Most Sellers Waste 30-50% of Their PPC Budget
Amazon PPC is powerful but unforgiving. Small mistakes compound into significant wasted spend over time. Here are the 7 most common errors I see when auditing seller accounts, and how to fix each one.
1. Running Only Auto Campaigns
Auto campaigns are a good starting point — Amazon chooses the keywords and placements. But relying only on auto means you have no control over which searches trigger your ads. The fix: use auto campaigns for keyword discovery, then move winning keywords into manual campaigns with specific bids.
2. Ignoring Negative Keywords
If you sell premium leather wallets, your auto campaign might show your ad for "cheap wallet" or "kids wallet." Every click on these irrelevant terms costs you money with almost zero chance of converting. Check your search term report weekly and add irrelevant terms as negative keywords. This single action typically reduces wasted spend by 15-25%.
3. Setting and Forgetting Bids
The competitive landscape changes constantly. A bid that won the top position last month might be losing money this month. Review bids every 1-2 weeks:
- Keywords with high ACOS (above your target) → reduce bids or pause
- Keywords with low ACOS and good volume → increase bids to capture more sales
- Keywords with impressions but no clicks → your bid is probably too low, increase or pause
4. Not Using Search Term Reports
The search term report shows exactly what customers typed when they clicked your ad. This is the most valuable data Amazon gives you, and most sellers never look at it. Download it weekly, find converting search terms, and add them as exact match keywords in a manual campaign with optimised bids.
5. Targeting Too Broadly
Broad match keywords cast a wide net, which is great for discovery but terrible for efficiency. If you bid on "wallet" as broad match, your ad shows for "wallet repair," "bitcoin wallet," "wallet phone case," etc. Use phrase match and exact match for your primary keywords. Keep broad match only for low-bid discovery campaigns.
6. Not Separating Branded and Non-Branded Campaigns
If people search for your brand name, they're going to buy from you regardless. Bidding on your own brand keywords is necessary (to prevent competitors from taking that space), but these campaigns should have separate budgets and lower bids than your prospecting campaigns.
7. Starting with Too Much Budget
New sellers often set aggressive daily budgets hoping to force sales velocity. The result: £50/day spent with a 50%+ ACOS, burning through cash before you've learned anything. Start with £10-15/day, gather data for 2 weeks, optimise based on results, then gradually increase budget on what's working.
The Fix That Helps Most
If you only do one thing, download your search term report and add negative keywords. I've seen this single action reduce ACOS by 10-20 percentage points within a month. It takes 15 minutes per week and directly reduces wasted spend.
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