Amazon PPC management

Amazon ad types

Targets from your margins

Amazon defines ACOS as ad spend divided by ad revenue, times 100. Your break-even ACOS is roughly your profit margin before ad costs: if a product leaves 30% after product cost, fees and shipping, spending more than 30% of ad revenue on ads loses money on those sales. Set targets per product from this, then decide whether to accept lower profit on some products for visibility or launch purposes.

Campaign structure

A readable structure separates campaigns by purpose and targeting: automatic campaigns to discover search terms, manual exact-match campaigns for proven terms, phrase or broad for exploration, product targeting campaigns and brand-name campaigns. Grouping similar products with similar margins in ad groups makes bids and results easier to manage.

Search term reviews

Search term reports show the actual searches that triggered your ads. Review them regularly: move converting terms into exact-match campaigns, and add irrelevant or unprofitable terms as negative keywords. Amazon describes negative keywords as preventing ads appearing on results pages that do not meet your campaign objectives.

A management routine

1. 01

   Set targets

   Break-even ACOS per product.

   Output: Target sheet

2. 02

   Structure

   Campaigns by purpose and match type.

   Output: Campaign map

3. 03

   Weekly review

   Search terms, negatives, bids.

   Output: Change log

4. 04

   Monthly review

   Product performance and budgets.

   Output: Monthly report

5. 05

   Listing feedback

   Fix listings that convert poorly.

   Output: Listing actions

Example: bringing order to a PPC account

PPC health checks

Listings first

Ads send shoppers to your listing. If the images, title, price or reviews do not convince them, clicks are wasted. Fix weak listings before raising budgets, and keep enough stock so ads do not run on products about to sell out.

Bids and budgets

Change bids gradually and only once a target has enough clicks to judge. Large swings based on a few days' data cause erratic results. Set budgets so best performers do not run out early in the day.

Honest reporting

Ad-attributed sales are not the whole story. Report ACOS and ROAS alongside total sales and total advertising cost as a share of all sales, so you can see whether ads are growing the business or just claiming sales that would have happened anyway.

Realistic expectations

Results depend on product, price, competition, reviews and seasonality. No one can promise an ACOS or sales figure in advance. Judge management on clear structure, sound decisions and improving trends over time.

Brand and competitor searches

Shoppers searching for your brand name are often close to buying. Some sellers run a small campaign on their own brand terms to keep competitors from taking that space, and judge it separately from campaigns that find new customers. Targeting competitors' brand terms or products is a separate decision with its own costs and should be measured on its own.