Amazon Product Ads - How it works

Earlier today, I reported that Amazon has started “Amazon Product Ads” which allows you to effectively advertise products on Amazon.

Since then I’ve gotten in to look under the hood and poke around a little.

Here’s how it works…

First, as mentioned in the original email I got this afternoon (February 7 at 2:30 PM), you need to apply to Amazon Product Ads at this page.

Next, I got a phone call from someone at Amazon.  They had reviewed my site and thought I was a good match.

How do they determine who to invite? 

I’m not sure, but they did specifically mention that my e-commerce site was a very clean and professional looking site and that they did not mind sending visitors to my site to purchase there instead of purchasing directly on Amazon.   (That could have been just a compliment.)

Create an account

I then got an email that linked to a page to create a Amazon Product Ads account.  I won’t provide a link.  (You’ll have to get it from them.)  That page asked for my website name and URL.

After that, I needed to provide some other basic information, credit card info, and daily budget.

Amazon Product Ads Seller Central

Now I simply sign in to the “Seller Central”.

This seems to be their portal for getting the details entered.

From this point, it looked more like a Shopping Search Engine (think Shopping.com, Yahoo Shopping, etc).

The next step is to enter a product upload.  If you want to see what they are requiring, you can check out this pdf printout of the specs or this Excel template.

NOTE:  They also accept the Shopzilla file format as well.  This is really good news for those of us that already have a way of creating those.  (We use MegaFeeder!)

Once you upload your products, you can see them listed

Next, you need to set how much you are willing to bid.  There is a minimum bid for each of the categories.

This is where the bidding starts as of today…

BABY:  $0.15 to $0.75
TOYS:  $0.15 to $0.25
FURNITURE:  $0.40 to $0.40
ELECTRONICS AND OFFICE:  $0.40 to $1.25
TOOLS AND HOME IMPROVEMENT:  $0.30 to $0.50
HOME AND GARDEN:  $0.15 to $0.70
COMPUTERS AND SOFTWARE:  $0.55 to $1.00
JEWELRY AND WATCHES:  $0.75 to $0.75

(Each category is a range because each contains sub-categories.)

Of course, this is a bid, so these are just minimums.  The more you bid, the higher you will rank.

You can also set Shipping Rates.

Most Shopping Search Engines have this.  It helps them show how much the total price will be.

There is also a reports section and some other settings you can set.

What will the ads look like?

How will they integrate within Amazon search results?  Not sure.  We should see ours soon.

How will they rank products?

The rep I talked to said that they will use the title of the product only.  But typically shopping search engines use the description also.

Is it Pay Per Click or a Shopping Search Engine? 

Overall, the whole thing looks and acts like a shopping search engine.  You enter products and product info, not ads.

Got more questions?

Leave a comment below.  I’ll see what I can find out.

(Sign up for our newsletter and free blueprint while you’re at it.   )

Corey Creed
Hippo Internet Marketing Training

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