A holistic marketplace marketing strategy takes a diversified and data-driven approach that can be applied to several marketing strategies. It is especially effective for Amazon and Walmart campaigns. To build sustainable growth, you need to understand your target audience, embrace the multi-marketplace ecosystem, and create high-quality content. 

This article will explore this multifaceted approach with platform-specific strategies for maximum impact.

Importance of Strategic Advertising

Strategic advertising is crucial for Amazon and Walmart to compete against big players in search results. But first, you need to build a strong product listing foundation. Luckily, both marketplaces have similar elements that, when employed well, favor your listings in their algorithms. These are:

• Keywords – Integrating them into all your listings increases your product’s discoverability. However, both algorithms will penalize you if you use too many keywords, meaning you’ll have to use the best ones. Keyword research is critical to tackle this potential issue. 
• High-quality images – Clear, professional product photos with white backgrounds showcase your offering and grab customer attention. Remember always to follow the guidelines.
• Product descriptions – Detail the features and benefits of your product, addressing customer pain points and highlighting what makes it unique.
• Positive reviews – They boost your listings incredibly. Encourage customer feedback and actively manage your reputation to build trust and establish credibility.

While the core principles remain similar, there are key differences to consider when optimizing for each platform. For example, Walmart offers sellers double the character limit for product descriptions compared to Amazon (4000 vs. 2000 characters). Additionally, shopper search behavior is different. Amazon users tend to search with long-tail keywords, while Walmart shoppers might use broader terms and rely more on filters to narrow down their search. 

Once you’ve optimized your listings, it’s time to focus on high-converting campaigns and implement successful strategies. Utilize product targeting campaigns by incorporating competitor keywords or ASINs to target specific product pages. Implement bid multipliers and optimize placement to increase visibility on competitors’ item detail pages.

Bidding strategies

Bidding strategies optimize your PPC campaigns on Amazon and Walmart, which means they allow you to control how much and where you spend your money. Whether you want to show your ads to a broader audience (impressions), get your brand name out there (brand awareness), or turn those clicks into sales (conversions), understanding bid adjustments and multipliers can help you achieve your goals and get the most return on your ad spend (ROAS).

Amazon Bid Adjustments

Bid adjustments can be successful depending on your goals (impressions, brand awareness, or conversions). They are an essential tool if you want your PPC campaigns to succeed. Usually, new sellers opt to use Automatic targeting, where you let Amazon’s algorithm select keywords related to your product. It won’t be the case if you want more control over your campaigns: you’ll manually set your bids instead.

Sellers can set adjustments for Top of Search, Product Pages, and Rest of Search. It’s very important to know that, if Amazon’s algorithm detects an excellent opportunity for your products to generate clicks and conversions, it can raise your bids by up to 100% on top of what you’ve already set. Top of Search placements tend to have higher click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates but lower impressions compared to Rest of Search. 

Amazon’s synergy

Studies show that combining Sponsored Products with Sponsored Brand Headline Search Ads can significantly improve conversion rates (up to 16% on Amazon).  Leveraging this synergy can be a powerful tool for maximizing sales.

Walmart Bid Multipliers

Unlike Amazon’s fixed adjustments, Walmart offers flexible bid multipliers. These are percentages applied on top of your base bid, with no upper limit: There is no maximum multiplier amount on Walmart. Multipliers can be applied to Search In-Grid, Item Buy Box, Stock Up, and Homepage placements. Automatic campaigns have limited placement control compared to manual campaigns. Customizing bidding percentages based on category saturation levels is a great way to exploit Walmart’s bid multipliers. There are two types: 

• Placement Multiplier: This control increases your chances of winning ad placements by allowing you to set bid adjustments starting from 0%. 
• Platform Multipliers: This control allows you to target specific areas and set bid multipliers for platforms like desktops, apps, or mobile devices.

It’s important to test bid multipliers based on competitor landscape and average CPC (cost-per-click). Stock-up placements can be valuable for grocery brands with low CPCs. Due to their value in less saturated categories like groceries, over 100% bidding is often used for stock-up placements, and testing different multiplier percentages is crucial to optimizing campaigns.

Conclusion

Because eCommerce constantly evolves, staying ahead of the curve by continually analyzing data, adapting your strategy, and leveraging new opportunities ends up being the core of a holistic marketplace marketing strategy. However, it may not be enough. Competition is stronger than ever in almost every category, and succeeding proves to be a challenge. The BellaVix Team can help you boost your visibility on both Amazon and Walmart to ultimately grow your sales!

Keep up with the latest Amazon and Walmart news updates and subscribe to our BellaVix newsletter 👇👇👇