AmazonPPC, explained.

Most Amazon ads are pay-per-click (PPC), so you pay only when a shopper clicks. You set a bid and either pick the searches and product pages to appear on or let Amazon choose them. Each spot is auctioned, and you never pay more than your bid unless your campaign uses settings that let Amazon raise it. Ads sit among ordinary results marked Sponsored, and a sale from an ad still counts towards where you rank without ads, but no bid can save a listing people visit and don't buy from.

Sponsored Products, the simplest type, promote one product in search results and on product pages. Sponsored Brands put your logo with several products or a video above and within search results, but as a seller you need Brand Registry to run them. Display ads, once called Sponsored Display, can follow shoppers who viewed your products around Amazon and onto other sites. Sponsored Products only run while you hold the Buy Box, the spot behind the Add to Basket button, so if a reseller wins it, your ads stop showing.

In an automatic campaign Amazon picks the searches and product pages your ad shows on, and in a manual campaign you choose the keywords or products and set each bid. Amazon suggests running auto for about two weeks, then copying the searches that sell from the search term report into a separate manual campaign alongside it, since a live campaign can't switch type. Auto targeting works from your listing and from past shopper searches, so vague titles and bullet points send your ads to the wrong searches.

Broad, phrase and exact are the three ways a keyword you bid on can match a shopper's search. Bid on 'yoga mat' as exact match and your ad shows for that search and close variants like 'yoga mats'. Phrase match adds searches with extra words around it, like 'thick yoga mat', and broad adds related searches in any order, like 'mat for yoga'. Broad finds searches you'd never guess, but you also pay for clicks that never become a sale, and the search term report shows you which is which.

A negative keyword is a word or phrase you tell Amazon not to show your ad for, so you stop paying for clicks from shoppers who want something else. If you sell vitamin D capsules you might add 'gummies' as a negative phrase, blocking every search containing it, and 'vitamins' as a negative exact, blocking only that vague search and close variants like 'vitamin'. Negative phrase is the one that catches brands out, because adding 'free' to keep freebie hunters away also blocks every 'sugar free' and 'gluten free' search.

ACoS (advertising cost of sales) is your ad spend divided by the sales those ads brought in, so £30 spent for £100 of ad sales is 30%. TACoS (total advertising cost of sales) divides the same spend by all your sales, ad or no ad, which shows how much you lean on paid clicks. Your break-even ACoS is your margin before advertising, so if a £20 sale including value added tax (VAT) leaves £6 after VAT, fees and product costs, any ACoS under 30% still makes money.

Amazon lets any advertiser bid on your brand name or aim ads at your product page, so rivals can sit above you when people search for your brand and in the Sponsored rows on that page. Owning the brand doesn't stop this, which is why Amazon's own guidance suggests bidding on your brand name yourself. Sales from brand-name ads look cheap, but most of those shoppers were already looking for you, so they say little about whether your ads reach people who didn't know you.

Amazon's UK and main EU stores ran Spring Deal Days from 10 to 16 March 2026 and Prime Day from 23 to 26 June. Prime Big Deal Days follows on 6 and 7 October, then Black Friday Week around Friday 27 November. Products only appear among the event's deals if you submit one in Seller Central before Amazon's cut-off, and each carries a fee. Stock has to reach Amazon weeks early to keep its Prime badge: 28 October in the UK for Black Friday Week, 21 October elsewhere in Europe.

Subscribe & Save lets shoppers set up repeat deliveries of things they use up, like vitamins or pet food, often at a discount. Any base discount on your product comes out of your margin, and on amazon.co.uk shoppers can save up to 15% in total when 5 or more of their subscriptions arrive on the same day. Each delivery is charged at that day's price, so a price rise reaches every subscriber. If your product leaves the programme, Amazon can switch those subscriptions to a suitable replacement.