Introduction

Kapoq’s Advertising Module offers significant power and flexibility to support advertising operations.

There are Alerts presented daily to act on, automations available for bid management and keyword harvesting, and advanced levers such as bulk uploads and mass actions to manage optimization with ease.

The following document will help you navigate the Advertising Setup and includes the following:

Section 1: Account Settings

At an account level, updating the default settings will help unify an account's initial strategy.

We’ll start by working our way down the Settings page updating all parameters to setup a specific account, starting with keywords.

Inputting Branded and Competitor Keywords helps the system define what search belongs to your brand vs. what search belongs to competitors.

Simply select the +Keyword button and add as many Keywords as necessary to both Branded and Competitor fields.

Note: When adding Keywords in the fields, please make sure to include misspellings.

Kapoq will then track and group these keywords, assigning badges next to each one within the Targets Tab. Badges will appear as icons next to each Target, shown and defined below:

In addition, Branded & Competitor keywords can play a role in a Keyword Harvesting Rule as you can specify what keywords (Branded/Competitor) get harvested. For example, for an individual rule, you can have the system only migrate and promote Competitor Keywords into a destination Campaign and Ad Group.

Kapoq’s Keyword Harvesting functionality allows you to harvest converting search terms across all applicable destinations (search terms can be harvested into SP and SB keyword destination ad groups, and ASINs harvested to any product targeting destination ad group), and you can even harvest across accounts. For example, you can harvest keywords from the US and add them to Canada, reducing the amount of spend required to research and uncover the same keywords in complementary geographies. In addition, Kapoq’s Keyword Harvesting structure lets you define the initial bid the Target gets assigned when added to the respective destination campaigns.

To start, there are a few ways to manage and build your keyword harvesting rules.

First, you’ll want to setup the Lookback Period and the Minimum Number of Conversions which defines the framework the harvesting rule references.

Navigate to Advertising Settings and to Keyword Harvesting to setup your rule criteria.

Then, there are two ways which you can build out your Keyword Harvesting Mappings:

To setup Keyword Harvesting directly within the Kapoq platform:

Thereafter, input the details for the Keyword Harvesting Rule to determine the destination Campaign and Ad Group where the Search Terms from the current Ad Group (source) will be added as Keywords/Product Targets when x-conversions occur.

How to build out the Campaign and Ad Group Mapping:

Once the Mapping is defined, save the Rule. The Keyword Harvesting Rule will begin processing based on the rules parameters which are defined in the Advertising Account Settings.

Should you need to add or edit Keyword Harvesting in the future, you can alter the rule in the platform or via the bulk spreadsheet which you can download within our platform.

Sample Keyword Harvesting Set: Harvesting from Auto, into Broad, Phrase, & Exact Match Ad Groups, adding Negative Phrase Match Keywords in Source.

Mapping terminology explained:

As an alternative, Keyword Harvesting can be setup through the Bulk Upload option found in the Settings Tab.

Selecting the Bulk Upload will provide a download of a template Excel file to create your harvesting mappings. This file will include your Account Campaign & Ad Group names to reference, copy, and paste. This approach is likely the best option to leverage when building out Keyword Harvesting at scale across an account with lots of Campaigns.

The following is a screenshot of the Bulk Upload Excel File Template:

Within this file, the secondary tab, Possible Ad Groups, contains all the Campaigns and Ad Groups within the account.

To complete the Mapping, copy and paste each corresponding Source Campaigns and Ad Groups & Destination Campaigns and Ad Groups from the Possible Ad Groups tab into their respective fields, filling in each column with necessary information.

Once the Keyword Harvesting file is filled in, you can save and upload the file back into the system using the Upload Completed Template function.

Should you need to add or edit Mappings in the future, this spreadsheet can be accessed via the download option. You can then edit and re-upload any changes to apply the updated structure.

Now to process the Harvesting rule, Kapoq will provide harvesting recommendations surfaced as an Alert. These Alerts will populate daily and will present to you a list of Targets to review.

Within the Alert, select the checkbox at the top of the table to select all Targets in mass which you can harvest together. Alternatively, you can select each individual target and take action one by one.

When selected, the Action will provide a confirmation screen with details related to where each Target will be harvested and negated. By selecting “Harvest Keyword”, the Action will take place immediately.

Adding Negative Keywords through an Automated Rule can save you time and money.

To setup, the following parameters in the Advertising Settings allow you to set specific performance thresholds which would trigger a Negative Keyword Harvesting Alert.

The system will then follow the parameters defined and suggest negative keywords to add.

Note: By default, the parameters found in the settings follow a neutral best practice threshold for Keyword Negation.

To process the rule, Kapoq will present Negative Keyword Harvesting recommendations daily as an Alert to review and apply.

You can review and act on these search terms adding them as negatives through the action shown below:

When selected, the Action will display a confirmation screen. Select Create Negative Keyword and the Action will take place immediately:

Kapoq also allows the option to fully automate any of the actions available such as bids changes and opportunities. Simply determine what full automation to enable via the advertising account-level settings. Fully automate bid changes, keyword harvesting, and pausing/re-enabling ads. All automations are recorded on the Change Log and changes take effect within 5 minutes.

Toggle on or off the individual switches below, which will appear as gray (full automation disabled) or green (full automation enabled).

Section 2: Bid Automation

Kapoq’s Bidding Automation allows you to maximize the impact of your advertising investment by optimizing PPC bids across all ad units, with custom strategies giving powerful levers to control behavior. In addition, the bidding model developed is not an AI or Rules based model; it is flexible and transparent, as Kapoq surfaces the math behind the calculations to help with decision making.

Before setting up PPC Automation, it is important to understand that Strategies in Kapoq determine how the automation behaves. Below is a walk through for building a Strategy.

For starters, the default account strategy can be setup in the Settings tab:

This is the baseline which you would set for an Account.

Designing more comprehensive Strategies to better support the various goals within an account can be created by navigating to the Manage Campaigns Tab, then to the Strategies.

Note: There are 3 sample strategies in draft states (Category, Competitor, & Branded) providing examples to reference.

To create custom Strategies, select Add Ad Strategy.

For each strategy, input a Strategy Name, and add the following parameters: Max ACOS, Initial Conversion Rate (optional), Initial Average Order Value (optional), Max Bid (optional), and Min Clicks (optional).

These parameters help determine the initial behavior of the automation (when little to no historical data exists) and also helps determine how the bids develop over time to hit your goals.

Once the Strategy is created, there are a few ways to assign strategies to the relevant Campaigns:

2. Or leverage the Bulk Upload option found atop the table. Simply download the Excel File, update the strategies within, and reupload

Once the strategies are assigned, the Strategy will be applied to the Campaign, Ad Group, and respective Targets. They will appear assigned within the system, as shown below:

To view the additional parameters associated with the strategy, toggle the Show Advanced Options feature on. The respective table will now include the details and parameters previously set as shown under the Advanced Automation Settings columns.

To better understand how the Suggested Bids are calculated in Kapoq, based on your Strategy settings, simply hover over the Kapoq Suggested Bid amount in the Targets Tab to view the logic.

Adjustment Factors such as Placement Settings and Dynamic Bidding get accounted for in the Adjustment Factor field (also broken out as a column in the overarching Targets table).

In addition, while the automation follows the strategies designed, they’re not fixed, as the system will begin to leverage historical data to favor true actualized performance. This historical and realized data will be weighted heavier over time and will help influence the optimization.

For example, if your CR is set at the strategy to 7% but the true CR for a Target is performing at 14%, the system will favor the realized data (14% CR) and present a relevant bid best suited to your Targets history. The system and automation will display these weightings and historical data at the target level overriding the initial parameters.

The Forecast Orders Value and Forecast Conv Rate columns within the table allow you to view the weighting of the historical data for these parameters and also provide insights that correspond to the Suggested Bid.

Section 3: Ad Bid Approval Application

The Ad Bid Approvals tab surfaces all Kapoq Suggested Bids aligned with bidding automation. These bids are presented for your review and processing.

To apply Kapoq Suggested Bids, simply select Process All or filter a given set and Process Selected.

Once submitted, bids will be updated in real time through the API and into Amazon’s Advertising Console.

Note: As an alternative to the review and apply bid process below, you can fully automate bid changes in the Advertising Settings.

Section 4: Managing Advertising Parameters

Kapoq allows for additional manual or bulk changes, offering the ability to manage actions directly in the platform. Such actions include, but are not limited to, Campaign State (Pause/Enable), Campaign Budget Changes, Dynamic Bidding and Placement Settings, Bid Changes, etc.

For example, bids can be managed manually in the platform at a Target Level, adjusting bids one-by-one, in mass selecting multiple targets at once and applying changes, or by using the Bulk Upload functionality making adjustments in Excel and reuploading changes back into Kapoq to send through the API immediately. Keep in mind, if Automation is turned on, no direct changes can be made in Kapoq.

To apply changes, bids can be adjusted through the following Actions.

First, navigate to the Targets tab, filter and select a group of Targets, and then use the Actions dropdown, shown below:

The Action allows for: Change State (Enable/Pause), Set Bid, Change Bids By Fixed Amount, Change Bid By %, Change Bid By Fixed Amount Relative to CPC, Change Bid To % CPC, Change Bid to Fixed Amount Relative to Amazon’s Suggested Bid, and Change Bid To % of Amazon CPC.

To apply a bulk change, the Bulk Upload option is available in the top right corner of the Targets Table, which downloads an Excel file.

In addition, the Export Excel file contains all the Target Performance Data to reference.

Section 5: How to Leverage Alerts & Take Action

Alerts within Kapoq are presented on a daily basis to review and action.

Each dashboard will contain a comprehensive set of alerts sorted by what we consider to be the most important tasks to tackle. Next to each Alert, you’ll find an assigned dollar value which states the estimated financial impact of this action. This is a great way to help prioritize work so you’re not spending time on small alerts that drive little to no impact on your performance.

To take advantage of Alerts within Advertising, Alerts will appear on the Dashboard page:

Selecting an Alert will take you to the opportunity.

Within the Alert, selecting each row or selecting all, allows you to complete the designated task.

Depending on the Alert type and the Action, there will be alerts that allow you to execute a change directly from Kapoq, like above, allowing you to pause products advertised with low inventory that will likely sell through organically.

Other times, there will be alerts and opportunities surfaced in Kapoq, but a change is not yet available through the API.

For example, the Campaign Insufficient Budget Alert will surface when the time in budget is less than 100% for the previous date. This Alert should help define how much budget you should allocate for each campaign to stay in budget 24 hours of the day, but the Action does not process a change directly in Kapoq as the Amazon API is currently limited.

By selecting Action Taken, the system will take note that a change happened outside of Kapoq. During our next API sync, Kapoq will confirm if the Action Taken accomplished the Alert presented and the specific Action will be removed from the Alert list.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at help@kapoq.com.