Guys, I’ve been selling on Amazon for almost 5 years, scaled 7 different category products to bestseller status, and for the longest time I was OBSESSED with manual keyword ads. Thought that was the only way to move the needle until 2 years ago, when keyword CPCs in my home goods category shot up to almost $3 a click. I was blowing $500 a day and barely getting 10 sales. I was desperate so I gave product targeting a shot, and holy cow it changed everything.

It boosted my overall Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) by 37% straight up for my home goods listings. No fluff, no theoretical garbage, just the tactics I’ve tested with my own ad spend, plus all the dumb mistakes I made so you don’t have to.

First let’s get the basics straight, cause so many people still don’t get this: When you target an individual Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN), you’re not just targeting that product’s detail page. You’re targeting every single search term that ASIN ranks for. Your ad will also show up in search results when shoppers search for terms tied to that ASIN. Right now all ad types support product targeting, including Sponsored Products (SP), Sponsored Brands (SB), Sponsored Brands Video (SBV), Sponsored Display (SD), and Sponsored Display Video (SDV). The use cases are endless.

How to pick between the two core targeting modes

Category targeting covers every ASIN in an entire category. It’s perfect if you want to quickly expand your reach and find new opportunities, especially if your category is super niche with consistent product attributes. If your category is all over the place, like home goods where you have kitchen utensils next to living room furniture, category targeting will pull in a ton of irrelevant traffic, so don’t waste your money on it.

Individual ASIN targeting locks in specific competitor products, so the traffic is super precise. It’s ideal if you want to poach competitor traffic, or cross-promote your own products.

I always use the refinement filters when I set up campaigns, filtering by brand, price, star rating, and fulfillment method. For example when I was selling a $89 premium camping water bottle, I only targeted ASINs priced above $70, from no-name brands, with an average rating below 4.2 stars. The conversion rate was way higher than when I was just targeting random ASINs.

For match types, "Exact Match" means you only target the specific ASIN you selected, "Expanded Match" means you target that ASIN plus similar related ASINs in the same category. It’s basically the same as exact and broad match for keyword ads.

Use Expanded Match if you want to quickly expand reach and test performance, use Exact Match if you want to specifically target a competitor’s detail page. Don’t mix these up, it’ll cost you a ton of money.

Also don’t sleep on negative targeting. You can negate specific ASINs, and once you do, your ads won’t show up on that ASIN’s detail page or in search results tied to it. Note that negating a brand doesn’t fully block all ASINs from that brand, it just lowers bids for them. If you can’t compete with a top brand in your space, just negate the whole brand, no point wasting money trying to fight a losing battle.

When is product targeting better than keyword ads? Here are the scenarios I use it for all the time

  • You sell gift or holiday seasonal products with super fragmented search terms that you can’t possibly cover all of with keyword ads. Product targeting lets you piggyback on existing high-traffic ASINs way faster.

  • Your product has keywords that are restricted by Amazon so you can’t run keyword ads. Product targeting is basically your only option here.

  • Keyword Cost-Per-Click (CPC) is so high you’re bleeding money, and you need more cost-effective traffic sources.

  • You want to steal traffic from competitors, or build a traffic loop for your own brand so shoppers don’t leave your listing to go check out competitors.

  • You want to boost organic keyword rankings. Sales from product targeting count towards keyword weight too, and it’s way cheaper than just running keyword ads.

I have a little hack for picking ASINs: when top sellers launch new products, they have low traffic at first but almost always pour money into pushing them to bestseller status. If you target those ASINs early, you’ll already have the ad spot locked in when they blow up. The ROAS is insane, I did this last year with a few top seller new launches and made a killing.

16 tested tactics you can steal right now, no extra work needed
  1. Quickly check if your listing is indexed by Amazon

Most people use auto ad search terms to check if their listing is indexed, but the "Recommended Ads for Products" feature in product targeting works too:

If there are no related ASINs recommended, Amazon has no clue what your product is. Go fix your title and bullet points attributes immediately, run auto and manual keyword ads to get indexed. If some of the recommended ASINs are irrelevant, your listing tags are messed up – for example if you sell Apple laptop accessories and it’s recommending ASINs for actual fruit apples, fix your listing keywords and run exact match keyword ads to correct the tags. If all recommended ASINs are relevant, you’re good to go. I do this every time I launch a new product, it saves me from running ads that pull in garbage traffic later.

  1. Quickly get traffic tags for broad appeal products

Last year I sold Christmas decor, the search terms were so scattered that after a week of keyword ads I only covered less than 30% of relevant terms. I switched to targeting the top 10 high-traffic ASINs in the category plus category targeting, and I got the holiday traffic tag in 2 weeks. Sales were 42% higher than when I was just using keyword ads, total game changer.

  1. Steal competitor traffic hack

If you want to poach traffic from competitors, pick competitor ASINs with solid traffic levels and complementary product ASINs, bid around the suggested bid, add a 20-50% bid adjustment for product detail page placements, use fixed bidding, and run SB, SBV and SD campaigns at the same time. Your product will show up on the competitor’s detail page constantly. I did this for a kitchenware product once, and pulled 18% of traffic away from the top competitor to my own listing.

  1. Build your own brand traffic loop

Cross-promote all your own products, especially complementary ones. If you sell electric toothbrushes, target your own replacement toothbrush head ASINs. When shoppers click on any of your products, they only see your other products, so they don’t leave for competitors, and your average order value goes up too. After I set this up for my store, overall conversion rate went up 12% and average order value increased by $7.8.

I won’t bore you with every single tactic, here are the most useful ones to remember:

  • The search terms your targeted ASINs rank for are exactly the terms you should be targeting for keyword rankings later. Just export them, no need to do extra keyword research.

  • Sales from product targeting boost organic keyword rankings too. Combine it with placement bid adjustments, it’s way cheaper than just running keyword ads.

  • You can negate keywords for product targeting campaigns too. Export your search term report every week, negate all the irrelevant low-conversion terms. I do this every Friday afternoon, and it cuts my wasted spend by at least 20% the next week, every single time.

  • Don’t target top ASINs when you launch a new product. Start with low-traffic high-conversion long tail ASINs first, build up your listing weight before you go after top ASINs. I learned this the hard way, I targeted the top 3 ASINs right after launching a new product once, blew $280 in a day and only got 1 sale, total waste.

  • If you want to scale quickly, pull ASINs from your ad report’s converting ASINs, category bestseller lists, third party tool related ASINs, and "Frequently bought together" complementary products. For example if you sell cameras, target camera bags, tripods and lens ASINs, you’ll get a ton of super relevant cross traffic.

  • Prioritize high-traffic ASINs that few competitors are targeting. I’ve tested these, their CPC is 40% lower than keyword ads, and ROAS is 2x higher.

  • Filter ASINs that have gotten you 2 or more sales from your ad report, run Expanded Match on them, then negate the low-performing ASINs once you get data, keep the high-conversion ones on Exact Match. Your ROAS will keep going up over time.

8 mistakes I made, don’t repeat them

1. Targeting top ASINs right after launching a new product

Don’t do it. You have less than 10 reviews, trying to compete with a top seller with thousands of reviews is just throwing money away. I lost over $2000 learning this lesson.

2. Not checking competitor updates

If a competitor suddenly gets a ton of bad reviews, their rating drops below 4 stars, or they’re liquidating stock, crank up your budget to steal their traffic. If they’re running a big sale and their conversion rate is through the roof, lower your budget or pause your campaign, don’t waste money competing with that.

3. Sticking to Expanded Match forever

Expanded Match gives you more traffic, but it’s way less precise, you’ll get a ton of irrelevant traffic. Only use it for initial testing, switch to Exact Match once you have data and negate all the bad ASINs.

4. Using product targeting to build listing tags for new products

New products need to send clear signals to Amazon about what they are, and product targeting traffic is too unpredictable. Use manual keyword ads to build tags for new products first, only run product targeting once your tags are stable.

5. Relying only on product targeting to boost rankings

Product targeting is only a supplement, core keyword rankings still need to be driven by manual keyword ads. Combine both for the best results.

6. Thinking product targeting only shows up on detail pages

Product targeting ads also show up in search results, your ad will display when shoppers search for terms tied to the ASINs you’re targeting.

7. Thinking product targeting can’t boost keyword rankings

Any sale counts towards keyword weight, it just works slower than direct keyword ads. Combining both speeds up your ranking progress.

8. Thinking you can only negate ASINs for product targeting

You can negate keywords at the campaign level for product targeting too. Regularly negating irrelevant terms saves you a ton of money.

These are all tactics I’ve been using for 2 years, they might work a little differently depending on your category. What weird issues have you run into with product targeting? Or do you have any hacks that work for you? Drop them in the comments, I reply to every single one.