Most Amazon ad budgets do not leak through one big mistake. They leak a few dollars at a time, through searches that were never going to buy your product. Negative keywords are how you close those leaks. This guide explains what they are, how to find them in your search term report and how to add them without blocking the traffic that actually sells.

Key Takeaways

  • A negative keyword tells Amazon not to show your ad for a search. Amazon offers two negative match types: negative exact and negative phrase (Portent).
  • Your best source of negatives is the search term report, which lists the actual customer searches that triggered your ads.
  • Split terms into two groups: irrelevant (block right away) and relevant but unprofitable (lower the bid first).
  • Use negative exact for single bad searches and negative phrase only when every search containing that phrase is wrong for you.
  • Negatives are also how you stop auto and broad campaigns from competing with your exact match campaigns.

What Are Negative Keywords on Amazon?

Short answer: Negative keywords are search terms you exclude from a campaign or ad group so your ads stop showing, and stop paying for clicks, on searches that do not fit your product.

When you run auto, broad or phrase campaigns, Amazon decides which searches are close enough to your keywords or listing. It often gets this right, but not always. A seller of stainless steel water bottles can end up paying for clicks on "water bottle for kids cartoon" or "glass water bottle", which are searches for something else.

Negative exact

Blocks only that exact search, plus close variants such as plurals. Use it for one specific search term that wastes money.

Negative phrase

Blocks every search that contains the phrase. Powerful, but it can also block good searches if the phrase is too short.

Negative products

Excludes specific ASINs or brands from product targeting campaigns, so your ad stops showing on those product pages.

Amazon's own help page explains where to add negative keywords and negative products in the campaign manager. If you are new to the ad types themselves, start with our guide to Sponsored Products, Brands and Display.

Why Negative Keywords Matter

Every irrelevant click costs the same as a good one. On Amazon, those clicks also drag down your advertising cost of sale (ACOS), because spend goes up while sales do not. A campaign with a fine product and good bids can still look unprofitable simply because a handful of wrong searches are eating the budget.

Negatives also protect your data. When junk searches are mixed in with good ones, it is hard to see which keywords really drive sales, and every bid decision gets worse. If you are unsure what a healthy ACOS looks like, our guide on ACOS vs TACOS covers it.

How to Find and Add Negative Keywords, Step by Step

STEP 01

Download the search term report

In Amazon Ads, open Reports, create a Sponsored Products search term report for the last 30 to 60 days and download it.

STEP 02

Sort by spend with no orders

Filter to rows with zero orders and sort by spend, highest first. These are your most expensive leaks.

STEP 03

Ask: is it relevant?

Would a shopper using this search ever want your product? Wrong size, wrong material, wrong audience or a competitor's brand often means no.

STEP 04

Pick the match type

Use negative exact for one bad search. Use negative phrase when a word such as "glass" or "kids" makes every search irrelevant.

STEP 05

Add at the right level

Add the negative in the campaign or ad group where the waste happened, so you do not block it in campaigns where it might work.

STEP 06

Recheck every two weeks

New searches appear all the time. Make the review a habit, and look at your existing negatives too in case you blocked something useful.

How many clicks before you call a search a loser?

There is no single rule, but your conversion rate gives a useful guide. If your listing converts at about 10%, you would expect roughly one order every 10 clicks. A relevant search with 25 or 30 clicks and no orders is a reasonable candidate for a lower bid or a negative. Portent suggests looking at terms with high impressions and very low click-through rate, or many clicks and no conversions (Portent).

Irrelevant vs Unprofitable

Irrelevant searches should be blocked right away, even with few clicks. Relevant searches that have not sold yet deserve a lower bid or a better listing first, because a negative removes them for good.

Using Negatives to Keep Campaigns From Competing

Negatives are not only for bad searches. They also keep your campaigns organized. When a search term proves itself in an auto or broad campaign, most sellers move it into an exact match campaign where they can control the bid. If you leave it running in the original campaign too, both campaigns bid on the same search.

The harvest and isolate loop
1
DiscoverAuto and broad campaigns surface new searches that convert.
2
HarvestAdd the winning search as an exact keyword in a dedicated campaign.
3
IsolateAdd the same search as a negative exact in the auto or broad campaign.
4
ControlNow one campaign owns that search, and you set its bid on purpose.

Portfolios make this easier to manage across many products. Our explainer on Amazon PPC portfolios shows how we group campaigns.

Common Negative Keyword Mistakes

Negating too early

A search with three clicks and no sale has not had a fair test. Wait for enough clicks unless the search is clearly irrelevant.

Phrase negatives that are too short

A negative phrase like "case" on a phone accessory account can block "phone case", your best search. Use the longest phrase that still catches the waste.

Blocking your own brand

Branded searches can look expensive in one campaign, but blocking them everywhere hands that space to competitors.

Ignoring ASIN search terms

Rows that look like product codes (B0...) are product pages where your ad showed. If they never convert, exclude them with negative product targeting (Karooya explains the difference).

Set and forget

Products, seasons and shopper language change. A negative list built last year may now be blocking a search that converts.

References

  1. Portent, Why you need negative keywords for Amazon advertising
  2. Amazon Ads Support Center, Add negative keywords or negative products
  3. Karooya, What are negative keywords and negative product targeting in Amazon Ads

Not Sure Which Searches Are Wasting Your Budget?

Growth Architech reviews your Amazon search term reports, finds the searches that spend without selling and gives you a negative keyword list you can apply, with no contract.

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