Amazon PPC Management: Should You Use an Agency or Software?

One of the biggest hurdles for sellers and brands on Amazon is managing their advertising. Are you targeting the correct keywords? Are you bidding high enough? Are they profitable?

Sometimes the stress of managing and profitably running PPC campaigns is not worth your time. So what can you do? Your solution may be to utilize software or an advertising agency effectively run your Amazon ads to save you time and money.

In this article, we’ll go over:

• The importance of PPC management
• The pros and cons of using PPC management software
• The pros and cons of using an advertising agency
• The pros and cons of self-managing 

What is Amazon PPC Management? 

Amazon PPC management is the process of running, optimizing, and improving your Amazon pay-per-click campaigns. To run successful advertising campaigns, you must have the knowledge and experience to manage them effectively and ensure they operate profitably. 

If you sell a branded private label product for instance, marketing your product on Amazon is essential for consistent growth and visibility in the crowded marketplace. 

Managing PPC is very technical and requires frequent attention to ensure the campaigns perform according to your goals. There’s a lot involved — you have to set a daily budget, adjust keyword bids, choose the correct keywords or targets, watch your ACOS, remove poor performing keywords, and much more. 

This is why many Amazon sellers often choose to hire an agency or use automated PPC software to manage their campaigns. 

We will go over the pros and cons of hiring an agency, using software, and managing them yourself. 

Why properly managing your PPC campaigns is important

The bottom line is that if you’re not correctly managing your Amazon PPC campaigns, you’re leaving money on the table or, worse, losing money. 

While other factors contribute to your success as a seller, such as optimizing your listings and price, Amazon Advertising is the one way to control where and when products appear in search results to prospective customers. 

Many new sellers start by throwing together a PPC campaign and forgetting about it, causing the campaigns to overspend or underperform. The Amazon selling landscape is constantly changing — now is not the time to neglect your marketing strategy. 

Even if you consider yourself an expert at Amazon Advertising, you may be surprised to find how well a software or agency can perform. 

Pros and cons of using software for managing PPC campaigns

When using software to manage your Amazon ads, you can set parameters such as your target ACOS and the tool will run automatically in the background to ensure you hit those targets. 

Using software may be your best option if you are an advertising novice or simply don’t have the time for it. Set your targets and let the tool do its job. Of course, you want to be sure your listings are optimized for conversions and that your products have positive reviews before running ads.

Advertising software is constantly learning so it can help your campaigns perform at a much higher level than you could do manually. 

Benefits:

• AI-powered software automatically optimizes your ads
• Custom dashboards to see how each campaign is performing 
• Uses your daily budget more efficiently
• Improve ROI by testing different strategies
• Boost your product’s Best Sellers rank
• Improve ACOS so your ads are running profitably 
• A hands-off approach to managing ads
• May increase your monthly revenue and profit
• Save you time and money

Downsides:

• Monthly subscription costs
• There is no guarantee that your product sales will increase as advertising is not the only factor
• Some software companies may not work well for you
• It may take time to learn how to use the software properly

Downstream Impact:

An advertising software such as Downstream Impact allows sellers to hit campaign targets with less work and in less time. 

Downstream’s machine learning engine will automatically optimize your campaigns and provides sellers with high-level insights to see how each campaign performs. 

This software is designed to improve ROI and product visibility on Amazon. 

Jungle Scout Advertising Analytics:

Jungle Scout also has an Advertising Analytics tool that sellers can use to evaluate the success of their ad campaigns. Quickly analyze advertising profitability with metrics and data visualizations at a company, ASIN, and campaign level.

Benefits of using an agency for managing PPC campaigns

When using an Amazon Advertising agency to manage your campaigns, you will receive a more personalized advertising approach than with software. 

With an agency, you’ll likely have an account manager you can contact whenever you feel it necessary to go over your campaign performance.

An ad agency allows you to have your PPC managed by industry experts, so you don’t have to worry about doing it yourself. 

A lot of the time, ad agencies will utilize advertising software to run your campaigns while they manage. So, the best of both worlds.

Benefits:

• Allow an advertising expert to handle your campaigns for you
• Full management of your ad campaigns including keyword research 
• Agencies will provide you with weekly or bi-weekly reports
• Personal account manager to provide fast feedback 
• You can discuss your goals with your account manager 
• Test out different strategies and campaign types
• Remove keywords that are underperforming
• An agency will have years of experience knowing what works and what doesn’t 
• Save you time and money

Downsides:

• High monthly costs
• Many ad agencies require high daily budgets
• Some use the same software to manage your campaigns that you could be using
• Some agencies may not be a good fit for your business
• There’s a possibility that your account manager may do a poor job at managing your campaigns

Pros and cons of managing your own Amazon PPC campaigns

Managing your own Amazon PPC campaigns is certainly doable if you put in the time and effort to learn everything you can about Amazon Advertising. 

Amazon makes it relatively easy to set up the campaigns — you just need the know-how to manage them properly. Most new Amazon sellers start by managing their own campaigns, so it’s not impossible! 

Benefits:

• No monthly cost as you would with software or an agency
• You have control over each campaign 
• You can start with a small daily budget
• There are lots of free resources to learn how to manage Amazon PPC ads
• Easy to set up within Seller Central

Downsides:

• It takes time to learn how to set up your ads
• Need to learn how to properly optimize your daily budget, keyword bids, and keyword targeting
• You might be missing specific keywords if you did not do keyword research properly
• It is easy to spend a lot of money if not set up properly
• Running ads does not automatically mean you will receive sales

Resources for Amazon Advertising

If you decide to manage your PPC yourself, at least for the time being, Jungle Scout has a ton of free information on Amazon Advertising. 

• Amazon Advertising Guide
• Amazon PPC Strategies: The Ultimate Guide for 2022
• Amazon PPC Reports Guide

Should You Use an Agency or Software to manage your Amazon PPC?

Whether you use an agency, a software, or manage ads yourself, it is up to you! If you feel that your Amazon business is growing and you need free up some time, using an advertising software or agency may be a great place to start. 

Let the experts manage your advertising campaigns so you can focus your efforts on other aspects of your Amazon business. 

Want to learn more about how you can use Jungle Scout to launch, grow, and run your Amazon business? Click the “Learn More” button below! (Remember, you can use Jungle Scout to help manage your ads!)