Amazon PPC for Beginners: Your First 30 Days, Step by Step

If you're new to Amazon PPC, start small and simple: one automatic Sponsored Products campaign, one manual campaign with a short list of relevant keywords, and a daily budget you can afford to spend for two weeks without results. Then use the search term report to keep what converts and cut what doesn't.

This guide turns that into a week-by-week plan for your first month, with the settings to use and the decision rules to follow when the data comes in. If you need the fundamentals first, read what Amazon PPC is.

Before you launch: three numbers to know

1. Your break-even ACoS

Break-even ACoS is your profit margin before advertising, expressed as a percentage of the sale price. If you sell a $25 product and keep $8 after product cost, Amazon fees, and shipping, your break-even ACoS is $8 / $25 = 32%. Spend more than 32% of ad sales on ads and you lose money on those sales. The full formula is in our break-even ACoS guide.

2. Your target ACoS

Your target is usually below break-even so ads earn some profit. During a launch, many sellers accept a target at or slightly above break-even to buy early sales and reviews. Decide this before you start so you're not reacting emotionally to daily numbers.

3. Your test budget

Decide how much you'll spend over the first 30 days. A simple way: estimate the clicks you need to learn something. If your conversion rate is around 10%, you need roughly 10 to 20 clicks per keyword to see whether it converts. Multiply by your expected CPC and the number of keywords you care about. Our PPC budget guide walks through this math.

Check the listing first

Ads send traffic; the listing converts it. Before spending a dollar, confirm:

• The main image is clean, clear at thumbnail size, and shows the product well.
• The title includes your main keywords in natural language.
• Bullets answer the questions shoppers actually ask.
• Price is competitive with the products that will show next to yours.
• You own the Buy Box. Sponsored Products ads won't serve if your offer isn't the featured offer.

Week 1: launch two campaigns

Campaign 1: automatic

• Ad type: Sponsored Products, automatic targeting.
• Daily budget: enough for roughly 15 to 25 clicks a day at your expected CPC.
• Bidding strategy: Dynamic bids, down only.
• Default bid: start near the low end of Amazon's suggested bid range and adjust after a few days.
• Name it clearly, such as 'SP | Auto | Yoga Mat | Discovery'.

Campaign 2: manual keywords

• Ad type: Sponsored Products, manual targeting.
• Keywords: 10 to 30 terms that describe exactly what you sell. Use Amazon's suggestions and your own judgment.
• Match types: put the most relevant five to ten keywords on exact match and the rest on phrase match.
• Bids: around the middle of the suggested range for exact match and a bit lower for phrase.
• Bidding strategy: Dynamic bids, down only.

Week 2: watch, don't fiddle

Check daily that campaigns are spending and nothing is broken (no impressions, ineligible ads, budget gone by noon). Don't change bids every day. Sales can be attributed for several days after a click, and small samples mislead. Our post on the attribution window explains why yesterday's ACoS is almost always too high.

Fix only clear problems: if a campaign has zero impressions after 48 hours, raise bids 20% to 30%. If it spends its whole budget before midday, either raise the budget or lower bids slightly.

Week 3: first optimization pass

Download the search term report from the Ads console (under Measurement & Reporting, Sponsored ads reports, report type Search term). Sort by spend and apply these rules:

A worked example

Your auto campaign shows the search term 'thick yoga mat for bad knees' with 12 clicks, 3 orders, $14.40 spend, and $90 sales. That's a 16% ACoS against a 30% target. Add it to the manual campaign on exact match with a bid near the average CPC you paid ($1.20), and add it as a negative exact in the auto campaign so the two campaigns don't compete for the same search.

Meanwhile, 'yoga mat bag' has 18 clicks, 0 orders, $19 spent. It's a different product. Add it as a negative phrase in both campaigns.

Expect to make a dozen or so changes in this first pass. That's normal; later passes get shorter as the obvious waste is cleared out.

Week 4: tighten and repeat

• Repeat the search term review with the new week of data.
• Adjust bids on keywords with at least 10 to 15 clicks.
• Check your placement report: if top of search converts much better, consider a modest placement bid increase.
• Compare total ad spend against total sales to calculate TACoS.
• Write down what you changed and why. Next month you'll want to know.

Which report columns matter in month one

The campaign manager can show dozens of columns. In your first month, focus on these and hide the rest:

• Impressions: if this is near zero, your bids are too low or the ad isn't eligible.
• Clicks and CTR: tell you whether shoppers find the ad appealing for that search.
• Spend and CPC: what you're paying, and whether it lines up with the bid you set.
• Orders and sales: what the clicks produced.
• ACoS: spend divided by sales, compared against your target.

Set the date range to the last 14 or 30 days rather than yesterday. Short ranges exaggerate noise, and the most recent two or three days are still collecting attributed sales.

Beginner mistakes to avoid

• Judging keywords after three clicks.
• Bidding on broad, generic terms ('mat') that cost a lot and convert poorly.
• Forgetting negative keywords, so auto campaigns keep paying for irrelevant searches.
• Running ads to a listing that can't convert.
• Changing everything at once, so you can't tell what worked.

There are more in our list of common Amazon PPC mistakes, and a recurring version of this routine in the Amazon PPC checklist.

FAQ