If you haven’t been using negative keywords in your Amazon PPC campaigns, I have good news and bad news for you.

✅ The good news: there’s plenty of opportunity to improve your account’s performance!
⛔ The bad news: a lot of damage has already been done.

Fear not, I’m here to help.

In other words, use a negative keyword to tell Amazon when you don’t want your ad to show.

For example, if you sell plastic spoons on Amazon and bid on the phrase match keyword “spoons,” without negative keywords, your ad for plastic spoons could appear in a search for “wooden spoons” because that search query still contains the phrase “spoons.”

That shopper might even click your ad, realize it wasn’t what they wanted, and immediately leave. Amazon would still charge you for that click, but you’d have no sales to show for it.

❗ Avoid wasted spend by mastering your negative keywords.

How Are Negative Keywords Different from Regular Keywords?

Simply put, negative keywords are the opposite of normal keywords. Positive keywords trigger ads to show on a search page, and negative keywords don’t trigger for that page.

Additionally, regular keywords have three different match types: broad, phrase, and exact.
Negative keywords only have two match types: phrase and exact.

🦡 The Dangers of Not Using Negative Keywords:

- Unnecessary, wasteful ad spend
- Opportunity cost of wasted ad spend
- Lower product rankings
- Keyword cannibalization

❓ How to Find Good Negative Keywords

Thanks to the measurability of Amazon Advertising, it’s pretty easy to identify which search terms cause your campaign’s grief.

How to Add Negative Keywords in Amazon Seller Central

1. Navigate to your desired campaign/ad group.
2. Click the “Negative Keywords” tab.
3. Select which match type you want: negative phrase or negative exact.
4. Add your negative keywords.
5. Click “Add keywords” then “Save.”

🦡 Using Ad Badger’s Suite of Negative Keyword Tools

We created a tool that automatically performs the entire negative keyword process for your PPC campaigns.

Link here: https://lnkd.in/g6gT68Cf

FAQ About Amazon PPC Negative Keywords

1) Why Not Just Make a 100% “Exact Match” Account?

While making a 100% exact match account would solve the issue of showing up in unwanted searches, this strategy creates another problem: discoverability.

2) How much time should I spend on negative keywords?

Depending on your account size, it could take several hours at first to run through your data and manually add your negative keywords. Once you’ve done the initial setup, you should check each account at least once a week.

3) What do I do with search terms that are relevant but unprofitable?

You have two choices:

- Add the search term as a negative exact match to avoid further spend.
- Add the search term as a positive exact match keyword and significantly lower the bid for that keyword.