Ad Sales Tripled, Organic Dropped: Decoding Amazon PPC Cannibalization

The podcast episode addresses a listener's question about an Amazon PPC account experiencing tripled ad sales but decreased organic sales. The discussion explores potential causes, including PPC cannibalizing organic sales, PPC rescuing sales amid organic decline, and market constriction. Incrementality is examined, differentiating between generating new demand and merely capturing inevitable sales. Recommendations include tracking organic versus paid sales percentages, monitoring rank, and analyzing search query performance data. A/B "holdout" testing is suggested to isolate PPC's true impact, especially for dominant brands. The speakers express skepticism that PPC is always cannibalizing and emphasize weekly metric monitoring for proactive adjustments.