Amazon is about to change how we run ads.
By Mansour Norouzi · July 24, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Amazon is about to change how we run ads.
The first piece just showed up in the console. A new "Targeting strategy" beta inside manual Sponsored Products campaigns. One checkbox. Easy to scroll past.
Don't.
Turn it on and AI adds up to 4 new keywords and product targets every 12-24 hours. At or below your current bids. Based on your existing targets and what has worked for similar products.
It also pauses targets. And here Amazon shows its hand. These are the rules its algorithm uses to decide a target is not working:
▪️No impressions in 3 days
▪️No clicks in 7 days
▪️Over 15% of daily budget spent without converting
▪️20+ clicks with no conversion in 14 days
Worth remembering. When everything runs on AI, this is the logic deciding your spend.
🔴 Here is why I think Amazon is doing this, and where it is heading.
Google proved with Performance Max that automation grows ad revenue faster than any bidding UI. Amazon is behind on that curve.
And the incentive is simple. Every keyword the AI adds is another auction Amazon gets to monetize. "At or below your current bids" caps your risk. It does not cap their coverage.
So: opt-in beta first. Visible guardrails to build trust. And every campaign that opts in becomes training data, because "performed well for similar products" means Amazon learns from all of us at once.
Then it becomes the default. Then targeting merges with the ROAS-based bidding already sitting in the console. Then you hand Amazon a budget and a goal, and it does the rest.
Manual PPC is not dying today. But Amazon just told us how it ends.