How often should I harvest keywords from Amazon PPC?
Weekly for active accounts, bi-weekly for smaller ones. Pull the search-term report from the last 7 to 14 days, promote high-converting search terms into exact-match campaigns, and add wasteful ones as negatives. Any longer than 2 weeks and you burn budget on losers.
The weekly loop
Pull search-term report. Flag terms with 10+ clicks and CVR at least half your SKU average as promotion candidates. Flag terms with 15+ clicks and 0 orders as negative candidates.
Where sellers over-harvest
Do not promote a search term after 3 clicks. The signal is not real. Do not negative-match everything with a bad ACoS in week 1; give converting terms 2 to 4 weeks unless spend is runaway.
Frequently asked questions
Should I use negative exact or negative phrase?
Negative exact for one-off wasted terms. Negative phrase for whole themes of irrelevant queries.
Do I harvest from auto and broad only?
Yes, mostly. Exact campaigns already run on the winning terms.
Can I automate harvesting?
Yes. Rules-based tools do the mechanics well. Keep human review on the final promote list.
See this in Nova
Nova surfaces this metric per SKU in near real time so you can act before your next monthly close catches it.
Try Nova free for 14 daysRelated questions
Sponsored Brands vs Sponsored Products: which should I run first?
Sponsored Products first, every time. SP drives direct sales on ready-to-buy queries and gives the fastest read on unit economics. Sponsored Brands adds top-of-funnel brand exposure and store traffic but usually shows a longer payback and needs SP data first to know which keywords deserve the SB budget.
How do I find wasted Amazon PPC spend?
Pull 60 days of search-term reports. Flag any search term with 15+ clicks and 0 orders as negative candidates. Flag campaigns whose 30-day ACoS is 2x your target with no volume gain as pause candidates. Between the two, most accounts recover 5% to 15% of budget in a week.
Do I need branded defense PPC campaigns on Amazon?
Yes, if competitors bid on your brand terms or you are brand-registered with real branded search volume. A dedicated Sponsored Products exact campaign on your brand keywords is cheap insurance. Add Sponsored Brands headline on your top brand queries to own the fold.
How do bid adjustments by placement work in Amazon PPC?
Amazon lets you multiply bids on Top of Search, Product Pages, and Rest of Search, up to 900% on each. Top of Search converts best on brand and high-intent keywords. Product Pages work for competitor conquest. Rest of Search is often the least profitable and rarely deserves a positive adjustment.