Just wondering if anyone has experience running ads to Handmade product listings?
I am familiar with running ads to FBA items.
At very first glance, the handmade fees coupled with products not being available for prime delivery makes me feel conversion might be too low to justify running ads.
Of course, nothing is sure until you test it.
Just wondering if anyone has any experience to share.
Many thanks.
Hi Hanley Goods.
I used Amazon’s SP Acquisition Promotion which was £200.00 to be used in a month. I tried targeted keywords, targeting Asins and categories as well as using Amazon’s automated targeting.
Although £170.00 of ad spend produced £284.00 of sales, profit would have been penny’s after all costs and Amazon fees are taken into account.
I’m still running ads but they are not converting into sales at the moment. I’m trying to get the ROI right.
There are a couple of things I believe that are going to make it tough.
Lack of reviews. Being handmade, products are not made in large amounts and I read on average, 2 in 100 buyers might leave a review.
As you say, delivery times. We can only make 3 to 4 of our products a day and they need time to dry after painting. The best we can do is a 5-day delivery time. People want it NOW! Depending on the product, I’m sure many others have the same issue.
Cost. Handmade goods are not massed produced in China. People might like what we do, but in hard times, that plastic widget at half the price will do for now.
However, I think there are solutions that would help. Like the Brand Feature Waiver. That will allow us to create an improved listing so when you do get a click, the experience for the user is better. Also, access to Vine to get reviews.
I also think with the Brand Feature Waiver, you get access to an improved version of Amazon ads. Compared to Google ads, Amazon ads is very basic and viewing data to understand what is working is not very good.
So currently, it won’t be easy to make it work with handmade. But you have to get your product in front of buyers somehow and I can only see things improving in the future.
David
I use the add-on Advigator (under Partner Network) to manage all my ads. Automatically imports my catalogue, creates automatic ads, then collects data and adjusts bids, etc., and gradually switches them to more manual. ACOS is just under 20% at the moment. Not great, but I’ve not really been managing it. Just letting it do its thing. So I’m sure I could get better.
I just use the daily budget function and at the moment, I’m using up the ‘free’ ad spend they gave me for adding a new campaign last month.
They (Advigator) are bringing in the Brand Stores campaigns function at some point soon.
Hi @Atelier_Fontasia, I really appreciate your insight.
I think I may not need the Brand Feature Waiver, as I am already Brand Registered. BR is quite easy I think, all you need is a trademark.
I will try some adspend and see how it goes, although I do expect things to be tight. I might take a look at Advigator as @NBPhotography recommended. However, I am only starting with 3 ASINs, so I think I can probably run and adjust ads manually for those.
Thanks 