Amazon advertising has evolved from a simple pay-per-click system into a sophisticated ecosystem of Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform). Success requires mastering campaign structure, continuously mining search term data for insights, and understanding how your advertising impacts performance across channels.
This comprehensive guide breaks down the strategies that separate average advertisers from elite performers.
Part 1: Campaign Structure Fundamentals
The Architecture That Scales
Poor campaign structure is the silent killer of advertising performance. Well-structured campaigns enable precise optimization, clear attribution, and efficient scaling. Here's the proven framework:
Sponsored Products Campaign Hierarchy:
Layer 1: Campaign Type
- Automatic Targeting
- Manual Targeting - Exact Match
- Manual Targeting - Phrase Match
- Manual Targeting - Broad Match
- Product Targeting (ASIN/Category)
Layer 2: Campaign Intent
- Brand Defense (your brand terms)
- Competitor Conquest (competitor brand terms)
- Category Expansion (non-brand product terms)
- Discovery (broad, exploratory targeting)
Layer 3: Product Segmentation
- Top Performers (proven winners, profitable at scale)
- New Launches (require aggressive investment)
- Seasonal Products (timing-dependent)
- Long-tail SKUs (profitable but lower volume)
Example Structure:
Campaign Name: SP-Manual-Exact-Brand-TopPerformers-ProductA
- Campaign Type: Sponsored Products
- Match Type: Exact
- Intent: Brand Defense
- Segment: Top Performers
- Product: Product A
This granular structure enables you to:
- Allocate budgets precisely based on performance
- Set different ACoS targets by campaign intent
- Identify which strategies work for which products
- Scale winners without impacting experiments
- Troubleshoot performance issues quickly
Sponsored Products Campaign Setup
1. Automatic Campaigns: Your Research Engine
Purpose: Discover new keywords and test Amazon's algorithm
Setup:
- One campaign per product or product group
- Moderate daily budget ($20-50 depending on price point)
- Target ACoS: 10-20% above your overall target (room for discovery)
- Bid strategy: Dynamic bids - down only
- Placement modifiers: 0% (gather baseline data first)
Optimization cadence:
- Weekly: Review search term report, harvest winners
- Bi-weekly: Add negative keywords for irrelevant terms
- Monthly: Adjust bids based on performance trends
Graduation criteria: When a keyword generates 5+ orders or $200+ sales with acceptable ACoS, graduate it to manual exact match campaign.
2. Manual Exact Match: Your Profit Engine
Purpose: Maximize efficiency on proven, high-intent keywords
Setup:
- Separate campaigns by intent (brand, competitor, category)
- Aggressive daily budgets (should rarely run out)
- Target ACoS: Your actual profitability target
- Bid strategy: Fixed bids (precise control)
- Placement modifiers: Set based on performance (typically 20-50% for top of search)
Optimization cadence:
- Daily: Check for budget constraints, adjust if needed
- Every 2-3 days: Bid optimization based on ACoS and conversion rate
- Weekly: Review impression share, increase bids on underserving winners
- Monthly: Keyword quality score review, pause consistent non-performers
Bid optimization rules:
- ACoS < 50% of target: Increase bid 25%
- ACoS 50-80% of target: Increase bid 15%
- ACoS 80-120% of target: Hold steady, gather more data
- ACoS 120-150% of target: Decrease bid 15%
- ACoS > 150% of target: Decrease bid 25% or pause if consistently poor
3. Manual Phrase Match: Your Expansion Engine
Purpose: Capture variations of proven keywords at scale
Setup:
- Include proven root keywords from exact match campaigns
- Moderate budgets (less than exact, more than broad)
- Target ACoS: 15-20% higher than exact match (captures lower-intent variations)
- Bid strategy: Dynamic bids - down only
- Placement modifiers: Lower than exact match (10-20%)
Optimization:
- Weekly: Mine search terms for exact match graduation candidates
- Weekly: Add negative exact matches for non-performers
- Bi-weekly: Bid adjustments similar to exact match strategy
4. Manual Broad Match: Your Discovery Engine
Purpose: Find unexpected high-performers and capture long-tail volume
Setup:
- Start with proven category and use-case terms
- Conservative budgets (test and learn approach)
- Target ACoS: 25-30% higher than target (volume over efficiency)
- Bid strategy: Dynamic bids - down only
- Placement modifiers: 0% initially
Optimization:
- Weekly: Aggressive search term review
- Weekly: Negative keyword additions (this is critical for broad match)
- Monthly: Pause campaigns that consistently underperform
5. Product Targeting Campaigns
Purpose: Capture traffic from competitor ASINs and relevant categories
Setup:
- Separate campaigns for competitor ASINs vs. category targets
- Moderate budgets
- Target ACoS: Similar to phrase match
- Bid strategy: Fixed bids for control
ASIN targeting strategy:
- Target competitors with lower ratings (easier to win conversions)
- Target complementary products (cross-sell opportunities)
- Target ASINs with stockout issues (capture frustrated shoppers)
Optimization:
- Weekly: Review placement report, adjust bids by placement
- Bi-weekly: Add/remove ASINs based on conversion performance
- Monthly: Analyze competitor landscape changes
Sponsored Brands Campaign Structure
Campaign Types:
1. Brand Defense - Exact Match
- Your brand name and product names
- High bids to ensure dominance
- Headline: Reinforce value proposition
- Landing page: Brand Store for exploration
2. Category Expansion - Phrase/Broad
- Category and use-case keywords
- Moderate bids
- Headline: Highlight differentiation
- Landing page: Category-specific store page
3. Competitor Conquest
- Competitor brand names (where allowed)
- Aggressive bids
- Headline: Direct comparison or unique value
- Landing page: Comparison-focused content
Creative Best Practices:
Headline formulas that work:
- "Official [Brand] Store - [Key Benefit]"
- "[Product Type] Rated 4.8/5 - [Social Proof]"
- "[Unique Feature] | Free Returns | Prime Shipping"
Image selection:
- Lifestyle image showing product in use
- Hero product with clear differentiation
- Bundle/variety image for multi-product offering
Sponsored Display Campaign Structure
Audience-Based Campaigns:
Views Remarketing:
- Target: People who viewed your products but didn't purchase
- Creative: Highlight reviews, prime shipping, guarantees
- Budget: Moderate, focus on high-value products
- ACoS target: Slightly higher (warm audience)
Purchase Remarketing:
- Target: Past purchasers
- Creative: Complementary products, refills, upgrades
- Budget: Lower (smaller audience, high intent)
- ACoS target: Very efficient (known customers)
Audiences (In-Market, Lifestyle):
- Target: Amazon's curated audiences
- Creative: Educational, benefit-focused
- Budget: Test and learn approach
- ACoS target: Highest (cold audience)
Product-Based Display:
Category Targeting:
- Appear on category-related pages
- Broad reach for awareness
- Moderate bids
ASIN Targeting:
- Similar to product targeting in Sponsored Products
- Lower-funnel, competitor conquest
Amazon DSP Structure (For Advanced Advertisers)
DSP enables display and video ads across Amazon and third-party sites.
Campaign Structure by Funnel Stage:
Prospecting (Top of Funnel):
- Audience: In-market, lifestyle, lookalike
- Creative: Video or display showcasing brand/product
- Goal: Awareness and consideration
- Metric: Reach, detail page view rate
Retargeting (Middle of Funnel):
- Audience: Amazon shoppers, product viewers
- Creative: Product-specific with clear CTA
- Goal: Drive consideration and cart adds
- Metric: Detail page view rate, add-to-cart rate
Conversion (Bottom of Funnel):
- Audience: Cart abandoners, recent viewers
- Creative: Product with urgency or offer
- Goal: Drive purchases
- Metric: Purchase rate, ROAS
Cross-Sell (Post-Purchase):
- Audience: Past purchasers
- Creative: Complementary products
- Goal: Repeat purchase
- Metric: Repeat purchase rate, LTV
Part 2: Search Term Mining Mastery
Search term reports are goldmines of customer intent data. Most advertisers barely scratch the surface.
The Weekly Mining Process
Step 1: Download and Clean Data
Export search term reports from:
- All automatic campaigns
- All phrase and broad match campaigns
- Product targeting campaigns (view ASIN report)
Combine into single spreadsheet with columns:
- Search term
- Campaign type
- Impressions
- Clicks
- Orders
- Sales
- ACoS
- Conversion rate
Step 2: Segment Terms by Performance
Create buckets:
Winners (Graduate to Exact):
- 5+ orders OR
- $200+ in sales AND
- ACoS within 150% of target AND
- Conversion rate above average
Losers (Add as Negatives):
- 50+ clicks with 0 orders OR
- ACoS > 300% of target OR
- Completely irrelevant terms
Watch List (Gather More Data):
- Everything else
- Monitor for trends over next 2-4 weeks
Step 3: Identify Patterns
Look beyond individual terms:
Question-Based Searches:
- "how to," "what is," "why," "when to use"
- Indicates research phase, create content
- May convert at different stages of journey
Comparison Searches:
- "vs," "compared to," "better than"
- High intent, create comparison content
- Consider Sponsored Brands with competitive messaging
Problem-Solution Terms:
- Customer pain points in their own words
- Use in product descriptions and ads
- Inform product development
Unexpected Use Cases:
- How customers actually use your product
- May differ from intended use
- Opportunity for new marketing angles or products
Seasonal Patterns:
- Terms that spike certain times of year
- Plan inventory and advertising accordingly
- Create seasonal campaigns
Step 4: Customer Language Extraction
Document exact phrases customers use:
- Feature descriptions in their words (not your technical terms)
- Benefit statements that resonate
- Common objections or concerns expressed
- Comparison criteria they care about
Use this language in:
- Product listings (bullets and description)
- A+ content
- Ad copy
- Brand Store content
- Off-Amazon marketing
Step 5: Competitive Intelligence
Search terms reveal competitor activity:
- Which competitor brands are triggering your ads
- How often customers search competitor vs. category terms
- Relative search volume for your brand vs. competitors
- Whether competitors are bidding on your brand terms
Actions:
- Increase defensive bidding if losing brand traffic
- Target vulnerable competitors more aggressively
- Understand competitive positioning landscape
Advanced Mining Techniques
Long-Tail Goldmines:
Sort by ascending order volume to find:
- Super-specific, high-intent niche terms
- Often have low competition and high conversion
- May be profitable even at low volume
- Aggregate many long-tail terms for substantial revenue
Negative Keyword Strategy:
Three types of negatives:
1. Irrelevant Terms:
- Completely unrelated to your product
- Add as broad negative to campaign level
2. Low-Commercial-Intent Terms:
- Research terms that don't convert
- "review," "pdf," "free," "used"
- Add as phrase negatives
3. Poor Performers for Your Product:
- Relevant terms that simply don't convert for you
- Add as exact negatives after sufficient data
- May work for competitors but not your offering
Bid Adjustment by Search Term Type:
Not all keywords deserve same bids, even with same ACoS:
Higher bids for:
- Brand terms (defend your territory)
- High purchase intent terms ("buy," "best," product model numbers)
- Terms with high average order value
- Terms that drive repeat purchases (leading indicator data)
Lower bids for:
- Generic, broad category terms
- Research-phase terms
- Terms with low AOV
- Terms customers rarely search twice
Part 3: Cross-Channel Impact
Your advertising doesn't just drive immediate sales—it influences organic performance, customer lifetime value, and off-Amazon channels.
PPC's Impact on Organic Ranking
The Velocity Loop:
Advertising → Sales → Ranking → Organic Sales → More Reviews → Better Ranking
How to maximize:
- Front-load advertising on new launches (establish velocity)
- Focus advertising on target keywords you want to rank for
- Monitor organic rank improvements on advertised terms
- Gradually reduce PPC as organic ranking improves
- Reinvest PPC budget into new keyword expansion
Strategic Keyword Selection:
Prioritize advertising spend on:
- Keywords with high search volume and low organic rank
- Terms where you're on page 2 (small push gets you to page 1)
- Brand building terms that drive long-term value
- Terms with high conversion rates (maximize velocity impact)
Total Advertising Cost of Sale (TACoS)
While ACoS measures advertising efficiency, TACoS measures advertising's proportion of total revenue:
TACoS = Total Ad Spend ÷ Total Revenue (Organic + PPC)
Healthy TACoS trajectory:
- New products: 40-60% (heavy investment to establish)
- Growth phase: 25-40% (scaling with balance)
- Mature products: 15-25% (mostly organic with PPC support)
- Dominant products: 10-15% (mostly organic, defensive PPC)
Monitor TACoS to:
- Ensure advertising is growing total pie, not just capturing existing demand
- Identify when to reduce PPC (strong organic rank achieved)
- Spot problems (rising TACoS may indicate organic decline)
DSP Impact on Amazon PPC Performance
DSP builds awareness that makes PPC more efficient:
Observable Effects:
After launching DSP campaigns, watch for:
- Increased branded search volume on Amazon
- Lower CPCs on Sponsored Products (higher CTR and CVR)
- Improved conversion rates across all campaigns
- Higher share of voice on competitive terms
Measurement Approach:
Use Amazon Attribution to track:
- DSP-exposed audiences' Amazon search behavior
- Lift in Amazon sales among DSP audiences
- Time lag between DSP exposure and Amazon purchase
- Assisted conversions from DSP to Amazon
Budget Allocation:
Consider DSP when:
- Amazon TACoS is healthy (10-20%)
- You have budget for awareness (not just performance)
- You're a category leader or challenger (not bottom tier)
- Customer research phase is 7+ days (time for awareness to work)
Typical allocation:
- Established brands: 70% Amazon PPC, 30% DSP
- Emerging brands: 85% Amazon PPC, 15% DSP
- Launch phase: 95% Amazon PPC, 5% DSP (test and learn)
External Traffic Impact
External traffic (Google, Meta, email) affects Amazon performance:
Positive Impacts:
- Increases sales velocity, boosting organic rank
- Brings brand-aware traffic with higher conversion rates
- Diversifies customer acquisition channels
- Builds email lists for remarketing
Tracking Methods:
Use Amazon Attribution for:
- Google Ads directing to Amazon
- Meta ads directing to Amazon
- Email campaigns directing to Amazon
- Influencer affiliate links to Amazon
Track in separate campaigns:
- Create unique tracking URLs for each external source
- Monitor conversion rates by source
- Calculate true ROAS including external costs
Optimization Strategy:
For external traffic to Amazon:
- Target warm audiences (retargeting, email) for best ROI
- Use brand search campaigns (Google) to capture intent
- Send traffic to best listings (high ratings, prime badged)
- Test landing on Brand Store vs. product page
- Monitor impact on organic ranking from velocity
Long-Term Brand Building Impact
Advertising affects metrics beyond immediate sales:
Brand Awareness:
- Sponsored Brands and DSP increase brand recall
- Measured through brand lift studies
- Leads to organic search growth over time
Review Generation:
- More sales (from advertising) = more reviews
- Higher review counts improve organic conversion
- Creates virtuous cycle of growth
Repeat Purchase Rate:
- First-time customers from PPC become repeat purchasers
- Track LTV by first acquisition channel
- Optimize for LTV, not just first purchase efficiency
Market Share:
- Consistent advertising presence grows relative share
- Measured through tools like Helium 10, Jungle Scout
- Positions brand as category leader in customer minds
Optimization Playbook
Weekly Optimization Checklist
Monday Morning (30 minutes):
- Review previous week's performance vs. targets
- Identify budget-constrained campaigns
- Flag campaigns with major performance changes
Tuesday (60-90 minutes):
- Download and analyze search term reports
- Graduate winners to exact match
- Add negative keywords
- Create list of new keyword opportunities
Wednesday (60 minutes):
- Bid optimization across all campaigns
- Adjust budgets based on performance
- Review placement performance and adjust modifiers
Thursday (30 minutes):
- Check impression share data
- Identify opportunities to increase impression share on winners
- Review competitive landscape changes
Friday (30 minutes):
- Document week's changes and impact
- Prepare next week's testing priorities
- Update stakeholder dashboard
Monthly Deep Dive
Performance Review:
- Campaign-level profitability analysis
- Product-level advertising ROI
- Channel mix optimization (SP vs. SB vs. SD vs. DSP)
- TACoS trends
Strategic Adjustments:
- Product budget reallocation
- New campaign launches or sunsetting
- Match type balance optimization
- Keyword portfolio pruning
Testing Roadmap:
- New keyword themes to test
- Creative testing for Sponsored Brands
- Placement strategy experiments
- Audience testing in display and DSP
Conclusion
PPC and DSP optimization is a discipline of continuous improvement. The structure you build enables precise optimization. The search terms you mine reveal customer intent and language. The cross-channel impact you measure ensures holistic business growth.
Start with solid campaign structure. Mine search terms religiously. Optimize based on data. Measure beyond immediate ACoS. Think holistically about advertising's role in building a brand.
The advertisers who win don't just bid on keywords—they build systems for continuous learning and optimization that compound advantage over time. Your structure is your foundation. Your search term mining is your intelligence gathering. Your cross-channel thinking is your strategic edge.
Build these capabilities now, and you'll have competitive advantages that can't be easily copied.