Most Amazon sellers are throwing away thousands of dollars on clicks that will never convert. The culprit? Poor negative keyword management.
What Are Negative Keywords?
Negative keywords tell Amazon not to show your ad for specific search terms. If someone searches for "dog bowl" and you sell "cat bowl," you want to add "dog" as a negative keyword to avoid irrelevant clicks.
The $10,000 Mistake
One client came to us with a 45% ACOS. After reviewing their search term reports, we found they were spending $800/month on clicks for terms like "replacement parts" — but they sold a complete unit, not replacement parts. Adding negative keywords for those terms dropped ACOS by 12% overnight.
How to Find Negative Keywords
1. Download your Search Term Report. Go to Campaign Manager → Reports → Search Term Report.
2. Look for high-spend, zero-conversion terms. Sort by clicks or spend descending. Any term with 20+ clicks and no sales should be added as negative.
3. Look for irrelevant terms. Even if they have a few sales, if the conversion rate is below 5%, consider adding them as negatives.
4. Add negatives at the campaign level. Don't just add to one ad group — add to the whole campaign.
Types of Negative Keywords
- Negative Exact: Blocks a specific search term exactly.
- Negative Phrase: Blocks any search containing that phrase.
- Negative Broad: Blocks searches with all keywords in any order.
We recommend starting with Negative Exact for known waste terms, then expanding to Negative Phrase for broader protection.