How to structure Amazon Sponsored Products so you can actually read them

Most struggling Amazon ad accounts do not have a bidding problem. They have a structure problem: one campaign holding many products, many match types and no clear purpose, so nobody can say what is working.

1Start with the job each campaign does

Give every campaign one job. A common, readable layout for a product line looks like this:

• Discovery (auto): lets Amazon match your listing to searches and products you did not think of. Lower bids, treated as research.
• Broad / phrase: explores variations around keywords you already believe in.
• Exact: only proven search terms. This is where you spend with confidence and bid for position.
• Product targeting: your own ASINs (defence) and selected competitor or complementary ASINs.

2Keep branded and non-branded apart

Searches for your brand name convert differently and cost less than generic searches. Mixed together, branded terms flatter the averages and hide how generic campaigns are really performing. Run them as separate campaigns so each has an honest ACOS.

3Group by economics, not by convenience

Products with very different margins or prices should not share a budget. A high-margin item can afford a higher ACOS than a thin-margin one. Putting both in one campaign forces a single target that is wrong for at least one of them.

4Name things so they explain themselves

A simple convention pays for itself within a month. For example: Product line | Match type | Purpose, such as "Notebooks | Exact | Proven". Anyone opening the account, including you in six months, can read it without a guide.

5The weekly loop that makes the structure work

1. Review the search-term report of the discovery and broad campaigns.
2. Take terms that convert at an acceptable ACOS and add them to the exact campaign.
3. Add those same terms as negative exact in the source campaign, so the two do not bid against each other.
4. Add clear non-converters as negatives.
5. Check that your best campaigns are not running out of budget before the day ends.

6Sponsored Brands and Display

Sponsored Brands (which requires Brand Registry) and Sponsored Display are useful layers once Sponsored Products is stable. Add them after the basics are readable, not instead of them.

A structure like this is the starting point of our account audit: before changing a single bid, we map what each campaign is for.