Straight answers, no gatekeeping
The questions Amazon sellers actually ask, answered properly. No email required, no download, no course.
PPC
Why is my Amazon ad spend high but I get no sales?
High spend with few sales almost always means you are paying for clicks from shoppers with the wrong intent, or sending the right shoppers to a listing that does not convert. Pull your Search Term report and check the ratio of clicks to orders per term — if terms with many clicks and zero orders dominate spend, it is a targeting problem; if your conversion rate is below your category norm across the board, it is a listing problem.
ReadHow do I find and negate wasted search terms on Amazon?
Export the Sponsored Products Search Term report, filter to terms with zero orders, and sort by spend. Any term that has spent meaningfully more than your average cost-per-click without producing a single order is wasting money. Add those as negative exact keywords at the ad group level, and negate the obvious irrelevant patterns as negative phrase.
ReadWhat is search term harvesting in Amazon PPC?
Search term harvesting is the practice of finding customer searches that have already produced orders in your broad, phrase or automatic campaigns, and promoting them into their own exact-match campaigns where you control the bid directly. It concentrates budget on proven converters instead of leaving them mixed in with untested traffic.
ReadHow do I lower ACOS without losing sales?
Lower ACOS by removing spend that produces nothing rather than by cutting bids across the board. Negate zero-order search terms, move proven converters to exact match, reduce bids only on keywords that convert below your break-even, and improve conversion rate on the listing. Across-the-board bid cuts lower ACOS by lowering sales, which is not the same as improving efficiency.
ReadShould I use automatic or manual Amazon campaigns?
Use both, for different jobs. Automatic campaigns are a discovery tool — they let Amazon find search terms you did not think of, at a low budget. Manual exact-match campaigns are where you put real money, on terms already proven to convert. Running only automatic means paying Amazon to guess forever; running only manual means never discovering anything new.
ReadWhat is the difference between Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display?
Sponsored Products promote a single listing in search results and are where most accounts should concentrate spend, because intent is highest. Sponsored Brands promote your brand and a set of products with a custom headline or video, and require Brand Registry. Sponsored Display retargets shoppers on and off Amazon and is best used for defence and remarketing rather than primary acquisition.
ReadWhat is brand defense on Amazon and do I need it?
Brand defense means advertising on your own brand name and your own product pages so competitors cannot capture shoppers who are already looking for you. It is usually cheap, because your relevance on your own brand is high, and it protects sales you would otherwise lose to a competitor's ad placed directly on your listing.
ReadWhy is my Amazon campaign getting zero impressions?
Zero impressions almost always means your ad is never entering the auction, not that it is losing it. The usual causes are a bid far below the going rate for your keywords, a listing that is not indexed for the terms you are targeting, no Buy Box on the advertised ASIN, the campaign not actually being live because of dates or budget, or ineligibility such as needing Brand Registry for Sponsored Brands.
ReadWhy are my negative keywords not working?
Negatives usually are working — the traffic you are still seeing comes from close variants, from a different campaign that has no negatives applied, or from reporting lag. Negative exact only blocks that precise term, so plurals, misspellings and word-order changes still get through unless you use negative phrase.
ReadWhy was my Amazon ad rejected?
Most rejections come from ad copy rather than the product: superlatives and unsubstantiated claims such as best or number one, references to price or promotions, ALL CAPS or excessive punctuation, mention of shipping or guarantees, or medical and health claims. Sponsored Brands headlines are moderated far more strictly than Sponsored Products, which have no custom copy to reject.
ReadWhat is the Buy Box (Featured Offer) on Amazon?
The Buy Box — now officially called the Featured Offer — is the box on a product page containing the Add to Cart button, and it determines which seller receives the sale when several sellers list the same ASIN. Amazon awards it on price, fulfilment method, delivery speed, stock position and seller performance. It matters to advertisers because Sponsored Products generally will not serve for an ASIN where you do not hold the Featured Offer.
ReadWhat is dayparting in Amazon PPC?
Dayparting means varying bids or budgets by hour of day and day of week, so spend concentrates in the periods that convert and eases off in the periods that do not. It is only worth doing once you have enough hourly data to show a genuine repeating pattern rather than noise. Amazon's console offers scheduled budget rules rather than true hour-by-hour bid control, so most real dayparting runs through the Advertising API or third-party software.
ReadWhat do negative exact and negative phrase mean?
Negative exact blocks one precise search term and nothing else. Negative phrase blocks any search containing that word or sequence of words in that order, so it removes a whole family of searches at once. Use negative exact for individual proven losers, and negative phrase for entire categories of wrong intent — but check what else a phrase would catch before applying it.
ReadWhat is a placement modifier in Amazon PPC?
A placement modifier is a percentage increase applied to your bid for a specific ad placement — Top of Search, Product Pages, or Rest of Search. Amazon allows increases of up to 900%, applied on top of your keyword bid, so a 50% modifier turns a $1.00 bid into $1.50 for that placement. Modifiers only go upwards, so the way to spend less in a weak placement is to lower the base bid and raise the modifier on the placement that performs.
ReadWhat is a close variant in Amazon advertising?
A close variant is a version of your keyword that Amazon treats as effectively the same search — singulars and plurals, common misspellings, changes in word order, and stemmed forms. Close variant matching applies to exact match too, which is why an exact-match keyword still picks up search terms that are not literally identical to it, and why your Search Term report never lines up with your keyword list one for one.
ReadWhat is a search term, and how is it different from a keyword?
A keyword is what you bid on; a search term is what the shopper actually typed into Amazon. Amazon matches search terms to your keywords according to the match type you selected, so a single broad keyword can collect hundreds of different search terms. Optimisation happens on the search term side — reading what you actually paid for, then deciding which terms deserve their own keyword and which deserve a negative.
ReadWhat is a bid strategy in Amazon PPC?
Amazon offers three campaign bid strategies. Dynamic bids down only lowers your bid in real time when a click looks less likely to convert. Dynamic bids up and down does the same but will also raise your bid — by up to 100% for top-of-search and up to 50% for other placements — when a conversion looks likely. Fixed bids use the bid exactly as entered, with no automatic adjustment in either direction.
ReadBroad vs phrase vs exact match — which should I use?
Use all three, for different jobs, rather than choosing one. Broad match casts wide and belongs on a capped discovery budget; phrase match narrows to searches containing your keyword in order; exact match targets that search intent alone and is where proven converters and the bulk of your spend belong. The standard flow is broad and automatic campaigns to discover terms, exact to scale them, with negatives stopping the layers bidding against each other.
ReadKeyword targeting vs ASIN/product targeting — which should I use?
Keyword targeting reaches shoppers by what they type; product targeting reaches them by what they are already looking at. Keyword targeting should be the primary engine for most accounts because search intent is explicit and measurable. Product targeting earns its place in two specific jobs: placing your ad on competitor listings you can beat on price, rating or format, and defending your own detail pages against competitors doing the same to you.
ReadSponsored Display vs Amazon DSP — which should I use?
Sponsored Display sits inside the normal Amazon Ads console, is self-service, has no meaningful spend floor, and is best used for retargeting and defending your own listings. Amazon DSP is a full programmatic platform with far wider inventory and deeper audience targeting, but it carries substantially higher minimum commitments that are negotiated case by case, and generally needs an agency or an Amazon account team. Sponsored Display is the sensible starting point.
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SEO
How does Amazon search ranking actually work?
Amazon ranks listings primarily on relevance and sales performance. Relevance comes from whether your listing is indexed for a search term through title, bullets, backend keywords and A+ content. Performance comes from click-through rate, conversion rate and sales velocity for that term. A listing cannot rank for a keyword it is not indexed for, no matter how much you spend.
ReadHow do I rank on page one of Amazon?
Page-one ranking requires being indexed for the keyword, converting well when shown, and sustaining sales velocity for that term over weeks. In practice that means a listing optimised for the exact search, a competitive price and review position, and targeted advertising on that keyword to generate the velocity Amazon uses as evidence. There is no shortcut that bypasses conversion.
ReadWhy did my organic rank suddenly drop on Amazon?
A sudden rank drop usually traces to one of five things: you went out of stock or lost the Buy Box, your conversion rate fell, you edited the listing and lost indexing for a term, a competitor increased sales velocity on that keyword, or you were hit by a suppression or compliance flag. Check availability and Buy Box first — they are the fastest to confirm and the most common.
ReadHow do I check if my listing is indexed for a keyword?
Search Amazon for the exact keyword followed by your ASIN, for example: stainless steel water bottle B08XXXXXXX. If your product appears, you are indexed for that phrase. If nothing comes back, you are not indexed and no amount of advertising will make you rank organically for it.
ReadHow do Amazon backend search terms work, and what belongs in them?
Backend search terms are a hidden field in Seller Central that adds keywords to a listing's search index without showing them to shoppers. They exist for the words a customer might type that do not fit naturally in the title, bullets or description — synonyms, alternative product names, materials, and use cases. They are not a second copy of your title: once a word is indexed anywhere on the listing, repeating it in the backend adds nothing to relevance.
ReadWhat actually belongs in Amazon A+ content?
A+ content is the place to answer the questions that stop someone buying — sizing and fit, what is in the box, how it compares to the obvious alternative, and who it is not for. It replaces the plain description on brand-registered listings, and its job is conversion rather than discovery: the fields that reliably drive Amazon search are still the title, bullets, backend search terms and structured attributes, so A+ should be written for the shopper who has already arrived and is deciding.
ReadAmazon SEO vs Amazon PPC for ranking — which should I use?
They are not alternatives. Amazon SEO decides whether you can rank for a keyword; PPC influences whether you do. SEO is indexing and relevance — if a phrase is nowhere in your title, bullets or backend terms, no budget will make you rank organically for it. PPC contributes the sales velocity and conversion history Amazon uses as evidence once you are indexed, which is why the listing work comes first.
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Metrics
What is a good ACOS on Amazon?
There is no universal good ACOS — the only figure that matters is your break-even ACOS, which equals your profit margin before ad spend. If your product carries a 35% margin after all Amazon fees and COGS, then a 35% ACOS is break-even, anything below is profit, and anything above is bought at a loss. Most established sellers target 15–25%, but a launch may run 60% deliberately.
ReadHow do I calculate my break-even ACOS?
Break-even ACOS equals your pre-advertising profit margin. Subtract COGS, Amazon referral fees, FBA fulfilment, storage, and a returns allowance from your selling price; divide the remainder by the selling price. If a $30 product leaves $9.60 after all costs, your margin is 32% and your break-even ACOS is 32%.
ReadWhat is the difference between ACOS and TACOS?
ACOS is ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales, so it only measures advertising in isolation. TACOS is ad spend divided by total sales including organic, so it measures what advertising costs your whole business. A falling TACOS with steady revenue means organic rank is carrying more of the load — that is the healthiest signal in an Amazon account.
ReadWhat is a good conversion rate on Amazon?
Amazon conversion rates vary widely by category, but many sellers operate somewhere in the 10–20% range, which is far higher than typical ecommerce because Amazon shoppers arrive intending to buy. The useful comparison is not a global benchmark but your own category and your own historical rate — a sudden drop is far more diagnostic than an absolute number.
ReadWhy did my ACOS suddenly increase?
A sudden ACOS rise usually has one of four causes: a competitor started bidding on your terms and pushed CPCs up, your conversion rate dropped, your campaign structure changed and budget shifted to weaker terms, or you lost the Buy Box. Check CPC and conversion rate separately — ACOS is a ratio, and knowing which side of it moved tells you which problem you have.
ReadWhat is ROAS and how does it relate to ACOS?
ROAS is revenue divided by ad spend; ACOS is ad spend divided by revenue. They are reciprocals of each other, so a 25% ACOS is a 4x ROAS and a 50% ACOS is a 2x ROAS. Convert between them with ROAS = 1 ÷ ACOS. Neither is better — Amazon reports ACOS by default, most other advertising platforms report ROAS.
ReadHow many clicks with no sales before I pause a keyword?
Base the threshold on your conversion rate, not on a fixed number. If you convert at 10%, a sale is expected around every 10 clicks, so roughly 20–30 clicks with no orders is a real signal rather than bad luck. The widely repeated rule of 10 clicks is too aggressive for most accounts and kills keywords that were merely unlucky.
ReadWhat does new-to-brand (NTB) mean in Amazon advertising?
New-to-brand metrics count the orders and sales that came from customers who had not bought anything from your brand on Amazon in the previous twelve months. They separate genuine customer acquisition from repeat purchases, which matters because a campaign with an unremarkable ACOS can be the most valuable in the account if most of its orders are new customers.
ReadWhat is share of voice on Amazon?
Share of voice is the proportion of the advertising or search real estate for a given keyword that your brand occupies, relative to everyone else competing for it. Amazon does not publish a single share-of-voice figure, so any number you see is derived — either from Amazon's impression share reporting, or from third-party tools that scrape search results and count placements. Treat a specific percentage as the output of one method rather than a fact from Amazon.
ReadWhat is impression share in Amazon advertising?
Impression share is the percentage of the impressions available for a search term that your ads actually received. A low share on a keyword that converts profitably means there is volume you are not buying, usually because your bid or your daily budget takes you out of the auction. Amazon exposes this for brand-registered sellers, including a separate figure for the top-of-search placement.
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Strategy
How long does Amazon PPC take to work?
Wasted spend can be cut within two to three weeks, because switching off losing terms takes effect immediately. Genuine gains in rank and organic sales usually take 60 to 90 days, since Amazon's ranking responds to sustained sales velocity rather than to any single change. Anyone promising a transformation in days is describing budget cuts, not growth.
ReadHow much should I spend on Amazon ads?
Budget should follow proven efficiency rather than a fixed percentage of revenue. Once a campaign converts below your break-even ACOS, additional spend on it is profitable and should be increased until efficiency degrades. For a new product, a common starting approach is a modest daily budget held long enough to gather statistically meaningful click data before judging anything.
ReadWhat reports do I need for an Amazon PPC audit?
Three exports cover almost everything: the Sponsored Products Search Term report for at least 60 days, the Business Report by ASIN for sessions and conversion rate, and a Bulk Operations file for the full campaign structure, bids and negatives. Together these show what you paid for, what converted, and how the account is put together — without needing account access.
ReadHow much does an Amazon PPC agency cost?
Amazon PPC agencies typically charge either a percentage of ad spend, commonly around 10–20%, or a flat monthly retainer that often falls in the low-to-mid four figures, sometimes with a performance component on top. The right question is not the headline fee but whether the efficiency gain exceeds it — at low ad spend it usually does not.
ReadDo I need an Amazon agency, or can I run PPC myself?
You can run Amazon PPC yourself, and at low spend you probably should — the work is mostly disciplined weekly maintenance rather than secret knowledge. An agency becomes worth its fee when spend is high enough that a few points of ACOS exceed the retainer, or when the weekly cadence is not happening because nobody has time for it.
ReadSearch Term Report vs Search Query Performance — which should I use?
The Search Term report shows only the searches your ads paid for, with clicks, spend and orders per term, which makes it the tool for cutting waste and harvesting winners. Search Query Performance, in Brand Analytics, shows the whole marketplace funnel for a query — impressions, clicks, cart adds and purchases — alongside your brand's share of each, covering organic as well as paid. Use the first to manage campaigns and the second to see how much of a query you are actually winning.
ReadAgency vs in-house vs PPC software — which should I use?
PPC software automates rules such as bid changes and negation, but it does not choose a strategy and still needs someone to configure and review it. In-house is the cheapest option and the right one when somebody genuinely has the weekly hours. An agency earns its fee when spend is high enough that a few points of ACOS exceed the retainer, or when the weekly maintenance simply is not happening. Run the arithmetic on your own spend before deciding.
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