Introduction
Is Hiring an Amazon PPC Agency Worth It?
Hiring an Amazon PPC agency offers great benefits for brands. You get a team of Amazon professionals who take complete control of your Amazon ad account.
You can also free up resources if your internal team was responsible for running your ad account. These are only a couple of the advantages that come with hiring an Amazon PPC agency.
Still, hiring an Amazon PPC agency has a direct impact on your brand’s revenue and profit. This means that there might be instances where an agency has a poor impact on your brand’s performance. This is why you need to hire the right agency that knows exactly what to do in your ad account.
An advertising agency might not be needed for where your brand is right now. Perhaps your brand does need an agency, but there are too many to choose from. From figuring out if an agency is worthwhile to the characteristics of a solid agency for your brand, this guide helps break down the decision.
When is Hiring an Amazon PPC Agency Worth It?
Most brands don’t think to hire outside help until in-house campaigns show poor results or scaling becomes difficult. To stop things from reaching a boiling point, it’s good to spot the signs early.
Some of the common indications that it may be time to hire a PPC agency include:
ACoS Keeps Rising
It’s normal for brands to have occasional ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales) spikes. Still, prolonged upward movement over a few months is concerning. The reason for this is because rising ACoS generally signals deeper inefficiencies in your brand’s advertising campaign strategy. This includes:
- Competitive shifts not accounted for in bidding strategy
- Expansion into lower-intent traffic without safeguards
- Campaign architecture built incrementally rather than intentionally
It’s time to hire expert help when leadership can no longer clearly articulate why advertising is costing more without seeing more revenue.
Why Hire an Agency to Address Rising ACoS?
MatchaBar is one brand that faced inconsistent growth, even with a loyal customer base. The brand’s PPC efforts lacked direction, while ACoS was unprofitable. The brand’s leadership couldn’t understand why.
That’s when MatchaBar turned to Olifant Digital. Our team of Amazon experts rebuilt every campaign using our proven 1-1-1-1 system (1 campaign, 1 ad group, 1 keyword, and 1 ASIN). With this restructuring, we added $114,305 in monthly Amazon revenue for MatchaBar.
Growing Ad Spend Without Increased Profit
Your advertising isn’t increasing profit if your margins stay flat, even when top-line revenue grows. You’re not scaling your brand. You’re just scaling your ad spend.
The problem in this scenario is that there’s no increase in organic sales. At the same time, growth heavily relies on paid traffic. Additionally, budgets tend to outpace structural refinement. Brands facing this situation also find that spend expands reactively, as it’s not part of a defined growth plan.
Although this might not feel urgent at modest budgets, it becomes expensive when scaling.
How Can Hiring an Agency Solve This?
Wedge Guys was suffering from unprofitable ad campaigns before the brand decided to partner with an Amazon PPC agency. During this time, resources were being drained without driving any sustainable growth.
Our team of Amazon experts at Olifant Digital replaced Wedge Guys’ “growth at all costs” approach with a lean, KPI-driven PPC system. To prioritize profitability over vanity metrics, we used a click-to-revenue formula. This led to Wedge Guys seeing a $305,771 increase in monthly Amazon revenue.
Stagnant Sales Even With Increased Spend
Your brand should have increased revenue when there’s an increase in impressions and clicks. However, your brand faces diminishing returns when this doesn’t happen. The reason for these diminishing returns is generally because:
- Saturation within your current targeting pool
- Repeatedly capturing the same demand instead of expanding reach
- Internal campaign overlapping that’s inflating costs
- Traffic being misaligned with buyer intent
How Can an Advertising Agency Change This?
Elite Jumps’ revenue plateaued because the brand’s organic traffic was weak. PPC campaigns were draining budgets without driving any impactful returns. This changed when Elite Jumps partnered with Olifant Digital. Our team of experts optimized listings and performed A/B testing to improve conversions. This led to a 124% increase in Amazon revenue in only 3 months.
No Time to Manage Daily Optimizations
Amazon advertising never remains the same. The marketplace is known for having competitive bid shifting and search behavior changing.
Founders often make the mistake where any adjustments made are reactive instead of structured. Because no process is in place, reviews also tend to be irregular. Finally, strategic decisions are only made when there’s a dip in performance.
This way of working is manageable early on. However, systems like this aren’t profitable for any brand at scale. Not having established processes becomes a financial risk. During this time, founders generally stop asking themselves, “Can I manage this?” Instead, the question becomes, “is this the best use of my time?”
Is an Amazon Agency Worthwhile for Continuous Management?
Bullstrap had a powerful DTC presence, but the same success wasn’t showing up on Amazon. The brand’s PPC campaigns were fragmented with inconsistent monitoring and optimizations, which drove up ad spend without reliable returns.
By partnering with Olifant Digital, Bullstrap was able to outsource all Amazon efforts. Our experts at Olifant Digital replaced scattered campaigns with a clear, scalable PPC structure. We segmented campaigns by ASIN and optimized for TACoS, which led to an 85% increase in monthly Amazon revenue.
No Clear Strategy Behind Campaigns
Many new brands split their focus between too many products that they are trying to sell at the same time.
- Budgets are split too thin
- Not enough sales velocity is generated per product in order to rank higher organically in the Amazon search engine
- Their ad account is not optimized on a daily basis
What Can an Agency Do Instead?
An agency can be used to outsource your Amazon advertising management and scale your brand by identifying the most profitable search terms / keywords / product targets and by spending your ad budget on them.
Beauty by Earth decided to partner with Olifant Digital because the brand’s ad account lacked clear structure, performance tracking, and a scalable strategy. Our expert team at Olifant Digital addressed the brand’s main problem by executing a multi-layered PPC strategy.
During this process, we prioritized:
- Exact and broad keyword targeting
- Competitor ASIN campaigns
- Category targeting
- High-converting video ad creation
Our structured approach resulted in Beauty by Earth’s monthly Amazon revenue increasing by 27%.
When is it Not Worth Hiring an Agency?
Outsourcing Amazon advertising to an agency is a powerful move for brands that are ready to scale, but not all brands might be at that growth stage.
You’re Testing Your First Product
Your primary challenge isn’t ad efficiency if you’re still figuring out whether your product truly has consistent demand. Product-market fit is your most important challenge at this stage.
Your Revenue Isn’t Consistent
Your brand’s advertising strategy isn’t the limiting factor if your sales fluctuate heavily from one month to the next. Consistent revenue is an important foundation, as it typically signals that:
- Your product resonates
- Your listing converts
- Your supply chain is stable
Without this consistency, advertising management won’t create predictable growth.
You Don’t Have the Margin to Absorb Testing
If a slight dip in performance puts you under pressure, you don’t have a marketing problem. You have an economics problem. Strong brands are built with enough margin to experiment.
For this reason, only brands that can absorb testing, refinement, and scaling cycles should perform advertising optimization. Brands that aren’t in this position should prioritize increasing margin.
Your Core Offering Needs More Work
Your product offerings might be the reason your brand isn’t seeing significant revenue. In these instances, advertising isn’t your main problem. Product-related performance issues might result in low conversion rates because of:
- Your value proposition not being compelling at the current price point
- Your product not meaningfully differentiating itself from competitors
Your product’s foundation is what it offers. An effective advertising campaign has the power to amplify what exists. It can’t fix weak fundamentals: your brand’s product offering.
Hiring a PPC Agency: When It’s Worth It vs. Not Worth It
The Cost of Staying DIY
It might seem like a savvy decision to manage your brand’s Amazon PPC management. This is especially the case if you have a solid understanding of Amazon’s functionality and features. Still, you are paying in some way even if you aren’t receiving an invoice from an Amazon agency each month. Many founders don’t realize the hidden costs of using in-house resources, which include:
- Higher-leverage growth initiatives don’t get the necessary attention
- Scaling windows are missed during high-demand periods
- Budget allocation is reactive rather than strategic
- Structural inefficiencies have a compounded effect over time
Yes, this is a solid tradeoff during a brand’s early stages. Yet, Amazon performance and its financial impact on the brand become more meaningful at scale. Instead of asking, “Can I do this myself?” founders need to start wondering, “Is this the best use of my time?”
Can an Amazon PPC Agency Really Improve Your ACoS?
Yes - but only under the right conditions. Here's the honestbreakdown.
An Amazon PPC agency has the power to improve ACoS, but only under the right conditions. ACoS is the result of how your brand’s advertising system interacts with your product, pricing, and market competition. It’s not a dial that can be turned down if your product offers are not fundamentally right and competitive in your target market.
Although an agency has the expertise to influence this system, it can’t override fundamentals. ACoS can only improve when structure, intent, and business goals are aligned.
ACoS Improves Only if the Structure & Targeting Improve
ACoS performance tends to drift if your campaigns lack clarity. This might look like:
- Unclear priorities
- Advertising on the same keywords with different campaigns (bidding against yourself)
- Using irrelevant keywords
An agency can create a structure that’s more intentional, where targeting aligns better with buyer behavior. When this is in place, efficiency often follows.
That said, simply changing who manages the account without changing the underlying setup won’t automatically lower ACoS.
Improving ACoS only happens when alignment improves.
Not All High ACoS is Bad
High ACoS isn’t always a sign of poor management. Certain scenarios warrant higher advertising costs, such as:
- Protecting brand visibility
- Expanding into new keyword territory
- Accelerating a new product
- Entering a competitive category
Higher ACoS under these circumstances reflect investment rather than inefficiency. It’s no longer relevant to ask, “Is ACoS high?” The real question should be, “Is this level of ACoS aligned with our current goal?”
Context Matters
It would be inaccurate to judge ACoS in isolation. This metric should also be interpreted alongside:
- Growth objectives
- Product lifecycle stage
An agency has the power to improve ACoS through system clarity and strategic alignment. However, no agency can promise a universally “low” ACoS without understanding your brand’s broader context.
Can an Agency Reduce Wasted Ad Spend?
Wasted spend doesn't appear overnight - it builds gradually through these four structural failures.
Amazon accounts don’t automatically see wasted spend. This waste only gradually shows up. Given the circumstances of how this waste shows up, it would be unrealistic to expect even a premier agency to eliminate every inefficient click with one simple strategy change.
Is it possible for reputable agencies to reduce wasted spend? Absolutely. Still, there is no secret button they press once they’re hired. A leading agency uses a structured approach that helps reduce the most common sources of uncontrolled leakage.
Bad Search Term Bleed
Old campaigns can begin to trigger search queries that were never targeted in the first place. Although these incidents might seem insignificant, not addressing the problem can collectively drain a brand’s ad budget.
Luckily, agencies do have the expertise to solve this problem. This is usually done by adding negative keywords.
Overlapping Targeting
In some cases, multiple campaigns from the same brand can intentionally compete for the same keywords. Although this isn’t uncommon, it is problematic.
Overlapping results lead to inflated costs and distorted performance signals. This overlapping targeting can also cause ad budgets to become fragmented across similar traffic pools.
Agencies can solve this issue by introducing structural clarity. The level of organization offered by these agencies ensures that campaigns are defined by priorities. This helps reduce internal competition, while clarifying which budgets serve which purpose.
Wasted ad spend then declines simply because accountability improves.
Poor Bid Logic
When bid adjustments are reactively made (and based on short-term fluctuations), volatility is known to increase. Spend is known to oscillate mindlessly without any defined rationale used to guide adjustments.
Hiring an Amazon PPC agency provides consistency. This means that agency professionals use process and defined performance frameworks to make decisions. This means there’s no room for emotional reactions to daily changes. Instead, agencies look at data and trends to make adjustment decisions, resulting in reduced erratic shifts.
No Negative Keyword Control
Not having any disciplined exclusion processes in place means that campaigns tend to pay for traffic that has already proven to be misaligned. This is seen as one of the most common waste forms for Amazon accounts.
An agency can help resolve this issue. This is done through standardized processes that prevent inefficiencies. Rather than making campaigns perfect, agencies provide continuous refinement and containment. This results in reduced budget leakage over time.
What Changes After You Hire an Amazon PPC Agency?
Structural change is generally the most significant shift for any brand that’s just hired an Amazon agency. When an agency is hired, Amazon advertising is no longer performed in-house. Instead, it’s the agency’s responsibility to manage with clear ownership and direction.
With an agency taking over this management, advertising decisions are no longer made by multiple stakeholders reacting to results.
A key difference compared to being done in-house is that campaigns start operating under an intentional framework. This stops campaigns from organically changing over time.
Hiring an agency also means that any campaign adjustments follow a consistent logic. This is opposed to ad-hoc changes that in-house teams generally make. Instead of reviewing trends when performance dips, metrics are also constantly analyzed to inform decisions.
In-house teams often look at daily metrics to decide success. Instead, an agency measures success against key brand goals.
Overall, the biggest change when hiring an agency is that paid advertising no longer works as a reactive task.
What Results Should You Realistically Expect?
Brands seeing performance improvements on Amazon almost never see results overnight. Instead, results are known to unfold in phases after structural changes have been made. The most common standard is 30, 60, and 90 days.
It’s important to remember that advertising performance compounds over time. Structural improvements need sufficient data and consistency to produce a visible impact.
If a brand expects immediate transformation within days, expectations might not align with how advertising works.
How Long Does It Take to See Results?
Advertising improvements don’t happen on a uniform timeline. Instead, these improvements can be seen within a few weeks to months after structural changes are made.
Efficiency Improvements in Weeks
Many brands start seeing visible efficiency improvements within the first few weeks. This includes cleaner performance signals and a slight stabilization in ACoS trends.
Another sign of improvement is a reduction in obvious waste. Rather than dramatic differences, these early changes are often incremental.
Strategic Impact in Months
Meaningful strategic impact tends to take longer. It generally takes 1 to 2 months to see changes, which is after multiple data cycles. During this first and second month, a brand’s performance patterns start to stabilize. At the same time, direction becomes clearer.
Most brands should notice that volatility reduces, while trend lines become more reliable. Ad account performance also becomes more predictable.
Since strategic alignment compounds over time, it rarely transforms Amazon accounts in 30 days.
Scale Impact Depends on Budget & Margin
Brands are different. That’s why scaling impact can vary significantly from one brand to another. There’s often more flexibility to accelerate change for brands with:
- Higher conversion rates
- Larger budgets
- Healthy margins
On the other hand, brands operating with minimal ad spend or limited budgets generally see slower compounding effects. Expectations might not align with how sustainable improvements actually develop if a brand expects immediate, dramatic growth within weeks.
Do Amazon PPC Agencies Guarantee Results?
Many agencies guarantee results, but that doesn’t mean their services are effective. Unless agencies are willing to put their money where their mouth is with a money-back guarantee, an agency shouldn’t be offering your brand guaranteed results.
Guarantees Are Red Flags
Amazon advertising performance depends on variables no one fully controls. These uncontrollable factors include:
- Market shifts
- Competition
- Listing conversion
- Seasonality
- Inventory stability
In most instances, any agency guaranteeing specific performance outcomes is oversimplifying a complex system. Still, agencies do work to solve problems and align with your brand goals.
There’s nothing wrong with an agency guaranteeing to align these advertising efforts with brand objectives. However, this is different from agencies guaranteeing a 200% sales increase in 2 weeks. Agencies like this should generally be avoided.
Too Many Variables
Even well-managed accounts fluctuate. The reason for this is that account performance depends on more than campaigns. External factors also play a role in how an account performs.
Agencies have the expertise to understand what these external factors are and how to account for them. That said, they can’t eliminate the impact these circumstances might have on a brand’s account. The main reason for this is that performance is influenced by external forces that go beyond campaign structure alone.
Real Agencies Promise Process (Not Magic)
Agencies you want to avoid are the ones that often advertise instant transformation. These agencies work differently to credible ones that commit to direction and discipline. These credible agencies prioritize:
- Consistent evaluation
- Structured oversight
- Long-term trend improvement
- Strategic alignment
Odds are, if a pitch seems impossible and too good to be true, it generally is just that.
What Does “Success” Actually Look Like When You Work With an Agency?
Brands shouldn’t expect their performance to explode once they start working with an Amazon agency. This isn’t how success can be refined. Instead, a reputable agency is successful when they’re able to make your ad account predictable.
These success-driven agencies will manage your account so that there’s:
- Stable trend improvement
- Clear performance visibility
- Reduced volatility month over month
- Controlled scaling instead of aggressive swings
- Greater predictability in decision-making
It’s generally considered a red flag when an agency advertises that they can decrease any brand’s ACoS in 7 days. These types of agencies won’t deliver meaningful results for your brand.
So, Is Hiring an Amazon PPC Agency Worth It For You?
There is no single answer to whether a brand should hire an Amazon PPC agency. It comes down to the brand’s maturity.
In most cases, hiring an advertising agency is a worthwhile investment if there’s:
- Margin flexibility
- Consistent revenue
- Growth ambition
- Significant advertising budget
For brands at this stage of growth, Amazon advertising is no longer a small operational task with little effect on revenue. Using an agency becomes a strategic growth lever instead of Amazon advertising draining resources with in-house scaling techniques.
That said, it might be best for brands to wait if:
- Revenue is inconsistent
- Margins are tight
- You’re still validating product-market fit
- Advertising represents a small portion of your business
At this stage, strengthening the fundamentals of your brand typically creates more leverage than outsourcing advertising campaigns.
There’s a misconception that hiring an agency is about sophistication. The truth is that hiring an advertising agency is about readiness.
With a strong foundation to support scale, outside expertise from PPC agencies (like Olifant Digital) becomes a strategic decision instead of being an operational expense. This is especially the case when your brand is in a position where effective paid advertising has the power to increase growth.
Want to hire a senior-led Amazon PPC team that cares about your brand like it’s their own? Get a free marketing plan with Olifant Digital. Our team audits your account and sees exactly where profit is being left on the table.
