2026-06-09 · 9 min
Amazon PPC Advertising: A Beginner Guide to Sponsored Products
Amazon Sponsored Products puts your listings in front of high-intent shoppers. Here is how to set up your first campaign without wasting budget on the wrong terms.
Why Amazon PPC Matters
Organic search ranking on Amazon is heavily influenced by sales velocity. New products have no sales history, which means they rank poorly organically regardless of listing quality. Sponsored Products advertising bridges this gap by putting new listings in front of shoppers before they have organic ranking. The sales you generate through PPC build the velocity signals that eventually improve organic placement.
Campaign Structure Basics
Amazon organizes PPC into campaigns, ad groups, and ads. A campaign has a daily budget and a campaign type (automatic or manual). An ad group contains a set of products and keywords or targeting. The ad is the product listing itself (Amazon uses your listing images, title, and price automatically).
Automatic vs. Manual Campaigns
Automatic campaigns let Amazon target your ads based on their analysis of your product and listing. They are useful for discovering which search terms convert for your product. Manual campaigns let you specify exact keywords and bid amounts. Most experienced sellers run both: automatic campaigns to find new converting terms, manual campaigns to scale spend on the terms that work.
Starting with Auto Campaigns
Set your first automatic campaign with a conservative daily budget (-20) and let it run for 2 weeks before making adjustments. Download the Search Term Report after 2 weeks. This shows which search terms triggered your ads and which ones converted to sales. Terms that generated sales become candidates for your manual campaigns.
Keyword Match Types
Broad match: your ad shows for any search containing your keyword in any order with additional words. High volume, lower relevance. Phrase match: your ad shows for searches containing your exact keyword phrase. Exact match: only for searches matching your keyword exactly. Start with broad and phrase match in auto campaigns, then use exact match in manual campaigns for your best-converting terms.
Negative Keywords
Negative keywords prevent your ads from showing for irrelevant searches. If you sell women's running shoes, add men's as a negative keyword so you do not pay for clicks from the wrong audience. Building a negative keyword list is as important as building the positive keyword list. Review the Search Term Report weekly and add consistently non-converting terms as negatives.