How Can I Do Amazon PPC?
If you’re wondering how to get your product to the top of Amazon’s search results, this article delivers a clear path through the Amazon PPC landscape. You'll learn exactly how Amazon PPC works, how to choose between Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display ads, and how to build an effective campaign using the right keyword targeting strategy. We’ll unpack how CPC, CTR, and ACoS influence your bottom line, explain the role of dynamic bidding and campaign optimization, and walk you through interpreting a Search Term Report. If you've ever asked yourself “How can I do Amazon PPC?”, this guide will give you the tools—and mindset—you need to succeed.
Why Amazon PPC Matters More Than Ever
Over 60% of product searches begin on Amazon. That makes Amazon Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising one of the most powerful tools in eCommerce. Unlike other platforms where users may be in discovery mode, Amazon shoppers typically come with high purchase intent, making it a fertile ground for conversions—if your product can be seen.
But that’s the catch, isn’t it? Visibility. With millions of competing listings, getting your product in front of the right buyers requires strategy, precision, and constant optimization.
Enter: Amazon PPC.
Done right, PPC on Amazon can be the difference between a stagnant product and a bestseller. This isn’t about guesswork—it’s about leveraging data, psychology, and structure to claim your slice of the Amazon marketplace.
What Is Amazon PPC and How Does It Work?
At its core, Amazon PPC is an auction-based advertising system that allows you to bid on keywords so your product ads appear when shoppers search for relevant items. You only pay when someone clicks—not just when they view your ad. That’s what makes it efficient and measurable.
"You’re not buying ad space. You’re buying attention in the moment it matters most—right when a customer is ready to buy."
Amazon PPC operates through three main ad formats:
Sponsored Products – These are individual product ads that show up within search results and product detail pages. They’re easy to launch and ideal for both new and seasoned sellers.
Sponsored Brands – Perfect for brand-registered sellers, these ads include your logo, a custom headline, and multiple products. Great for brand visibility.
Sponsored Display – These ads go beyond Amazon to appear on external sites, targeting users based on behavior and interests. Ideal for retargeting and mid-to-late funnel buyers.
Each type has a role to play in your PPC funnel strategy. If you’re a single-brand store like ours at Easy eCommerce Marketing, integrating all three can help support your launch, scale, and retention phases.
Laying the Foundation: The Role of Seller Central
Everything begins inside your Seller Central account. This is your dashboard for creating campaigns, setting bids, tracking performance, and accessing data like impressions, CTR, and conversion rates.
Before launching your first campaign, ensure that your product listing is optimized. A well-written, SEO-rich listing with high-quality images directly impacts both your organic visibility and ad performance.
And yes, we offer this as a service. If you need help ensuring your listings are ready to convert, take a look at our Amazon marketing services.
Getting Strategic: Automatic vs Manual Targeting
When you set up a campaign, you’ll choose between two primary targeting options:
1. Automatic Targeting
Amazon uses its algorithm to decide which keywords to target based on your product listing. It’s a great way to gather data early on and discover unexpected keywords.
Automatic campaigns help you:
Understand search intent for your category
Identify top-converting keywords
Begin keyword harvesting for manual campaigns
2. Manual Targeting
Here, you define the exact keywords you want to bid on and control the match types:
Broad Match: Ad shows for any variation of the keyword.
Phrase Match: Keyword must appear in the same order, but with words before or after.
Exact Match: Only triggers when the exact keyword is searched.
Manual campaigns give you more control over spend, targeting, and performance optimization—but they rely on strong keyword data, often sourced from automatic campaigns or tools like SellerApp or Helium 10.
Understanding CPC, CTR, ACoS & CVR
Your campaign's performance lives and dies by these four KPIs:
Cost Per Click (CPC): What you pay each time someone clicks your ad. Keeping CPC low while driving high-quality traffic is key.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of shoppers who saw your ad and clicked. A strong CTR signals relevance and can lead to better placements.
Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS): The ratio of ad spend to attributed sales. Aim to keep it below your product margin to stay profitable.
Conversion Rate (CVR): Percentage of clicks that turn into purchases. High CVR often results from strong product pages, competitive pricing, and good reviews.
By monitoring and improving these numbers, you’re performing campaign optimization—one of the most crucial tasks in maintaining long-term profitability.
Smart Bid Strategies and Dynamic Adjustments
When launching Amazon PPC campaigns, one of the most important choices you'll make is your bid strategy. You can opt for:
Dynamic Bids – Down Only: Amazon lowers your bids when a sale is unlikely.
Dynamic Bids – Up and Down: Amazon adjusts bids both ways based on likelihood of conversion.
Fixed Bids: No automation; you control everything.
Rule-Based Bidding: Set a target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), and Amazon dynamically adjusts your bids to meet that goal.
Each approach has its strengths depending on your budget, goals, and experience level. We typically recommend starting with dynamic bids (up and down) for new advertisers seeking momentum, then refining with rule-based strategies as you gather more performance data.
Structuring for Success: Campaign Portfolios & Budgeting
Rather than dumping everything into one campaign, organize your efforts using campaign portfolios. Grouping campaigns by product category, goal (e.g., awareness vs. conversion), or even season allows better budget allocation and analytics.
Think of portfolios as a way to keep your ad strategy clean, agile, and scalable.
Budgeting should follow your product margins. Don't aim to spend $5 to earn $5. Instead, analyze your breakeven ACoS and work backwards. Start with daily budgets you’re comfortable with—Amazon allows as little as $5/day—and ramp up once you’ve validated performance.
Step-by-Step: Creating Your First Campaign
Let’s assume you’re ready to go. Your product listing is optimized, your budget is defined, and you’re logged into Seller Central.
Here’s how to launch a Sponsored Products campaign:
Navigate to Advertising → Campaign Manager
Click “Create Campaign” and select Sponsored Products
Give your campaign a descriptive name (e.g.,
SP_MugSet_Manual_Exact)Choose your targeting type:
Automatic (recommended for new products and data collection)
Manual (ideal if you already have keyword performance data)
Define your daily budget
Choose your bidding strategy (e.g., Dynamic Bids – Up & Down)
Select the products you want to promote
Add your targeting keywords (Manual) or let Amazon decide (Automatic)
Adjust your bids per keyword or targeting group
Add negative keywords if applicable
Launch your campaign
This structure gives you the foundation to build multiple campaigns—each with distinct goals, keyword types, and match types (broad, phrase, exact).
Keyword Targeting: Precision Drives Profitability
If you’re using manual targeting, keyword match type matters. Let’s break them down:
Broad Match: Ad shows for any variation or synonym of your keyword. Great for discovery but can be noisy.
Phrase Match: Ad appears only when the search includes your keyword phrase in order.
Exact Match: Highest precision. Only shows for the exact keyword or close variants.
The key is to start broad, then narrow over time using real performance data. This practice—called keyword harvesting—helps you eliminate wasted spend and double down on what’s working.
Pro Tip: Use long-tail keywords in your Exact Match campaigns. They usually have lower CPCs and higher intent. For example, “ceramic coffee mug set with lids” will convert better than “coffee mug.”
Product Targeting and Audience Expansion
Beyond keyword targeting, Product Targeting allows you to show your ads on competitor product pages or listings within your own brand. This strategy is especially powerful for:
Cross-selling complementary products
Defending your product detail page from competitors
Hijacking competitor listings (ethically)
You can also expand your visibility through Audience Targeting within Sponsored Display or Amazon DSP. These ads appear on and off Amazon and allow you to retarget shoppers who have:
Viewed your product but didn’t purchase
Searched for similar products
Purchased complementary items
Audience targeting adds an upper-funnel dimension to your PPC strategy, particularly effective for building brand awareness and recapturing interest.
Mastering the Search Term Report
Once your campaigns have run for at least 7–14 days, it’s time to analyze the data. The Search Term Report is your best friend here.
Access it in Seller Central:
Measurements & Reporting → Sponsored Ads Reports → Search Term
Key columns to analyze:
Customer Search Term: What buyers actually typed
Impressions: Number of times your ad was shown
Clicks: Total clicks on your ad
Spend: Your cost
Sales: Revenue attributed to those clicks
ACoS: Ad spend ÷ sales (aim for under your profit margin)
CVR: Conversions ÷ clicks
What to do with the data:
High ACoS, low sales? Add the term to your negative keywords
High CTR, no conversions? Check your product page—you may have a problem with your offer
High conversion, low impressions? Increase bids to win more auctions
Strong conversions in Auto campaign? Move that keyword into an Exact Match Manual campaign
This cycle is the essence of campaign optimization: identify, adjust, repeat.
Negative Keywords: Your Best Defense Against Wasted Spend
Let’s say you’re selling premium leather journals, but your ad is showing up for searches like “cheap notebooks” or “spiral-bound planner.”
This is where negative keywords save your budget.
Negative keywords can be added at the campaign or ad group level, and you can use:
Negative Phrase Match: Blocks searches that contain a specific phrase
Negative Exact Match: Blocks only that exact search term
By eliminating poor-fit traffic, your CTR, CVR, and ultimately your ROAS improve.
Remember, a high CTR with low conversions is often a signal that your ad is relevant, but the product page or price point isn’t aligned with customer expectations. It may also mean you need to fine-tune product listing optimization, which we cover in-depth on our services page.
Budget Allocation and Bid Adjustments
Effective budget allocation keeps your best campaigns fed and pauses those bleeding ad spend. A few principles:
Start with at least $10–$20/day per campaign
Allocate more to Exact Match and Product Targeting campaigns (these tend to convert better)
Use Rule-Based Bidding to automate optimization toward a desired ROAS
Reinvest profits into scaling campaigns that are already performing
If a campaign is underperforming, reduce bids and reassess your targeting or match type. If it’s consistently profitable, scale slowly and test higher daily budgets or additional related keywords.
Testing, Learning, and Scaling
A successful Amazon PPC strategy is iterative. You’ll rarely launch the perfect campaign on day one. Instead, use a system of:
Split Testing: Try variations in ad copy, keywords, or bidding strategies
PPC Funnel Strategy: Use broad/automatic campaigns for discovery, manual/exact for scaling, and Sponsored Display for retargeting
Data Review Cadence: Check performance weekly; deep-dive monthly
Using PPC software tools like Mayple or Helium 10 can streamline your workflow, especially when managing multiple SKUs or campaigns.
The Foundation of Scaling: What You Must Lock In First
Before you even think about scaling your ad spend, be sure you’ve stabilized these core components:
Your ACoS is consistently under your profit margin
You have identified high-performing keywords and are using Exact Match for them
Your product listing is fully optimized—with compelling images, clear copy, and persuasive reviews
You have a clean negative keyword strategy in place to block irrelevant traffic
You've reviewed your campaign structure and segmented by product, category, or objective
Scaling amplifies everything—including waste. So unless your base is solid, you’ll just be spending more money faster without returns.
Campaign Structures That Scale
A scalable PPC strategy often uses a tiered approach:
1. Discovery Layer
Uses Automatic Targeting and Broad Match keywords
Goal: Find converting terms, understand search intent
Budget: Lower, cautious bids
Tools: Sponsored Products + Sponsored Display
2. Efficiency Layer
Focuses on Phrase and Exact Match keywords with proven performance
Incorporates Product Targeting against competitors
Aims for a low ACoS with optimized bid strategy
This is your performance engine
3. Branding Layer
Uses Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display (audience targeting)
Goals: Capture top-of-funnel interest and build brand awareness
KPIs shift from ACoS to Impressions, CTR, and retargeting reach
Each layer should be monitored and scaled independently. You may double the budget on your efficiency layer while holding the branding layer steady, depending on performance and your growth stage.
Using Amazon DSP for Next-Level Growth
Once you’ve matured past Sponsored Display, you can consider Amazon DSP (Demand Side Platform). This enables you to:
Retarget users off-Amazon (e.g., across apps, media sites)
Serve display and video ads to custom audiences
Leverage Amazon’s rich shopper behavior data to build in-depth campaigns
DSP is powerful, but it typically requires a higher budget. If you’re already running profitable campaigns through Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, DSP becomes the next logical step in your audience targeting expansion.
Retargeting and the Power of Sponsored Display
If you're not ready for DSP but want to increase touchpoints, focus on Sponsored Display retargeting. These campaigns allow you to:
Serve ads to shoppers who viewed your product but didn’t buy
Promote complementary products post-purchase
Reclaim lost sales during competitive product comparisons
This strategy helps reinforce trust and leverages the Mere Exposure Effect—the psychological principle that familiarity increases purchase likelihood.
Pair this with dynamic bidding to optimize exposure without overpaying.
Winning the Amazon Buy Box with PPC
One often-overlooked benefit of PPC? It increases your chances of winning the Amazon Buy Box, especially when you’re competing with other sellers on the same ASIN.
Here’s how:
Boosting sales velocity through ads sends a signal to Amazon’s algorithm
Maintaining low ACoS and high CVR improves overall performance metrics
Ensuring fast shipping and competitive pricing (even by a few cents) helps you win the edge
The Buy Box accounts for over 80% of all Amazon sales. You don’t just want it—you need it.
Your Amazon PPC campaigns feed the metrics Amazon watches most: price competitiveness, conversion rates, and fulfillment efficiency. Nail those, and your organic and paid strategies begin to reinforce each other.
Cross-Campaign Intelligence: Split Testing and Keyword Cycling
Scaling isn’t just about spending more—it’s about learning faster. One of the most effective ways to do this is through Split Testing (A/B testing).
Test variables such as:
CPC bids on the same keyword across two campaigns
Broad vs Phrase vs Exact match
Headline copy in Sponsored Brand ads
Thumbnail images or main visuals
Don’t forget to cycle keywords from your Search Term Report back into new manual campaigns. High-converting search terms found in auto campaigns can be elevated into Exact Match campaigns, while low-performing ones can be retired or negated.
This process of keyword cycling prevents stale campaigns and keeps your account agile.
Reassessing Budget Allocation As You Scale
As you grow, your budget allocation strategy must evolve too. Some tips:
Create a monthly budget cap per portfolio, not just per campaign
Shift more budget toward campaigns with stable performance (e.g., 20%+ ROI over 30 days)
Reallocate underperforming budgets to test new targeting formats
Gradually increase successful campaign budgets by 10–20% weekly, not all at once
Also, keep some buffer (10–15%) for seasonal promotions or sudden shifts in search intent, especially during holidays or trending product cycles.
A PPC Flywheel: Aligning Paid and Organic
As your Sponsored campaigns drive more sales, your product naturally climbs in Amazon’s organic rankings. This creates a flywheel:
More PPC Sales → Higher Organic Visibility → More Organic Sales → Better CTR → Cheaper CPC → Better ACoS
To sustain this:
Maintain high CTR and CVR with great listings
Keep PPC spend focused on high-intent long-tail keywords
Use PPC Software Tools to automate keyword harvesting and bid management
With time, your reliance on paid ads decreases as organic sales grow—but keeping your PPC machine well-oiled ensures your brand stays ahead of the competition.
Final Thoughts: The Long-Term PPC Mindset
Scaling Amazon PPC isn’t about flipping a switch—it’s about building a system. A system that discovers, converts, refines, and repeats.
Here’s what that mindset looks like:
Be patient: great data takes time
Be aggressive where it makes sense: scale what's working
Be surgical: cut what’s wasteful fast
Be curious: test, test, test
Be integrated: align PPC with your product pages, pricing strategy, and fulfillment process
At Easy eCommerce Marketing, we help brands do exactly that—build and scale structured Amazon ad strategies that don't just spend, but convert.
Frequently Asked Questions About Amazon PPC
1. Do I need a trademark or brand registry to run Amazon PPC?
No, you do not need to be brand registered to run Sponsored Products or Sponsored Display ads. However, Sponsored Brands ads require Amazon Brand Registry. Being registered also unlocks enhanced creative options and reporting features.
2. How long does it take to see results from Amazon PPC campaigns?
Typically, you’ll start seeing click and impression data within a few hours, but meaningful performance insights (like ACoS and conversion rate trends) usually take 7–14 days. Amazon attribution data may take up to 48 hours to fully reflect conversions.
3. Can I run Amazon PPC if I only have one product?
Yes, and in fact, PPC is especially useful for single-product brands because it helps generate early visibility and sales momentum. Focus your budget on Sponsored Products with tight targeting and use automatic campaigns to discover new keywords.
4. What is the best time of day to run Amazon PPC ads?
Amazon runs campaigns 24/7 and distributes your daily budget throughout the day. While you can use third-party tools to schedule ads during peak times, Amazon’s algorithm already optimizes delivery based on performance history and bid competitiveness.
5. What’s the difference between campaign-level and ad group-level bidding?
At the campaign level, you define the overall budget. At the ad group level, you can set different bids, keywords, and targeting types. This allows for more granular control over performance and segmentation across product variations.
6. Should I advertise low-priced products using Amazon PPC?
Yes, but with caution. Low-ticket items can have tight margins, so monitor your ACoS closely. Use exact match targeting and avoid high-competition keywords to keep CPC low. Bundling items or using multipacks can also improve return on ad spend.
7. Is there a minimum budget required to run Amazon PPC?
The minimum daily budget for most Sponsored Products campaigns is $1.00, but realistically, Amazon recommends starting with at least $10–$20 per campaign to collect actionable data and win enough impressions.
8. Can I run Amazon PPC in multiple marketplaces (e.g., US, UK, EU)?
Yes. However, each Amazon marketplace has its own advertising platform, currency, and shopper behavior. You’ll need to create separate campaigns, localize your keywords, and adjust bids per market.
9. How often should I optimize my Amazon PPC campaigns?
At minimum, review campaigns weekly for bid adjustments, keyword harvesting, and negative keyword updates. Perform deeper analysis—like reviewing Search Term Reports and campaign performance trends—bi-weekly or monthly.
10. What happens if my daily budget runs out before the day ends?
Your ads will stop showing until the next day. This can result in missed sales during high-traffic periods. If you notice strong performance, consider gradually increasing your budget or enabling campaign portfolio budget caps for smoother distribution.
