Sneaky defaults that drain your budget in 2025

Sneaky defaults that drain your budget in 2025 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, we've got our good friend Noemi from ScaleWave coming back on to cover something that I think is so interesting because if you're in a rush and you're not paying attention and you're rolling through your campaign creation process, it is possible that you will leave a default on That could spell disaster to your campaigns. So in this episode, we're going to talk about defaults that you might not be aware of that are costing you some PPC performance. Let's jump in. Noemi Bolojan: Is it rocky? Yay. Michael Erickson Facchin: That's absolutely rocky for sure. Thanks so much for coming back on The PPC Den podcast, Noemi. It's always an absolute pleasure. Noemi Bolojan: The pleasure is mine. That's why I'm always present. Michael Erickson Facchin: It means a lot to have you on the show. You've been on the show several times. Thanks so much for tolerating my interview questions and interview style. I try to get to the root of a lot of Amazon PPC knowledge so that people can easily digest it. Noemi Bolojan: You and I, my friend. You and I. Michael Erickson Facchin: How are you feeling about Amazon advertising in 2025? It's March as we're recording this. How are you feeling about Amazon advertising? Noemi Bolojan: Betrayed. Michael Erickson Facchin: Like Game of Thrones-style betrayal. Noemi Bolojan: I don't know about Game of Thrones-style betrayal, but I know for sure that it sucks whenever you're doing, I mean, you're pretty self-serving, you're doing your best for your clients, and then whatever you're doing, fine. Just like, oops, sneaky Pete. Then it showed up and like, oh my gosh, you know, like, I just ensure that everything what I set up, it's set up well to my best knowledge. And like, oh, no, actually, you're wrong, you know, so that's kind of the type of betrayal that I'm talking about, rather than in front of you, like, this is what we did. That's the outcome, you know. Michael Erickson Facchin: I feel like in the world of digital marketing, there's a fair degree of Why couldn't this just be a little bit easier in the sense of like, I'm just out here trying to do my campaigns and get this going. And sometimes, yes, you are blindsided by some updates, which I think segues quite nicely to the topic that we're going to be touching on today, which is, of course, sneaky Defaults. I have to thank you so much for suggesting this topic. Topics like this to talk about on this show in the sense of I think they are easy to understand and easy to digest and are incredibly valuable. So yes, I love topics like this. So thanks so much for participating and sharing this knowledge with the good people out there. In the Badger Den Nation. Noemi Bolojan: Let's go through the steps. Michael Erickson Facchin: Let's do it. So I think like sneaky defaults that are eating your budget, draining your budget. Noemi Bolojan: Yeah. Sneaky defaults that are just implemented without your knowledge. I mean, I don't mind whenever a policy changes because that's like, that's the house rules. That's how I'm going to play the rules. But whenever the house decides to change these rules and they're not going to let you know, and they're going to throw, ah, you're supposed to know this because you are an advertiser. Why don't you know this? I think that that's the most, it's going to create a lot of mistrust towards the platform itself and towards the You know, everyone wants to like... Sell and everyone wants to make most of their advertising and anyhow it's so hard. And I get it. It's an advertising platform. Prices are going to go only up. But whenever it's like this nickiness happens, and again, I absolutely love Amazon. I'm not like saying that you should not be creating any new campaigns. I'm saying that you have to really be on top of your game because if you are not, you're going to be taken advantage of. And especially in 2024, 2025, as a new Amazon advertiser, if you're creating your very first campaigns, Man, because you don't know where to look, that's the thing. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah, I can't imagine a little Springtime Bunny approaching the Amazon advertising campaign creation thing and just getting enveloped by a wolf because that's what some of these defaults are. So I will say, it's actually a phenomenon in the world of the internet. It's called like dark design or dark patterns, meaning you interact with the internet in a certain way and most websites and most apps have a similar Expectation of, you know, the dark blue button compared to the gray button, the gray, like do something where like the dark blue button is like the button you press to achieve the thing that you're trying to do. Whereas the light gray button is the cancel button, meaning like, let me back out from what the decision I was making. So like, if you go to create a campaign and then as you're creating a campaign, you try to leave the campaign creation view, you get a confirmation thing. And you just tried to leave, so you should be confirming that you want to leave, so the dark blue button should be, yes, I want to leave. However, they flipped it so that the dark blue button is like, book a call with us to talk about this campaign. And it's like, wait a second, why is that the default? I'm trying to lead the campaign creation process, not talk to you. Why is that the default on this prompt? Little sneaky things like that dark design where it's just like, oh, why is that the default? And today in Amazon advertising, there are some sneaky defaults that can drain some budget. So Noemi, let's jump into some of these. Right now. So I've got the first one pulled up here. Situation number one, sponsored products, campaign, manual targeting, keyword targeting. What do we have up on screen? Noemi Bolojan: So right now we have the keyword targeting. We have our suggested beats filter sold by, as previously. We have the enter list, no change, upload file, no change. So just a bit that was there for a while already. Right now we have set up all the broad phrase and exact matches. Actually, I believe that is an OG setting. And this is why in many campaigns that we're going to audit, you are going to see all these three within the one campaign. Next thing is going to be really keyword groups. And this is also something that they are suggesting it's in beta right now. And here there are three settings. So keywords, brand, Keywords from brands also considered by shoppers, keywords related to your product category, and keywords related to your brand. Now, while all is good here, that is like, all right, you gave me one more option to test. I'm happy for that. What is the sneakiness is actually the keywords related to your product category. This is going to come as default before you even created the campaign, before you even added your keyword. And why is this? Something that you should be thinking of is that if you are going to even create a campaign with one exact keyword, either it's broad phrase, exact match, what's going to happen is that besides that keyword that is going to trigger a lot of clicks, you are going to end up on paying on keywords related to your product category, which what is that? So, on my end, the way I'm seeing it, while this is a sneakiness, I believe, from Amazon's new setup, This could be a good way to test whatever is going to show up there. Because keep in mind, if we're creating a discovery campaign, which actually is like meeting the purpose of creating this type of campaigns, like sponsor product where you want to showcase something specific. But this one could be tested as let it run by itself without adding any keywords to see what is going to be there. And then you can negate. So the way how I'm seeing it, actually, Amazon added Automatic targeting with the manual targeting. Thoughts on that? Michael Erickson Facchin: Yes, very interesting. Well, it's sort of an automatic keyword target, as they're sort of calling it, next to keyword. So yeah, it's really interesting. So there's so many sneaky, maybe sneaky is the wrong word. There's so many defaults here that you need to be aware of to do. So obviously, suggested bid has been talked about good and plenty that, hey, that default suggested bid, It could be way off course. The suggested bid is, I've seen some scenarios where the default bid is like $20. Meanwhile, you can get clicks for like one or two dollars for a particular keyword. So like the suggested bid, usually too high. Don't use it. Adding all three match types. Again, you want to be very intentional when you use different kinds of match types for different kinds of purposes, right? And then these keyword groups that are added to your point, it's like, yeah, what even is keywords related to your product category? If I'm selling running shoes, am I going to trigger for like shoelace keywords? Because it's like kind of in the category related to the category. Am I going to show up for exercise equipment? It's like selling running shoes. So who even knows exactly, but it's sort of like interrupting the pattern, right? You click keyword targeting, you expect keyword targeting, and now they're giving you buckets of keywords that you don't select yourself. So it is like an auto target inside a keyword targeting. Fascinating. So if I'm creating, I mean, most people, for most purposes, you want to create keyword targeting, targeting keywords that you want to target, not A big bucket of keywords. So, plenty of defaults to fix here. We have a lot of content on this show talking about where your starting bids should land, how to incorporate match types. So when you set up keyword targeting, be intentional. Use it as an opportunity to, am I intentionally creating some broad matches or am I intentionally going after some specific exact matches? Easy way to ramp up your budget in an uncontrolled manner. That is the sneaky defaults here. Let's jump to the next one. I added this one. I think you laughed when I did. But I find it so fascinating. When you go to add stuff, there's tons of defaults. Here's a whole bunch of stuff to add. But No need to worry about negative keyword targeting. The default is that there is no suggested negative keywords. Imagine how helpful it would be if you're going through your campaign and it's just suggested some negatives for you. Maybe you looked at your search and report and just added some stuff that doesn't work well. Maybe it just like understood your product a little bit and suggested things that it probably won't work well. But no, the default is empty. I thought I just found that funny. Noemi Bolojan: Yeah, it's really interesting. And it's so funny that you're saying that. So, again, not bashing Amazon. Amazon is still amazing. It's making our money, right? But when it comes down to this one, I think that Amazon's ultimate scope and purpose is to make sales. The quicker the shoppers are going to find exactly what they are looking for, They are going to make those sales. So if I'm thinking this way, the amount of sales that you can increase is by the velocity that you're going to generate the sales. So keep in mind that having this negative exact negative phrase option already Amazon suggesting you whatever you're like You're actually just paying and no one is buying your product, you know? That could be a really cool way. Although at the time I'm thinking that, again, this is not really self-serving on that side. So probably that's why. But I love your addition. That's a really cool one. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah. It's a default that I think should be remedied. So like good optimization practice, again, on the first page would be to tweak these settings to have your advertising meet exactly what you want it to meet with. The second would be, okay, like do the research, open up your favorite keyword research tool and punch in whatever it is that you sell and use that as a creative way to find some negatives. Like if you go to any keyword research tool and you type in what it is that you sell, there will likely return some things for you that are actually not relevant. Drop them in, add some negative exacts, add some negative phrases. Moving on. Campaign bidding strategy. You added this one. Talk us through this. Noemi Bolojan: So, back in the OG days, aka last year. Unknown Speaker: OG days. Michael Erickson Facchin: I was so young. Noemi Bolojan: And keep in mind, something that here has changed. So right now, if you're going to log in within the console, you're not going to really make any difference, because for you, now, today, that is the default. Here, what it was, the structure here, it was dynamic bids down only, then it was dynamic bids up and down, and then it was fixed bids. So while I'm talking about the fact that right now Amazon is claiming that dynamic bids up and down delivered 1.8 more sales at a 4% lower For us, it was compared to whatever they were doing on their ads. So keep in mind that they can have this data and just because someone else is saying it, it doesn't mean that you're going to be able to replicate the exact same results. Most of the time what is happening here, since dynamic bids up and down, it was a choice. Now it's a default. What you're going to do is whenever you're going to create your very first campaign and you're not going to manually adjust to have dynamic bids down only or even fixed bids, What's going to happen is even if your, let's say your CPC is $1, it can go to 0.20 cents. It can go up to $3, $4, whatever it is. I'm not sure exactly the range here, but it comes down to control. So if we don't have control on a bid level, which is fundamentals, how do you expect to duplicate success? Because here clearly it's like something that Amazon decides to show you for or not, which is Great if you want to discover stuff, but the purpose of each campaign, it's a strategic move behind it. So usually whenever we are creating these campaigns, if we don't have the maximum amount of control, then we are just giving it away to Amazon to do whatever they want. So on my end, this is something that we should be noting. It's very, very important because keep in mind once that that setting is on, no matter if you're doing your bid adjustments, you might be thinking I have 100% ACoS, mine Target ACOS is 50%. If you're going to decrease the bids, you're still never going to get to that 50% ACOS. And that's the most dangerous part of it. What do you see on your end? Michael Erickson Facchin: Well said. I wanted to call out this little note that they put, you mentioned it, where it's just like, oh, campaigns that did this delivered more sales and had a lower Lower ROAS. So there's a couple things. Number one, lower ROAS, I think they meant ACOS. I think they're trying to convince you of doing up and down. But like the lower the ROAS, the worse it is. You want like a low ACOS and a high, you know, conversely, high ROAS. So I actually think this might be a typo. Why would they tell us that it got a lower ROAS? Noemi Bolojan: Good eyes. Yes, exactly. Michael Erickson Facchin: The other thing I would say too, so I assume that means 4% higher ROAS. What I find interesting here is like, I see this a lot where it's like companies that did this thing did like achieve this thing. Give me the raw data. Because what I often believe, I have this like gut feel. This only includes like a portion, this includes like a segment potentially of like advertisers that spend over $100,000 a month, which are already, you know, a little bit, they already have like, that's like confirmation bias. At this point, our survivorship bias, meaning those accounts were already so successful that they grew to a certain size. So of course, whatever they did will work, but that's like the classic definition of survivorship bias. It's not a guarantee that if you do the same thing, you will succeed. So again, it's like the whole concept of a default, only do it this way. It's incompatible with optimization by definition because it's like everything should be a test and everything should be worth tweaking and playing with, not always do it this way. Here's the default. This works for everyone. Advertising is not a one size fits all based off your market, your search volume, your competitors, all this stuff. So moving on. This is another one. I first saw this one. Someone in my network shared this. I haven't seen this in an account just yet. Settings for ads served off Amazon. And the default is maximize reach. Noemi Bolojan: Yeah. So actually here, I have a Confession to make. So whenever, I think we have a common friend who shared this. They shared it on LinkedIn, so it might not be common. However, the idea was that they were doing some audits and for some client accounts or some potential client accounts, what they see is that most of them spent a lot of money off Amazon. And actually yesterday I was asking our account manager, can you please go through and see like for our Clients, does this apply? And it was spent, but it was like 30 cents, 50 cents, so on and so forth. So I think this, while this is something that you should be aware of, first off, I would see if it's applicable to you or not. Because that is going to be defining your next action steps rather than, yes, this is a default, but if it's not impacting you a lot and it's not taking a huge portion of your sales, this is something that you should be aware of, but only afterwards you check on your end that at least 20%, 30%, 50% of your ads are going in the wrong places. And especially when it comes down to wrong places, that is there, it's very hard for us to control the bid and to lower ACoS. So this one comes with a caveat, I would say, but there's definitely something that on some accounts, again, lying with data. I honestly, at this time and age, I don't know who's lying with data and who's not. This could be something that you might be like putting in like 30 minutes of your time. Just download your sponsor product, product placement report, and then it's going to showcase like this exactly specific. Michael Erickson Facchin: You found this default as well. You added this one. Launch additional campaigns in other countries. It says, we'll launch copies of this campaign in the selected countries. For each country, we'll convert your budget to the local currency, match products, and suggest a bid. Not a setting I've ever selected. But it's the default. Noemi Bolojan: But why not? Strategically thinking, because you have more years experience in Amazon ads, why would you not have this on, Michael? Michael Erickson Facchin: I believe this appears, even if the account isn't registered in those locations, which is bonkers. Noemi Bolojan: And besides that, we already know that even worst case scenario, let's say that you're running low on stock or you're just coming something that is reserved and it's going to be available in 10 days, 11 days, even if you're running ads for that type of product, even so, Your spend is going to pile up and probably you're not going to have conversion. So think of that being your worst case scenario. Now, in this scenario here, we don't even know if we have inventory. We don't even know if everything is set up. We don't know anything. And what we don't know is that probably you also, again, have more experience with this. Then I have, but so far I've seen a few accounts that we are managing both on the U.S. marketplace, on the Canadian marketplace. Some of them we're managing then in Spain, France, and so on and so forth. The keywords are not going to, one, not going to be the same. Michael Erickson Facchin: Of course. Noemi Bolojan: Second, search volume is not going to be the same. Third, is the country that you're going to advertise in going to say exactly the same way, how they are going to type the product? And probably not, you know, so those are the first thing that I'm thinking right now. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah, the whole concept of localization does matter. You know, you talk to someone from the UK, And you're just fascinated with all of their slang. There's ways that people describe things. There's different demands. This whole episode could really be distilled down to it's about being intentional, right? So when you sit down to create your international campaigns, you want to be intentional about it. You want to sit down and create the campaigns for Germany. Think about that. At the lowest effort level, you're just taking those keywords and you're translating them and say, okay, done. But even the bidding should be different for a different country. You wouldn't want to use the same bids for the same countries or the budgets for the same countries, potentially even the same targeting types. Your competition is different. There's so many differences. Why would you You know, not be intentional about it and actually get it done the correct way. All righty, over here is another one you pointed out, which was, this is a sponsored products product targeting And you target a product, what do you expect to see? All the impressions and clicks related to targeting that product. However, of course, and this has been a phenomenon for Amazon advertising for some time, you will get keyword-based impressions for your product targeting campaigns, creating an interesting conundrum for advertisers. And the default would be to want to add these as Negatives. At the ad group level, but you cannot do that. The default when you select these would be to add it to the ad group level negatives. And you of course cannot do that to words in a product targeting campaign. You have to go back up to the campaign level. So like the default is ad group. So you might look at this and be like, Oh, the default is I can't do this. So you have to break that default and go back to the campaign and add it as a negative at the campaign level. And this is infinitely confusing. How you're targeting products. You have word-based, keyword-based impressions. You're targeting keywords. You have ASIN-based impressions. The whole thing is tricky. And that's the default you need to break for your sponsored product targeting. You have to break the default and go back to the campaign. Anything else to say about this one? Noemi Bolojan: No, not much. I think the only thing that I do want to point out is, actually, I was talking to Michael right before recording, and I was saying that whenever there are keywords there, you're not able to edit as negative. And while that applies, actually, you can do it. Michael just explained to you how to do it. So there is a way how to do it in case that you are just freaking out right now because you see like keywords there. It's still okay if you're converting especially, just like there is a way how to negate it. That's the outcome. Michael Erickson Facchin: Of course. And of course, the logic here is that you're targeting this product and your product is appearing for that search that you're targeting. So you're like appearing nearby. You added this one, Cost Control Sponsored Brands. Talk us through it. Noemi Bolojan: Yeah, so basically this is going to be a default. And what does this mean is that whenever you're creating a new campaign, it's going to Prompt you to select a specific CPC. Now, while you might be thinking that Amazon actually is doing something in my favor, so it's going to allow me, let's say $1 click. That's not a huge amount, you know. Let's say that that is something that you might want to have on. The problem occurs when this setting is on and then you don't have anymore an option to change your bid because this setting is on. And especially whenever you would want to even, if you're using bulk files, I'm not sure on the software and if this, like, how is this going to affect, but I know for sure that whenever you're using even bulk files, you are not going to be able to make the change just because this setting is on. So technically, this can go really right for you because then you're saying, okay, Amazon, here it is. And this is how much I want to spend on this particular keyword or so on. I don't like it personally because less control I have. And here it's saying, the funny thing that you, you know, the colors and everything, what you were mentioning, they're saying it's cost control. Yeah, but it's not cost optimization. It's like you're controlling to spend more than you would spend less, you know? So that's the only thing I think that's super important to like take away. Michael Erickson Facchin: Right, very well said. You know, it's like most of the time we're not optimizing for cost, we're optimizing for results, meaning like how much revenue relative to cost, right? And to your point, that dollar might be the wrong number. You know, it's possible that you should be down at the 75 cent range. Perfect. I thought this was another interesting default. We're switching back to sponsored products. When you go to product targeting, the default is actually categories. Again, it's all about being intentional to me. If someone wants to target products, you're generally going to be better off being intentional about which products those are. I like category targeting. It can be expensive, but the refinement process is where the magic really happens, where you're refining a particular category down for brands that you know you go head-to-head with well, for certain star ratings that you go head-to-head with well, for certain price points that you go head-to-head well. But the default is, of course, to just add this. And the default is on categories, which is a broader type to begin with. And that's sort of a theme with all of this, where it's like, It's always defaulting to the broader option instead of like the more refined one. So it's almost as if the performance of all of these are measured by like how easily and quickly someone can go through it or just like, okay, great, select, select, select, select. I've just created a campaign with a big reach as opposed to it's much slower to like pick and choose and refine and do all of this. So I just thought this was another interesting default to point out here. Noemi Bolojan: Yeah, definitely. I just added also like one more slide if you're going down, because this is also regards product or everything, but here is not going to be the categories rather than we are on slide 10. It's going to be the individual products, and this is something that comes as default. So when it comes down to filter by, we are on slide 10. We had previously exact. So I'm cool with the fact that we were given one more option with Expanded. This is the one, exactly. I'm cool with the fact that we are given one more option with Expanded because the way how I'm seeing it, this is, again, kind of like brother match of whatever is going to work or not. So it's discovery. But beforehand, exact was a default. And exact means that whatever product you want to show on. And here, like we use so often this strategy in order to show up on specific products where we have total advantage Like either it's either the creatives are better, either like we have advantage over, right? And what we want to avoid is this setting that is expanded. Right now it's a default because this is going to show you both for the products that you want to show up for, but it's also going to show up for products that are totally not relevant. So here again, it comes down to control. You can definitely use expanded, but if you're going to use expanded, rather than use it as a discovery campaign, then an exact targeting campaign. So that is just the small nugget there. Again, this comes as default. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah, it's interesting that the default is expanded. You know, the default again, it's the broader option here. Switching over to sponsored brands. We had this up on screen. I believe you added this one. Does it default to store spotlight? Is that why we have this highlighted? Noemi Bolojan: No, so this is so we have different ad formats. And here also, like underneath, I think on the next slide, I just didn't like highlighted it. But here in products collection, what I wanted to like, why I was curious is that is this going to be the same default over all the ad formats? Because ad formats differ, right? So for product collection, maybe it would have been something different for store spotlight, maybe something different and so on. But what I am seeing right now on my end, this is going to be applicable both for product collection. Also, going back to slide 11, it's going to be both asked for a store spotlight. It's going to show up. So why it's important to mention that is because you might think that it's only in one place. No, it's not. So just be careful whenever you're going to create this. Michael Erickson Facchin: And this relates to cost control. Talked about previously. Noemi Bolojan: Correct. And actually, right now I'm just hovering over videos also on video. So if the ad format is product collection, store spotlight, or video, this is going to show up in your case. Michael Erickson Facchin: Every sponsor brand. Noemi Bolojan: Yes. I think that DEU might have added this one. Would you back us through, please? Michael Erickson Facchin: Sponsor display default and how reach defaults to VCPM. Reach being the broadest and it's actually I wouldn't even call it a default as well because you're stuck with VCPM for reach no matter what. So I just thought it was that that was worth pointing out as well with sponsored display. That, you know, some of these defaults are relating to, again, just being broad, being reached, like maximizing visibility as opposed to optimizing for conversions, right? So just another default that if you're not careful, you know, sort of takes you in a different direction that you might not be initially signing up for, which is an interesting one. And I think, I believe that's the only default for our sponsor display. Noemi Bolojan: I double check also. Yeah, sorry. Before we're moving forward, I also double check reach, page visit and conversions. I believe this is the exact same option that we have for sponsor brand cost control, but it's really interesting. Interesting. What is really interesting is that, for example, for reach on my end, I'm going to have like a $3 cost per 1,000 viewable impressions. For a page visit, I'm going to have a cost per click of $1. Again, these are all suggested by Amazon. For conversion, I'm going to have a cost per order $15, like freaking different. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah, like what is the product? Noemi Bolojan: The product is like six. Michael Erickson Facchin: There's no way it's under 50 bucks. Noemi Bolojan: There's no way to be profitable there. Michael Erickson Facchin: And I believe our last one actually stemmed from a LinkedIn post that you had 10 months ago. 10 months ago. You're so young. So this still must be going on, huh? Noemi Bolojan: You know, yes, and it's super interesting. Actually, one of the ad agencies was like quite known, asked me about this last week, two weeks ago, something like that. And I found this so interesting that this is something that it's there. So I'm wondering, is this beta testing? So is this Amazon going to test it on certain accounts and not others? Or is this something so sneaky that people are just like not finding it right away? Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah, so walk us through this. Noemi Bolojan: Yes. So here, the purpose was to create a sponsor brand video ad and to generate sales from that. The targeting type, it is exact match targeting. And here, as you can see, the match type in exact, it's showing up an asterisk here. Yeah, exactly. And the thing is that an asterisk is not a keyword, therefore we cannot negate it. And here we followed up with Amazon ad support for almost a month. I actually shared this in my post. I don't mind to share this because I want to bring everyone's attention to, even if you're going to find something on Amazon, it might be taking a lot of time also on Amazon to confirm that actually whatever you're seeing is a technical beach on their end, right? So long story short, after 30 days, we were told that this is something, a glitch on Amazon ads. And right now there's no way for us how to negate that asterisk, you know. And again, if you are running a lot of sponsor brand video ads, even if it's an exact match, I would highly, highly advise you to go through these reports. Because it might be that you're spending so much on a freaking asterisk that it's like the campaign doesn't worth it for you. So in this case, I think that it's, again, with a flat down because we cannot control whatever we're spending on. I have no problem spending money on something that I have control on. Here, it's just like, I cannot negate an asterisk. Also to our listeners, can you please confirm on your end, are you seeing this in your reports? Because that's going to be more advertisers are seeing this. Maybe we can bring it to Amazon like, hey guys, actually this is in our campaigns. Fix it as quick as possible because this is like you're spending money that you shouldn't, you know? So. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah. So check your sponsored brands video search and report. Out of all the defaults that we touched on today, Just recapping them, we've got a whole bunch of defaults when it comes to keyword targeting, but the one that we were pointing out here was keywords related to your product category being added by default, nothing in the negative keyword targeting by default. Up and down bidding being the default. Maximize reach for off Amazon ads as default. Defaulting to launch in multiple countries. Defaulting to the negative ad group area where you cannot add words in a product targeting. You have to go to the campaign level to add that negative. Defaulting to cost control. Which seems like it's minimizing your costs, defaulting to categories unrefined, defaulting to products expanded, and defaulting to reach on sponsored display, and defaulting to, I guess you would just call this some kind of technical glitch that we all get opted into, which you can't really do anything about. But out of all these defaults, what do you feel like is the one that is Draining the most budgets as we wrap up the show. Which one do you feel like is most egregious? Noemi Bolojan: Well, bids up and down, if it's coming down to high priority to low, bids up and down, that is something that's really important. Sponsored product, sponsored brand video ads, especially if you're heavy on those, it's going to drain a lot of budget. Honestly, I think all of them, but the bids, not controlling the bids and the creating them in different countries, that kind of like equals somehow. It might maybe the creating them in different countries is more expensive because they're like the whole campaign is created. Therefore, it's like going to lead the most amount of money rather than this up and down. But I think that beats up and down is the hardest to spot. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah, I would say that especially for campaigns that get little traffic, maybe they get like five orders a month. Up and down, I feel like is a disaster for those because you're bidding so high up on things that are barely getting conversions. It's hard to do bid optimization there. I'm going to go with My most egregious one is the default of no negative keywords. Why? Because I feel like negative keywords actually fix almost all of these things. Meaning, if you have a broad category targeting, if you have tons of broad match, if you're targeting keywords related to your product group, if you have all these things going, It's all fixed if you have intense negative keyword management. So the fact that we're defaulted to no negatives, to me, that's my most egregious one. I'm a big believer that people should be adding tons of negatives. I think you should have 10 times more negatives than you do positives. For every one keyword that you bid on, you should hit it with 10 negatives to sculpt and be sure you're landing on exactly what you want to land on. That's my philosophy. And that's why I pick this as my most egregious. Default. Noemi Bolojan: Before we're wrapping up, Mike, I'm noticing something and probably our audience was like super analytical. They're going to call out this. Actually, this is a default that has been a while here and we're going to like we can end up with that. It's going to be for the sponsor display when it comes down to targeting. Let me add this as our very last side. This is something that it has been there for a while and people are just going to ask that. Is that not a default? Yes, that is a default. But the difference here is that this default has been there for a while. And most people, to be super honest, they're not going to create sponsored display ads or the least amount of people who are going to create this type of ad. So therefore, it's not the highest like Budget draining. What do you think? Michael Erickson Facchin: Right. Yeah, there's some defaults here when you get to your when you're working through your sponsored display, you get some defaults here. And yes, some of these are good, like purchases, remarketing, purchases, remarketing, views, remarketing. And then, of course, just pure similar to which is, of course, very broad. And that's what you're referring to, right? The default options on this screen. Yeah. Noemi Bolojan: Although all of them are default. It's not the one, but all of them are going to be default. Michael Erickson Facchin: So yeah, it's like they give you four good ones. Those are tight down there. Advertised products, look back 30 days, those are tight. And then that top one is very open. It's very big and broad, for sure. Yeah, sponsored display is an interesting one because, again, I see a lot of people, they look at their sponsored display and they think that it's doing really well, when in actuality, it's being propped it up by view through sales only. And their click through a cost is more like 200%. And their view through a cost is like, 25. I see that. Good and plenty. Noemi Bolojan: For those who are super analytical about whatever we're providing and not, there you have it. Michael Erickson Facchin: So, Noemi, thanks so much for coming on the show again, PPC Den Podcast. Noemi Bolojan: My pleasure, my pleasure. Michael Erickson Facchin: Absolutely. Where can the good people out there in Badger Nation follow up with you if they have any questions? Noemi Bolojan: Befriend me on LinkedIn and leave a comment that you were listening to this episode. It's highly likely that I'm going to reply to your comment that way. And yeah, that would be the best way. I'm already in my LinkedIn. If you want to find out more about us, ScaleWave, just type scalewave.io. Feel free to shoot a message there as well. Contact at scalewave.io. Easiest I'm going to reply probably on LinkedIn, but if you're not connected again, I'm not going to see it. So that's kind of it. Michael Erickson Facchin: Amazing. Well, Noemi, thank you so much for coming back on the show. It's always an absolute pleasure. And everyone else, I'll see you next week here on The PPC Den Podcast. Unknown Speaker: No bad mistakes, I've made a few I've had my share of rocky ones, but I've gone through We are the creepy-soothed, my friends And we'll keep on the blazing You are the PPC Den. We talk about Amazon. No time for medicons, cause we fix the gambit of the world.