If you sell on Amazon, you know how quickly ad costs can spiral. It’s not uncommon to see Advertising Cost of Sale (ACoS) jump above 30% with no corresponding lift in sales, leaving you feeling like you’re throwing money down the drain. I’ve worked in Amazon ad operations for 3 years, and over the past 6 months, I’ve used a set of low-cost, high-return Sponsored Products (SP) ad strategies to keep my maximum ACoS at 5% and my cost per click as low as $0.02. I’m sharing my full actionable process today.

Duplicate Root Keyword Targeting

When I select keywords for these campaigns, I build combinations around my core high-performing root keywords, and I avoid unnecessarily long long-tail terms. For example, if I sell phone cases, my core root keywords are case and phone case. I create combinations like case case, phone case case, and similar variations. Before adding any of these terms, I check their search ranking in Amazon Brand Analytics. I skip any terms with very low search volume that don’t have consistent search traffic, as they won’t get enough impressions to be worth the small budget allocation.

Low-Bid Automatic Campaign Setup

I set the initial bid for these low-cost campaigns between $0.02 and $0.1. If a campaign gets no impressions after running for 3 to 5 days, I increase the bid gradually by $0.03 at a time to test performance. If the bid reaches the same level as my standard core keyword bids and still gets no impressions, I adjust the bidding strategy for that campaign entirely instead of wasting time on underperforming targeting.

Three Core ASIN Targeting Approaches

  • Target previously converted ASINs: I download conversion reports from my ad dashboard twice per month, and I pull all ASINs that have driven sales into a dedicated ad group. These ASINs are already proven to convert, so I don’t have to spend time testing new targeting, and they consistently deliver higher conversion rates than untested new keywords.

  • Target your own brand’s ASINs: I target other ASINs from my store on my best performing listing detail pages. This tactic drives traffic to new products in my catalog, and it reduces the chance that competitors steal traffic from my top performing listings, essentially keeping traffic within my brand ecosystem.

  • Target competitor and complementary product ASINs: Every week, I pull lists of top ASINs from the Best Sellers and New Releases lists in my category. I select ASINs for products similar to mine, as well as ASINs for complementary products. For example, if I sell phone cases, I also pull top ASINs for phone chargers, screen protectors, and other related accessories. Shoppers buying these items are very likely to need a phone case too, so this targeting delivers very high conversion efficiency.

Holiday and High-Intent Keyword Targeting

I set up dedicated ad groups for major holidays across all my active Amazon marketplaces 1 to 2 weeks before the holiday date. I cover all popular regional holidays, including New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas for North American marketplaces, and Easter and Boxing Day for European marketplaces. I also add high-intent general terms like under $10, gift, and try before you buy to these groups. These terms perform especially well for lower-priced products, as shoppers searching for these terms have very strong purchase intent, and the cost per conversion stays very low.

Use Amazon’s Recommended Keyword Suggestions

Every time I set up a new manual ad campaign, I add all of the keyword recommendations that Amazon suggests in the setup flow. These terms are matched to your category and product attributes, and many are long-tail terms you would not think to target on your own. They have lower competition and lower costs, and they often deliver much better conversion performance than I expect.

All of these tactics have been tested exclusively with SP ads to date. I have run tests with Sponsored Brands (SB) and Sponsored Display (SD) ads using similar approaches, but the results have not been consistent enough to share as proven reusable tactics.

What low-cost ad tactics have you tested that delivered great results? If you have tried low-bid ad campaigns similar to these, share your results in the comments. I’d love to hear what’s worked for you, and we can all brainstorm ways to optimize these strategies even further.