It’s only been a little less than two months since Amazon announced Amazon Marketing Stream (Beta) (AMS), and while there are many complex insights to be gleaned from this data, there is a simple takeaway this information reveals: campaigns might be running out of budgets before the day is over, lowering competition for advertisers.
Of course, many of us in search advertising already know to avoid running out of budgets, but AMS’s hourly data reinforces the importance of this rule. As I noted in a June blog post, one key implication of AMS is the ability to see hourly average cost-per-click (CPC) and conversion rate data for Sponsored Products campaigns. While evaluating this new AMS data in Intentwise Ad Optimizer, a consistent pattern our team observed was that average CPCs drop later in the day, which could be caused by campaigns running out of budget and therefore decreasing competition.
Here’s a pattern we see in quite a few accounts:
If your campaigns are running out of budgets, you are making it easy for your competitors. We recommend one of two options to address this issue:
- Raise your budget: If your business can afford to, increase your spend to carry you through the entire day.
- Lower your bids: Decreasing your bids will decrease your average CPC, which will typically increase your efficiency.
The good news is that AMS also publishes hourly budget consumption data by campaign. Finding campaigns running out of budgets and taking action is now easier than ever. The representation below is from within the Intentwise platform.
Book a demo of Intentwise Ad Optimizer to explore how hourly data can improve your Amazon advertising.
