10 Common Amazon PPC Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

When starting on a new platform, you usually learn through trial and error, gradually refining your strategy. Many marketers encounter similar challenges when beginning with Amazon PPC. To help you avoid these common pitfalls and get up to speed faster, we’ve compiled an overview of the 10 most frequent mistakes made in Amazon PPC.

1. Poor campaign structure
   A solid Amazon PPC strategy begins with a robust campaign structure and a consistent naming convention. A well-organized structure makes campaigns easier to analyze, understand by new team members, and manage efficiently. We recommend dividing campaigns by targeting type:

• Auto

• Manual keyword

• Manual ASIN

• Branded campaigns

Within each campaign, break down ad groups by product to enable precise targeting and better bid management.

2. No use of Keyword Harvesting
   Keyword Harvesting involves collecting relevant keywords from automatic campaigns, product feeds, or other sources to add into your manual campaigns. This expands your ad reach and allows for more strategic bidding.

3. Sole reliance on auto-campaigns
   Using only auto-campaigns limits bid refinement at the keyword and ASIN level. Since performance varies, this can result in overspending on low-performing terms and missed revenue opportunities on high performers. Amazon currently lacks advanced smart bidding like Google Ads.

4. Failing to use negative keywords and ASIN exclusions
   Without exclusion keywords, your auto-campaigns may trigger irrelevant search terms, wasting spend and reducing efficiency.

5. No product-level bid management
   Setting uniform bids across products misses key opportunities. Products differ in conversion rates (CR) and average order values (AOV), so bids should be tailored based on these metrics for optimal performance.

6. Adjusting bids too frequently
   Rapid bid changes early on can be counterproductive when data is limited and fragmented. It’s crucial to aggregate sufficient data before making informed bid adjustments to avoid over- or underbidding.

7. Limited daily budget
   Starting cautiously with budgets is common, but hitting your daily budget cap regularly means lost opportunities. Increasing your budget or lowering CPC can help you gain more clicks at a better cost.

8. No ACOS target
   Without a clear ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales) target, managing and optimizing campaigns is difficult. Define your target based on your profit margins to guide campaign decisions.

9. Ignoring organic sales impact
   Amazon PPC boosts organic sales, especially for new brands. Invest extra early on to accelerate growth, gain reviews, improve organic rankings, and increase buy box ownership, all of which enhance overall ad performance.

10. Not protecting your brand
    Competitors may bid on your brand name, diverting potential customers. Protect your brand by managing brand-related searches separately with dedicated strategies, preventing cannibalization of both organic sales and your ads.