headlines and descriptions. Low CTR and CVR may indicate that your ad copy needs improvement.
• Test different ad copy variations: Create multiple variations of ad headlines and descriptions to test which copy resonates best with your target audience. Use Amazon’s ad performance data to identify the most effective ad copy and apply these learnings to your campaigns.
• Employ a consistent brand voice: Ensure your ad headlines and descriptions maintain a consistent brand voice and messaging across your campaigns. Consistency helps build brand recognition and trust among potential customers.
• Incorporate relevant keywords: Include relevant keywords in your ad headlines and descriptions to improve ad relevance and visibility. This can also improve your ad’s quality score, potentially leading to lower cost per click (CPC) and better ad placements.
• Monitor competitor ad copy: Analyze your competitors’ ad headlines and descriptions to identify any trends, strategies, or messaging that might be effective. Use these insights to inform your ad copy and stay competitive.
• Proofread for grammar and spelling: Ensure your ad headlines and descriptions are free from grammatical and spelling mistakes. Errors can negatively impact your brand’s credibility and deter potential customers from clicking on your ads.

Implement A/B testing for ad variations

Here’s how to implement A/B testing for ad variations during an Amazon PPC audit:

• Identify ad elements for testing: Determine which ad elements you want to test, such as headlines, descriptions, images, or calls-to-action (CTAs). Focus on elements that significantly impact ad performance and user engagement.
• Develop ad variations: Create multiple variations of the selected ad elements. For example, if you’re testing headlines, develop two or more distinct headlines that convey different messages or highlight different product features.
• Keep other variables consistent: Ensure that all other ad elements and targeting settings remain consistent across the variations to isolate the impact of the tested element. This helps ensure that any differences in performance can be attributed to the specific element being tested.
• Set up A/B testing in your campaign: Use Amazon’s A/B testing features or third-party tools to set up A/B testing for your ad variations. Make sure each variation receives a similar amount of traffic to ensure a fair comparison.
• Monitor performance metrics: Track key performance metrics, such as click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), and cost per click (CPC), for each ad variation. Use these metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of the tested ad elements and identify the best-performing variations.
• Determine a winner: After running the test for a sufficient period (typically a few weeks or until you have enough data), compare the performance metrics of each variation to determine the winning ad. This is the ad variation with the highest CTR, CVR, or other desired metric.
• Implement the winning variation: Apply the winning ad variation to your campaign and pause or remove the underperforming variations. This helps improve your overall campaign performance and return on investment (ROI).
• Conduct follow-up tests: Continue to run A/B tests on other ad elements or conduct follow-up tests on the winning ad variations to further refine and optimize your campaigns. This iterative process helps you continuously improve ad performance and stay competitive.

VI. Step 5: Bid Management and Budget Allocation

Review current bidding strategies

Here’s how to review current bidding strategies during an Amazon PPC audit:

• Understand Amazon’s bidding options: Familiarize yourself with Amazon’s different bidding options, including active dynamic bids (up and down), bids (down only), and fixed bids. Each option has advantages and disadvantages, depending on your advertising goals and risk tolerance.
• Analyze campaign objectives: Assess your advertising goals and objectives for each campaign, such as increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or improving product ranking. Your bidding strategy should align with these objectives to ensure optimal results.
• Examine campaign performance: Review your campaign performance metrics, such as advertising cost of sales (ACoS), click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), and cost per click (CPC). These metrics provide valuable insights into your current bidding strategy’s effectiveness and help identify improvement areas.

• Evaluate budget allocation: Analyze your budget allocation across campaigns and ad groups to ensure it aligns with your advertising goals. Adjust budget allocation as needed to prioritize high-performing campaigns and maximize ROI.
• Assess keyword performance: Review the performance of individual keywords, including their bids, ACoS, CTR, and CVR. Identify high-performing keywords and consider increasing their bids to boost visibility and capitalize on their success. Conversely, adjust bids for underperforming keywords or remove them if they consistently fail to generate results.
• Compare bidding strategies: Experiment with different bidding strategies for your campaigns and compare their performance. Running tests with various bidding options can help you identify the most effective strategy for achieving your advertising goals.
• Monitor competitor bidding strategies: Monitor competitors’ bidding strategies to identify potential opportunities and threats. Adjust your bidding strategy as needed to stay competitive in the marketplace.
• Optimize bidding based on performance data: Continuously monitor and adjust your bidding strategies based on performance data to improve campaign efficiency and ROI. This can include adjusting bids, changing bidding options, or reallocating the budget.

Optimize budget allocation across campaigns

• Analyze campaign performance: Review the performance metrics of each campaign, including advertising cost of sales (ACoS), click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), cost per click (CPC), and total sales. Identify high-performing campaigns with low ACoS and high sales and underperforming campaigns with high ACoS and low sales.
• Prioritize high-performing campaigns: Allocate more budget to high-performing campaigns to capitalize on their success and drive additional sales. By increasing the budget for these campaigns, you can enhance their visibility and reach, potentially leading to a higher ROI.
• Optimize underperforming campaigns: Before adjusting budget allocation for underperforming campaigns, try to identify the reasons behind their poor performance. This could include issues with keywords, targeting, ad copy, or product listings. Make necessary optimizations to improve campaign performance before adjusting the budget.
• Reallocate budget from low-performing campaigns: If certain campaigns continue to underperform despite optimizations, consider reducing their budget and reallocating the saved budget to high-performing or promising campaigns. This can help you maximize your overall ad spend efficiency.
• Monitor performance trends: Regularly monitor campaign performance trends to identify any changes in performance due to market conditions, seasonality, or other factors. Adjust budget allocation accordingly to ensure that your campaigns remain competitive and effective.
• Set goals and targets: Establish clear goals and targets for each campaign, such as desired ACoS, sales volume, or ROI. Use these targets to guide your budget allocation decisions and ensure your campaigns are on track to achieve their objectives.
• Test different budget allocation strategies: Experiment with different strategies to determine which approach delivers the best results. For example, you might allocate a budget based on product category, target audience, or campaign type (e.g., Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, or Sponsored Display).
• Utilize Amazon’s dynamic bidding features: Take advantage of Amazon’s dynamic bidding features, which automatically adjust bids in real-time to optimize your ad spend. This can help you achieve your desired ACoS and maximize your ROI.

VII. Step 6: Analyzing Performance Metrics

• Identify key performance metrics: Start by determining the most critical performance metrics for your campaigns, such as click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), advertising cost of sales (ACoS), cost per click (CPC), impressions, and total sales.

• Review historical performance: Examine the historical performance of your campaigns to identify trends, fluctuations, and patterns in the data. This can help you understand your campaigns’ evolution and inform your optimization strategies.
• Evaluate campaign-level metrics: Assess the performance of each campaign by analyzing metrics like ACoS, CPC, CTR, and CVR. This can help you identify high-performing campaigns that should be prioritized and underperforming campaigns that need optimization.
• Analyze ad group-level metrics: Break down your analysis further by examining the performance of each ad group within your campaigns. Look for ad groups with high ACoS, low CTR, or low CVR, as these may require targeting, keyword selection, or ad copy adjustments.
• Assess keyword-level metrics: Dive into the performance of individual keywords by analyzing metrics like ACoS, CTR, CVR, CPC, and impressions. Use this data to identify high-performing keywords that should be prioritized and underperforming keywords that need optimization or removal.
• Examine search term performance: Review your search term reports to understand which search queries drive your campaigns’ impressions, clicks, and conversions. This can help you refine your keyword targeting, negative keyword lists, and overall campaign strategy.
• Analyze ad copy performance: Assess the effectiveness of your ad headlines and descriptions by reviewing metrics like CTR and CVR. Identify high-performing ad copy that resonates with your target audience and use this information to optimize your ads.
• Monitor placement performance: Investigate the performance of your ads across different placements (e.g., top of the search, rest of search, or product detail pages) to identify areas of opportunity for improving ad visibility and performance.
• Compare performance against competitors: Analyze your performance metrics with your competitors to understand your market position and identify areas of improvement to stay competitive.
• Set performance benchmarks: Establish performance benchmarks for your key metrics to help you evaluate the success of your campaigns and guide your optimization efforts. Continuously monitor your performance against these benchmarks to ensure that your campaigns are on track to meet your goals.

VIII. Step 7: Monitoring Negative Keywords

A Sellics (2021) study revealed that, on average, businesses leveraging Amazon PPC saw a 34% increase in sales within the first three months of running their campaigns. Furthermore, the study showed that the average return on ad spend (ROAS) for Amazon PPC campaigns is 3.5, meaning that for every dollar spent on advertising, businesses can expect to earn $3.50 in revenue. 

• Review existing negative keyword lists: Begin by examining your current negative keyword lists to ensure they effectively exclude irrelevant search terms. Check if the negative keywords are still relevant and if any new ones should be added.
• Analyze search term reports: Dive into your search term reports to identify search queries that triggered your ads but did not lead to conversions or had a high cost per click (CPC). This can help you discover new negative keywords that should be added to your list to prevent wasted ad spend.
• Identify low-performing search queries: Look for search queries with low click-through rates (CTR), low conversion rates (CVR), or high advertising cost of sales (ACoS). These queries may not be relevant to your products or target audience and should be considered for your negative keyword list.
• Check for irrelevant search queries: Review your search term reports for search queries unrelated to your products or not aligned with your target audience’s search intent. Adding these irrelevant terms to your negative keyword list can help improve ad relevance and campaign performance.
• Assess negative keyword match types: Ensure that you’re using the appropriate negative keyword match types (negative exact, negative phrase, or negative broad) based on your advertising goals and the level of control you want over the excluded search queries.
• Organize negative keywords: Separate your negative keywords into lists based on themes or product categories. This makes managing and updating your negative keyword lists easier as you optimize your campaigns.
• Update negative keyword lists regularly: Regularly review and update your negative keyword lists to maintain campaign efficiency and stay up-to-date with changes in consumer behavior, market trends, or your product offerings.
• Monitor performance metrics: Track key performance metrics, such as click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), and cost per click (CPC), to evaluate the effectiveness of your negative keyword strategy. Adjust your negative keyword lists as needed based on performance data.

IX. Step 8: Implementing Changes and Monitoring Results

Here’s how to implement changes and monitor results after an Amazon PPC audit:

• Prioritize changes: Based on the insights gathered during the audit, prioritize the changes that must be implemented. Focus on high-impact areas, such as keyword targeting, ad copy, negative keywords, and bid adjustments that can significantly improve campaign performance.
• Create an action plan: Develop a detailed plan outlining the steps required to implement the changes. Assign responsibilities and deadlines to ensure your team stays on track and can efficiently execute the plan.
• Implement changes systematically: Start implementing the changes according to your action plan. It’s essential to make changes systematically and gradually, as making too many changes at once can make it difficult to determine which adjustments drive performance improvements.
• Monitor performance metrics: Continuously track key performance metrics, such as click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), advertising cost of sales (ACoS), and cost per click (CPC), to evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented changes. Compare the performance data before and after the changes to assess their impact on your campaigns.
• Test and optimize: Conduct A/B tests to measure the impact of different changes and determine which strategies are most effective. Continuously optimize your campaigns based on the insights gathered from your tests and performance data.
• Adjust bids and budgets: Review your bid and budget settings to ensure they align with your campaign goals and performance expectations. Adjust bids and budgets as needed to improve ad visibility, control costs, and maximize ROI.
• Review negative keywords: Regularly monitor and update your negative keyword lists to maintain campaign efficiency and stay up-to-date with changes in consumer behavior, market trends, or product offerings.
• Analyze ad copy and targeting: Evaluate the effectiveness of your ad headlines, descriptions, and targeting settings after implementing changes. Continuously refine your ad copy and targeting strategies based on performance data and market trends.
• Measure overall campaign performance: Assess the overall performance of your campaigns after implementing changes to understand their impact on your advertising objectives and ROI. Use this information to inform future optimizations and strategic decisions.
• Schedule regular PPC audits: Conduct regular Amazon PPC audits (e.g., quarterly or biannually) to continuously identify areas for improvement and ensure that your campaigns remain competitive and effective over time.

X. Wrapping Up:

In short, conducting an Amazon PPC audit is crucial for identifying improvement areas and maximizing your ad campaigns’ effectiveness. By setting specific goals and objectives, analyzing campaign structure, and regularly monitoring key performance indicators, you can uncover wasted ad spend, discover new keyword opportunities, and optimize targeting strategies. 

The Ultimate Guide to Conduct an Amazon PPC Audit provides a comprehensive roadmap to help you evaluate and enhance your campaigns, enabling continuous growth and competitiveness in the ever-evolving Amazon marketplace. Regular PPC audits ensure your campaigns stay efficient, competitive, and aligned with your business goals, ultimately driving better results and higher returns on investment.