How Subtel Cut ACoS by -2% and Saved 695 Days In 10 Months

Subtel faced common Amazon seller challenges: high costs, time-consuming campaign management, and low ROI. They were overwhelmed by 11,000 campaigns running across Europe’s 5 biggest Amazon marketplaces.

With Adspert’s help, they automated their PPC optimization, reduced ACoS by -2% and increased conversions up to +47%.

Here’s how they did it—including step-by-step instructions on how you can do it too.

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Key Results

Days saved - almost 2 years!

ACoS

- 0 %

Conversion increase

+ 0 %

ROAS

+ 0

While keeping their ACoS in check, subtel also:

Grew conversions by +47% on German marketplace alone
Experienced +7% CTR (click-through-rate)
Saved incredible 695 days of manual work by automating PPC optimization

To reach these great results, subtel used Adspert’s Amazon PPC optimization.

And in this article I’ll explain exactly how so you can do it too.

Let’s dive in!

Here's my advice for fellow advertisers: Embrace collaboration and innovation. When we teamed up with Adspert, it wasn't just about tools; it was about transforming our Amazon Ads strategy together.

Look for partners who get your challenges, not just vendors. It's a journey, not just a service – find someone ready to evolve strategies with you, bringing both expertise and a fresh perspective to the table.

It's how you break the mold and move your ad game forward!

Federico Guerri
Digital Marketing Manager, subtel GmbH

Challenges: Complex Ad Management and Rising PPC Costs

Subtel faced several pains common to Amazon sellers just like you:

1. Spending countless hours manually managing Amazon PPC campaigns

subtel had more than more than 11,000 active advertising campaigns and thousands of products. Manually optimizing bids and keywords was time-consuming, overwhelming and inefficient.

2. High PPC costs and low ROI

They advertised on Europe’s Big 5 Amazon marketplaces–Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and the UK. Like many other sellers subtel was looking for a way to reduce their ACoS while improving overall advertising performance.

3. Lack of actionable insights to drive sustainable growth

Without clear, data-driven insights, it was challenging for subtel to make informed decisions to sustainably scale their campaigns across all five marketplaces (how much to invest where).

4. Poor campaign flexibility hinders growth

The team was bogged down by the extensive manual work required to adjust outlying campaigns to stabilize them and grow their volume.

The best part? Subtel tackled all challenges, grew their sales AND reduced overall ACoS by -2%.

Let me show you how so you can follow the same steps and replicate their success. Keep reading!

Adspert’s Solution: Automate, Optimize, Scale and Save

Subtel is a Berlin-based eCommerce company specializing in electronic accessories.

Like many other Amazon sellers, they faced the difficult challenges of managing thousands of products across five Amazon marketplaces.

Keeping low ACoS and high ROI was a struggle which also required a lot of time and manual work from the entire team.

Here’s what subtel achieved with Adspert’s help:

Saved time by using automated PPC optimization
Reduced ACoS while still growing conversions
Got actionable insights that helped subtel scale to new marketplaces
Simplifed campaign management with multi-marketplace bidding approach

Let’s have a closer look, one by one.

1. Save Time by Automating Amazon PPC Optimization

Manually managing over 11,000 campaigns across Europe’s 5 biggest marketplaces (Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK) was overwhelming and took too much time from subtel.

Their first goal was to save time on Amazon Ads optimization. So they used Adspert to optimize their ads.

And it worked! Only by automatically adjusting bids, Adspert saved subtel 695 days of manual work.

Keep reading to see how.

We are able to have one weekly get-together to check the performance and make the necessary changes, with minor exceptions, which has been working great for us.

Federico Guerri
Digital Marketing Manager, subtel GmbH

Result: Saved 695 Days

In just 10 months, Adspert automatically submitted … drumroll … 12.000.000 bids!

If done manually, each bid adjustmed would have taken 5 seconds, adding up to 695 days of non-stop work–nearly 2 years!

Subtel saved 695 days of manual work in 10-months time (time period we together chose for this case).

Instead of 695 days, the subtel team spent only 105 hours (13 working days) setting up and managing Adspert.

Without Adspert: subtel would have needed 2 years just to submit the same number of bids
With Adspert: subtel submitted all bids automatically, investing only 13 days over a 10-month period for setup and adjustments.

Adspert helped subtel team to free up their time and allowed them to focus on strategic growth instead of manually micromanaging PPC campaigns.

Subtel's Strategy You Can Copy #1

1. Log in to Adspert

2. Go to Control > Goals

3. Select “Create new” to create a Performance Group

4. Group campaigns into your Performance Group based on similar goals (and goal values). For example, subtel grouped their campaigns by similar ACoS values.

5. Run Scenarios: Adspert forecasts what results can you expect depending on the goals you set. You can see how different target values (e.g. an ACoS target of 19% vs. an ACoS target of 24%) could affect your campaign performance.

6. Then Adspert guides you to set optimal goals. It shows how your target goal values affect other KPIs (e.g. Cost per Conversion, ROAS, Clicks, etc.).

7. Click “Set a Performance Group goal” and that’s it!

Adspert optimizes your campaigns based on the goal you set. It automatically adjusts bids and even suggests new keywords, ASINs, and other criteria for your ads.

Subtel didn’t stop at time savings alone.

Their next goal was to reduce ACoS while also increasing Amazon Ads conversions.

Here’s how they achieved it.

2. Reduced Overall ACoS by -2% While Growing Conversions

Subtel’s second goal was to reduce their ACoS while increasing conversions across multiple marketplaces.

Europe’s five biggest marketplaces, to be precise.

So this goal had three parts:

Reduce costs
Increase conversions
Achieve both across several marketplaces

It’s a herculean task for a human, but our state-of-the-art AI algorithm makes it more than possible.

Result: -2% ACoS Decrease

To improve ACoS, the Subtel team created 9 Performance Groups (groups of campaigns) with different ACoS targets. They reflected the performance stages of campaigns, from very high to very low ACoS.

Adspert automatically calculated and submitted the most suitable bids to ultimately reduce ACoS.
Subtel’s task was to oversee the performance. They were adding or removing campaigns to or from individual Performance Groups based on their current ACoS performance.

After 10 months, subtel confirmed they met their ACoS goal: saw -2% ACoS decrease of their main campaigns.

Subtel also increased conversions across their key marketplaces:

ACoS decreased by -2%
Conversions increases by +9% month-over-month
CTR increased by +7%

Since these campaigns covered most of their ad spend, this Adspert-supported workflow was the main driver of their success, and the goal was achieved!

Subtel's Strategy You Can Copy #2

I’ve already explained how to group similar campaigns and create Performance Groups, so let’s move on to the next step: checking performance and making adjustments.

Exactly what subtel did to check performance of their campaigns and adjust their advertising strategy.

Here’s what you can do:

1. Log in to Adspert

2. Open Monitor for a quick overview of your campaign performance

3. Go to Control > Goals to check how each Performance Group is performing

4. Go to Criterion Hub > Suggestions Review to review and add suggested keywords, ASINs and other criteria to improve your campaigns

5. Explore the Reports section for insights before you adjust your PPC strategy

6. In Reports > Budget Suggestions, see which campaigns need more or less budget. You can adjust campaign budgets directly in Adspert (Amazon Ads only)

In short, stop relying on guesswork–Adspert provides valuable insights to help you make data-driven decisions. Here you can read more about how our PPC AI optimizes bids.

In short, not only did subtel save 695 days of work and reduce overall ACoS by -2%, but Adspert also helped them manage their ads across multiple Amazon marketplaces at once.

I’ll explain more about that in the next steps–keep reading!

3. Scale Sustainably with Multi-Markeplace Bidding

The above results wouldn’t have mattered if any subtel’s marketplace had seen a big drop in performance.

Most sellers manage each marketplace separately, with different goals for each. But Adspert helped subtel break those barriers.

With Adspert, subtel could:

See the performance of all their campaigns across 5 marketplaces in 1 place
Make changes without switching between different accounts
Easily track progress

Multi-Marketplace Bidding Advantage

Because of Adspert’s multi-marketplace bidding capability, subtel could:

Find the best strategy for each market without increasing costs
Use performance reports to identify top-performing campaigns and keywords
Discover low-hanging fruits to scale profits

Here are two real examples:

Result: +47% Conversion Increase in Amazon.de

Supported by data shown in Adspert, subtel saw that if they spend more on amazon.de, their conversions would skyrocket.

So subtel confidently increased ad spend by 31% on the German marketplace.

The result? Their Amazon Ads conversions increased by +47%.

The best part? At the same time ACoS remained stable!

Result: +5.6% Conversion Increase Month-Over-Month on Amazon.es

Subtel saw a similar opportunity in amazon.es.

They doubled their ad spend in the Spanish marketplace.

The result? Conversions growth of +5.6% month-over-month!

Both cases prove Adspert’s value: it uncovers hidden insight gems in seconds, as opposed to hours or even days.

With Adspert’s multi-marketplace bidding capability subtel scaled their profitably in competitive European markets.

Subtel's Strategy You Can Copy #3

Subtel wasn’t advertising on just one marketplace, but 5 different ones. Normally, this would mean 5 times the work.

But not for subtel!

With Adspert, they could optimize their Amazon Ads campaigns across all 5 marketplaces at the same time.

They distributed their campaigns between only 9 Perfomance Groups regardless of the marketplace. That was all they needed to do–multi-marketplace bidding capability is a part of the Adspert’s solution.

Here’s how you can do it too:

1. Log in to Adspert

2. Go to Control > Goals

3. Select “Create new” to create a Performance Group

4. Group campaigns based on similar goal regardless of the marketplace

5. Follow the steps to finish creating your Performance Group (described above)

“We advertise on Europe's five biggest marketplaces which requires a lot of time and dedication from our team.

In our search for a time-saving solution, Adspert more than proved itself! Through automated bid optimization alone, it has already saved us an impressive 695 days' worth of work over a 10-month period.”

Federico Guerri
Digital Marketing Manager, subtel GmbH

4. Generated +520% ROAS while Stabilizing Campaigns

Next, subtel wanted to adjust outlying campaigns. Their aim was to stabilize them and grow their volume.

So they created two additional ‘control’ Performance Groups:

One to push for more volume
Second to control the costs

And for those they set a Cost per Day goal.

When campaings got stabilized, they would move them to other Performance Groups.

Result: +520% ROAS

After subtel created additional groups of campaigns, Adspert was automatically optimizing their campaigns to achieve the set goals.

Subtel was overlooking outlying campaigns. As soon as they were stable enough, they moved them to a Performance Group with a different goal.

The result?

Addressing outlying campaigns turned out to be a real money-maker: over nine months, subtel saw +520% ROAS increase and generated 12,000 conversions.

Subtel's Strategy You Can Copy #4

This step depends on your goals and business strategy. So the process for you might be different.

But essentially, you can create separate Performance Groups for outlying campaigns and set goals that are in line with your objectives.

Here’s how you can follow subtel’s steps:

1. Log in to Adspert

2. Create additional Performance Groups for outlying campaigns

3. Set a Cost/Day goal

4. Once stable, move campaigns to your other Performance Groups

Conclusion

Subtel’s partnership with Adspert transformed their Amazon Ads strategy.

By automating manual tasks and optimizing campaigns, they reduced ACoS by -2%, grew conversions by +47%, and saved 695 days of work.

If you want to scale efficiently and boost results, Adspert can help. Start a free 30-day trial and give it a try.

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subtel

subtel GmbH is an eCommerce company based in Berlin-Friedrichshain since 2004, specialising in the European sale of electronic accessories. At subtel, the focus is on customer needs and close cooperation with all our partners. The proximity to these partners ensures the high quality of the products offered.

With our workforce of 50 employees and growing, we sell over 6000 accessories for mobile devices throughout Europe via our own online shop, as well as on popular marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay.

With two Berlin locations, situated in Friedrichshain and Alt-Hohenschönhausen, we sell, process and deliver upwards of 1.000,000 products annually – a figure that’s constantly on the rise.

We’re a medium-sized company and benefit from a well-established corporate culture, with a friendly, international, multilingual team.