Amazon PPC is the primary lever for driving visibility and sales on the platform. Whether you're launching a new product, defending market share, or scaling an established brand, advertising is how you control your trajectory.
This guide covers everything from the fundamentals to advanced optimization. Use the topic sections below to jump to specific areas, or read through for a complete understanding of Amazon advertising.
What's Covered in This Guide
Understanding Amazon PPC KPIs
Before optimizing anything, you need to understand what you're measuring. Amazon provides a range of metrics, but not all of them matter equally. The key is knowing which metrics drive decisions and which are just noise.
Quick Answer: What's a Good ACoS?
There's no universal "good" ACoS. It depends on your margins, goals, and product lifecycle. A 40% ACoS might be great for a launch and terrible for a mature product. Calculate your breakeven ACoS (profit margin before ad spend) and use that as your baseline.
Your breakeven ACoS equals your profit margin before advertising. If your product sells for $30, costs $10 to manufacture, and has $8 in Amazon fees, your profit is $12. That's a 40% margin, which means a 40% ACoS is breakeven. Anything below that is profitable advertising.
Key Metrics Explained
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Typically 0.3-0.5% on Amazon. Higher CTR indicates relevant targeting and compelling creative.
- Conversion Rate (CVR): Usually 10-15% for well-optimized listings. Low CVR with high CTR often signals listing issues.
- Cost Per Click (CPC): Varies by category, typically $0.50-$2.00. Competitive categories can exceed $5.
- New-to-Brand: Percentage of orders from first-time customers. Critical for brands focused on customer acquisition.
Deep Dive: Amazon PPC KPIs Explained
Complete breakdown of every metric, including BSR vs keyword ranking, benchmarks by category, and how to calculate breakeven ACoS for your products.
Read the full guide →PPC Strategy & Best Practices
Strategy is where most sellers either win or waste money. The difference between profitable campaigns and money pits usually comes down to structure, keyword management, and bid philosophy.
Core Strategic Questions
- Should I keep running auto campaigns? Yes. Auto campaigns continue discovering new keywords even after you've harvested winners. Run them at lower bids as keyword research engines.
- How many campaigns per ASIN? Typically 3-5: one auto, one broad/phrase, one exact match, plus targeting campaigns as needed.
- Should I bid on my own brand? Usually yes, but at low bids. You're defending real estate that competitors will take otherwise.
- Should I bid on competitor terms? Yes, selectively. Target competitors with weaker listings or higher prices than yours.
Quick Answer: How Often Should I Adjust Bids?
Weekly for most campaigns. Daily adjustments create noise. Let data accumulate before making changes. Exception: new launches or high-spend campaigns may need more frequent attention.
Deep Dive: Amazon PPC Strategy
Campaign structure best practices, keyword harvesting workflows, bid adjustment frameworks, and seasonal optimization tactics.
Read the full guide →How Amazon's Ad Algorithm Works
Understanding how Amazon decides which ads to show—and why some keywords get zero impressions—helps you diagnose problems and optimize effectively.
Key Algorithmic Concepts
- Relevance scoring: Amazon weighs listing content, category, and historical performance to determine relevance.
- Bid × Relevance = Ad Rank: Higher bids alone don't guarantee placement. Relevance is a multiplier.
- Same keywords in different campaigns do compete: Amazon picks the best combination of bid and relevance.
- Match types compete too: Exact, phrase, and broad for the same keyword can trigger on the same search.
Quick Answer: Why Do Keywords Get Zero Impressions?
Usually one of three reasons: bid too low for the auction, listing not relevant enough for the keyword, or the keyword has such low search volume that it rarely triggers ads. Check search volume in Brand Analytics before assuming bid is the issue.
Deep Dive: How Amazon's Ad Algorithm Works
Impression allocation, indexing requirements, backend field behavior, and why negative keywords don't affect organic rankings.
Read the full guide →Amazon Ad Types & Campaign Structure
Amazon offers multiple ad types, each serving different purposes in your advertising strategy. Understanding when to use each—and how to structure campaigns—is fundamental to efficiency.
Ad Types Overview
- Sponsored Products: The workhorse. Keyword and product targeting. Best for direct response and sales.
- Sponsored Brands: Brand awareness and consideration. Headline banners, video, and Store Spotlight formats.
- Sponsored Display: Retargeting and audience targeting. On and off Amazon placements.
- DSP: Programmatic display for sophisticated audience targeting and upper-funnel campaigns.
Quick Answer: Which Ad Type Performs Best?
Sponsored Products typically delivers the best direct ROAS. But "best" depends on your goal. Sponsored Brands builds recognition. Sponsored Display retargets shoppers. A complete strategy uses multiple types for different funnel stages.
Deep Dive: Amazon Ad Types & Structure
Complete breakdown of each ad type, placement strategies, campaign naming conventions, and optimal structures for different catalog sizes.
Read the full guide →Bulk Operations & Scaling
Once you're managing more than a handful of campaigns, bulk operations become essential. Amazon's bulk sheets and third-party tools let you make changes at scale efficiently.
When to Use Bulk Operations
- Adjusting bids across hundreds of keywords
- Creating multiple campaigns with similar structures
- Applying consistent negative keywords across campaigns
- Seasonal bid adjustments across your entire account
Deep Dive: Bulk Operations & Scaling
Bulk sheet workflows, common errors to avoid, and automation strategies for large catalogs.
Read the full guide →Advertising Reports & Analysis
Amazon provides numerous advertising reports, but knowing which ones to use—and how to interpret them—separates good advertisers from great ones.
Essential Reports
- Search Term Report: Shows actual customer search queries. Essential for keyword harvesting and negative keyword identification.
- Targeting Report: Performance by targeting type (keyword, product, audience).
- Purchased Product Report: Shows which ASINs were actually purchased from your ads—critical for cross-sell analysis.
- Placement Report: Top of search vs product pages vs rest of search performance.
Quick Answer: How Often Should I Download Reports?
Weekly for active optimization. Monthly for trend analysis. Amazon data has a 48-72 hour attribution delay, so don't expect real-time accuracy. Archive reports regularly—Amazon only retains 60-90 days of historical data.
Deep Dive: Amazon Advertising Reports
Complete guide to every report type, analysis frameworks, and how to build dashboards that surface actionable insights.
Read the full guide →Putting It All Together
Amazon PPC isn't complicated, but it requires discipline. The sellers who succeed are the ones who:
- Understand their unit economics and set realistic ACoS targets
- Build organized campaign structures they can maintain
- Make data-driven decisions with appropriate patience
- Continuously test and iterate rather than "set and forget"
Use this guide and the deep-dive articles as reference material as you build and optimize your Amazon advertising strategy.
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