Overview

Amazon’s pay‑per‑click (PPC) platform can be a primary driver of sales for many sellers, yet mis‑managed campaigns quickly erode profit margins. Recent data shows that a sizable share of advertisers overlook basic setup and ongoing optimization tasks, resulting in high ACOS and wasted spend. Recognizing and correcting these frequent errors is essential for preserving advertising dollars and scaling growth.

Key Points

• Overreliance on broad‑match — Campaigns that lean heavily on broad‑match terms often allocate up to 40 % of their budget to searches that have little relevance, pushing ACOS higher.
• Missing negative keywords — Sellers that neglect to add negatives typically waste around $1.2 million each month on clicks that never convert.
• Bids left unchanged — Accounts that keep bids static for weeks forgo the chance to cut cost‑per‑click by roughly 15 % during low‑competition windows.
• Neglecting search‑term mining — Skipping the Search Terms report hides lucrative long‑tail keywords that could lower ACOS by about 10 %.
• Even budget splits — Distributing daily budgets evenly across all campaigns often starves high‑potential listings, limiting overall sales volume.
• Ignoring seasonal bid shifts — Failing to raise bids for holiday spikes can shave 25 % off impression share during peak buying periods.

How Common PPC Mistakes Occur

1. Choosing keywords without intent screening — Sellers add high‑volume, generic terms without confirming shopper intent; for instance, a “wireless charger” ad may appear for “wireless headphones,” generating clicks that never result in a sale.
2. Skipping negative‑keyword implementation — After a few days the Search Terms report may reveal irrelevant queries such as “free charger”; without adding these as negatives, the ad continues to attract non‑buyers.
3. Relying on default automatic campaigns — Automatic targeting spreads bids across thousands of ASINs; a seller who leaves the default $0.75 bid may overpay for low‑margin placements that deliver little return.