Amazon PPC Guides

The 8-metric, 4-phase benchmark table I grade every audit against, and what to do when a metric fails its phase.

One grades your campaigns, the other grades your business. When to watch each, and the rising-ACOS, falling-TACOS signal most sellers misread.

The keyword vs search term distinction, where to download the report, and the four things I hunt for: harvest, negate, bid down, and search term bleed.

Where candidates come from, how many clicks earn a verdict, and my decision rule for negative exact vs negative phrase.

The five structural levers that cut ACOS without losing sales or organic rank, and why "just lower your bids" backfires.

When multiple campaigns buy the same search and nobody owns it: what it costs, how to spot it, and the ownership fix.

Break search terms into 1-, 2-, and 3-word patterns so one phrase negative can close fifty leaks at once. What it is, how to run it, how to act on it.

The discovery-to-performance funnel every other fix stands on: how many campaigns per product, when to group or isolate, and one owner per search term.

Download, read, and edit the one spreadsheet that runs your whole account: which columns you can change, the four edits I push at scale, and the uploads that fail.

The most expensive slot on the page: how placement modifiers compound with dynamic bidding, how to read ACOS by placement, and when the top slot is not worth the premium.

The discovery engine that feeds every manual campaign: the four targeting groups, how to bid them, the harvest loop, and the auto-share ceiling that grades the whole account.

How Amazon PPC management is priced, the opposite incentives each model creates, and the crossover math to work out which one actually costs you less.

The honest ROI test: measure the recoverable waste and the value of your time, then compare to the fee. When it pays, and when the answer is no.

The signals it is time to hand off, why watching a dashboard is not management, when DIY still wins, and how to outsource without losing control.

The four ways to run Amazon PPC compared, DIY, software, a percentage agency, or a flat-fee operator, on time, cost, control, and incentive alignment.

The eight-metric checklist I run on every account, grouped and graded against your phase, with the structural leak behind each failing score and a free way to check it.

The three-step diagnostic when ads spend but nothing converts: traffic relevance, then listing conversion, then the offer. Usually it is not a PPC problem.

Price bids from your own economics (revenue per click times target ACOS), why the suggested bid runs high, and which dynamic bidding mode fits each job.

Why organic sales usually drop when you stop ads, how to measure how much rank you are renting vs owning, and the controlled taper that avoids a crash.

A campaign out of budget by noon is a symptom, not a diagnosis. How to tell a constrained budget from a leaking one before you raise the cap.

Why Sponsored Products earns the first ad dollar, when Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display earn a budget, the job each does, and how to allocate by phase.

The 12 Amazon PPC mistakes I find most often in audits: what each looks like in your data, what it costs, and which guide walks through the fix.

Broad, phrase, and exact match compared: what each one catches, the job and bid I give each, and how they feed the harvest loop without overlapping.

The five keyword sources I use, ranked by how close each sits to a real sale, and why your own search term report outranks any keyword tool's volume estimate.

Ad conversion rate is orders divided by clicks. The phase benchmarks, why it never matches Unit Session Percentage, and why it is the input that caps your bid.

How to find competitor ASINs and keywords worth targeting, run product targeting campaigns at the right bid, and defend your brand from rivals doing the same.

The four-phase launch playbook I run on new Amazon products: pre-launch checklist, day-one structure, launch bidding, and the benchmark gates that end the launch.

How PPC sales on a specific search term feed organic position, how to run a deliberate ranking push, and how to tell rank you earned from rank you are renting.

The peak-season playbook in three phases: fix leaks and pre-set budgets before the event, keep proven campaigns live all day, and grade it on TACOS and profit.

Dayparting cuts bids or budget in weak hours. When the hour-of-day gap is real enough to act on, and the three ways it quietly costs you ranking and sales.

How I run Sponsored Display once it earns a test: contextual vs audience targeting, CPC vs vCPM, the click-attributed ACOS bar, and when to wait.

What Sponsored Brands headline and video ads do in search, when video earns its budget, and how to read new-to-brand and attribution before you scale it.

Ten questions to put to any Amazon PPC agency or consultant before you sign, grouped by who runs it, how it is paid, and what you keep, with the red flags.

No self-ranked top 10: what Amazon PPC agencies publish about price, pricing model and terms, and how to shortlist the ones that fit your account.