In the competitive world of Amazon e-commerce, choosing the right advertising software can significantly impact both the success of your ad campaigns and overall business profitability. 

Helium 10’s Adtomic offers various tools to help sellers automate bidding, manage keyword performance, and maximize ROI. However, while Adtomic is a well-known option, it's essential to explore whether it's the best fit for your business or if highly-rated alternatives like Scale Insights offer more value.

Core Functionalities and Features

Let’s explore what Adtomic offers to see if its right for you:

1. Automated Campaign Management: Adtomic can adjust bids automatically based on performance.

2. Keyword Optimization: It helps identify high-performing keywords while removing underperforming ones.

3. Customizable Rules and Reporting: You can set specific rules for your campaigns, giving you more control over how automation works.

4. Scalable Solutions: Whether you’re a small seller or managing multiple brands, Adtomic can scale with your business.

These are important features for Amazon PPC management but are they worth the price?

Here's a comparison table of Adtomic against its strongest alternative - Scale Insights. Let's break it down.

Detailed Breakdown of Adtomic Pricing Plans

Adtomic is offered as an add-on within the Helium 10 suite. Here’s the overview you can find on Adtomic Helium 10 pricing page:

Here’s a clearer picture of the cost of Adtomic:

*additional charges if ad spend exceeds $10,000 (2% of ad spend over $10k)

**minimum cost before ad spend exceeds $10,000 (2% of ad spend over $10k)

Cost-Effectiveness and Value

Adtomic’s pricing can be surprising when you factor in the additional fees. Here’s why:

- For each Helium 10 plan, you’re looking at the base subscription (like $39/month), plus an extra $199/month for Adtomic access.

- If your PPC spend exceeds $10,000, you’re hit with another 2% fee on top of that.

While 2% might sound small, it quickly adds up, making the overall cost more than you’d expect and could really cut into your profits.

On the other hand, Scale Insights’ comprehensive features and predictable flexible pricing may align better with your business goals, compared to Adtomic’s structure.

Comparing Adtomic to Other Amazon PPC Solutions

When choosing an Amazon PPC software, consider what’s uniquely important to you as an Amazon PPC manager and compare them across Adtomic and top alternatives like Scale Insights. Here’s a quick overview of what might be important to you:

Scale Insights might offer a more efficient and personalized solution depending on your needs.

Top Alternatives to Adtomic Helium 10: Scale Insights

While Adtomic offers important features, there are other solutions that could meet more of your needs. Scale Insights is a strong alternative, especially for Amazon PPC managers and FBA sellers who prioritize ease of use, robust customization of automation, and predictable pricing flexibility.

Here’s why Scale Insights might be the better choice:

1. Simplified Pricing Structure: Scale Insights has no additional fees based on PPC spend that can unpredictably and significantly eat into your profits.

2. Automation and Insights: Scale Insights uses an intuitive interface that allows new users to get quickly accustomed, without the complexity and confusion you may experience using Adtomic.

3. Customer Support and Resources: Vibrant Facebook Community with Amazon PPC focused discussions and 24/7 Scale Insights Support. Extensive PPC Strategy Library with top PPC experts sharing strategies they use to significantly improve PPC results.

4. Free 30-Day Trial: Scale Insights allows you to test the platform with a risk-free trial.

Here’s a quick comparison:

*additional charges if ad spend exceeds $10,000 (2% of ad spend over $10k)

**minimum cost before ad spend exceeds $10,000 (2% of ad spend over $10k)

Why Choose Scale Insights?

Scale Insights provides robust highly customisable automation and offers better value per dollar each month. The combination of comprehensive stackable features, excellent support, and clear pricing can make Scale Insights a more compelling choice for those who find Adtomic’s pricing tiers overwhelming, features lacking, and automation flexibility limiting.

Scale Insights Pricing Plans and What You Get

While Adtomic offers a variety of tiered plans, Scale Insights stands out with a more straightforward and predictable pricing model. Here’s a closer look at Scale Insights’ pricing:

- Free 30-Day Trial without credit card down: Get full access to all the features right off the bat, including PPC analytics and automation tools with no hidden fees and no contracts.

- Plans are not dependent on your ad spend*

Here’s what each plan tier is best for:

Scale Insights Automation Rules

With no surprise charges and a clear upgrade path, Scale Insights is a compelling choice for sellers who prioritize simplicity without compromising on advanced features.

With transparent pricing and robust, highly customizable, and stackable automation rules, it's designed to streamline PPC management while maximizing efficiency.

Here’s more information on Scale Insights’ automation rules:

Dynamic Bidding Rule

The Dynamic Bidding Rule analyzes and adjusts keyword bids based on performance to help you achieve your target ACoS. By evaluating keyword statistics over a set period, the rule optimizes bids to ensure that high-performing keywords maintain or improve their rankings, while low-performing keywords receive lower bids to control ad spend.

This feature is advantageous because it allows for more granular control over your advertising budget, ensuring that resources are allocated where they will have the most impact. By fine-tuning bids daily, the rule helps avoid overbidding on keywords with unsustainable results and prevents underbidding on keywords that could still deliver value.

For example, if a keyword consistently delivers sales but at a high ACoS, the Dynamic Bidding Rule will gradually reduce the bid until the target ACoS is met, thereby improving profitability while maintaining keyword visibility. Conversely, if a keyword shows promise but isn't receiving enough impressions, the rule can incrementally increase the bid to boost its visibility without overspending.

Import Rule

The Import Rule automatically gathers performing search terms or product targets by analyzing their aggregated data across multiple ad groups, then adds them to enhance your selected ad groups. This rule streamlines the process of incorporating search terms or product targets that perform well, ensuring that your chosen ad group is optimized based on a thorough automated data analysis.

By focusing your budget and efforts on these proven performers, identified through aggregated performance data, the Import Rule enables more efficient ad spend and faster, better overall campaign results. 

For example, if search terms across several ad groups show strong sales performance when aggregated, the Import Rule will identify these terms and add them as keywords into your selected ad group. This approach ensures that your selected ad group quickly benefits from these top-performing search terms, allowing you to allocate budget effectively and improve your campaign's efficiency and effectiveness.

Negative Rule

The Negative Rule helps you automatically identify and remove non-converting keywords by analyzing their aggregated performance across multiple campaigns. You can set specific criteria—such as a certain number of clicks without orders—based on which the rule will filter out ineffective search terms. These underperforming search terms are then automatically added as negative keywords within the relevant ad groups, refining your targeting and reducing wasted ad spend.

This rule allows you to focus your ad budget more effectively on keywords that drive conversions. By enabling you to define the criteria, the process ensures that your ad spend is directed toward the most effective keywords, improving overall campaign efficiency and maximizing return on investment.

For example, if you set the criteria to flag search terms that receive 20 clicks without generating an order, the Negative Rule will automatically convert these into negative keywords. This prevents them from triggering your ads and conserves your budget for more productive keywords.

Negative Word Rule

The Negative Word Rule enhances ad targeting by filtering out irrelevant words from search terms. It dissects search terms into individual words and analyzes their performance across multiple campaigns. By aggregating this data, the rule identifies non-performing words that consistently fail to convert, ensuring your ads are triggered only by search terms that exclude these ineffective words.

Once these underperforming words are identified, the rule automatically adds them as negative phrase keywords to the ad groups you've selected. This process prevents your ads from being shown for irrelevant searches, allowing you to allocate your ad spend more efficiently.

For example, if the word "bike" appears in search terms but consistently fails to generate sales, the rule will exclude it as a phrase match from your ad targeting. This adjustment redirects your budget toward more effective terms, leading to more precise ad targeting, reduced wasted spend, and an overall improvement in your return on ad investments.

Day Parting Rule

The Day Parting Rule optimizes ad performance by enabling you to schedule your ads to run during specific hours of the day, targeting the times when your customers are most active. This feature helps prevent issues like click fraud by allowing you to avoid periods when competitors might be using click farms to deplete your ad budget. By scheduling your ads to appear only during peak performance times, you can ensure that your ad spend is used more efficiently.

In practice, this rule allows you to pause ads during off-hours, such as late at night, when conversions are low, and resume them during times of high customer activity. For instance, if you discover that your ads are frequently clicked by bots or competitors after midnight, the Day Parting Rule can prevent your budget from being wasted on non-converting clicks by disabling ads during those hours.

Moreover, by enabling your ads only during the times of day when conversions are highest, the Day Parting Rule can significantly improve your campaign’s return on investment. For example, if your data shows that conversions are more likely to occur between 8 AM and 12 PM, this rule ensures that your ads are active during those hours, leading to higher sales and a more efficient use of your advertising budget.

Revive Rule

The Revive Rule is specifically designed to re-engage underperforming keywords that have shown strong performance in the past but are no longer receiving traffic. By identifying these keywords based on customizable criteria, this rule increases their bids incrementally to improve their chances of regaining visibility and performance.

The Revive Rule works by analyzing the last 30 days of keyword statistics, with the option to extend this analysis up to 90 days. It identifies keywords that have historically driven significant traffic and conversions but have recently stopped receiving impressions or clicks. These keywords are then gradually revived by increasing their bids, aiming to meet a target ACoS or until they become active again.

For example, if a keyword had previously contributed significantly to your sales but recently dropped off in performance, the Revive Rule will begin to incrementally increase its bid. This calculated adjustment is designed to help the keyword regain its previous performance levels, improving its visibility and positioning in the ad auction without abruptly overbidding. This ensures that potentially valuable keywords are not prematurely abandoned, thereby maximizing the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Blacklist Rule

The Blacklist Rule enhances your ad campaign efficiency by excluding keywords that are irrelevant to your target audience. You can compile a list of these keywords, and the rule will automatically add them as negative exact or phrase keywords to your assigned ad groups. This ensures that your ads aren’t triggered by searches that include these irrelevant terms, focusing your budget on more promising keywords that are likely to drive conversions.

For instance, if the keyword "cheap" doesn’t align with your premium product offerings, adding it to the blacklist ensures that this keyword is excluded from your campaigns. This prevents wasted ad spend on unqualified traffic, allowing you to allocate your budget more effectively.

Whitelist Rule

The Whitelist Rule safeguards your top-performing keywords by preventing them from being accidentally excluded from your campaigns. It does this by protecting these keywords from being negated or removed by any other rules you may have applied. This ensures that these crucial keywords remain active in your ad groups, maintaining their contribution to your campaign's success.

For example, if the keyword "premium" consistently drives high traffic and conversions, the Whitelist Rule will ensure that it remains active, even if other rules might suggest its exclusion. This protection helps maximize your ad’s reach and effectiveness by keeping your best-performing keywords in play.

Status Rule

The Status Rule allows you to automatically pause or activate ad groups and campaigns based on specific performance conditions you set. This feature offers precise control over your ad management, enabling you to tailor responses to underperforming or over performing elements within your campaigns.

By using the Status Rule, you can ensure that your ad budget is allocated more efficiently, preventing waste on underperforming campaigns and maximizing the impact of successful ones.

For instance, you might set a Status Rule for Ad Group 1 to automatically pause only that specific ad group if it underperforms, allowing other parts of your campaign to continue running. Conversely, you could set a different rule for Ad Group 2 to pause both the ad group and its entire campaign if it doesn't meet your performance targets. This flexibility allows you to fine-tune your campaign management strategy, ensuring that your ads are always aligned with your performance goals.

Placement Rule

The Placement Rule is designed to optimize your ad visibility by automatically adjusting your campaign's placement settings based on performance. You can set specific criteria, including the campaign’s Top of Search (TOS) percentage, the incremental or decremental value, and performance metrics such as conversion rates and ACoS.

This rule stands out because it dynamically adjusts your ad placements in high-impact positions, like Top of Search or Product Pages, ensuring your best-performing campaigns reach the most relevant audience. Unlike static settings, this rule adapts as performance data is analyzed, optimizing your campaign placements for maximum impact.

Your most effective campaigns can receive optimal visibility, leading to improved campaign performance and a higher return on investment. By strategically focusing your budget on high-performing placements, the Placement Rule helps you achieve your advertising goals more efficiently.

For example, if a campaign consistently delivers strong results but isn’t fully optimized for visibility, the Placement Rule can automatically increase its TOS percentage, ensuring that the campaign’s ads appear more frequently at the top of search results. This leads to higher click-through rates and conversions, maximizing the impact of your ad spend.

Daily Budget Rule

The Daily Budget Rule allows you to dynamically adjust your campaign's daily budget based on either the day of the week or the campaign's performance metrics that you set. Instead of automatically identifying days with higher or lower sales, the rule operates based on the parameters you define, such as specific days of the week or performance thresholds like ACoS or conversion rates.

You can set the rule to increase the budget on days when you anticipate higher sales or reduce it when the campaign underperforms. Additionally, if certain performance criteria are met—like achieving a specific conversion rate or staying within a target ACoS—the rule can adjust the budget accordingly. These adjustments happen once daily, based on the data analyzed at midnight, ensuring your campaigns remain aligned with your performance goals without requiring constant manual oversight.

For example, you might configure the rule to increase the budget by 50% on Saturdays, when you typically see higher sales, while decreasing it by 33% on Mondays if performance tends to drop. The rule can then further adjust the budget within the same day based on campaign performance, such as increasing the budget when the ACoS is below 20% or decreasing it when conversions fall below 5%. This flexibility allows you to optimize your ad spend effectively, ensuring your budget is allocated where it can generate the best results.

Default Bid Rule

The Default Bid Rule allows you to set and adjust default bids specifically for legacy auto campaigns that do not have the four targeting groups (close match, loose match, substitutes, complements), providing better control over your ad spend. This rule automatically adjusts the default bids based on the campaign's performance, ensuring that your bids are aligned with your target ACoS.

This feature is particularly advantageous for older campaigns where granular bid control is not available through the four targeting groups. By dynamically adjusting bids, the Default Bid Rule helps you maintain an optimized bidding strategy, ensuring that your ad spend is efficiently used to meet your advertising goals.

For example, if a legacy auto campaign is performing well but not fully optimized, the Default Bid Rule can lower the default bid to bring the ACoS within your target range, thereby improving the campaign’s profitability. Conversely, if the campaign is not generating sufficient clicks or sales, the rule can increase the default bid to capture more impressions, driving higher traffic and potentially increasing sales. This ensures that even without the granular control available in newer campaigns, your legacy campaigns remain competitive and cost-effective.

Note: Scale Insights supports Amazon marketplaces in: United States, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Japan, Singapore and Australia.

How to Choose the Best Amazon PPC Tool

Deciding whether Adtomic or an alternative like Scale Insights is right for you depends on a few factors:

1. Determine Your Budget

Adtomic’s tiered plans and extra fees might make it less attractive if you’re working with a limited budget. Scale Insights offers transparent pricing with no hidden fees, making it a more predictable choice for budget-conscious sellers.

2. Evaluate Your Need For Ease Of Use

If you’re comfortable with more complex tools and settings, Adtomic could be a good fit. However, if you prefer a more intuitive experience without compromising on robust advanced features, Scale Insights is easier to manage, with a focus on user-friendliness.

3. Consider Your Support Needs

Both Adtomic and Scale Insights offer resources and support. However, Adtomic requires an additional subscription for their courses, which might be a dealbreaker. If you need more assistance, Scale Insights’ 24/7 support and vibrant Facebook community could tip the scale in your favor.

4. Scalability

Think about where your business will be in a year. Adtomic offers scalable solutions but at a higher cost. In contrast, Scale Insights provides all features across plans, allowing you to scale seamlessly without the added expense, whether you’re just starting out or already growing.

Ready to see the difference? 

Take control of your Amazon PPC campaigns with Scale Insights and experience a smarter way to manage your ads. Start your journey with a 30-day free trial today and discover why so many Amazon sellers are switching from Adtomic to Scale Insights.

Conclusion

Navigating the crowded Amazon PPC software market can be challenging. While Adtomic offers features for businesses of all sizes, it's crucial to weigh the costs, complexities, and overall value before making a commitment.

If you’re seeking an alternative with a more transparent pricing model, robust streamlined automation, and dedicated support, Scale Insights may be the better fit for your needs. By carefully considering your budget, growth goals, and technical requirements, you can select the PPC management solution that aligns best with your business.

Don’t wait—take control of your PPC strategy with Scale Insights today!