Keyword Cannibalization in Amazon PPC

September 17, 2020
By The Badger

Anytime you hear the word cannibalization, your ears should perk up. While keyword cannibalization in Amazon advertising is arguably the most tame form of cannibalization, it can still do quite a bit of damage to your campaigns.

We also get asked all the time about selling similar products and having keyword overlap between products. That’s why we want to set the record straight about using one keyword for multiple products and how you can ensure that one product doesn’t eat into the performance of another.

Targeting the Same Keyword for Multiple Products

Let’s say you’re selling earbuds and other electronic accessories. You have many options for wireless earbuds, but you’re wondering where you should put specific keywords in order to optimize each product.

Where should you put those specific keywords? Everywhere.

Take a look at these two products. Both are sold by the same seller, and there is a lot of overlap between the product titles and descriptions when it comes to certain keywords.

amazon ppc keywords — Both products (from the same seller) have the same keywords in their title and description.

Sellers often think that only one of their products can appear for a given search, but that isn’t the case. Amazon’s primary goal is to sell products. They will do everything in their power to put the products that are most likely to sell in the top-of-search (TOS) placements, regardless of who sells the product.

There is a caveat. In order to have two products appear as Sponsored Products for a search, these products have to be in different ad groups. This is why we are big proponents of single product ad groups (SPAGs).

CPC Implications

Amazon’s campaign structure is very nuanced, and there isn’t a comparable platform out there. For sellers who are transitioning from Google or another advertising platform, their primary concern is the fear of bidding against themselves.

It’s important to remember that Amazon doesn’t value every product equally. Products with a large number of reviews and best selling products can have lower CPCs than a brand new product with few orders and reviews.

Whenever two of your products are shown in Sponsored Product placements for a particular SERP, you will not be bidding against yourself. However, because of the stock Amazon gives to proven products, your CPC for each product may be different.

Keyword Variations

As we’ve seen in our many years of PPC experience, you never know what’s going to get typed into the search bar. Sellers are often very vague when searching for products, and it’s imperative that you factor this in when deciding which keywords you’re going to target with similar products.

If someone searches for “running shoes,” there could potentially be two products from a large sneaker company that appear as Sponsored Products. Don’t believe me?

Two products from the same sellers appearing in the same SERP.

If it can happen to them, it can happen to you too. As you can see from this example, these products are targeted at very different populations (men and women), and when advertising similar products it’s important to take keyword variations into consideration to avoid situations like this.

If you’re bidding on a competitive keyword, look at the click through rate (CTR) for your products and lead with a single keyword campaign for that product. This is assuming that your variants are all accessible in that product page.

Where Keyword Cannibalization Hurts Your Amazon PPC

A concept that has traveled over from the SEO world, keyword cannibalization can have an impact on your Amazon PPC performance.

Let’s say you have a few campaigns with similar products:

Zero-Turn Lawn Mower
Riding Lawn Mower
Push Lawn Mower
Reel Lawn Mower

If these four products are in multiple campaigns and you’re bidding the same amount for the same phrase-match keyword, let’s say “lawn mower,” you’re spreading clicks across four campaigns and it’s impossible to get quality data from this search term.

You don’t want multiple campaigns containing the same product to be bidding on the same keywords. That’s where keyword cannibalization can get you in trouble.

When Keyword Cannibalization is Okay in Amazon PPC

In the world of Google and other search engines, keyword cannibalization almost always has a negative impact on your performance. However, with Amazon PPC, keyword cannibalization isn’t always bad.

To use the multiple lawnmower example, it’s alright if every single campaign for those four products has “lawnmower” as a keyword. One product isn’t going to get all the clicks and leave the others with the scraps.

While this is okay, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your keywords are optimized. Especially if your products are well differentiated, targeting vague and broad keywords can contribute to wasted ad spend.

Key Takeaways

It’s impossible to overstate the impact keyword selection has on your Amazon PPC performance. However, picking the right keywords is only half the battle. As you can see, making sure that your keywords are strategically placed in your campaigns and ad groups can make a dramatic difference.

When it comes to keyword cannibalization, the main concern is data dilution. Make sure that you are using negative exact match keywords when multiple products share a phrase-match keyword. By blocking these variations, you’ll ensure that you’re getting enough data to make the right keyword decisions.