RPSB (Research peel stick and block) 2025 Update

RPSB (Research peel stick and block) 2025 Update Michael Erickson Facchin: What's going on, Badger Nation? Welcome to The PPC Den podcast, the world's first and longest running show all about Amazon advertising to make your Amazon PPC life a little bit easier and a little bit more profitable. Today on the show, I go back to 2018, a time where I took out a whiteboard and I wrote four letters on it. R-P-S-B. Research, Peel, Stick, and Block, which is a way of describing search term movement and how to rely on research-based campaigns to fuel the discovery of your product on Amazon. This concept I think has evolved over time to search term graduation. And today we're going to revisit At 2018, and we're going to update and modernize it. This was one of our most popular pieces of content. Currently, it has about 6,000 views on YouTube. When you tap into the podcast audience as well, I cannot fathom walking into a room talking to 10,000, 11,000 people about this topic. But I just want to say thank you so much for riding the Amazon PPC wave with me and everyone here at AdVenture. It's an absolute pleasure. We're going to update this concept. So if you're interested in campaign structure, search term movement, and getting the most out of the different targeting types that Amazon has available to you, I talked to Clement, who is the team lead for services here at AdBadger Research Scientists. Have a good one, and I'll see you inside the episode. Unknown Speaker: I've launched campaigns and picked keywords. I've got my bids, set placements too. Never had mistakes. I've made a few. I've had my share of pride. Oh yeah! A creepy suit and my friends New to all the PPCs and we're talking about Amazon. No time for medicals, cause we'll fix the game, baby. Michael Erickson Facchin: Clément, I know that the French, every time I go to France, people are very fashionable and you don't really see people wearing baseball hats. Does it hurt right now to wear a baseball hat? Clément Hynaux: Yeah, you saw me putting it on just before you hit record. It does not hurt. I think of myself as I'm in US mode right now. Michael Erickson Facchin: You're in US mode. Yeah. Nice. Does anyone ever play baseball in France? Clément Hynaux: No. I don't think we have the fields of baseball field, right? Michael Erickson Facchin: Don't even have a field. What sports did you play growing up? Clément Hynaux: I played some team sport, right? I played basketball and now I'm playing rugby. Okay. Michael Erickson Facchin: One of the most famous basketball players right now is French, Victor Wemby. I mispronounced that for sure. Wemby. Clément Hynaux: And I'm not following that. But I do enjoy it. The first thing I did when I went to the US is go to watch an NBA game. Michael Erickson Facchin: Really? Who did you see? Clément Hynaux: You know what? I got lucky enough to be present when they removed the jersey of Shaquille O'Neal. So, and they were gifting jerseys to everyone. Michael Erickson Facchin: They call that retiring the number. So like nobody, whatever number he was, no one else can be that number. Orlando Magic? Well, Lakers? Clément Hynaux: Lakers, yes. So it went Magic, Miami, Lakers. They retired in LA. Michael Erickson Facchin: Amazing. Speaking about retiring things, we wanted to revisit an old piece of content that I made way back in 2018. 2018. Can you believe it? I'm going to pull it up on screen here real fast. And we can look at this. This is an old piece of content. This is from our old office that we had here in Austin. I call the video The Best Way to Manage Amazon PPC Keywords. In this video, Michael describes the research peel, stick, and block method, a great way to find positive and negative keywords. Great practice for Amazon PPC beginners. Almost 6,000 views. This is an OG piece of content here. You can see I got the whiteboard out, drawn on the whiteboard, throwback to my teacher days. What were you doing in 2018? What was I doing? Clément Hynaux: Getting my second daughter's. I got my first one, then the second one. The one thing that sticks out most in 2018. And then, I don't know, I was doing PPC. Michael Erickson Facchin: It's a blur, yeah. So, with this whole concept, I sort of wrote on this board, the goal of Research Peel Stick and Block was to find long tail keywords, Amazon redundancy check, the best Amazon Keyword Research, where it uses your own data. And then I wrote real data, real data, real data three times that it allows you to get in the arena, get your data, amplify what's working and create a campaign structure that is smooth and efficient. So research, peel, stick and block was the concept. And, you know, I'll just break down the concept here. The research was like an auto campaign. And then you peel out the very best terms and then you stick them into A manual targeting, and then you blog it from the auto. This will be the second time that this concept has been revisited on the show. Introduced in 2018, talked about it in 2020, and now we're revisiting it again in 2025. How does it feel to dust off this whole concept? Clément Hynaux: It's great. I mean, you know, basics are good, but they could evolve and Amazon is an ever-evolving platform. So we need to stay on our toes. Michael Erickson Facchin: Absolutely. And I also feel like I was just talking to someone, very large account, maybe like $200,000 a month in ad spend, was really in the game and then like left Amazon PPC and then came back. And he's like, what's similar? And I think it's like a really interesting concept to talk about that even to, and I also think even today in 2025 campaign structure, I consider campaign structure, I have this concept, there are things in any topic, you have chocolate, and you have vegetables. And the chocolate is something that's like really sweet. It's simple. It's easy to understand. It makes sense on paper. You're like, you look at it, you're like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And I think like the chocolate for Amazon campaign structure is segment your campaigns, put all your keywords, triple an exact campaign, broad campaign, phrase campaign, have an auto campaign, call it a day. That's your campaign structure done. And I feel like that's like the chocolate of campaign structure, but the vegetables, like a huge list of like, well, So how many products do you have? What is the data telling you? Like, you know, maybe you segmented too far, maybe you didn't segment enough, like all this different stuff. Real true campaign structure is like waking up at 5am, going to the gym before your spouse is awake. That is like campaign, campaign structure is like tricky. And this like Research, Peel, Stick, and Block thing in 2018 was a way to sort of, it was a way of chocolatizing the vegetable, I thought, a way of taking something that's really tricky and trying to make it simple with a four-word acronym, Research, Peel, Stick, and Block. And we're going to bring this up today, dissect it, and see if it's a still valid method in 2025. Let's break down the general concept here and then let's talk about, is it still a valid method? So would you like to take the mic and sort of explain the general concept? Clément Hynaux: So in 2018, we had auto campaigns that had no targeting group. So it was just, you know, you were bidding blindly into the vast ocean of Amazon search terms, ASIN, whatever. And then you would just Pick what's converging and the really old days you would promote it to abroad. Then from abroad you would promote it to a phrase and from the phrase to an exact. That's really old school. And that would be the general concept. You were not going to use any research. You would use your research, your auto to do the research for you. So that was a time where CPCs were low when the competition was low as well. So you don't really need it to save money. You wouldn't burn through your ad budget in a day. It was good, right? That was the general concept. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah, and then the other thing too is that because you had one bid for your auto campaign, the concept was you pay one bid and the benefit of that is you get a lot of this research happening. So you're finding all these different search terms and because you're paying one bid, that's the average of the good search terms and the bad search terms. So then when you would peel it out and stick it somewhere else, And then block it from the auto. You're basically saying this keyword is worth a $2 bid because of its performance. So I'm going to pluck it out of my auto, put it into a manual, bid what that keyword is worth, and then do some negative keyword sculpting to negate it from the auto and have it show up only In your manual exact, for example, and this has changed over time. I actually think a better name for this concept and when the concept is alive and well, as we'll talk about, but I actually think a better name for this is actually search term graduation, sort of the act of moving search terms from something more loose or broad into something So, let's talk about search term graduation is what I would say is a more relevant in 2025 concept. That's what I'll say. Anything else on the sort of the recap? I've missed those simple low CPC days. And man, I kid you not, even today, every once in a while, I'll open up an account and I don't know what the deal is, like they're flying under the radar. Nobody discovered the niche, like the competition's incredibly low. And man, they got like 70 cents average CPCs for years. Unknown Speaker: I'm just like, wow. Clément Hynaux: Well, if you want to go and do a trip back in the past, you would need to jump on this new marketplaces that are opening up in Europe. And then because nobody takes the time to advertise there, you will get no CPCs. But I don't think that's going to last. Poland, Sweden, even Belgium, which is slightly more mature, they're still getting quite. Unknown Speaker: Pretty tiny CPCs. Michael Erickson Facchin: That's some vegetables for sure. Clément Hynaux: Yeah. Michael Erickson Facchin: You know, go register your company in an international place and like set it up and like figure out how to ship your inventory, all this stuff. That's some vegetables for sure. But yeah, like Americans going out to Canada. I think I saw something, you know, it's been in the news. Should America acquire Canada as its 51st state? And it was like how Canada would rank as a state compared to all the other states. You know, I think, what is it like, like California? It has a bigger economy than many countries. So like Canada would be like, I don't know, the fourth or fifth largest US state. So they wouldn't even be the big, the entire country of Canada. I always say like people that expand to Canada, it's like you've gained another Texas. So it's like Texas, you know, most sales are happening in like California, Texas, Florida, New York. So it's like you jump into Canada and now you have another one of those, which is cool. That's a little chocolate, I guess. Clément Hynaux: Yeah, we're just gonna update the with the 2025 refresh. And I think we could start by asking ourselves, is it still a valid method? Michael Erickson Facchin: Yes. And what's your answer? Clément Hynaux: Well, I'd say It's valid to stay on top of the trends, to make sure that you have those very long-dead keywords locked in. It's definitely not a good way to do research anymore, keyword research, because you want to be proactively doing that. There's something I like to say that I always build my never keyword list. So whenever I launch new campaigns or when I audit a new account, when I launch, when I create campaigns for new products, I do a lot of research. Everyone does that. Now, you don't want to blast money on Amazon. That's too expensive. You want to be laser focused, really targeted. So you do your research. And when you find some keywords there and you can identify a single keyword that you would never want to work here for, you build your own keyword list. And those would go in every campaign that are non-exact on a negative phrase. So yeah, you want to be very careful because that's very powerful. But man, that saves So much gosh. Michael Erickson Facchin: Right. So my answer to the question is research, PLC, and block a valid method. I would say there are definitely pieces of it that are still valid. Ultimately, unfortunately, like many things on Amazon, I would say the answer is it depends. So let's talk about that first reason why it depends and how this has evolved, which is you said it CPCs have grown a lot. So because of that, doing only this Can be expensive. So like if your auto campaign is like, you know, multi-dollar CPC, you might want to, you know, skip over some of that testing and just be like, well, I want to rank for this keyword. I want to bid on this keyword specifically. I've done my research and there's lots of ways to do research with tools. Save that for another episode. But like you're doing research with other tools and you're like, I want to get on this keyword, this keyword, this keyword. And then it makes the auto Serving as an intense research function, sort of reduced, where now you're just like, I'm going to use this as sort of like long tail. I'm going to use this as like, yes, it's, I mean, there's no way of getting around it. Auto is discovery, but like, you're going to like reduce the CPCs. You're going to have a lower ACoS target. You're going to have, you know, put a CPC caps on there so that it doesn't run away from you. Clément Hynaux: Right. And lower clicks, right? Fewer clicks as well. You don't want to blast through A lot of clicks, not just CPCs, because the budget is important there. Michael Erickson Facchin: Exactly. So that's one consideration that has changed over time where it's just like in 2018, it's like, you know, you can afford to crank that auto really hard, open to everything, really see everything that's out there, have it really be this It's a loose method that you are yearning for because you get so much data so fast. I remember very commonly in like 2018, 2017, it's like, yeah, like people would get weeks, months of data in like two days because it's just like auto campaign cranked up. You get so much data and now it's a little bit more reserved. So that's like one modification to the research peel, stick and block method. The other thing too that has changed over time is because CPCs are more expensive, You want to be very careful doing this with newer products and products Amazon doesn't understand yet. Do you want to comment on that? Clément Hynaux: Yeah, right. Because, you know, auto company, what does it do first? Amazon, to understand your products, is going to rely on two things. Your listings, so it's going to scrap your listing, description, bullet points, title, all these kind of things. Ultimately, it takes all your A plus content images, but then it will rely on sales data because that's too much. I think it weights that even more because we know that you're going to be able to index for keywords that are not even in your listing if you get sales for it. And then we're going to be able to rank on that. So new products, you don't have sales data on it. So Amazon is going to be, okay, I'm going to try things out, but then if it doesn't work, then I'm just going to forget about that. Michael Erickson Facchin: This is in the same vein of CPCs are more expensive, right? So if Amazon doesn't understand your product, You know, 2018, it will eventually understand it through the auto process. But these days, because it's more expensive, you want to nudge it in a direction from the onset. And again, I did an episode a couple, maybe two, three years ago, where you can actually see this phenomenon in action. Go create a sponsor product, manual campaign, drop the product. Amazon will hit you with some suggested keywords. I just did this. So this is still valid. I just did this. We did it together in preparation for the show. Click Create New Sponsor Product Campaign. Punch your product in. It will suggest keywords. The biggest, highest volume keyword was completely irrelevant. The second one was like semi-relevant. Not something I would want to spend a lot of money on. And that's the concept that has really evolved here. So in the past, I would look at that like very generic keyword that's like, you know, not totally relevant. Maybe I'm in the arena, but it's like not exactly my product. In the past, I would have said, hey, auto campaigns only going to cost 50 cents a click. Let it ride. Today, we're being a lot more diligent there. And of course, today, actually, I can't believe it. It wasn't really mentioned in 2018. And that is you mentioned it as well. Proactive negative keyword research in the auto from the onset. So I hope no one walks away from this episode with us saying that auto campaigns are bad and don't run them. We're just doing extra stuff to ensure we're getting good results from an auto. And you mentioned it. Do this proactive Negative keyword research talked a lot about on the show, which is basically don't wait for search term data to roll in to begin doing negatives. Be proactive about it. See, I love proactive negative keyword research. I feel like it's such a life hack. I feel like negative keywords are one of the most underrated Amazon PPC optimization techniques. I love it. So like, let's give the good people out there of Badger Nation an example. Clément Hynaux: So, you're doing your keyword research for men's running shoes, for example, and then you know that, okay, so you're probably using your favorite tools of choice. You're doing some reverse async analysis, and then you find out that some are running ads on kids running shoes. Well, kids running shoes is probably not a great keyword for men's running shoes. So in that example, kid would be a keyword that you would add as a negative phrase, because whatever happens, you never want to show your adult size shoes For someone who is shopping for kids' shoes. Michael Erickson Facchin: Exactly. And, you know, people might think like, oh, that's not relevant to my product. I'll never show up for that. My friends, it's so irrelevant. It'll never show up in a search term report. And I invite everyone to do this. I've been working on an episode. But basically, if you look at all the impressions that your account has generated, it's like you log into Amazon, you look at the first screen you see, and it says impressions, it'll be like 10 million impressions. If you download a search term report and you look at That search term report, it'll be like a million impressions, meaning your search term report is only revealing like sometimes single digit percentages of your overall impressions. So you don't know the majority of things that you appeared for. And it's just a really easy way to bring down those irrelevant impressions by being proactive about it. I have found that Amazon loves that. I have done a lot of research into really high performing campaigns and they have a negative keyword multiple, meaning compared to their Positive targets. How many negative targets? So positive keywords versus negative keywords. And sometimes they'll have like 20 times more negatives than they do positives. So sculpting is so important these days, even today. Clément Hynaux: Yeah, because your search term report will only show a search term for which you've got clicks on. Michael Erickson Facchin: Exactly. Clément Hynaux: So those would be it. And one thing I want to add, because You know, I know that you love that tool, the ngram analysis, which, you know, you do your one gram and then you can pretty much, it's going to be in your face, the single keyword that you want to add to your never keywords. So that is not proactive, but it's, you know, after you run your campaigns, but it's really easy to just have that. Tell me when you're looking for goals that borrow some guidance and nuggets. Michael Erickson Facchin: I think Ngram analysis is semi-proactive because you're finding it before it gets some clicks. Clément Hynaux: That's good. Yeah. Michael Erickson Facchin: Another way that RPSB has evolved is that Amazon now has manual product category targeting, which is a way to focus on ASIN targeting, so you're targeting products, Which is cool. And it also allows you to easily refine from the get-go. So you can punch in a category and brands and star ratings and pricing super fast. And it's sort of sculpting your auto product targeting in quotes. It's sort of sculpting your product exploration right from the onset. So it can be a little bit more effective at helping you achieve your goals, which is finding products to appear on that I will convert well on. It's sort of Steps over the auto step and sort of gets you right in the pocket of products that you can go toe-to-toe with and potentially nab some sales. Clément Hynaux: Yeah, it's like a refined substitute that will help you stay on the trend of new products coming in. You cannot really do that every week just to get the new ones, add them to your manual campaign, just rely on the category targeting. New product launches, they're usually aggressive. They usually have no reviews. So chances are you can piggyback on their ad money and make sure that you convert on them. Michael Erickson Facchin: Next topic is graduation. So I will say the whole concept of search term graduation, which is like moving things up, finding trends in your auto and moving them over to broad phrase, exact It's absolutely still valid. But the big difference here is that you want to raise the bar on when you graduate something from one ad group to another. You know, in 2018, I'd say like one conversion. And today, I would definitely say that's not enough. Where do you put that bar these days for moving something? Clément Hynaux: Right. So at least two orders, two conversions, just because one conversion might be an accident or somebody that just, yeah, What time frame? Well, it would depend. You still want to have a significant amount of clicks and that's where conversion enters in play. I want that to be at least my average conversion. So move the slider, expand the view if you have the option. I know that using tools is a must now just because Amazon just gave us 65 days worth of data. So just move that slider up and down. Find those, multiple, order, search term, look at the conversion. If it's high enough, yeah, that's a strong signal for you to graduate. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah. My bar is generally like two conversions in a month, this person in my bar. So raising the bar on what gets graduated, if people want a piece of chocolate, I would say two conversions in a month. Here's the last update, and I'd probably say this is definitely not one mentioned at all in 2018, which is blocking. Should you block from the auto, meaning you find a search term, it meets your requirements, it's great, it's converting, you put it into an exact match, do you go and add the negative exacts in the auto survey says. Clément Hynaux: You don't. Michael Erickson Facchin: No, you don't. So that's definitely fallen out of practice, blocking it in the source. Personally, I've replaced it with duplicate search term analysis. So what I do instead is I will go and look at everywhere where that search term is appearing, and I will make a decision, do I want to stop it from appearing certain places? Biggest X factor now is of course placements. Because if it's in an auto, it might be appearing in some places. You put it in a manual, it might be appearing in other places, either intentionally or unintentionally. And those are things to consider. Clément Hynaux: Yeah. And also what I like to do, you still want to nudge Amazon to look favorably towards your manual campaign. So what I do, I take my average CPC, I bump a little bit. That's to be my bid and that will favor the new campaigns. But also, you know, the old campaigns, they have historical data and Amazon might still think it's the best place to show your ads. So you don't want to kill the momentum because that could happen while the new campaign is building steam, building relevancy. So that transition will be smoother. You will not hit your sales and will remain at least as high. That's one thing, but also if for whatever reason your manual campaign is running out of budget, the auto campaign, your more loose targeting campaign might act as a backup. So run out of paycheck, you got caught up and prepared, you're still showing up and that's good. And then placement, as you mentioned. So yeah, all that and you're good. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah, so the verdict of RPSB, research, peel, stick, and block, I would say could be modernized by just simply understanding the concept of search term graduation, which is look at your search term report, find things that are behaving well, and then graduate them. You don't need to go through the blocking process. So it's a way for you to expand your reach on well-converting keywords. So yes, there are still pieces of RPSB that are absolutely still valid today. The biggest differences are, of course, CPCs have grown quite a bit. You have additional targeting options, which might help you skip a few steps. And, of course, duplicate search term analysis, which was not popular at all in 2018, I think is much more meaningful today, combined with placement settings. Clément Hynaux: And growth analysis as well. And the importance of conversion as a defining factor for success. Michael Erickson Facchin: All righty. I love this topic. Love campaign structure, love search term movement, love search term analysis. Thank you so much, Clement, for coming on the show. Have a good one, everyone. I'll see you next week here on The PPC Den Podcast.