Automation – Example rules to get you started (Step 5)

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This article is step 5 of our step-by-step guide to Amazon PPC Advertising

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In this article you will find some template rules you can implement either as Recommendation or as an Automation rule. Important: Theses are generic rules and are no guarantee of success for each campaign. This is because each product and campaign is unique. Please also read this article on setting your rule parameters based on your own metrics and goals.

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Terminology used:
KW = Keyword
ST = Search Term
NE = Negative Exact
ACoS = Average Cost of Sales

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What rules can I easily implement to get my campaign automation started? #

There are generally 4 types of campaign setup:

• Standalone Automatic campaign
• Manual campaign with one match type
• Automatic campaign used for discovering keywords (and then moving these to a Manual campaign)
• Manual campaign with multiple match types (also called “Search Term Isolation”)

We strongly recommend you create on Rule Group per Campaign, and maybe even per Ad Group, depending on the setup and objectives that you have. This will enable you to greater management control over your campaigns and to avoid possibly creating choas.

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1. Standalone Automatic Campaigns

Info: These are automatic campaigns that you are looking to optimise.
You are not using these campaigns to harvest new keywords for other campaigns.
Rules you can implement:

• Search Terms: If 0 orders after 5 clicks, negative exact at campaign level
• Ad group: If ACoS is greater than target ACoS after 10 clicks, decrease bid proportionally
• Ad group: If ACoS is smaller than target ACoS after 10 clicks, increase bid proportionally
• Ad Group: If no clicks after 5 days, increase default bid by 0.1, to max of 2.52

We recommend you read about how Weighted ACoS works in Trendle.

Use the CPC sheet to set and adjust your targets such as Max Bid and ACoS. More information in this blog post.

Here’s what it looks like in Trendle:

2. Manual campaign with one match type #

Info: We assume here that the only match type being used is Exact. If you have a manual campaign with only Broad then we recommend you make adjustments to add an Exact match type ad group. For this, see the Type 3 campaign structure below

Rules you can implement:

• KW: If 0 clicks after 5 days, increase bid by 0.1, max bid 1.53
• KW: If 0 orders after 5 clicks, decrease bid by 0.1, min bid 0.73 –> Add the Stop Rule to this: If rule 3 is triggered then stop this rule. This will avoid the bids bouncing up and down infinitely
• KW: If 0 orders after 20 clicks, decrease bid to min bid 0.23
• KW: If ACoS > 30% after 5 clicks, Auto Adjust Bid, min bid 0.23
• KW: If ACoS < 30% after 5 clicks, Auto Adjust Bid, max bid target acos

We recommend you read about how Weighted ACoS and Auto Adjusting Bids works in Trendle.

Use the CPC sheet to set and adjust your targets such as Max Bid and ACoS. More information in this blog post.

Here’s what it looks like in Trendle:

3. Manual campaign with multiple match types #

Info: You would use this structure if you already have a long list of keywords that you’ve research manually but that you have not yet optimised.

Create 3 ad groups: Broad, Phrase and Exact. Only have one match type per ad group.

In each ad group enter all the keywords.

In the Broad ad group, make those same keywords Negative Exact, and in the Phrase ad group, make those same keywords Negative Exact. You want to do this so that you can discover related search terms. This is often referred to as “Search Term Isolation”.

It will allow you to discover new Search Terms without bidding against yourself 3 times for the same keyword.

Rules you can implement:

• Broad Ad Group:
  • ST: If 1 click after 1 day, move to Exact and Phrase ad groups, make NE at Broad and Phrase ad group level
• Phrase Ad Group:
  • ST: If 1 click after 1 day, move to Exact ad group and make NE at Phrase ad group level
• Exact Ad Group:
  • KW: If 0 clicks after 5 days, increase bid by 0.1, max bid 1.53
  • KW: If 0 orders after 5 clicks, decrease bid by 0.1, min bid 0.73
  • KW: If 0 orders after 20 clicks, decrease bid to min bid 0.23
  • KW: If ACoS > 30% after 5 clicks, decrease bid proportionally, min bid 0.23
  • KW: If ACoS < 30% after 5 clicks, increase bid proportionally, max bid target acos

We recommend you read about how Weighted ACoS and Auto Adjusting Bids works in Trendle.

Use the CPC sheet to set and adjust your targets such as Max Bid and ACoS. More information in this blog post.

4. Automatic campaign used for discovering keywords (and then moving these to a Manual campaign) #

Info: These automatic campaigns are used purely for harvesting keywords which you then move to a manual campaign so that you can increase/decrease bids on each keyword for greater control and better results.

Create an automatic campaign.

Create a manual campaign. Do not enter any keywords.

Rules you can implement:

• Rules for the automatic campaign:
  • Search Term: If 1 click after 1 day, move to Manual campaign
    • Note: Depending on the setup of your Manual campaign you could choose to either move the keyword as one match type (e.g. Exact) or as multiple match types in multiple ad groups. The latter is useful if you want to continue keyword harversting to a finer level of detail to unearth long-tail keywords. If you want to do this then you would do the following actions:
      • 1. move to Manual Campaign as Exact match
      • 2. move to Manual Campaign as Phrase match and Negative Exact (why Negative? Because you are only interested in finding out other keywords rather than bid on that exact keyword)
      • 3. move to Manual Campaign as Broad match and Negative Exact
      • 4. Make Negative Exact in the automatic campaign level (you do this to stop bidding on that keyword in Automatic Campaign as you now only want to bid for that keyword in the manual campaign)
  • Ad Group: If no clicks after 5 days, increase default bid by 10%
• Rules for the Manual campaign:
  • See rules from campaign Type 3 above

We recommend you read about how Weighted ACoS and Auto Adjusting Bids works in Trendle.

Use the CPC sheet to set and adjust your targets such as Max Bid and ACoS. More information in this blog post.

Continue to Step 7 Automated Bidding using Trendle Automation