Overview
Instinct faced a common problem in the competitive Amazon ecosystem: the brand consistently battled for #1 Share of Voice in the pet supplies category. After leveraging Pacvue’s platform to help manage their Amazon paid search strategy, Instinct began to see increased ad sales, lower CPCs, and higher ROAS.
The Solution
Instinct had previously employed only single-ASIN advertising campaigns with a limited number of keywords. Coupled with heavy competition in their primary category on Amazon, especially for certain high-volume keywords, Instinct needed a technology solution to help optimize their Amazon paid search strategy. Using the Pacvue platform to improve campaign and keyword segmentation, implement page placement bid modifiers, and identify new product category and keyword opportunities with Share of Voice data, Instinct achieved:
Improved Campaign and Keyword Segmentation
Instinct moved towards a multi-ASIN campaign structure, which bid on a higher number of keywords, including hundreds of newly discovered mid- to low-funnel keywords. These new mid- and low-funnel keywords were identified using Pacvue’s Keyword Research Tool, which uses millions of data points to identify new keyword targeting opportunities. In total, the number of active campaigns decreased by -48%, but the number of actively targeted keywords grew by more than 2x. This focus on a smaller number of campaigns with more targeted keywords led to a +62% increase in CTR on an average CPC that cost -19% less. These results were primarily possible due to Pacvue’s programmatic optimization technology, which allowed the brand to manage and optimize thousands of incremental new keywords at scale.
Page Placement Bid Modifiers
By partnering with the Pacvue team and leveraging the platform, Instinct was able to identify hero ASINs with a strong likelihood of performing well in Amazon’s expensive and ultra-competitive ‘Top of Search’ placement – the 2-4 Sponsored Products placements on the first page of search results. Once these items were identified, bid boost modifiers were applied to a select number of campaigns containing these ASINs, with the intention of providing increased exposure to profitable and top-performing items. After these bid boosts were applied, the number of impressions and clicks for the brand’s items in these premium Top of Search placements more than doubled.
Most notably was the impact that these incremental Top of Search impressions had on overall paid search efficiency. Even though Top of Search CPCs were +15% more expensive than ‘Rest of Search’ or ‘Product Detail Page’ placements, CTR was +390% higher and ROAS was +137% higher for ads in these premium slots. In the first week that bid boost modifiers were applied to the brand’s paid search campaigns, paid search impressions grew by +41% and the business’ total Retail Glance Views grew by 7x the YTD average.
Share of Voice Data And Competitive Intelligence
In their primary category on Amazon, Instinct had a large competitor that was consistently battling them for #1 Share of Voice. Through the use of Pacvue’s Share of Voice data, Instinct was able to identify which keywords the competitor was bidding on, the amount of Paid and Organic Share of Voice they were winning on a daily basis, and whether the competitor was focusing on Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands campaigns. This information allowed them to craft a highly targeted strategy that prioritized must-win keywords and areas in which the competitor was vulnerable to share loss.
As a result of this strategy, Instinct gained over +290 bps of Paid Share of Voice across the category in just four weeks. Most importantly, they gained an average of +1,255 bps of Paid Share of Voice for their must-win keywords while their competitors lost -356 bps.
