Amazon PPC for Beginners: How to Set Up Sponsored Products

Amazon PPC (pay-per-click) is advertising on Amazon where you pay only when a shopper clicks your ad. In this Amazon PPC for beginners guide, the short answer is to start with Sponsored Products: ads for a single listing that appear in search results and on other product pages.

This guide walks you through what to set up first, how automatic and manual campaigns differ, how much to spend at the start, which numbers to watch, and the mistakes that waste most beginner budgets. Every rule below comes from Amazon's own advertising guides, linked as we go.

What is Amazon PPC?

Amazon PPC is the cost-per-click advertising system inside Amazon Ads. You choose a maximum bid, and Amazon's guide says you "bid the maximum amount that you're willing to pay when a shopper clicks an ad for your products." There are no monthly or upfront fees for Sponsored Products.

Amazon offers three main self-service ad types:

Start with Sponsored Products. It needs the least setup, shows ads where shoppers are already searching, and teaches you which search terms sell your product.

What do you need before you advertise on Amazon?

You need an active professional seller account (or a vendor account) and a product in an eligible category. Amazon's new advertiser guide says it does not support ads for adult, used or refurbished products, or products in closed categories, and your product must be eligible for the featured offer (the "Buy Box").

The listing matters as much as the ad, because the ad only brings the click. Amazon's best-practice guide recommends advertising products that have:

• Five or more customer reviews, with a rating of 3.5 stars or higher.
• Four or more high-quality, zoomable images.
• At least three bullet points describing the product.
• A title of roughly 60 characters that says what the product is.

If a listing falls short, fix it first. Paying for clicks to a weak listing is the fastest way to a high ACOS.

How do you set up your first Amazon PPC campaign?

Start with one automatic Sponsored Products campaign per product (or small group of similar products), then add manual campaigns once you have data.

1. Open the Amazon Ads console from Seller Central and choose Sponsored Products.
2. Pick automatic targeting. Amazon matches your ad to searches and products based on your listing.
3. Set a daily budget. Amazon recommends starting with a daily budget of $10 or the local equivalent.
4. Set no end date. Amazon's guides recommend running campaigns without an end date so they keep learning.
5. Choose a bidding strategy (covered below) and a default bid.
6. Launch, then leave it alone for about two weeks. Amazon suggests letting an automatic campaign run for about two weeks before creating a manual campaign, while checking your numbers at least twice a week in the first week.

Your daily budget is an average. Amazon explains that a $100 daily budget can mean up to $3,000 of clicks across a calendar month, so some days spend more and some less.

Automatic vs manual targeting: what is the difference?

Automatic targeting lets Amazon choose where your ad appears; manual targeting lets you choose the keywords or products yourself. Beginners use automatic campaigns to discover what works, and manual campaigns to control spend on what is proven.

The four automatic targeting groups

Amazon's targeting guide splits automatic campaigns into four groups you can bid on separately:

If one group spends a lot without selling, lower its bid instead of pausing the whole campaign.

Manual keyword match types

In a manual campaign you add keywords with one of three match types:

Amazon recommends the highest bid on exact match, a lower bid on phrase and the lowest on broad, because exact match is the most predictable. Its getting-started guide also suggests targeting at least 30 keywords in a manual campaign, starting with broad match and moving the top performers to phrase or exact.

Product targeting

Manual campaigns can also target specific products (by their 10-character ASIN) or whole categories, refined by brand, price, rating or Prime eligibility. This is useful for showing your ad on competitors' pages or on products that pair with yours.

How should you bid on Amazon PPC?

Use dynamic bids – down only while you are learning, because Amazon then lowers your bid when a click looks less likely to convert. Amazon offers three bidding strategies:

• Dynamic bids – down only: Amazon may lower your bid when a sale is less likely. Recommended when you are focused on return on ad spend.
• Dynamic bids – up and down: Amazon may also raise your bid when a sale is more likely.
• Fixed bids: Amazon uses the exact bid you entered.

You can also raise bids for specific placements (top of search, rest of search, and product pages) by up to 900%. Leave these at zero until the placement report shows that one placement converts clearly better than the others. Whatever you choose, your cost per click never exceeds your maximum adjusted bid.

Which Amazon PPC numbers should beginners watch?

Watch ACOS, sales, spend and the search term report. Everything else is detail until those four make sense.

Amazon's own ACOS guide puts it simply: your ACOS needs to be lower than your profit margin for ads to be profitable. Our guide to what a good ROAS is shows how to work out that break-even number from your margin.

For a sense of what a long-running account looks like: Sponsored Products campaigns we ran for a book publisher from October 2017 to May 2025 produced $526.6K in US sales and 31,126 orders on $165.7K of ad spend, an ACOS of 31.46%.

How do you optimize Amazon PPC campaigns?

Once a week, open the search term report, move what sells into manual campaigns, and block what does not. That loop is most of Amazon PPC management.

1. Harvest winners. Search terms from your automatic campaign that produced orders at an acceptable ACOS go into a manual campaign as exact or phrase match keywords.
2. Add negatives. Terms that get clicks but no sales become negative keywords. Amazon recommends waiting until a term has at least 20 clicks before deciding, and using phrase or exact match for negatives.
3. Adjust bids, not everything at once. Raise bids a little on keywords with a low ACOS and lower them on keywords above your target. Amazon suggests testing match types for at least one to two weeks before pausing keywords.
4. Fix the listing when conversion is low. If a keyword gets clicks but few orders, look at price, images, reviews and the title before blaming the bid.
5. Keep the automatic campaign running. It keeps finding new search terms as shopper behaviour changes.

Common Amazon PPC mistakes beginners make

1. Advertising a listing that is not ready. Few reviews, poor images or no featured offer means paying for clicks that cannot convert.
2. Judging too early. A few days of data says little. Give automatic campaigns about two weeks and keywords at least 20 clicks before cutting them.
3. Chasing a low ACOS at any cost. A very low ACOS on a tiny budget can mean you are missing profitable sales. Judge against your margin and total profit, not a number from a forum.
4. Never adding negative keywords. Irrelevant searches quietly drain the budget every day.
5. Setting an end date. Amazon recommends always-on campaigns with no end date, so stopping and restarting breaks the data you are learning from.

If you would rather hand this over, our performance marketing service runs Amazon, Google and Meta campaigns, and our pricing page shows the packages for your region. Custom quotes and small budgets are welcome. If you are still deciding where to advertise outside Amazon, see Google Ads vs Meta Ads.

Frequently asked questions

How much should I spend on Amazon PPC as a beginner?

Amazon recommends starting with a daily budget of about $10 per campaign, or the local equivalent. That is enough to collect clicks and search term data in the first few weeks. Increase the budget on campaigns that sell at an ACOS below your profit margin.

What is a good ACOS on Amazon?

A good ACOS is one below your profit margin before advertising. If your margin is 40%, any ACOS under 40% is profitable on the ad-driven sale itself. There is no universal target, because margins differ so much between products.

Should I start with automatic or manual campaigns?

Start with an automatic campaign. It shows you which searches and product pages lead to sales without you having to guess keywords. After about two weeks, move the proven search terms into a manual campaign where you control the bids.

How long does it take for Amazon PPC to work?

Expect to spend the first two to four weeks collecting data and making changes. Amazon's own guidance focuses on optimizing in the first 30 days, monitoring at least twice a week in the first week, then refining weekly with the search term report.

Can authors use Amazon PPC?

Yes. Authors with books on Amazon can run Sponsored Products ads for their titles, and Amazon publishes a separate author's guide to Sponsored Products. The same process applies: start automatic, harvest keywords, add negatives and watch ACOS against your royalty.

The bottom line

Amazon PPC rewards patience and a weekly routine more than clever tricks. Get the listing right, start one automatic Sponsored Products campaign at around $10 a day, give it two weeks, then move what sells into manual campaigns and block what does not. Judge everything against your own margin. If you want a second pair of eyes on an account, send us your current numbers and we will tell you where the budget is leaking.