Amazon PPC for Beginners: A Simple Strategy to Launch and Scale New Products

If you are new to Amazon and running your brand from home, PPC strategies for new sellers can feel confusing. Most of them are incredibly detailed, and a few mistakes can cost you quite a lot of money.

The good news is that you do not need to be an expert to start strong. 

You only need a simple plan, a clean structure, and a few weekly habits. This article provides a simple PPC strategy for beginners looking to grow their Amazon business.

What PPC does for a new product

Several advantages optimized PPC campaigns bring to your listings, especially when you’re starting out and visibility is low.

PPC campaigns, at these stages, mainly help Amazon learn what your product is and who should see it.

• They bring early traffic and sales while your listing is still unknown.
• They improve your ranking when your ads convert well.
• They protect your product from competitors who might target your keywords.

However, none of this will have a real, long-lasting effect on your listing if its main elements aren’t solid. 

The strategy and best practices we’ll be sharing later assume you’re a new seller who has a listing with:

1. A main image that looks clear, professional, and follows Amazon’s rules.
2. Competitive pricing according to your category.
3. A clear understanding of your offer and what your ideal target audience is.

Once you have this, our PPC strategy will help you fill the remaining gaps to make your listing competitive and optimized. This means that you’ll find the means to:

• Have an optimized title with high Search Volume (SV) keywords.
• Collect at least 5 to 10 reviews, either through the Vine Program or organically.
• Build keyword-rich bullets and descriptions with the best keywords possible for your product.

Overall, learning how to run cost-effective PPC campaigns from the beginning is the best possible practice you can carry on. After all, PPC will always be a part of your ad strategy, whether you’re an established seller or not.

We’re going to cover the three most relevant activities related to PPC campaigns and what to focus on in the stage you’re in. These are:

1. Keyword Research

Performing keyword research is the main way through which you’ll get the actual keywords to write your listings. It’s very important. If you fail at this stage, you’ll risk your visibility and ad campaigns efficiency.

Keyword research is a necessary, time-consuming process. Amazon explains that keywords help the system understand which customer searches should trigger your ad. If your keywords are wrong or not precise enough, then your visibility will plummet. 

There are a few types of keywords:

1. Keywords: These are the ones that identify your product and should go in your listing. They should have high Search Volume and be relevant to your listing.
2. Backend keywords: These are hidden search terms that sellers add to a product listing to improve its visibility in Amazon’s search results. These could be typos, relevant keywords written in another language or phrases related to your product but not worth adding to your actual listing.
3. Restricted Keywords: Banned search terms by amazon. Don´t use them. They usually vary per category.
4. Competitor keywords: These are search terms that are directly related to your competitors. It´s usually the name of their brand or a product. You can’t use these neither.

Excluding restricted keywords, you’ll get examples from all of the above once you run your research. The thing is, you will have to sort them out once you have the results.

You can run keyword research through tools like Data Dive or Helium 10. 

If you don’t have them, use Amazon’s search bar to see relevant suggestions. 

Now, let’s go through how you can use this process to your advantage:

Your objective right now is to find long-tail keywords. The reason is that you’re looking for terms with a reasonable Search Volume (at least 2000) but with lower competition.

Of course, your listing will have the main keywords of your category. But you won’t rank very well in them, mainly because you’re just starting out and your visibility is lower than ever.

That’s why long-tail keywords are where there’s room to grow right now.

Here’s what they look like in Amazon’s search bar suggestions:

Keep doing this until you have a good number of keywords compatible with your listing. You will use them later.

2. Automatic campaigns

For a beginner, the Automatic Campaign feature of Amazon is your most valuable tool because it does the complex, expensive keyword research for you. It tells you exactly what phrases customers actually use to buy your product.

In the first stages, the goal is to collect data. You’ve already done your keyword research and your listings are up and running, but now it’s time to refine your strategy. You’ll run a Sponsored Products campaign.

There’s a set of very useful tips for beginners that sellers agree on:

• Set a conservative budget of $10 to $20 per day.
• Use the “dynamic bids – down only” strategy to avoid additional costs.
• Run the campaigns for 7 to 14 days to harvest the most amount of data possible.

Do not expect high results from these first automatic campaigns. You’re testing your listing and looking to refine. That’s why the key results are not in conversions right now, but in the resulting Search Term Report.

You can access this by navigating through Seller Central. Go to the sidebar and click on advertising reports beside the reports tab:

You will be directed to the report creation page. You must configure the settings to pull the correct data. Click on Create Report:

It’s now time to configure your Search Term Report. These are the settings:

• Report category: Sponsored Products
• Report Type: search Term
• Time unit: Summary
• Report period: Last 30 days
• 

Then you click on Run report.

What follows is the analysis of your Report. You’ll open the file through Excel or Sheets. It will look like this:

Scroll to the right, and you will find the most important column for keyword harvesting. These are:

• Customer Search Terms
• Spend
• 7 Day Total Orders
• Total Advertising Cost of Sales (ACOS)
• Total Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS)

How does this work? Well, you’ll want to filter the best-performing search terms and the losing ones. We’ll see what you’ll do with them later. For now, let’s see how you can access the successful, converting search terms.

1. Add a filter to the 7 Day Total Sales column
2. Set it so it shows only values greater than 0.
3. Extract those keywords and paste them into another file of your liking. You will use them later.

After filtering, your report will look like this:

Now it’s time to extract the loser search terms. These are the ones you don’t want to keep spending money on. Here’s how:

1. Set the filter in the 7 Day Total Sales column to show values equal to 0
2. Add another filter to the spend column.
3. Set it to only show values greater than $5. 

These are the search terms where you spent money but generated no sales. Collect them. You will use them in your Manual campaigns.

Manual Campaigns

Once your automatic campaigns finish collecting data, the next step is to take control of your results through Manual Campaigns. 

Manual campaigns let you decide exactly which keywords deserve your money and how aggressively you want to bid on them. 

As a new seller, you only need two types of manual campaigns: a Broad campaign and an Exact campaign. Together, they give you structure, stability, and a clear path to scale.

Broad Match Campaign

Here, you will extract the long-tail keywords of the converting search terms you found earlier in the Search Term Report. Mix them up with a few solid mid-volume keywords, and let Amazon show your ad for variations of those terms. 

This helps you uncover new phrases that didn’t appear in your Search Term Report but are still relevant to your product.

• Since broad match captures more variations, keep your list small at first. Five to ten keywords are enough. 

Set a modest daily budget and let this campaign run quietly in the background. Each week, you will check the search term report just like you did with your automatic campaigns and pull out any new converting terms. These will be added to your Exact campaign later.

Exact Match Campaign

The Exact campaign is the heart of your PPC strategy. This is where you place the converting keywords from your other campaigns.

Since these search terms have already shown that real customers used them to buy your product, you want to give them the best control and visibility.

In an Exact Match campaign, Amazon will only show your ad when someone searches for that exact phrase. This gives you clean data, predictable performance, and less wasted spend. Follow these rules:

1. Start with a small number of terms. Five to ten is ideal for beginners. 
2. Focus only on the phrases that generated real orders in your automatic campaign. These are your winners, and your Exact campaign will protect them.
3. You do not need to adjust these bids every day. Weekly reviews are more than enough. 
4. If a keyword keeps converting, you can slightly increase the bid to gain visibility. 
5. If a keyword spends money but stops generating orders, lower the bid or pause it. Keep your campaign healthy.

At this stage, you now have a simple ecosystem that works together. Your automatic campaign discovers what customers are actually typing. Meanwhile, your broad campaign continues exploring new variations. And finally, your exact campaign protects and scales the keywords that have already proven themselves.

Conclusion

Starting PPC is a much lighter experience if you enter with a simple structure and the openness to build new habits., The steps covered in this article may look small, but they make the foundation for long-term success. And as your business grows, your systems will grow with it.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why do I need both automatic and manual campaigns?

Automatic campaigns help you discover what customers are actually searching for. Manual campaigns let you take control of those insights. Using both gives you a healthy balance of discovery and optimization.

Why are long-tail keywords important in PPC campaigns?

Long-tail keywords have lower competition and are easier to rank for when your listing is new. They help your ads appear in places where your product is more likely to convert.

How do I know which keywords are worth keeping?

If a keyword brings clicks but no sales after spending several dollars, it is usually a bad fit. If it generates sales, even just one or two, it is a strong candidate for your Exact campaign.

Will my PPC results improve as my listing grows?

Yes. As you get more reviews and better visibility, your ads usually become more efficient. Strong listings and consistent PPC usually support each other over time. More so if your budget gets heavier.

Ready to Run PPC Campaigns That Actually Work?

You do not have to figure PPC out alone.

Most new sellers spend months guessing, adjusting bids blindly, or following random advice online. The sellers who grow faster are the ones who get real guidance early.

When you understand which keywords matter, how to set up campaigns correctly, and what to look for in your reports, everything becomes easier. Your spending becomes smarter and stress drops.

Fill out the form below and tell us a little about your brand. One of our Amazon advertising specialists will review your situation and reach out with clear, actionable insights you can use right away. No pressure. No complicated language. Just a simple conversation about how to improve your performance and avoid the costly beginner mistakes most sellers make.

You already started learning. Now take the next step toward mastering your PPC strategy.

Submit your info below and let’s build the plan that will help your product grow with confidence, clarity, and real direction.