5 Amazon PPC Mistakes That Are Burning Your Budget

After auditing dozens of Amazon PPC accounts, I see the same mistakes over and over. Most sellers are wasting 20–40% of their ad spend without realising it.

Mistake 1: No Negative Keywords

Your auto campaign is showing your product for irrelevant search terms, and you're paying for every click. Check your search term report weekly and add irrelevant terms as negative keywords. This single action typically reduces wasted spend by 15–25%.

Mistake 2: One Campaign Does Everything

A single campaign with a mix of auto, broad, and exact keywords is impossible to optimise. Split into separate campaigns by match type so you can control budgets and bids independently.

Mistake 3: Set-and-Forget Bids

PPC isn't a set-it-and-forget-it channel. Bids need weekly adjustment based on performance data. Keywords that aren't converting after 20+ clicks should have bids reduced or be paused entirely.

Mistake 4: Ignoring Placement Data

Amazon shows you performance by placement (Top of Search, Product Pages, Rest of Search). Often, one placement converts at 2–3x the rate of another. Adjust placement modifiers to push budget toward what's working.

Mistake 5: Not Tracking TACoS

ACoS tells you about ad efficiency. TACoS tells you about business health. If your ACoS looks great but your TACoS is climbing, you're becoming more dependent on ads — which means less organic visibility and thinner margins.