Think of Amazon as the massive shopping mall of the digital world, with aisles filled to the brim. But how do you get your products from the back shelves to the front? Simply listing your product isn’t enough — you need an Amazon PPC strategy to stand out from the sea of competitors.
The Amazon PPC model allows you to do exactly that, providing a streamlined, measurable way to reach buyers actively searching for products like yours.
Let’s break down Amazon PPC and give you everything you need to master campaigns that attract customers and drive revenue.
Table of Contents
What Is Amazon PPC?
Amazon pay-per-click (PPC) is Amazon’s advertising platform, allowing sellers to pay for prominent placement in search results. Instead of paying upfront for visibility, you pay a fee whenever someone clicks on your ad — meaning you’re only paying for genuine interest.
Amazon has claimed the top spot among online retailers in the United States, capturing a significant share of the market. With this level of market dominance, Amazon’s platform is hyper-competitive, making it essential for brands to find ways to stand out. One of those ways is PPC advertising.
PPC lets you promote your products strategically and reach potential customers who might otherwise go with a competitor. For a business, this translates to a predictable, scalable way to drive sales and grow your brand presence on Amazon.
Types of Amazon PPC Ads
Amazon PPC offers three main ad types, each serving distinct goals. Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Sponsored products: These ads promote individual product listings. They’re an effective way to increase visibility for specific products and appear prominently in search results, which can significantly impact product sales.
- Sponsored brands: These ads showcase multiple products under your brand name and logo. They’re ideal for businesses with a portfolio of products, as they reinforce brand awareness and help customers view you as a one-stop solution.
- Sponsored display: These ads reach beyond Amazon, retargeting shoppers who’ve visited your product pages on Amazon and even on external sites. These ads are powerful for keeping your brand front-of-mind and re-engaging customers who may not have completed a purchase.
How Does Amazon PPC Work?
Amazon PPC operates on a cost-per-click model, where sellers compete to display their ads based on a bidding system — one of the key PPC benefits being that you only pay for actual interest, not just impressions.
Here’s how it works.
- Bid setting: You set a maximum bid — the most you’re willing to pay per click. Higher bids tend to win higher ad placements, especially for popular keywords.
- Auction process: Each time a user searches for a product, Amazon holds a mini auction between sellers bidding on that keyword. Your ad placement is determined by a combination of your bid and the relevance of your ad to the search term.
- Ad placement and payment: If someone clicks on your ad, you’re charged based on your bid or a fraction thereof, depending on competition. This means you’re paying for genuinely interested traffic rather than just hoping for clicks.
Setting Up and Managing Amazon PPC Campaigns
Amazon is where 56% of consumers across all generations begin their search for products online, making it the top choice for product discovery. With careful targeting, budgeting, and optimization, you can capture this vast audience and drive sales.
Creating and managing Amazon PPC campaigns involves several steps. Here’s a streamlined approach.
- Choose your campaign type
- Set your budget and bids
- Perform deep keyword research
- Define targeting: Manual vs. automatic campaigns
- Optimize product listings
- Monitor and adjust regularly
Choose Your Campaign Type
Start by assessing what you want to achieve — whether it’s building brand awareness, increasing visibility for specific products, or re-engaging past visitors. Starting with campaigns that offer targeted visibility and potential for quick results is a practical approach.
Once you’ve chosen a campaign that fits your initial goals, you can expand into more advanced strategies as you gather insights and adapt. Matching your campaign type to specific business objectives creates a strong foundation for effective advertising.
As you set up your campaign, consider organizing your ads into PPC ad groups. This structure allows you to group similar products or keywords, enabling more precise targeting and easier performance tracking.
Set Your Budget and Bids
Establish a daily budget and set bids for keywords or target audiences that align with your campaign.
As Sérgio Terrível, CEO of Znetguru, advises, “Managing ad budgets in 2025 isn’t just about crunching numbers — it’s about playing smarter, faster, and bolder. You want your ad spend to hit like a lightning bolt, and with the right strategies, it can. Start by unleashing AI-powered budget optimization — it’s a total game-changer.”
By allowing artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize your ad budgets, you’re setting up a PPC strategy ready to go head-to-head with competitors.
Perform Deep Keyword Research
Effective keyword research is the key to a successful Amazon PPC campaign. A solid keyword strategy helps your ads reach the right audience while minimizing unnecessary spend.
Here are a few tips to get you started.
- Use Amazon’s search bar: Typing in a keyword shows you what people are searching for. Also, Amazon’s search term reports and suggestions offer insights into popular search terms.
- Try third-party tools: Tools like Helium 10 or MerchantWords give you insight into search volumes and competition.
- Spy on competitors: Look at the keywords top competitors use — these can serve as benchmarks and provide inspiration for your own list.
- Set negative keywords: Negative keywords prevent your ad from appearing for irrelevant searches, which can save budget and improve targeting.
Define Targeting: Manual vs. Automatic Campaigns
Amazon offers two targeting options for campaigns, manual and automatic. Each has its benefits based on your experience level and business goals.
Automatic Campaigns
Automatic campaigns are a great entry point, as Amazon uses its algorithm to match your product with relevant search terms. This option requires minimal effort to set up and lets Amazon do the heavy lifting.
Here’s how to get started in three simple steps:
- Set your daily budgets and bids: Start with a manageable daily budget and adjust as you gather performance data.
- Choose products to advertise: Select products you want to promote — Amazon will automatically choose keywords based on your product listing details.
- Launch and monitor: Once set up, automatic campaigns provide valuable keyword insights, which you can later use in manual campaigns.
Manual Campaigns
Manual campaigns offer greater control, letting you choose specific keywords. While they may require more time to set up, they’re more precise, allowing you to refine performance and reduce ad spend.
Here’s how to do it:
- Research keywords: Invest time in keyword research (we’ll cover that next) and use tools to find terms that closely match your products.
- Adjust bids by keyword: Fine-tune your bids by keyword to control spending on each term.
- Monitor closely: Regularly review performance and adjust bids or remove underperforming keywords.
Now, combining both types allows you to balance ease and precision, maximizing visibility while collecting data to fuel future strategies.
Optimize Product Listings
Your Amazon PPC ad can bring traffic to your product page, but if your listing isn’t optimized, it won’t convert.
Here’s how to spruce it up.
- Ensure your main keywords appear naturally in the title
- Use high-quality images that show your product from every angle
- Highlight features and benefits in a way that speaks to your customers’ needs
And, as a pro tip, if you’re an Amazon seller with a registered brand, you can use Amazon’s A+ Content tool to tell a richer story and keep shoppers engaged.
Monitor and Adjust Regularly
Track performance daily or weekly, tweaking bids, budgets, and keywords based on what’s working and what’s not.
As Terrível highlights, “In 2025, leveraging the right data points is essential for boosting campaign effectiveness. Conversion rate (CVR) is key, revealing how well ads turn clicks into sales. If CVR dips, it’s a call to action — try new creatives or refine targeting. In a competitive landscape, every conversion counts.”
By monitoring the right metrics through a PPC audit you can make data-driven adjustments to keep your campaigns on track.
Optimizing Your Amazon PPC Campaign
Optimizing your Amazon PPC campaigns is essential to boost results while keeping costs in check, leading to a stronger return on investment (ROI). Bid adjustments should be made regularly, increasing bids for high-performing keywords and reducing them for those that underperform. Removing ineffective keywords helps allocate your budget more efficiently.
Testing different ad copy and images can reveal which combinations drive the most clicks. Regularly reviewing campaign reports allows you to make data-driven adjustments in your PPC optimization strategy that enhance performance over time.
Amazon PPC Guide: The Bottom Line
Amazon PPC might seem complex, but it’s a powerful tool to boost your sales if used strategically. Keep testing, learning, and optimizing, and remember, patience is key.
After all, if navigating this landscape feels overwhelming, partnering with an Amazon PPC agency can be the right choice. These agencies specialize in crafting data-driven campaigns to maximize visibility and sales, helping you tap into Amazon’s vast marketplace with expert guidance.
Success won’t happen overnight, but with a solid Amazon PPC strategy, you’re in for a rewarding journey.
Amazon PPC Guide FAQs
1. Which is better, automatic or manual Amazon PPC targeting?
Both have their place. Automatic PPC targeting is great for data collection, while manual is best for precise targeting and higher returns. The right combination of both provides flexibility.
2. How can I tell if my Amazon PPC campaign is profitable?
Keep an eye on your advertising cost of sales (ACoS), which shows how much you spend on ads to generate 1$ in revenue. A lower ACoS generally indicates a more profitable campaign, though optimal levels vary by product and profit margin.
3. Should I always bid on high-volume keywords?
Not necessarily. While high-volume keywords bring more traffic, they’re often more competitive and costly. Consider balancing your strategy with a mix of high-volume and long-tail keywords from a broader reach at a lower cost.
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