Two major factors can impact your goal to not spend, which includes:
Product (ASIN) issues
Target ACoS is set too low
1️⃣ASIN issues
Amazon-related ASIN issues: When viewing your Sponsored Products Goals, you will notice small dots. A green dot indicates that everything is functioning smoothly, and your ad is actively being displayed. However, if the dot is red, either partially or entirely, it signals that there are one or more issues with your product, hindering the ad from being served on Amazon. Hovering over the dot will reveal a message, specifying the particular issue at hand. You can check the full list of Amazon-related issues and their solutions in this article.
Retail-readiness of the ASIN: The initial factor to consider is the number of customer reviews and ratings your product has. According to the retail readiness checklist, Amazon mandates a minimum of 15 customer reviews and a 3.5-star rating for your products. It is also important to consider what is the average rating among the competitors. Customer reviews contribute to building trust and credibility for a product. Shoppers often rely on the experiences of others to make informed purchasing decisions. Positive reviews can reassure potential buyers about the quality and reliability of a product. Products with higher ratings and more reviews are likely to be displayed more prominently, increasing their visibility to potential buyers.
Inventory Levels: Having inventory on hand is essential for Amazon sellers to meet customer demand, qualify for the Buy Box, maintain search visibility, build trust, and ensure consistent sales and revenue. Strategic inventory management is a key aspect of a successful e-commerce business on Amazon.
2️⃣Low Target ACoS
We strongly recommend setting your initial target ACoS as close to your historical ACoS as possible prior to transitioning to Perpetua. Please find further information on The Importance of an Initial Target ACoS in the article here.
It's crucial to note that the lower your target ACoS, the less aggressively the ad engine operates. Significantly reducing the target ACoS can result in an unstable transition, as the engine struggles to learn and bid adequately on your top-performing targets. Consequently, your ads may not be displayed, your budget may remain unspent, and no sales will be generated. While this might be less impactful once you have an extensive advertising history for all your products after several months, it holds significant importance for those starting on Perpetua or Amazon advertising for the first time.
To get your goal to spend more, you would need to increase the target ACoS on the goal. Turning up the target ACoS effectively increases the constraint on the optimization algorithm, allowing the engine to bid more on all keywords that are currently being optimized.
Perpetua's engine rewards keywords that are winning sales and penalizes the ones that are not driving results. In other words, Perpetua rewards an increase in sales by bidding higher on a keyword until the target ACoS is reached and penalizes a decrease in sales by bidding lower on the keyword.
This means that if your sales are volatile, Perpetua will keep adjusting the spend based on those movements. If you want to increase the aggressiveness of the spend, you can adjust the target ACoS higher to tell the engine to keep spending even when sales are decreasing. ACoS should be set to at least historical level or higher if you want to achieve growth.
To learn more about why your goal is not spending, watch this Ad School video:
Article last updated June 2023. If you find this information to be out of date, please contact hello@perpetua.io.