12 Amazon PPC Mistakes That Waste Money & How to Fix Them

Are you thinking Amazon PPC doesn’t really make a difference to your sales? If so, you might be making Amazon PPC mistakes that are stopping your products from gaining the visibility they need to succeed.

Amazon PPC advertising is one of the most effective tools to boost your products’ visibility and increase sales. These ads help drive relevant traffic to your listings, giving your products a better chance to stand out.

Many sellers, however, conclude that PPC doesn’t work and see it as a waste of money. The truth is, most of them don’t use it effectively, which prevents them from seeing any real results.

So, is it Amazon, or are you making mistakes that drain your budget? In this guide, our Amazon agency will highlight the most common PPC mistakes and provide actionable tips to fix them.

Table of Contents

The Common Amazon PPC Mistakes

With millions of sellers on the Amazon platform, getting your products noticed can be an uphill battle, especially if you’re competing in a crowded niche. Fortunately, Amazon gives sellers a chance to boost visibility through PPC ad campaigns, which can be a powerful tool to drive traffic and sales.

The problem is that sellers dive into PPC without fully understanding how to use it effectively. This often results in wasted ad spend, growing frustration, and no meaningful return on their investment.

So, to help Amazon sellers make the most of their ad spend and avoid costly errors, we’ve compiled a list of the common Amazon PPC mistakes. Along with each mistake, we’ll share practical solutions to help you fix them and see real results from your campaigns.

1. Set and Forget Approach

Many Amazon sellers wrongly assume that Amazon PPC campaigns run themselves after launch. This hands-off approach wastes ad spend on poor-performing keywords and irrelevant placements.

Without regular adjustments, campaigns can’t keep up with shifting customer behavior or competitor tactics, missing chances to optimize bids and targeting. The result? Stagnant performance, reduced sales, and shrinking profits.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Review campaign performance weekly or biweekly to track metrics such as ACOS, CTR, and impressions.
  • Continuously test and refine keyword targeting, including adding negative keywords to prevent wasted spend.
  • Use insights from the data to adjust ad copy, images, or placements to maximize effectiveness.
  • Optimize bids based on keyword performance; reduce bids for low-performing keywords and increase bids for high-performing ones.

2. Not Diversifying Campaign Types

Relying on just one type of PPC campaign limits your reach and ability to meet different marketing goals. Many sellers stick to Sponsored Products, focusing solely on direct sales while missing chances to build brand awareness or retarget potential customers.

This narrow strategy reduces visibility across the customer journey and weakens overall advertising performance. Diversifying campaigns is key to maximizing impact and reaching broader audiences.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Familiarize yourself with the key PPC campaign options Amazon offers:
    • Sponsored Products: Ideal for direct sales by targeting specific keywords or products to appear on search results and detail pages.
    • Sponsored Brands: Great for boosting brand awareness with ads that display multiple products above search results.
    • Sponsored Display: Useful for retargeting customers who have shown interest in your products, both on Amazon and across external sites.
  • Use a mix of campaign types to target buyers at different stages of the purchasing funnel, from brand discovery to retargeting.
  • Continuously monitor the performance of each campaign type and allocate budgets to those delivering the best results while optimizing underperforming ones.
Amazon PPC Mistakes - Ad types Cheatsheet
Amazon Ad Types Cheatsheet

3. Poor Keyword Strategy

A lot of Amazon sellers skip thorough keyword research, wasting ad spend on ineffective terms. A common mistake is prematurely moving high-performing keywords from broad or auto campaigns to exact match, cutting off valuable customer search insights.

Broad and auto campaigns help identify effective keywords and refine strategy. Rushing the process or relying on generic terms leads to irrelevant traffic, higher costs, and weaker campaign performance.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Let campaigns gather data on customer search behavior and identify top-performing keywords.
  • Move successful keywords to exact match campaigns once enough data is collected to ensure good performance.
  • Focus on long-tail keywords that are specific to your product and audience for better conversion rates.
  • Review keyword performance regularly, adding new high-performing terms and using negative keywords to remove irrelevant searches.

4. Neglecting Negative Keywords

Failing to utilize negative keywords allows ads to appear for unrelated search terms that don’t align with your product. This results in unnecessary clicks, poor conversion rates, and higher advertising costs.

These clicks rarely lead to sales and make it harder to track what works. Over time, this drives up ACOS and lowers ROI, weakening your PPC results.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Review search term reports frequently and identify irrelevant or underperforming keywords to exclude from your campaigns.
  • Initially aim for a balance where you have one negative keyword for every targeted keyword in your campaigns.
  • As campaigns grow, adjust the ratio to 2:1 or 3:1, incorporating more negative keywords to refine traffic further and minimize waste.
  • Continuously analyze performance metrics to ensure your negative keyword list remains relevant and up-to-date.
Amazon PPC Mistakes - Negative Targeting Question
Negative Targeting Question

5. Ignoring Auto Campaigns

Some sellers drop auto campaigns after switching to manual, thinking manual is enough. This skips valuable data from auto campaigns, like new keywords and customer search trends.

Without this insight, sellers miss chances to improve targeting and boost sales. Over-reliance on manual campaigns can result in a narrower focus, reduced reach, and wasted ad spend.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Use auto campaigns to explore new keyword opportunities and gather insights into how customers search for your products.
  • Set up an auto campaign with low bids that target all your products, allowing you to identify sales opportunities with minimal cost.
  • Regularly review the performance data from auto campaigns and transfer successful keywords to manual campaigns for fine-tuning.
  • Use auto and manual campaigns together to create a more comprehensive PPC strategy.

6. Mediocre Ad Content

Poor ad content with dull images or boring text makes it hard to grab customer attention or show why your product is worth buying. Since ads are often the first thing customers see, they need to stand out and clearly explain your product’s value.

Good ads encourage clicks and boost sales. Weak ads lead to wasted money and fewer sales.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Use compelling and clear language that highlights the key benefits of your product. Incorporate relevant keywords to connect with your target audience.
  • Ensure your images are high-quality, engaging, and informative. Showcase the product in use or emphasize unique features to make the ad more attractive.
  • Create ads that resonate with your audience and reflect your brand’s identity, fostering trust and recognition.
  • Regularly test different ad variations using tools like PickFu

7. Lack of Landing Page Optimization

Driving traffic to your product page or Amazon Brand Storefront is only half the job. If these pages aren’t optimized, visitors are less likely to buy.

A poorly organized or incomplete listing or Brand Storefront can make customers lose trust or miss the value of your product, causing them to leave without purchasing. Even the best PPC ads won’t deliver results if the landing page doesn’t turn visitors into buyers, wasting your ad spend.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Add relevant keywords to your product title, bullet points, and backend to improve visibility.
  • Keep titles concise, clear, and keyword-rich to quickly convey product value.
  • Highlight key features and benefits for easy scanning.
  • Focus on solving customer pain points and emphasizing product value.
  • Use multiple angles and lifestyle shots to help customers visualize the product.
  • Build trust and influence buying decisions.
  • Ensure pricing aligns with market trends.
  • Use A+ content like extra images and videos to boost conversions.

8. Ineffective Budget and Bid Management

Sellers often overlook how budget and bid management affect ACOS. Poor budget limits and unadjusted bids can lead to overspending or missed opportunities, hurting profitability.

A high ACOS indicates you’re spending too much on advertising relative to the sales you’re generating, which ultimately eats into your profit margins. Sellers who neglect bid adjustments often fail to remain competitive in the auction system, leading to either missed impressions or unnecessarily high costs per click.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Track ACOS regularly to optimize ad spend and maximize profits.
  • Use manual bidding to adjust bids based on performance.
  • Focus on high-converting keywords for better targeting.
  • Exclude irrelevant keywords to reduce wasted spend.
  • Optimize your listings to improve conversions and lower ACOS.

9. Inefficient Targeting Strategies

Inefficient targeting in Amazon PPC campaigns wastes ad spend and harms performance. Over-diversifying by using all campaign types and targeting broad or irrelevant keywords leads to mismatched ads and lower conversions.

Too broad targeting results in irrelevant traffic, wasted clicks, and low sales. High-volume keywords can drive unqualified traffic. Over-diversification also makes it harder to optimize and track performance effectively.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Begin with Sponsored Products for targeted traffic before expanding.
  • Target long-tail, specific keywords for better conversions.
  • Focus on terms aligned with your product and customer intent.
  • Once primary campaigns are optimized, cautiously try other targeting options.

10. Doubling Up Campaigns and Ad Groups

Doubling up campaigns or ad groups occurs when sellers create duplicate campaigns targeting the same keywords or audience, often by combining different match types (e.g., broad, phrase, exact) or running identical campaigns without a clear purpose. This leads to internal competition, where multiple campaigns fight for the same keywords, causing unnecessarily high costs.

Additionally, this strategy creates confusion in performance data, making it difficult to determine which campaign or match type is driving results. As a result, sellers may struggle to optimize effectively, and redundant campaigns end up draining the budget, rather than focusing on high-performing strategies.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Create distinct campaigns or ad groups for each match type. 
  • Use descriptive naming conventions to easily track what each campaign or ad group is targeting.
  • Ensure each campaign or ad group has a specific purpose and unique targeting to avoid overlap. For instance:
    • Broad match for discovery.
    • Phrase match for refined targeting.
    • Exact match for high-converting, specific keywords.

11. Turning Off Old Campaigns Prematurely

Sellers may disable older campaigns when switching PPC partners or hiring new managers who want to start fresh. They may also do so if the older campaigns have unclear structures or naming conventions, leading to the assumption that they are underperforming.

This can lead to the loss of valuable historical data, which helps Amazon’s algorithm assess a campaign’s relevance and effectiveness. Disabling older campaigns can also result in higher ACOS and reduced visibility as new campaigns take time to “warm up”.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Identify campaigns that are still generating sales with a reasonable ACOS.
  • Focus on top-performing keywords and create new campaigns for the rest.
  • Split multi-product campaigns into single-product ones for better control.
  • Fix issues like poor naming conventions without disrupting performance.
  • If creating new campaigns, let them run alongside old ones to compare results before making changes.

12. Not Setting Clear Goals or Boundaries

Some sellers skip setting clear objectives, such as targets for ACOS or ROAS and create too many campaigns without focus. This can lead to mismanagement of budgets and bids, overspending, or limiting high-potential campaigns.

Without clear goals, resources may be allocated inefficiently, and sellers may overspend on underperforming campaigns. Over-diversification leads to fragmented data, making performance evaluation difficult and risking the premature cutting of successful campaigns.

A Better Approach or Solution

  • Define specific targets like ACOS, ROAS, and daily spend limits to align with your business objectives.
  • Control ad spend by adjusting bids instead of limiting daily budgets.
  • Regularly monitor performance and tweak bids for keywords accordingly.
  • Avoid overcomplicating by having fewer campaigns with clear goals and easy-to-track structures.
  • Use performance data to refine your campaigns and adjust your goals over time to stay aligned with your priorities.

Quiz Your Amazon PPC Knowledge

Want to see how well you know Amazon PPC? Take this quick quiz to test your knowledge and discover how to improve your campaigns for better performance and higher ROI.

Are you looking for ways to improve your PPC knowledge? Enroll in MAG School’s PPC Course today!

Avoid Costly Amazon PPC Mistakes

Amazon PPC can transform your product visibility and sales, but common mistakes like poor targeting and under-optimized listings often waste ad spend. By addressing these issues with the strategies outlined in this guide, you can maximize your campaign’s effectiveness and ROI.

Success with Amazon PPC requires regular monitoring, thoughtful adjustments, and a focus on data-driven decisions. Take the time to refine your approach, and you’ll see improved performance, better results, and more efficient use of your advertising budget.

Need help with your Amazon PPC strategy? Our full-service Amazon agency offers:

  • Keyword research to target the right audience.
  • Optimized campaigns designed for conversions.
  • ACOS reduction through profitable keyword focus.
  • Sales growth with ad audits and strategic pricing.
  • Weekly reports to track and optimize performance.
  • Creative designs to make your products stand out.

Reach out today, and let our team of Amazon PPC experts help you achieve results that go beyond clicks!

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Ken Zhou - Amazon Strategist

Ken Zhou, Chief Operating Officer

Hi I’m Ken, COO at My Amazon Guy, a high-performing operations team driving business growth through strategic leadership, sales excellence, and process optimization. We scale companies, streamline processes, and deliver significant revenue growth through innovative marketing strategies and scalable solutions.

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