DIY or Hire an Amazon PPC Agency?

In this post, we’re going to break down the best way to approach Amazon PPC services – doing it yourself, or using an Amazon PPC services provider (related post: How to increase sales on Amazon?).

According to statistics from Amazon, around 75% of all US sellers run Amazon PPC ads. One common question that many ask themselves is: is it worth hiring an Amazon marketing agency or is it more cost-effective to optimize your Amazon PPC ads yourself? 🤷

There are pros and cons to both approaches. We’re going to break that down, and help you choose the best option for your business. If you are new to Amazon ads, read our post on What are Amazon ads?

Is it easy to self-manage Amazon PPC Campaigns?

In theory, Amazon PPC is not insanely difficult. It doesn’t require any special skills, like design or coding, that require a lot of work to learn.

However, properly optimizing Amazon PPC campaigns can get complex. Most brands out there have inefficiencies or missed opportunities that lead to wasted ad spend and sub-optimal results.

In other words, anyone can do PPC – but doing it well takes some effort and experience.

Along with the difficulty, Amazon PPC management takes a lot of time. You need to consistently monitor your campaigns, run a lot of tests, and record and analyze all the results.

A lot of brand owners can do this. But Amazon sellers have so many other tasks on their plate. Also, running any test comes at a cost. Taking care of one big, time-consuming, high-ROI task is exactly why an Amazon PPC management agency can be a smart investment. 

Also, while you are figuring things out on your own, you are missing out on sales and you are most likely spending ad  budget in an inefficient way. So there is both a direct cost attributed to this “learning phase” and there is also an opportunity cost associated with it (foregone sales).

Further Reading: learn how to Promote Your Amazon Products on TikTok, the world’s fastest-growing social media platform.

Benefits of Working with an Amazon Ad Agency

Now, let’s jump into the benefits of handling Amazon PPC by yourself, versus hiring an Amazon marketing agency to do it for you.

First, the benefits of using a service or an agency.

Saves you Time and allows you to Focus on your Amazon Seller Business

The first thing to mention is how much time (and energy) it can save you by using Amazon PPC management services.

As we established, doing PPC right – constantly testing, measuring and optimizing – is a round-the-clock job. You need to review your search term report and add negative keywords, review your bids (and adjust where necessary) and so on.

That’s not to mention the learning curve. You need some time just to learn the basics, if you’ve never managed PPC for an Amazon store before.

You probably don’t have hours of free time per day to dedicate to managing your PPC. You’ll need to take time away from other tasks, which may detract from other areas of your Amazon business.

There aren’t enough hours in the day to grow and scale your store past a certain point without hiring outside help. Amazon PPC management agencies free up a lot of that time.

The agency’s focus is dedicated to PPC Optimization

Even if you do feel you can fit PPC management into your day, it’s going to be just one of many things taking up your headspace.

That often leads to cutting corners, or a split focus that detracts from your Amazon PPC efforts.

The difference with an Amazon PPC agency is that PPC is their sole focus. Specialization leads to better results than multitasking, especially for complex tasks like PPC management.

Experience and expertise in ads management

You benefit from years of experience and expertise in Amazon PPC and Amazon advertising when you hire an agency.

While this sounds like a fluffy thing to say, it has direct monetary implications: An experienced PPC agency is likely managing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars of ad spend. This provides significant insights into what type of search terms are likely to drive sales and which ones are rather navigational and do likely not drive sales.

This expertise is invaluable – it would take a huge amount of time and ad spend to develop the same expertise. Even then, you may never develop skills on the same level as a PPC professional without that being your sole focus.This is another case where what we said earlier rings true. Anyone can do PPC – but it’s hard to do it well. If you want the best results possible, you want someone who specializes in this. Some agencies have even developed proprietary tools, such as an Amazon bid optimization software that uses advanced algorithms to help you squeeze even more performance out of your ad account.

An outside perspective

We all have blind spots. It’s just human nature. If you’ve missed something – perhaps certain keywords, certain ways of approaching your PPC campaign management – you’re probably going to miss it over and over again.

Bringing in outside help gives you another perspective, which can often be invaluable in spotting things you haven’t, and filling in your blind spots.

Deeper, up-to-date knowledge of the Amazon PPC landscape

Amazon PPC is constantly changing. There are new features, new ad types, new strategies and new optimal ways to run campaigns.

If you’re not plugged into the world of Amazon PPC, you might miss a lot of these things. You could start out with an effective strategy, but it can soon become outdated.

Amazon PPC services are plugged into the landscape, and are often the first to know about new features, new effective strategies, etc. This can provide a big advantage over your competitors, if they end up being slower to move and adapt to these changes.

Benefits of Handling Amazon PPC Management In-House

There are also many advantages to doing your Amazon PPC management yourself, or within your own team, as well. Let’s take a look:

Full control over your Amazon Ads account

Doing it in-house gives you full control over your PPC campaigns. You can make changes to your campaigns quicker. If you have a new strategy you want to try, or you want to make small tweaks to a campaign, you can do it immediately. No waiting to get in touch with your account manager.

You also don’t need to trust that what they’re doing is the best way to do it. While agencies are generally very transparent, giving regular reports on what they’ve done and what effect it’s had on your campaigns. But there’s still an element of trust, and giving up control, which some brand owners might not want to do.

No minimum ad spend

Minimum ad spend thresholds aside, it can be cheaper to do PPC yourself. You’re not paying for the years of experience and expertise we talked about earlier. However the caveat here is that this only works out if you do not make too many costly mistakes that either result in forgone sales, or wasted ad budget.

So keep in mind that just because you’re not paying someone to manage your PPC doesn’t mean it’s “free”. You should still consider the value of time you spend on it, opportunity cost due to missed sales and budget you are potentially spending ineffectively. Putting a dollar figure on that could work out to be costing you more than the cost of an agency.

Still, if you do know what you’re doing, there’s no reason you can’t do it yourself, without paying an additional premium. 

Lower cost

Minimum ad spend thresholds aside, it’s generally going to be cheaper to do PPC yourself. You’re not paying for the years of experience and expertise we talked about earlier.

Of course, just because you’re not paying someone to manage your PPC doesn’t mean it’s “free”. You should still consider the time you spend on it, and the value of that time. Putting a dollar figure on that could work out to be costing you more than the cost of an agency.

It’s also not necessarily worth the lower cost if you get lower returns as well, as a result of not having the same ability and knowledge of the game.

Still, if you do know what you’re doing, there’s no reason you can’t do it as well as an agency, without paying an additional premium. 

Consider using Third-Party Tools when Managing Amazon PPC by Yourself

There are a lot of self-service PPC software tools on the market, which help you run and optimize PPC campaigns by yourself (although not quite on the personalized level that an agency can).

If you’re looking for an Amazon PPC agency, we recommend SellerMetrics. Their team of experts is highly regarded in the Amazon space. They’re certified in the Amazon SPN (Service Provider Network), and have a great track record.If you want to do it yourself, SellerMetrics also provides a great Amazon PPC software tool. It works for all Amazon marketplaces, and offers everything you need to run your own PPC.

Check out how (and why) to run external marketing campaigns for your Amazon products in this ultimate guide to external traffic.

Verdict: Should You Use an Amazon PPC Agency?

Assuming that you have a reasonably sized Amazon business and an ad spend that exceeds a few thousand Dollars per month, Amazon PPC agencies are usually worth it.

While it’s not rocket science to learn PPC, it does take time to figure the PPC space inside and out, and to know how to build and optimize PPC campaigns. It also takes a lot of time to actually manage a campaign – testing, measuring, optimizing and executing. If you cut corners and try to do it the quick way, you’ll probably leave results on the table. And in the end, especially if you pick an agency that has developed advanced optimization tools, such as an Amazon bid optimization software, you will likely not be able to deliver the same results by self-managing your account. Agencies manage a lot more spend across more accounts. As a result they have more data driven insights and can spot new trends faster.

That’s why Amazon PPC management services provide a big leg up.

It does require you to have a decent budget – first to meet minimum ad spend thresholds, and second to pay the agency themselves. So if you’re a smaller brand, or you just want to dip your toe into Amazon sponsored ads, it’s better to do it in-house.

Effective PPC campaigns can take your business to the next level, while poorly optimized campaigns bleed money. Whether you hire an amazon PPC agency, or use a software tool to do it yourself, it’s well worth what it takes to get this right. Besides Amazon PPC, having a comprehensive Amazon marketing strategy and finding a strong partner (or executing in-house) for Amazon SEO services is also crucial for success. To figure out where to set priorities, start by conducting a comprehensive Amazon listing audit. If you found this post interesting also check out our blog post on How to Promote Your Products on Amazon.