What Amazon PPC is
PPC stands for pay-per-click. You bid on search terms or product placements, and you pay when a shopper clicks your ad. The ads appear in search results and on product pages, and they send traffic to your listing. Because you pay for clicks, not sales, the quality of your listing matters as much as the quality of your bids.
The main sponsored ad types
- Sponsored Products: single-product ads that appear in search results and on product pages. This is where most sellers start.
- Sponsored Brands: ads that show your brand and several products, usually near the top of search. These need Brand Registry.
- Sponsored Display: ads that can reach shoppers on and off Amazon, including those who viewed your products.
Available formats and eligibility change over time, so check the advertising console for what your account can use.
Before you spend a dollar
- Check that the listing is ready: clear images, accurate title and bullets, a competitive price and stock available.
- Work out your break-even ACOS from your real margin after fees and costs.
- Decide the goal of each campaign: launch, defend, grow or clear stock.
- Set a daily budget you can afford to lose while you learn.
- Write down the date you will review results.
A simple campaign structure
A clean structure makes results easy to read. A common starting point separates campaigns by purpose and by match type, so you can see what works.
- Auto campaign: lets Amazon find terms and placements. Use it to discover search terms that convert.
- Manual campaign with exact match: bids on proven terms with tight control.
- Manual campaign with phrase or broad match: expands reach around terms that already work.
- Product targeting: shows your ads on selected competing or complementary products.
Keywords and search terms
Start with the words a buyer would actually type, not the words you use internally. Review the search term report regularly. Move terms that convert into exact match campaigns, and add terms that waste spend as negatives so they stop triggering your ads.
Bidding and budgets
Begin with moderate bids and adjust gradually. Large jumps make it hard to learn what changed. Raise bids on terms that convert at or below your target ACOS, and lower or pause terms that get many clicks without orders. Review placement reports to see whether top-of-search or product-page placements perform better for you.
What to read each week
- Spend, sales, ACOS and TACoS by campaign.
- Click-through rate and conversion rate. Low click-through suggests a weak image or title. Low conversion suggests a price, review or listing problem.
- Search term report for new terms and wasted spend.
- Impression share on your key terms.
- Organic rank trend for your main keywords.
Common mistakes
- Sending ad traffic to a weak listing and then blaming the bids.
- Judging results after only a few days.
- Changing many things at once, so nothing can be learned.
- Leaving poor terms running because no one reads the search term report.
- Ignoring organic sales and watching only ad sales.
A worked example (illustrative numbers only)
Suppose a product sells for 30 and, after marketplace fees, product cost and shipping, you keep 12 per unit before advertising. Your break-even ACOS is 12 divided by 30, which is 40 percent. If you want some profit from ads, you might target 25 to 30 percent. These numbers are only an example. Use your own costs, and recalculate whenever price, fees or product cost change.
Launch, defend, grow, clear: four goals, four settings
- Launch: accept a higher ACOS for a limited time to gather data, with a firm budget and an end date.
- Defend: protect your brand terms and your own product pages from competitors’ ads.
- Grow: expand into new terms and placements while holding your target ACOS.
- Clear: lower the price or increase budget on slow stock before storage fees grow.
A weekly review checklist
- Sort campaigns by spend and look at the top ten first.
- Find terms with many clicks and no orders and decide: lower the bid, add as negative or fix the listing.
- Find terms with orders and a good ACOS and raise the bid or move them to exact match.
- Check budgets that run out early in the day and decide whether to raise them.
- Note any listing, price or stock changes that may have affected results.
- Write three lines of notes so next week you know what you changed and why.
When ads are not the answer
If conversion is low across all traffic, extra spend rarely fixes it. Look at the main image, price, reviews, delivery promise and whether the product matches what shoppers expect. Improve the listing first, then scale the ads.
How we can help
Our Amazon PPC Management service sets targets with you, restructures campaigns, reviews them weekly and reports in plain language. Results depend on your product, price and competition, so we do not promise a specific ACOS or sales figure.
