Amazon seller guide
Amazon PPC Guide for Indian Sellers: Sponsored Products, Brands and Display
Advertising is how most new products get their first sales on Amazon, and how established products defend their positions. Done well, ads pay for themselves and lift organic rank. Done badly, they quietly eat the margin. This guide gives you a simple, repeatable structure.
The ad types
- Sponsored Products – promote individual listings in search and on product pages. Start here.
- Sponsored Brands – headline ads with your logo and several products; needs Brand Registry.
- Sponsored Display – retargeting and product-page placements; useful once you have traffic.
A simple campaign structure
For each product (or group of near-identical variations), create:
- Auto campaign – Amazon finds search terms for you. Use it for discovery.
- Manual exact – your proven keywords at controlled bids.
- Manual phrase/broad – for finding longer variations.
- Product targeting – your listings on competitor pages with weaker reviews or higher prices.
Every week, move search terms that convert from auto and broad into exact, and add them as negatives in the discovery campaigns so they do not compete.
Bids and budgets
Start bids near Amazon's suggested range, then adjust by results. A simple rule: target ACoS = your margin before ads. If a product has 30% margin before advertising, keywords running above 30% ACoS lose money unless you are deliberately investing in rank.
Never let budgets run out early in the day – you miss evening shoppers. Increase budgets on campaigns that are profitable and capped.
Negative keywords
Review the search term report weekly. Add as negative exact any search term that has spent around the cost of one or two sales with no orders, and any term that is clearly irrelevant (wrong gender, wrong age, wrong product).
ACoS vs TACoS
ACoS = ad spend ÷ ad sales. TACoS = ad spend ÷ total sales. If TACoS falls over time while sales grow, your ads are building organic sales – the goal. If TACoS rises, you are becoming dependent on ads.
Weekly routine (30 minutes)
- Harvest converting search terms into exact campaigns.
- Add negatives for wasted spend.
- Lower bids on high-ACoS keywords; raise on profitable ones with low impressions.
- Check placements – top of search often converts best.
- Pause ads on products that are low on stock.
Launching ads for a brand-new product
New products have no sales history, so Amazon shows them less. Start with an auto campaign at a moderate bid and an exact campaign on 5–10 highly relevant keywords at a slightly higher bid. Expect a higher ACoS for the first two to four weeks – you are buying data and first reviews. Set a launch budget in advance so you know when to judge results.
Reading the search term report
Sort by spend. For each expensive term ask three questions: Is it relevant? Has it produced orders? Is the cost per order below your target? Relevant terms with good orders move to exact campaigns; relevant terms with no orders yet get a lower bid; irrelevant terms become negatives. This one report, reviewed weekly, is where most savings come from.
Placement and dayparting
Use placement modifiers to bid more for top of search if that placement converts well for you. Look at hourly patterns: many categories sell more in the evening. Make sure budgets last into those hours rather than running out in the morning.
Common PPC mistakes
- One campaign with hundreds of keywords – impossible to control.
- No negatives, so the same irrelevant searches spend every day.
- Changing bids daily based on one or two clicks.
- Advertising products with poor listings or no stock.
- Judging ads only by ACoS and ignoring the organic sales they create.
Checklist
- One auto + one exact campaign per product
- Target ACoS set from margin
- Weekly search-term review
- Negative list maintained
- Budgets never exhausted by midday
- TACoS tracked monthly
Free tools for Amazon sellers
The Amazon label crop with SKU stamping on LabelCroppers crops Easy Ship and Self Ship labels to 4×6, reads the SKU and quantity from each invoice and prints them on the label, sorts orders by SKU and builds a picklist. Pair it with the FBA FNSKU sticker generator and the FBA box label tool for FBA shipments. Everything runs in your browser – your orders and customer data are never uploaded.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good ACoS on Amazon India?
It depends on your margin. A good ACoS is one below your margin before ads, unless you are deliberately investing to rank a new product.
Should I turn off auto campaigns?
No – keep them at lower bids for discovery and use negatives so they do not compete with your exact campaigns.
How much should a new seller spend?
Start small per product per day and scale budgets on campaigns that show profitable sales.
Sources and official links
Marketplace fees and policies change often. Always confirm current rules in your seller panel.