Amazon PPC management for Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display.
We manage Amazon advertising for brands that sell through Seller Central, and we do it the same way we run our own Professional Seller accounts with Brand Registry.
That means Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands including video, and Sponsored Display, built as one account structure in Campaign Manager rather than a pile of auto campaigns. We mine the Search Term report every week, move winning queries into exact match, add negatives where spend leaks, and set bids and placement modifiers by what each campaign is for. The number we manage to is TACOS, total ad spend against total sales, because that is the number that tells you whether ads are building the business or renting it.
Questions this page answers
- How do I find an Amazon PPC agency that manages to TACOS instead of ACOS?
- What should an Amazon advertising campaign structure look like?
- How do I use the Search Term report to add negative keywords?
- Should I run Sponsored Brands video and Sponsored Display?
- How should Amazon ad budgets change around Prime Day and Q4?
- Do Amazon ads actually improve organic rank?
Step 1 of 2
How can we help you get found?
Next: name, email and budget. That’s it.
Where Amazon PPC pays off, and where it stalls.
Amazon advertising is an auction that runs inside the store where the buyer is already holding a credit card. Sponsored Products put a single ASIN into search results and product pages, Sponsored Brands put a headline, logo and several products or a video at the top of search, and Sponsored Display follows shoppers across product pages and off Amazon. Every click is priced by the auction, and every sale is attributed back to the ad inside a fixed window. Because the buyer is so close to purchase, ads also feed the sales velocity Amazon uses to rank listings organically.
Most accounts we audit were built by clicking the launch button on an auto campaign and adding keywords as someone had time. The result is the same search term bidding against itself in four campaigns, no negatives, branded searches soaking up budget that organic would have won anyway, and budgets that run dry by early afternoon. Reporting stops at ACOS, so a campaign that looks profitable on attributed sales can still be growing ad spend faster than the business. Nobody separates research from performance, so every test is paid for at full bids.
We rebuild the account around four jobs: research campaigns that find converting terms, performance campaigns that scale them in exact match, brand defense on your own name and listings, and competitor conquest on rival terms and ASINs. The Search Term report moves terms between those lanes every week and sets negatives in the lanes they came from. Bid strategy and top of search placement modifiers follow the job of each campaign, and budgets are paced by hour and by season. We judge all of it on TACOS and organic rank, pulled from Business Reports, not on ad metrics alone.
Feeds it
- Search Term report
- Business Reports
- Brand Analytics
- Inventory levels
- Product margins
It feeds
- Campaign Manager bids
- Negative keyword lists
- Organic rank lift
- Weekly TACOS scoreboard
- Inventory and promo plan
Every connection is built on your accounts and documented, so the data survives any change of vendor.
Amazon PPC and advertising management, scoped to the result.
Account audit and rebuild
We pull the Search Term report, bulk sheets and Business Reports, map overlap and waste, then rebuild Campaign Manager into research, performance, brand defense and conquest lanes with clean naming.
Sponsored Products management
Keyword and product targeting in auto, broad, phrase and exact, weekly search term harvesting, negative exact and negative phrase lists, and bid changes tied to conversion rate and margin.
Sponsored Brands and video
Headline, store spotlight and video campaigns for brand-registered sellers, with landing pages pointed at your Brand Store or a custom product set rather than the default.
Sponsored Display
Product targeting on competitor and complementary ASINs, and views remarketing audiences, run with its own budget so it never quietly drains Sponsored Products spend.
Budget pacing and dayparting
Schedule-based budget rules and bid adjustments by hour and day, plus a written plan for Prime Day, Prime Big Deal Days, Black Friday week and the December peak.
TACOS and rank reporting
A weekly scoreboard joining ad spend to total sales from Business Reports, with TACOS, organic rank on target terms and share of spend by campaign job.
Where Amazon PPC setups break.
The problems we are most often hired to fix, in the order they tend to cost money.
One term in five campaigns
Without negatives in the research lanes, the same search term competes against itself across auto, broad and exact campaigns, raising your own cost per click and making it impossible to read which campaign actually earns the sale.
Brand terms hiding the real ACOS
Branded searches convert at a high rate and make blended ACOS look healthy. Mixed into generic campaigns, they hide the fact that non-branded spend, the part that finds new customers, is losing money.
Managing to ACOS alone
A low ACOS can mean you are only buying the sales you would have gotten organically. Without TACOS and organic rank next to it, the account can shrink while the ad report looks great.
Budgets that run out by noon
Daily budgets that cap out early hand the evening auction, often the strongest shopping hours, to competitors. Out of budget status also hides true demand, so bids get cut when budget was the problem.
Amazon PPC, wired into the rest of the business.
Amazon Ads API
Pulls campaign and search term data daily and pushes bulk bid and budget changes.
Amazon Attribution
Measures sales from Google and Meta traffic we send to listings and the Brand Store.
Helium 10
Keyword research and organic rank tracking on the terms our campaigns are built around.
Keepa
Price, Buy Box and sales rank history for our ASINs and the competitors we target.
Google Sheets
Bulk sheet staging and the search term harvest log the team works from each week.
Looker Studio
The TACOS scoreboard joining ad spend, Business Reports sales and rank by week.
Google Ads
Off-Amazon traffic to listings, tagged through Amazon Attribution for the Brand Referral Bonus.
From audit to running it.
Audit.
We review 60 to 90 days of Search Term report, placement and Business Reports data, and hand you a written read on waste, overlap, brand leakage and where TACOS stands today.
Rebuild.
We restructure Campaign Manager into research, performance, brand defense and conquest lanes, set negatives, bid strategies and placement modifiers, and move proven terms into exact match.
Connect.
We wire the Ads API, Business Reports and rank tracking into one weekly scoreboard, and tie budgets to your inventory position so ads never push a product that is about to stock out.
Run.
Weekly search term harvesting, bid and budget changes, monthly creative and targeting tests, and a seasonal plan for Prime Day and Q4, with a short written update every week.
A good fit
- Brand owners selling through Seller Central with Brand Registry who want Sponsored Brands and Display, not just Sponsored Products.
- Sellers whose ACOS looks fine but whose total sales have stalled while ad spend keeps rising.
- Brands with healthy margins and steady inventory who want ads managed to TACOS and organic rank.
- Teams that want a weekly written update and full access to their own Campaign Manager at all times.
Probably not a fit
- Sellers without enough margin to fund ads after referral and FBA fees should fix pricing or sourcing first.
- Vendor Central accounts that need retail analytics and purchase order work fit our vendor page better than this one.
- Resellers of other brands' products, since most of our method depends on Brand Registry tools.
Pricing, plainly.
Amazon ads are bought in a cost per click auction for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, with Sponsored Display adding viewable impression billing options. There is no platform fee for self-service ads in Campaign Manager; you pay for clicks or impressions at the bids you set, out of the budgets you set. Sponsored Brands and most Sponsored Display options require Brand Registry. Our work is scoped after a short call and a look at your account: a fixed-scope audit and rebuild, then monthly management priced on the size and complexity of the account, month to month after an initial term. Ad spend is always billed by Amazon to you, never marked up by us.
Amazon PPC by business type.
- Product brandsMarketing agency and e-commerce builder for product brands: headless Shopify storefronts, Amazon Brand Registry and listings, Klaviyo, ads tracked to orders.
- Supplement brandsA supplement marketing agency running Amazon and Shopify as one system: compliant claims, TIC testing, subscriptions, creators and paid media that hold margin.
- Home and kitchen brandsHome goods marketing and Amazon agency work for home and kitchen brands: listings, bundles, Vine launches, Wayfair and Target Plus, Shopify and Q4 planning.
- Pet product brandsA pet product marketing agency for brands selling on Amazon, Chewy and Shopify: autoship, compliant pet food and supplement claims, and ads pet parents trust.
- Outdoor and sporting goods brandsAn outdoor brand marketing agency for gear makers selling DTC, on Amazon and through dealers: seasonal media, reviewer programs, MAP discipline and ad policy.
- Tools and hardware brandsTool brand marketing and Amazon agency work for tools and hardware brands: demo video, Buy Box and MAP defense, dealer programs and home center listings.
Reading on Amazon PPC.
- E-commerce · Takeaway
Amazon ACOS is ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales, and TACOS is ad spend divided by total sales, including organic.
E-commerce · 9 min read
Amazon ACOS vs TACOS: What a Good ACOS Is and How to Read Both.
ACOS tells you whether your ads pay for themselves. TACOS tells you whether the business is getting healthier. Here is how we set targets from margin and read the two numbers together on our own seller accounts.
Read - Paid Media · Takeaway
Sponsored Brands is a search ad that puts your logo, headline and several products or a video at the top of Amazon results, while Sponsored Display is an audience and product-page ad that follows shoppers on and off Amazon.
Paid Media · 10 min read
Amazon Sponsored Brands vs Sponsored Display: Where Each Fits.
Sponsored Brands wins the shelf at the top of search. Sponsored Display follows shoppers across product pages and off Amazon. Here is how each works, what it costs to run, and the order we fund them in.
Read - E-commerce · Takeaway
Helium 10 is the broader toolkit for sellers who want deep keyword research, listing tools and PPC automation in one subscription.
E-commerce · 11 min read
Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout: Which Amazon Seller Tool Fits You.
Helium 10 and Jungle Scout overlap on most of what an Amazon seller needs, but they lean different ways. Here is how their research, listing, PPC and analytics tools compare, how pricing scales, and where Seller Central's own data beats both.
Read
Hiring help with Amazon PPC.
- Do you actually sell on Amazon yourselves?
- Yes. Theory Road runs its own Amazon Professional Seller accounts with Brand Registry, so we buy Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display with our own money and read the same Search Term report and Business Reports you do. That keeps our advice tied to what moves total sales and margin, not to what makes a monthly ad report look good.
- What is the difference between ACOS and TACOS?
- ACOS is ad spend divided by the sales Amazon attributes to those ads. TACOS is ad spend divided by all sales of the product, organic included. ACOS tells you whether a campaign is efficient. TACOS tells you whether advertising is growing the business. If TACOS falls while total sales rise, ads are lifting organic rank. If it climbs, you are renting sales.
- Do Amazon ads help organic ranking?
- They can. Amazon ranks listings partly on sales velocity and conversion for a search term, and ad-driven sales on a term count toward that history. That is why we push proven terms in exact match and watch organic rank on the same terms. When organic rank holds after bids are reduced, the ads did their job. When it drops away, the listing itself usually needs work.
- How do you handle Prime Day and Q4?
- We plan them weeks ahead. Inventory has to be checked in at FBA before the event, deals and coupons have to be approved, and budgets need raising before the traffic arrives, not after campaigns go out of budget. We raise bids and budgets on proven exact match terms, keep research spend modest, and pull back carefully after the event while conversion rates settle.
- Will we keep ownership of the ad account?
- Always. We work as a user inside your Seller Central and Campaign Manager with the permissions you grant, and every campaign, report and negative list stays in your account. If we part ways, you remove our access and everything we built stays where it is, with naming and notes your next team can follow.
- How much should we spend on Amazon ads?
- It depends on margin, category competition and whether the product is launching or established. We set spend from a target TACOS you can afford after referral fees, FBA fees and cost of goods, and we raise or lower it from there. A launch usually runs a higher TACOS for a period while it builds sales history.
Let’s get Amazon PPC working for you.
A short note on where the business is and where it needs to go. A senior partner replies within one business day.