An Amazon ad account usually grows one campaign at a time. A launch here, a test there, an automatic campaign nobody remembers creating. After a year it is impossible to say what any campaign is for, so it is just as hard to say whether it is working.
The fix is to sort campaigns by purpose. Every campaign gets one job, its own budget and a target that suits that job.
Why one big budget does not work
Campaigns with different jobs behave differently. A campaign that protects your brand name is cheap and very profitable. A campaign that launches a new product loses money at first, by design. If both share a budget and an ACOS target, two things happen: the launch gets cut because it "performs badly", and the brand campaign looks like proof that the account is fine.
Four purposes that cover most accounts
| Purpose | What it targets | What success looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Automatic targeting and broad match | New search terms that convert, at a controlled cost |
| Launch | The most relevant terms for a new product | Sales history and reviews, even at a high ACOS |
| Brand defence | Your brand name and your own product pages | Shoppers who already want you stay with you |
| Growth | Proven terms in exact match, and competitor products | Profitable sales and rising organic rank |
Discovery
Discovery campaigns find the search terms you do not know about yet. Automatic campaigns and broad match keywords are good tools for this. Keep the budget modest and review the search term report every week.
Launch
A new product has no sales history and few reviews, so it struggles to rank organically. Launch campaigns buy that history on a small set of highly relevant terms. Agree in advance how long the launch runs and how much loss is acceptable, and review it against those numbers, not against the account's average ACOS.
Brand defence
Competitors can bid on your brand name and show their products on your pages. Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns on your brand terms, and product targeting on your own ASINs, keep those shoppers with you. These campaigns are usually the most efficient in the account. That is exactly why they should be reported separately.
Growth
Growth campaigns hold the terms that have proven they convert. They run in exact match with bids tuned to your profit target. Product targeting on competitor ASINs, where your offer compares well, also belongs here.
How terms move between campaigns
- A discovery campaign finds a search term that converts well.
- You add it as an exact match keyword to a growth campaign.
- You add it as a negative exact keyword to the discovery campaign, so the two do not compete.
- Terms that spend without converting are added as negatives where they appear.
This weekly loop is the heart of good account management. It keeps discovery finding new terms and growth spending on proven ones.
Name campaigns so reports read themselves
A consistent naming pattern makes filtering and reporting easy. For example:
SP | Growth | Garlic press | ExactSB | Defence | Brand termsSP | Launch | Herb scissors | Phrase
The ad type, the purpose, the product and the targeting are all visible without opening the campaign.
Judge the account by TACOS
ACOS is ad spend divided by the sales those ads produced. TACOS is ad spend divided by all sales, including organic ones. Use ACOS targets within each purpose, and TACOS to judge the account as a whole. If TACOS falls while total sales rise, advertising is helping the business grow, not just buying sales you would have made anyway.
Where Sponsored Display and DSP fit
Sponsored Display and Amazon DSP reach shoppers beyond search results, for example people who viewed your product but did not buy. They fit the same purpose logic: retargeting is close to brand defence, and audience campaigns are a form of discovery. Our DSP service page explains when they are worth adding.
If your account needs restructuring, we start every advertising management project by sorting existing campaigns into these purposes, without pausing what already works.