GrowthX Management

In the world of e-commerce, Amazon SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Amazon PPC (Pay-Per-Click) are often seen as two separate strategies. However, for a thriving Amazon business, they aren’t competitors; they’re partners. When used together, they create a powerful flywheel that drives sustainable, long-term growth.

This blog post will demystify the relationship between Amazon PPC and SEO, and explain exactly how a strategic PPC approach can dramatically improve your organic rankings—and your bottom line.

The Amazon Flywheel: How PPC and SEO Work Together

Amazon’s A9 (or the updated A10) algorithm is all about one thing: relevance. It wants to show shoppers the products most likely to result in a sale. Key factors the algorithm considers include sales velocity, conversion rate, and keyword relevance. This is where PPC comes in.

Think of it like a flywheel. Your organic ranking—your SEO—is the heavy wheel you’re trying to get spinning. It takes time and effort to build momentum. PPC, on the other hand, is the initial push that gets that flywheel moving.

  1. PPC Drives Initial Sales: A well-structured PPC campaign puts your product in front of high-intent buyers immediately. These paid clicks lead to sales, which is a powerful signal to Amazon’s algorithm.
  2. Sales Boost Organic Rank: When Amazon sees your product is selling, it interprets that as a sign of relevance and quality. This increased sales velocity and conversion rate signals to the algorithm that your product deserves a higher position in organic search results.
  3. Higher Organic Rank Drives More Sales: As your organic rank improves, your product gets more visibility and clicks—without the cost of an ad. This “free” organic traffic generates even more sales, reinforcing the positive signals to the algorithm.
  4. The Cycle Continues: More organic sales lead to even better rankings, and the flywheel spins faster and faster. You can then use your PPC budget to target new keywords, launch new products, or defend your top organic positions.

How PPC Directly Impacts Amazon SEO

While the flywheel analogy illustrates the overall concept, let’s get into the specific, actionable ways PPC campaigns directly influence your SEO.

1. Keyword Validation and Discovery

This is one of the most significant benefits of PPC. When you run an automatic targeting campaign, Amazon’s algorithm does the heavy lifting for you. It matches your ad to relevant customer search terms. By analyzing your Search Term Report, you can see exactly which keywords shoppers are using and, more importantly, which ones are leading to clicks and conversions.

  • Actionable Insight: The high-converting keywords you discover through PPC are data-backed and proven. These are the exact terms you should be strategically integrating into your product title, bullet points, and A+ content to boost your organic rank for those valuable keywords.

2. Boosting Sales Velocity and BSR

Sales velocity is the rate at which your product sells. It’s a critical, though not publicly confirmed, factor in Amazon’s ranking algorithm. By driving a significant number of paid sales, you create an artificial spike in demand for your product.

  • Actionable Insight: This rapid increase in sales signals strong product performance to Amazon, which often results in a better Best Seller Rank (BSR) and a higher organic position. The initial PPC investment essentially buys your way into a higher organic rank, which can then be sustained by the increased organic traffic.

3. Improving Your Conversion Rate (CVR)

While PPC drives traffic, an optimized listing is what converts that traffic into sales. A high conversion rate is a key factor in organic ranking. If your ad brings a shopper to your page and they buy, Amazon views your listing as highly relevant and rewards it.

  • Actionable Insight: Use the traffic from your PPC campaigns as a live testing ground. Monitor your conversion rate. If it’s low, it’s a clear signal that your listing needs work. Optimize your images, bullet points, and A+ content to address customer needs and objections. A better-converting listing will make your ad spend more efficient and improve your organic rank over time.

4. Gaining Social Proof: Reviews and Ratings

More sales from PPC means more opportunities to collect reviews. When a customer buys your product, regardless of whether it was from a paid or organic click, they’ll be prompted to leave a review.

  • Actionable Insight: A higher volume of positive reviews and a strong star rating build social proof. This not only increases the conversion rate for both paid and organic traffic but is also a direct ranking factor for Amazon.

5. Capturing Market Share and Pushing Competitors Down

In a crowded niche, appearing in both the paid and organic results for a key search term gives you a massive advantage. You are essentially taking up more of the “digital shelf space.”

  • Actionable Insight: By occupying multiple top spots, you not only increase your own sales but also push competitors’ listings further down the page, making them less visible and harder for customers to find.

A Sample Agency Strategy: A Combined SEO & PPC Launch

As an agency, our approach is always holistic. We never recommend one strategy without the other. Here’s a look at how we’d launch a new product using a combined PPC and SEO strategy:

Phase 1: The Foundation – SEO First

  • Keyword Research: Conduct in-depth keyword research to identify high-volume, relevant terms for the product.
  • Listing Optimization: Use those keywords to craft a highly compelling and conversion-focused product listing. This includes a keyword-rich title, benefit-driven bullet points, and strong A+ Content with high-quality images and video.

Phase 2: The Push – PPC Launch

  • Launch with PPC: Start with a broad, well-funded PPC campaign targeting the main keywords. This provides immediate visibility and begins to drive the initial sales needed to kickstart the flywheel.
  • Monitor and Harvest: Monitor the campaign closely. Analyze the Search Term Report daily to identify which search terms are leading to conversions.

Phase 3: The Refinement – Data-Driven Optimization

  • Refine SEO: Take the high-converting keywords from the PPC report and incorporate them into the listing’s backend search terms and other copy.
  • Adjust PPC: Create more targeted manual campaigns for the proven keywords. This increases your ad efficiency and lowers your cost-per-click.
  • Scale and Repeat: Once the product is ranking well organically for its primary keywords, we can scale back PPC spend on those terms and reallocate the budget to new keywords or to launching another product.

Amazon PPC isn’t just an expense; it’s a strategic investment in your brand’s long-term organic success. By leveraging the power of paid traffic to prove relevance, boost sales velocity, and gather valuable keyword data, you can build a self-sustaining marketing engine on Amazon. For agencies and sellers alike, the goal should be to make your PPC and SEO strategies work as two parts of a single, highly effective system. When you master this relationship, you don’t just compete on Amazon—you dominate.