3 Ways to Stop Overspending on Advertising

When it comes to an ecommerce marketing strategy, advertising can widen your brand’s reach, draw more eyes to your products, and ultimately increase conversion. But it’s difficult to measure which ads are actually working or not. And, despite what your ecommerce advertising partners and Amazon are telling you, you’re probably spending way too much. The right advertising partner should have the data and technology to know when you are overspending and how you can better use your ad spend. Here’s a few tips for how you can stop paying too much for advertising.

Work With the Right Partner

Not everyone has your best interests at heart. If Amazon gets more money when you spend more on their ads, logic says that they’re not about to notify you when you start overspending on their ads. The same goes for agencies. They often get paid as a percentage of what you spend on advertising, so they naturally want you to spend more.

"To truly cut down on wasted ad spend, you need a partner that thinks like you do", said John LeBaron, Pattern Chief Revenue Officer. “When you’re working with a third-party seller like Pattern, we are actually incentivized not to have you spend,” LeBaron said. “In fact, many times we tell our partners to spend less on advertising because, until we can see a clear correlation between spend and revenue, it’s not in our best interest to have you just spend arbitrarily more on advertising.”

Get Better Data About Your Advertising

Ecommerce advertising without actionable data is just guesswork. In order to stop overspending on Amazon Seller Central advertising or any other ecommerce advertising platform, you need to know which campaigns are ending in conversions and which are not—and you need to know yesterday. “Everyone makes better decisions with better data,” said Melanie Alder, Pattern Founder/CIO.

“As opposed to retail, everything is measurable in ecommerce, every click and consumer behavior. You’re looking at conversion ratios, advertising—you’re looking at how to get more eyeballs on your page at a better cost.” Our rules-based advertising technology keeps your ad spend focused on the keywords that are actually converting, and drops the ones that aren’t. See our free tool, Digital Shelf, for a preview of some of our technology that can help you allocate your ad spend.

Incorporate SEO Into Your Advertising

Finally, LeBaron said it’s important to realize that advertising isn’t really a sole endeavor—it incorporates organic ecommerce strategies that include services like SEO as well. If you’re not coordinating those, you’re going to end up spending more than you’d like to. “Advertising is going to drive more traffic, which gives you more of an opportunity to increase conversion, which is going to affect your SEO,” LeBaron said. “But if you’re not coordinating those two efforts, a lot of it will be in vain.”

Ensuring your keywords match product descriptions, image alt tags, and product titles creates a seamless campaign between your marketing and advertising to make sure your product is showing up on the keywords you’re bidding for.

Get the Most Out of Your Ad Spend With Pattern

Pattern, a 3P partner on Amazon and other marketplaces, structures our brand relationships as a partnership. Because we purchase brands’ inventory, we have stake in your success—when you win, we win. We want to help you succeed on Amazon by maximizing your ad spend through our data, revolutionary technology, and expertise. Accurate and transparent data and reporting will help improve your advertising strategy to drive more traffic to and conversions on your products, which will lead to your success long-term.

At Pattern, we can show you exactly what those keywords are, and how you can start spending wisely on advertising and winning in conversions. Interested in making the most of your ad spend? Contact us.