AMAZON / PPC & ADVERTISING
Amazon PPC: ACoS, TACoS and bids read against margin.
Amazon PPC is the pay-per-click advertising sold inside Amazon: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display. Every click is paid for whether or not it sells, so spend is judged against each product's margin.
WHAT THIS TOPIC COVERS
Many advertising problems start outside the campaign.
A campaign can look expensive because the listing does not convert, the price is out of line, stock is short or the margin never covered the clicks. Bid changes fix none of these, so advertising is read next to listing, stock and margin data.
- Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display
- ACoS and TACoS read against margin per unit
- Search-term review and keyword harvesting
- Bid rules that change one thing at a time
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Amazon PPC questions.
What is ACoS on Amazon?
ACoS (advertising cost of sales) is advertising spend divided by the sales attributed to those ads. A lower ACoS means each ad-driven sale cost less to win. Whether a given ACoS is acceptable depends on the product's margin, so the target is set product by product.
What is the difference between ACoS and TACoS?
TACoS (total advertising cost of sales) divides advertising spend by all sales, organic ones included. ACoS measures how efficient the ads are; TACoS shows how much of the business depends on them. When TACoS rises while total sales stay flat, advertising is paying for sales the product used to make on its own.
How should Amazon PPC campaigns be structured?
A common structure separates automatic campaigns, which discover search terms, from manual campaigns that bid on terms already proven, and keeps products with a similar margin together. Separate match types make it clear which search term produced each sale. The right structure is one the team can review every week without confusion.
Should low-performing keywords be paused?
No. We lower the bid towards the minimum instead, so the keyword keeps collecting data cheaply and can recover if the listing or price improves. A term clearly unrelated to the product also goes to the minimum bid and is flagged for review, not paused or added as a negative. Each change follows a written rule and is logged.
GUIDES
Guides on Amazon advertising.
Each guide covers one metric, campaign type or bid decision.
How to Set Amazon PPC Bids
How to set Amazon PPC bids from target ACoS, conversion rate, order value and search term data, and when to raise, lower or hold each bid.
RELATED TOPICS
Topics that decide whether ads pay.
Analytics & intelligence
Search Query Performance and sales data to read next to advertising reports.
NEXT STEP
Campaigns running and no one reviewing them each week?
Campaign upkeep comes out of a prepaid bag of hours; our Amazon Ads tool proposes each bid change and a person approves it. For a second look at your campaigns before any change, book consulting by the hour.
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