Amazon has released a host of new features recently and one of them is a new version of what was formerly called "Bid+". This feature is called placement-level bidding and this article gives you an overview of what it means and how it works.
What is placement-level bidding?
Placement level bidding is a new feature that allows you to increase bids based upon where you want ads to appear and replaces what was formerly called "Bid+". Placements include:
- Top of Search (first page)
- Product pages
- Rest of search
What does this look like in Seller Central?
You can opt into placement-level bidding for a particular campaign within campaign settings in Campaign Manager.
What's the benefit of using placement-level bidding?
Placement-level bidding allows you to increase your bids by 0-900% to get placed Top of Search or on Product pages.
What are the impacts of using Placement-level bidding?
Sellers implementing placement-level bidding need to be aware of the following:
- There’s no guidance on how high to set the boost. For example, if you boosted ‘Top of Search’ by 100% then you’d need to believe that it performed 2x better than anything else. However, there is no way for you to determine this given current reporting
- Amazon does not know your ROAS targets or margins and can thus end up overbidding or underbidding
- You risk overbidding since the bids only increase and don't decrease
- Sponsored Brands maybe a better use of your funds as it has better placement even than “Top of Search”
How does placement-level bidding work with Flywheel?
Just like Bid+, we recommend leaving placement-level bidding off if you are using Flywheel to automate your campaigns, especially if you are concerned with profitability and are unwilling to spend above a certain MACS. Implementing placement-level bidding can interfere with Flywheel algorithms and give you sub-optimal results.