Hey everyone,

I’ve been scratching my head over something with my manual keyword bids and what Amazon actually charges, and I’m hoping some of you more experienced sellers can help me make sense of it.

So here’s the situation: I have a keyword where my base bid is set at $0.60. I also have a "+100%" bid adjustment for the "Top of Search (first page)" placement. In theory, that should mean my maximum bid for that placement is $1.20 ($0.60 * 2).

But when I looked at the actual cost for a click on that keyword, Amazon charged me $1.40. My gut feeling is that the system is basically telling me, "Hey, if you really want to win the auction for the top of search, the going rate right now is actually $1.40."

Based on that, I’m trying to reverse-engineer what my bid should be. My thought process was: If I divide that $1.40 actual cost by my 100% placement multiplier (which is basically a factor of 2), I get $0.70 ($1.40 / 2). So, in my head, that $0.70 is the "true" base bid the system is suggesting to consistently hit that top-of-search spot.

My first question is: Does this logic actually hold water? If I change my base bid to that $0.70, will it significantly improve my chances of consistently showing up on the first page? Or am I thinking about this the wrong way?

And if my logic is correct, what about other bid/leverage combinations? For instance, could I do a $0.35 base bid with a 300% top-of-search adjustment and get the same result? Or would it be smarter to just raise the base bid a bit and keep the adjustment lower?

My second question is about placement performance. I’ve been looking at data from one of my ad groups over the last month. The top-of-search placement has the lowest exposure, but by far the best numbers:

  • Top of Search: 3,600 impressions, 100 clicks, 10 orders.

  • Rest of Search: 40,000 impressions, 500 clicks, 20 orders.

  • Product Pages: 120,000 impressions, 150 clicks, 10 orders.

The CTR and CVR on the Top of Search are clearly the best. The other placements are just eating up budget for way less return. My dilemma is that to really push for that top-of-search traffic, I know the CPC isn't going to magically drop. I’m considering shifting my strategy to put most of my budget toward the top of search by really bumping up the bid adjustment there. I’d maybe leave a small adjustment on "Rest of Search" and just set "Product Pages" to 0%. Does that sound like a solid plan based on this data?

My last question is about those "related to your product" keywords. When I add manual keywords, I always see that one broad suggestion that's basically my product category. In my reports, it acts almost like an auto campaign—it spends a lot, brings in a ton of search terms (some good, some bad), and generates a decent number of orders with a reasonable CPC. It's a big chunk of my daily budget, though.

What’s the real difference between this type of keyword and an actual automatic campaign? Is it really just that it's slightly more targeted? Once I've identified my core converting keywords from its reports, should I pause it? My budget is tight, and if I keep it running, it eats up funds that I could use to bid on those exact, high-performing keywords it found. But at the same time, it's still driving sales, so I feel like I'm leaving money on the table by turning it off.

Would really appreciate any advice you guys can offer on these three things. Thanks in advance!