How To REDUCE ACOS on Amazon Fast [EXAMPLES]

Whether you’re an Amazon Seller Central Seller, Amazon Vendor Central Seller, or selling Amazon B2B paying a ton for ads on Amazon with a high ACoS is stressful. So stressful in fact, it can make your eyes water when looking at your Amazon campaign reports and seeing a high Average Cost of Sale (ACoS).

Maybe you’re using Amazon FBA (What is Amazon FBA?) or even FBA Small and Light but your ACoS still isn’t what you want it to be.

You’re going to learn PROVEN methods from a top-rated Amazon Seller Consultant with over 10 years of experience owning an eCommerce Consultancy that are within your control to reduce your ACoS on Amazon.

You’ll be able to reduce your ACoS on Amazon by focusing on the action items in this article straight from a consultant for Amazon.

Don’t Run Sponsored Product Ads vs Big Brands To Reduce ACoS on Amazon

Odds are, you likely have found the most successful players in your space, entered them into Helium 10 or Jungle Scout, and downloaded their keywords.

Then, you selected the ones with the most search volume, added them to your listing, and started running Sponsored Product Listing ads on them.

This was a mistake unless you have thousands of reviews, a fantastic Unit Session Percentage, and sales history.

In other words, if you can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the brands that sit at the top of search results.

Have a look at this:

If you don’t have 20,000 reviews, even if you offer a fantastic price, customers will click on you, but they won’t buy.

This has everything to do with value framing.

You want to de-frame yourself from the competition.

So, instead, to reduce ACoS on Amazon, focus on lower volume, long tail, and buyer intent keywords that they’re not competing on until you build enough momentum.

Not only will you get clicks and not sales on these huge volume keywords, but you’re swimming with the sharks and the clicks cost a lot.

You can run those same competitors through the same tools but focus on the buyer intent keywords where they’re in position 50 – 100.

Focus where they aren’t.

Speaking of not copying the big brands on Amazon…

Stop Emulating The Big Brands To Reduce ACoS on Amazon

One of the other common mistakes you see is looking at the big successful players in your space and copying what they do.

The problem? They make mistakes and get away with them.

You see their estimated monthly sales and you create a correlation with that and what you see on Amazon. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

What you don’t see are:

• All the Facebook Ads they run to Amazon
• All the Instagram Ads
• All the Google Ads
• The Amazon Influencers they partner with
• The traffic they drive from their huge email lists
• The mega PR they get from major publications
• & more

Couple that with all of the retargeting and display ads, they’re everywhere. This builds continuity and trust in the eyes of the consumer, because they see these brands everywhere they go. That means, they can get away with things like this:

• Poor copywriting
• Poor color-psychology
• Bad graphic design best practices
• Bad A+ Content
• No product videos or bad product videos

Focus on proven, age-old techniques to earn consumer trust, boost perceived value and drive sales when you don’t have tons of reviews, aren’t everywhere online, and don’t have huge advertising budgets.

Reduce ACOS With Ad Optimization

In my Amazon Consulting experience, the very first place to start to reduce your ACoS on Amazon is the front lines. The ads themselves.

Your conversion rates on Amazon impact how much you are going to pay per click.

If Amazon’s algorithm does not think you’re going to result in a sale, you will not get as many impressions and you will pay more for clicks.

So, if you are sending lots of traffic to your listing that will likely not convert, you are driving up your ACoS on Amazon and making your other campaigns cost more across the entirety of your ad console.

Make sure you’re targeting the right customers and not showing ads to the wrong potential customers.

Buyer Intent Keywords

If you’re running your competitor ASIN’s through tools like Helium 10 or Jungle Scout, selecting the most searched keywords, adding them to your listing and then running ads on them, you’re making a big mistake.

Buyer intent keywords are keywords that indicate the customer has already done the research and know exactly what they want. So, if they see your offer and click on it, they are very likely to buy, thus, increasing your unit session percentage.

Example:

Brand Awareness: K-Cup

Buyer Intent: Recyclable Organic French Roast K-Cups Fair Trade Certified

You want to focus your efforts on Buyer Intent keywords if you’re looking to decrease ACOS on Amazon PPC.

Negative Keywords

Whether you’re running automatic Amazon ads on your Sponsored Product Listings or manually targeting customers with your own keyword research, you will want to always optimize these.

How To Reduce ACOS By Setting Amazon PPC Negative Keywords:

1. Run your search terms report
2. Identify the terms that are driving clicks, but not converting sales
3. Determine which of those keywords are not relevant for your products or likely don’t make sense.
4. Add them to your Negative Keywords List

Reduce Bids on Poor Performing Keywords

As you’re looking through your Amazon Campaign, view the Targeting tab.

How To Optimize Your Bid Strategy To Reduce ACoS:

1. From within the Targeting Tab, click on Columns
2. Choose Customize Columns
3. Add Impressions
4. View your keywords that you are targeting and identify the keywords that have a high ACoS over 50% (this one is a rule of thumb, some have better product margins than others.).
5. If the ACoS is really high, shut off the keyword.
6. If the ACoS is around 50% or close to your target ACoS (TACOS), then decrease the bid by about 45% or 50%.
7. Now, if your ACoS is great, step on the gas and increase the bids.

Reduce ACOS With Amazon Influencers

Did you know Amazon has had Amazon Influencers referring to Amazon since 1996 and they’re responsible for over 37% of Amazon’s traffic today?

An Amazon Influencer has audiences that visit their sites, videos, blogs & more RIGHT BEFORE they are ready to make a purchase. They go to their blogs, get the information they need and then goto Amazon and make a purchase.

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How does this decrease ACoS on Amazon?

Driving external traffic to Amazon product listings reduces ACOS on Amazon by increasing your impressions and conversion rates.

If you’re not creating a buzz OFF of Amazon, then you will be paying a premium for your Amazon Sponsored Product Listings and Amazon Sponsored Brands ads.

Paying attention to how popular a brand is what drives decision making in Amazon’s algorithms.

Reduce ACOS With Product Title Optimization

Besides the reviews, price and image, the product title is the main determining factor of a click-through for Amazon Sponsored Listing ads.

Reduce ACoS With A Great Product Title That:

1. States the brand
2. Focuses on Benefits & Key Features That Give Competetive Advantages
3. Answers Questions
4. Overcomes Objections

What’s more, you are making it clear what you DON’T have. By crafting a great Product Title on Amazon, you are doing your part in making sure people who aren’t a good fit to click on your product, won’t.

Reduce ACOS With Amazon Listing Optimization

After a customer has landed on your product listing, generally speaking, they immediately begin to consume the content of your bullet point section.

Reduce ACoS With Great Amazon Bullet Points That:

• Focus on main benefits first.
• Focus on key differentiating features second.
• Answer key objections or common customer questions third.
• Focus on displaying ease of ownership or how to use fourth.
• Mitigate buyer risk fifth.

Learn more in: How To Write Amazon Bullet Points

Reduce ACoS With A Great Amazon Product Descriptions That:

• Focus on key product features.
• Clearly spell out how to use.
• Reinforce key benefits.
• Make specifications easy to understand.
• Reinforce your mitigation of buyer risk.

Reduce ACOS With Amazon Product Images

The quality of your product images can drastically reduce your ACoS on Amazon quickly.

Reduce ACoS With Great Amazon Product Images That:

• Convey the emotion of what it feels like to use your product
• Answer questions (sizing, will it fit x, y, z, etc.)
• Overcome objections
• Highlight key benefits
• Show off the product from the most enticing angles

I go more in-depth on Amazon product images in my article: Amazon Product Images Best Practices

Reduce ACOS With Amazon A+ Content

If you’re selling on Amazon Seller Central and are Brand Registered, it’s called Amazon A+ Content. (Learn more about Amazon Brand Registry here: Amazon Brand Registry: The Complete Guide)

Essentially, Amazon lets you build landing pages on your Amazon listing with extra content that is not allowed in the Product Description area.

These convert EXTREMELY well because they are mini-landing pages.

Amazon A+ Content plays a significant role in reducing Amazon ACoS.

Reduce ACoS With Great Amazon A+ Content That:

• Focus on emotion, what it feels like AFTER the customer has solved their problem with your product
• Highlights main benefits of the product in action
• Draws attention to key features
• Answers main questions
• Handles potential objections to your product

Reduce ACOS With Amazon Reviews

It’s no secret that the more Amazon reviews you have, the higher you show up in Amazon search results.

This is because you will have higher conversion rates the more reviews you have.

This directly impacts how much you’re going to pay for ads.

BONUS: Reduce ACoS With Product Explainer Videos

Having an Explainer Video changes the game. Have a look:

Video on Amazon does wonders for your conversions, how long people stay on your listing and a multitude of other factors that are directly responsible for how high Amazon chooses to display your products in Amazon product searches.

Why does that matter? Well, the more you show up organically for Amazon product searches, the less you will have to pay in ads, thus reducing your ACoS.

Reduce ACoS With Great Explainer Videos for Amazon That:

• Focus on Emotion
• Justify with Logic
• Highlight Key Benefits & Features
• Answer Questions
• Objection Handle
• Call to Action

Frequently Asked Questions