In this article you will find an explanation on how to set up SBA Product Collection campaigns.
Here you can find how to set up SBA Store Spotlight campaigns
Here you can find how to set up SBA Video campaigns
Go to ad-optimiser.metoda.com
For the on-boarding of SBAs, click "SPONSORED BRANDS". This leads you to the following screen:
You can either:
Case 1: add a SBA campaign manually by clicking “ADD CAMPAIGNS”or
Case 2: import several new campaigns at once using “IMPORT CAMPAIGNS” and our on-boarding template. The Excel-Template can be downloaded by clicking "Import campaigns", "Download example Excel")
In both cases, you need to fill in all mandatory information
Portfolio name | Mandatory | The portfolio where you want to create the campaign into. (Should be one of the portfolios created in our system, you can find them in “PORTFOLIOS & BUDGETS” page) |
Campaign Name | Mandatory | Name of your campaign. Name should start with "m_" |
Headline | Mandatory | Max. 50 characters, headline need to be "appropriate" (avoid stating being "best" or "test champion"). Please refer to Amazon guidelines for more detailed information |
ASINs | Mandatory | ASINs you want to target with the SBA (usually 3 ASINs will be displayed in the ad) |
Brand name | Mandatory | Will be stated at the top of the SBA, often differs from entity name |
Image/File name | Mandatory | If you are creating a campaign via “IMPORT CAMPAIGNS”, you only need the image name, which you can get from “Manage Images”. Otherwise, you can select one of the already uploaded images or upload a new one. |
Targeting | Mandatory | Two possible options, when shopper clicks on SBA they can be directed to: - Amazon Brand Store: Please provide the link, the store needs to include all ASINs included SBAs otherwise the campaign cannot be set up - List of products: default setting, a product list needs to include at least three products. Notice: the campaign will be paused automatically if there is not a minimum of two products of your product list available |
Link | Mandatory if targeting is "brand store" | Link to your store in case the targeting is “store” or amazon brand store. Note: the store needs to include all ASINs included in SBAs. Otherwise the campaign cannot be set up.
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TACoS | Mandatory | The Target ACoS you want to achieve with your campaigns, only full percentage values are valid |
Active from | Mandatory | Start date of the campaigns |
Active to | Optional | Can either be left blank for unlimited campaign duration, or be filled in for setting an end date of the campaign |
Category | Optional | You can set one category tag (campaign name will be displayed as a hierarchy level in our reporting and will give you the possibility for filtering) |
Tag | Optional | You can set one or more product tags. Note: Several tags need to be separated by a semicolon (";") |
Negative Keywords* | Optional | Use for blacklisting in order to make sure that your ad will not be displayed for irrelevant search terms. Limited to 1000 keywords/campaign, and each one of them shouldn’t exceed 4 words. They need to be separated by a semicolon (";") |
Positive Keywords* | Optional | Additional possibility to upload important keywords manually (white listing). The number of keywords is limited to 1000 keywords/campaign. They need to be separated by a semicolon (";") |
Create without metoda keywords? | Optional | Cannot be updated. Possible values are ‘No’ or ‘Yes’ or you can leave the field empty, which is equivalent to ‘Yes’. If ‘No’ please make sure to add your own positive and/or negative keywords. |
*According to our best practice the keywords will be integrated with phrase as match type. The ads can be shown according to the phrase and close variations of it. This allows us to reach a lot of customers, while still keeping the targeting of shoppers precise.
Case 1: Generation of new campaigns using "ADD CAMPAIGNS"
There are 4 steps you need to finish one by one to create your campaign, once you filled the mandatory fields in one step, you can click on next to fill the next step, till you reach step 4, once all the fields are in, you can click on save. And the campaign will be created.
Step 1:
Campaign name: campaigns should start with “m_” and can consider the following naming conventions:
m_<theme>_sba_<targeting type>
- Theme: could be a category or a product-specific feature, that helps you to identify the campaign afterward
- Targeting Type: should be “store” or “productlist”, depending on the targeting method you choose for this campaign
Brand name: will be stated at the top of the SBA, often differs from entity name, not more than 30 Characters (Cannot contain: <>#^!)
Headline: max. 50 characters, headlines need to be "appropriate" (avoid stating being "best" or "test champion", no ellipses, special characters, extra punctuation or all in CAPS). Please refer to Amazon guidelines for more detailed information
Category: you can set a category tag (the campaign name will be displayed as a hierarchy level in our reporting and will give you the possibility for filtering)
Tag: you can set a product tag (we would recommend putting in the ASINs included into your SBAs as Product tags, so that you always have an overview on which ASINs are advertised with it). Note: each separated by a semicolon (";") TACoS for SBA can of course be adjusted at any time, similarly to SPAs:
Step 2:
Brand Logo: choose an image for the campaign. Specifications: at least 400 x 400 px, less than 1 MB, formats: png, jpeg, GIF)
Please note: Due to an update in the Amazon creative policies it is no longer possible to use a product image for new SBA campaigns. It is only possible to set up SBA campaigns with an brand logo since this is a mandatory requirement from Amazon side.
Step 3:
Targeting: you can choose between two options. When shoppers click on the SBA, they can be directed to
(1) a list of products (this is our default setting if the field is left empty, a product list including at least three products)
(2) your Amazon Brand Store (please provide the link, store needs to include all ASINs included in SBA)
BEST PRACTICE: Depending on your strategy we recommend using a productlist as we noticed a better performance with this targeting method. Additionally, it could be useful doing A/B-testing (productlist vs. store) in order to find out which targeting type is the best for your products and strategy.
ASINs to be displayed: ASINs you want to display in the SBA (usually 3 ASINs will be displayed in the ad, depending on landing page type).
How many ASINs can be included here, depends on the landing page type.
- For campaigns which direct the user to the brandstore: you can choose 1 - 3 ASINs to be displayed in the campaign.
- For campaigns which direct the user to a product list: you need to choose at least 3 ASINs. If you choose more, the product list will show more products, and the first three ASINs will be displayed in the ad.
BEST PRACTICE: as the Sponsored Brand will only be displayed if at least 3 products are available (for SBAs that link to the Brand Store, 1 ASIN is enough), we recommend rather choosing 4 or 5 ASINs per campaign to avoid that the campaign gets paused if one product is e.g. out of stock. With more than 3 products per SBA, it is more probable that 3 available products will remain.
Step 4:
TACoS: the target ACoS you want to achieve with your campaigns, only full percentage values possible.
Positive Keywords: Keywords will be generated by our algorithm automatically. But if you want to add some specific ones (which may not be covered by the algorithm), simply add them here. The algorithm will add those keywords using phrase match immediately. This can be done and changed at any time.
Negative Keywords: Keywords will be generated by our algorithm automatically. But if you want to exclude some specific ones, simply add them here. The algorithm will add those negative keywords using phrase match immediately. This can be done and changed at any time.
- Create without metoda keywords?: If you don’t want to use metoda generated keywords but only your positive and negative keywords, you can check “Create without metoda keywords”and we won't generate keywords for this campaigns. However, we will still optimise the campaign and the keywords you manually added to it.
Active from: you can schedule a start date (today or sometime in the future)
Active to: can either be left blank for unlimited campaign duration, or be filled in for setting an end date of the campaign. Set the end date to yesterday to make sure the campaign will be paused immediately. If it’s set today, the campaign will run for the rest of the day
Click on “Save” and submit for review: After having a final check of the settings, complete the campaign creation by clicking on “Submit for review”. Amazon will notify you via email in both cases, approval and rejection of the campaign. If the campaign has been rejected you’ll find it in “Drafts”, where you can edit the campaign again. Once you click on "SAVE", the campaign will be submitted to amazon for review. You can check its status in our front-end.
Process of Campaign Creation & Go-live:
1. Campaign creation via our Campaign Manager.
2. Before we create the campaign on Amazon, we need to add a budget and at least one keyword to the campaign. The budget will be set to the minimum -1 €- and add keyword "metodapowered".
3. A script starts to create keywords for this campaign and the process responsible for setting the budget for the campaigns overrides this 1 € and sets it to the expected budget amount.
This keywords generator script runs hourly so, you will find the keywords and the correct budget in place after an hour of campaign creation
IMPORTANT NOTE: If the campaign does not meet the guidelines, it will be rejected. Rejected campaigns can be easily edited and resubmitted in our Campaign Manager. DO NOT USE THE AMAZON ADVERTISING CONSOLE.
Case 2: Generation of new campaigns using "IMPORT CAMPAIGNS" leads you to the following screen:
Step 1: Download the "example Excel" and fill in all mandatory information. Sample of columns in example Excel:
Step 2: Fill in the Excel file.
To help you fill it out, we added guide inside the template. Please follow this explanation:
Column rules:
Portfolio name | Mandatory | Cannot be updated. Must match the name of an existing portfolio exactly. |
Headline | Mandatory | Cannot be updated. Must be unique. Campaign name can be a text of up to 100 characters long. Characters you cannot use: !,#,%,<,> |
Landing page type | Mandatory | Cannot be updated. Must be either "productList" (to link to a list of products to be generated by Amazon) or "brandStore" (to link to an existing Amazon brand store). |
Landing page link | Mandatory if landing page type is "brandStore" | Cannot be updated. Must be a valid URL to an existing Amazon brand store. |
ASINs | Mandatory | Mandatory. Can be updated. Must include 3 ASINs, otherwise the campaign will not be displayed. |
Target ACoS | Mandatory | Can be updated. Must be a full percent value. Example: "25%" |
Start date | Mandatory | Can be updated. Must be a date in the future in any format recognized by Excel. Easiest is to enter it as YYYY-MM-DD, like 2020-12-31. |
End date | Optional | Can be updated. Must be a date after start date in any format recognized by Excel. Easiest is to enter it as YYYY-MM-DD, like 2020-12-31. |
Image filename | Mandatory | Cannot be updated. Must be the exact file name of an image uploaded via Ad Optimiser. |
Headline | Mandatory | Cannot be updated. Up to 50 characters. |
Brand name | Mandatory | Cannot be updated |
Negative keywords | Optional | Can be added, but not removed. Separated by semicolon. Up to 80 characters per keyword. Up to 4 words per keyword. |
Positive keywords | Optional | Can be added, but not removed. Separated by semicolon. Up to 80 characters per keyword. Up to 10 words per keyword. |
Category | Optional | Can be updated. For filtering in our reports. |
Tags | Optional | Can be updated. Separated by semicolon. For filtering in our reports. |
Use metoda Keywords | Optional | Cannot be updated. Possible values are ‘No’ or ‘Yes’ or you can leave the field empty, which is equivalent to ‘Yes’. If ‘No’ please make sure to add your own positive and/or negative keywords to the according column in the template. |
Step 3: Save it and drag it into the "Import campaigns" screen.
In case something is not filled in properly, you will receive error messages indicating in which campaign adjustments are necessary.
Step 4: Click "save" to upload your Excel.
The campaigns will be submitted to amazon in a window of 60 minutes for reviewing, once it’s reviewed, it will be live when the start date is reached.
BEST PRACTICES:
- Images: Due to an update in the Amazon creative policies it is no longer possible to use a product image for new SBA campaigns. It is only possible to set up SBA campaigns with an brand logo since this is a mandatory requirement from Amazon side.
- Targeting: Depending on your strategy we recommend using a productlist as we noticed a better performance with this targeting method. Additionally, it could be useful doing A/B-testing (productlist vs. store) in order to find out which targeting type is the best for your products and strategy.
IMPORTANT NOTE: you need to deactivate all your own campaigns that target the ASINs which should be managed by metoda (otherwise campaigns will bid against each other, newer campaigns have a disadvantage compared to existing campaigns because they have not generated any clicks or revenues yet).
IMPORTANT NOTE: setting a budget period is the necessary requirement for your campaigns to be created. Only if a budget period already exists, will your campaigns be created in Amazon Advertising.