Are your Amazon PPC costs weighing you down? Maybe every time you get a payout, it feels like the bulk of it goes directly back into ad spend. Don’t worry — you’re not alone. Sellers everywhere face this challenge, but there’s good news: with the right strategy, you can lower your PPC costs while maintaining or even increasing your sales.
This blog reveals 7 proven tips for Amazon PPC optimization that aren’t just guesswork — they come from years of managing campaigns and studying what really works. Ready to position your business for long-term success? Then you’ve come to the right place!
What is Amazon PPC (Pay-per-Click)?
Amazon PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is an auction-based advertising platform designed for Amazon sellers to promote their products. It allows sellers to target specific keywords relevant to their item, ensuring their ads appear prominently, such as at the top of search results, marked as “sponsored.” The key advantage of Amazon PPC is that sellers only pay when someone clicks on their ad, not for every time it’s displayed.
This system is particularly valuable for launching new products. It can generate visibility even for items with no reviews or sales history. Beyond launches, Amazon PPC is also a powerful tool for boosting product performance and organic rankings by increasing traffic to the product page.
Assuming you’re already familiar with the fundamentals of Amazon PPC and its functionality, we won’t go into further detail here. However, if you’re just starting out or want a comprehensive overview, we’ve created a detailed guide on PPC advertising. It covers every type of Sponsored Ads, so be sure to check it out!
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Amazon PPC Tips: 7 Proved Strategies
1. Never Run Out of Budget
When your campaigns run out of budget midday, you lose out on valuable traffic and sales. Imagine setting your ACOS goal to 35%, and your campaign hits exactly that target by 3 PM. If the campaign is then shut off for the rest of the day, you’re missing out on opportunities that fit your goals.
Fix it by monitoring your campaigns regularly for budget alerts and proactively increasing the limits when necessary. Triple-check your high-performing campaigns and double down. For example, if your campaign’s max budget is $100, boost it to $300 if it’s hitting your target ACOS. Keeping campaigns live during peak hours ensures your ads keep converting.
TIP: If your campaigns regularly run out before the evening, increase your budget. Stopping halfway through the day hurts momentum.
2. Add Negative Keywords Weekly
Negating irrelevant keywords is like putting a lock on your budget to stop wasteful spending. Every week, go into your search term report, sort terms by spend, and identify the ones racking up costs without converting.
For instance, if your ACOS on a certain key-phrase is 85%, and it’s clear this keyword isn’t working, add it as a negative match as soon as possible.
3. Use Day Parting
Not all hours (or days) are equally good for conversions. Day parting allows you to schedule your campaigns to bid higher during peak times and lower when sales are less consistent.
Inside Amazon Campaign Settings, you can adjust your campaign bidding strategy and activate scheduled rules for time-specific boosts.
It’s impossible to say for sure what time of day would work best for your products, as you need to test it yourself. Generally, we strongly recommend keeping an eye on customer behavior on Monday, Friday, and Sunday, as these days tend to show the most purchasing activity.
Also, don’t forget about holidays or other important events that might spike purchasing behavior for certain products. If your product falls into a relevant category, make sure to set specific bidding rules for those days.
4. Use Social Posts to Gain Free Impressions
Social posts may not be as impactful as PPC, but they’re a free way to get extra eyes on your listings. A simple post could net you around 500 free views — that’s valuable exposure with no additional cost!
To set this up, go into the Social Post tab in your Amazon dashboard, create a post with engaging visuals, and watch the impressions roll in.
TIP: Even if social posts feel like a side effort, use them to supplement an important product launch or Q4 promotional campaign. Every bit of extra visibility counts!
5. Try Broad Match Modifiers
Tired of wasting money on overly broad keywords? Using Broad Match Modifiers gives you control over how Amazon interprets your keywords. Add a “+” sign to require specific terms to appear in a broad keyword. This option ensures that specified words must appear in a customer’s search, but Amazon has the flexibility to include additional terms around them.
For example, “+running +shoes” mandates those two words appear within any search query. By applying this broad match modifier, your ad will show up for searches such as “red running shoes” or “lightweight running shoes for men.”
The “+” ensures that both “running” and “shoes” stay in the search query while allowing Amazon to include extra, relevant terms like color or style. This gives you expanded reach while keeping irrelevant searches, like “walking sandals,” out of the mix.
〉Learn more about Amazon PPC Match Types
6. Create $1 Auto Campaigns for Every SKU
Big catalogs benefit from small PPC experiments. Set up a basic auto campaign for every SKU, allocating just $1 per day with $0.05 bids. While this won’t individually transform your account, it can uncover hidden gems — unadvertised products that actually drive traffic and convert!
Keep expectations realistic; treat these campaigns as testing grounds rather than blockbuster ads.
7. Analyze Lifetime PPC Data
Amazon only provides 60 days of PPC history by default, but did you know you can access lifetime account-level data? Click the “lifetime” option on your PPC dashboard to see every click, impression, and sale you’ve generated.
This lets you spot important patterns, like which seasons your ads work best or which keywords always deliver good results.
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Frequently asked questions
What are the 3 types of Amazon PPC campaigns?
The three types of Amazon PPC campaigns are:
- Sponsored Products – These ads feature individual products and appear directly in search results or on product detail pages.
- Sponsored Brands – These ads showcase your brand by displaying your logo, a custom headline, and up to three products. They are great for buiding brand awareness or guiding shoppers through a broader product portfolio.
- Sponsored Display – These ads go beyond Amazon by reaching potential customers on third-party websites and apps through display advertising. They excel in retargeting, allowing you to re-engage shoppers who viewed your products but didn’t make a purchase.
What is the difference between PPC and SEO?
The main difference between SEO and PPC on Amazon lies in how they help products get discovered.
Amazon SEO focuses on optimizing your product listings (like using relevant keywords in titles, descriptions, and backend data) to rank higher in organic search results. This method brings in free traffic over time.
On the other hand, Amazon PPC involves paying for ads to promote your products. These ads can appear in search results, on product pages, or even off Amazon. With PPC, you pay whenever a shopper clicks on your ad, offering a quicker way to drive visibility and sales.
How to create a PPC campaign?
- Log in to your Amazon Seller Central account.
- Navigate to the top left corner and open the dropdown menu.
- Select ‘Advertising’ from the list.
- Click on ‘Campaign Manager’.
- Once in Campaign Manager, click on ‘Create Campaign’ to get started.
How to find the best keywords for my PPC campaign?
To choose the right keywords for your Amazon PPC campaign, start by using a reliable Amazon keyword research tool, such as those offered by Helium 10 or JungleScout.
Once you’ve gathered your keyword list, head over to Amazon Seller Central to check how much you’ll need to bid for those keywords.
