Amazon PPC Bid Optimization Full Guide - Best Ad Bidding Strategy For Beginners & Advanced Sellers

What’s the smartest way to bid on Amazon PPC without overspending?

In my latest YouTube video, I had an in-depth conversation with the co-founders of AdFixer, Kris and Adrian, to break down everything you need to know about Amazon PPC bid optimization.

This guide gives a full recap of our conversation - and let me tell you, it’s loaded with insights.

Whether you’re new to Amazon advertising or already selling at scale, you’ll find strategies here that can truly level up your bidding game.

From keyword match types (broad, phrase, exact) to bidding methods like exact, down-only, and up-and-down, we covered it all - and even broke down what they call the ‘best’ ad bidding strategy for both beginners and advanced sellers.

We also dug into how suggested bids really work, plus when to apply passive, normal, or aggressive bidding approaches in your campaigns.

If you’ve ever wondered how Amazon PPC bids actually function, which bid types to pick, or how to build campaigns that not only get clicks but also convert - this conversation is for you.

Let's dive right in!

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What Will You Learn About Amazon PPC Bids in This Guide

Vova: Hey everyone, welcome to our full guide on Amazon PPC bids!

In this conversation, we’re going to cover all the different types of bids you can use for Amazon PPC.

We’ll explain each bid type clearly and give real examples - like suggested bids, dynamic bids, and more.

The goal is to help you really understand how these bids work, so you can pick the best ones for your campaigns and know exactly how to use them.

Joining me today are Kris, aka Hristo, and Adrian from AdFixer.

AdFixer is an Amazon PPC automation software that helps sellers optimize their ads.

We’ve also featured AdFixer in a video, which I've embedded below, along with the best deals available.

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The guys also run Amvisible - an agency that supports Amazon sellers with various services.

Click the button below to learn more about them.

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Now let's get into the real deal.

What Types of Amazon PPC Bids Can You Use

Vova: Guys, there are so many different types of bids, and it can get confusing.

People often ask, “What should I use? What’s the difference between these bids?”

So, today we want to make things simpler and easier to understand.

Let’s help people feel confident about their Amazon PPC bidding strategies.

Kris: Thanks for having us, Vova.

I’m Hristo, one of the co-founders of AdFixer and Amvisible.

It’s great to be here with you.

And with me is Adrian.

Adrian: Hello everyone, I’m Adrian.

Let’s dive into this interesting topic together.

What Are Broad, Phrase, and Exact Match Keywords

Adrian: For people who are new to PPC, I think it’s important to start with the basics before moving on to strategies.

So first, when you create a campaign, you probably have some keywords in mind that you want to use.

Let’s begin by explaining the three main types of keyword matches: broad, phrase, and exact.

How Does Broad Match Work and When Should You Use It

Adrian: Broad match keywords are actually very broad - as the name suggests.

You choose a keyword, and Amazon can add words before, in the middle, or after that keyword.

This means your ad could show up for a wide variety of search terms, some of which might not be very closely related.

Broad match is mostly used for research purposes.

It helps you discover new, relevant search terms that people are actually using.

How Is Phrase Match Different from Broad Match

Adrian: The phrase match is a bit more targeted.

You select a keyword phrase, and Amazon can add keywords only before or after it, but not in the middle.

This limits how much the search terms can vary from your phrase, so it’s more focused than broad match.

Still, phrase match can sometimes bring up irrelevant terms, but it allows you to use lower budgets because it’s more precise.

Why Is Exact Match the Most Precise Option

Adrian: And then there's the exact match.

For example, if you have the keyword “water bottle” set as an exact match, your ad will only show for that exact search term - “water bottle.”

No extra words before, after, or in the middle.

It’s the most precise type of targeting.

So to recap, you have these three types of keyword targeting: broad, phrase, and exact.

Broad match is mostly for research - it helps you discover relevant search terms related to your keyword.

Phrase match is also useful for research but is more targeted.

It’s often used for niche products or by sellers with smaller budgets because it’s more focused.

Exact match is for sellers who have done their homework and know exactly which keywords they want to rank for and bid on.

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What Are the Main Amazon PPC Bidding Strategies

Adrian: After choosing your keyword matches, you also need to consider your bidding strategies.

There are three main options: exact, down-only, and up-and-down bidding.

What Is Exact Bidding and How Does It Work

Adrian: With exact bidding, say you set your bid at 85 cents.

You’re competing with other sellers at that fixed bid amount.

You’re basically saying, “I’m willing to pay 85 cents for a click, no more, no less.”

It’s a firm bid.

How Does Down-Only Bidding Help Save Costs

Adrian: Down-only bidding lets Amazon’s algorithm try to show your ad for less than your maximum bid if possible.

So, even if you set 85 cents, Amazon might find a way to show your ad for a lower price.

It helps save money while keeping your bid competitive.

So, let’s say you set your bid at 85 cents.

If Amazon’s algorithm thinks you’re likely to convert - and if your competitors have lower bids for that same spot - your actual cost per click could be lower, like 65 cents or 70 cents.

It really depends on how Amazon’s system evaluates your chances and what bids your competitors have placed.

When Should You Use Up-and-Down Bidding

Adrian: With the up-and-down bidding strategy, your bids can vary both below and above your set amount.

For example, if your bid is 85 cents, your actual bid might drop to 60 or 65 cents, or it could go up to $1 or even $1.10.

Again, this depends on Amazon’s algorithm and how likely it thinks you’ll convert, plus what other sellers are bidding for that keyword.

These three - exact, down-only, and up-and-down - are the main bidding strategies you’ll use.

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How Do Amazon’s Suggested Bids Actually Work

Adrian: On top of all, Amazon provides suggested bids.

You’ll often see a minimum bid, a maximum bid, and a suggested bid range.

Just a heads-up: if you try to bid at the minimum suggested bid, you usually won’t get many impressions or clicks because your bid is too low to compete effectively.

So, what we usually do in our practice is take the suggested bid, which is basically the median - the average between the minimum and maximum bids Amazon recommends.

Then, we add about 10% on top of that suggested bid for many products.

This way, you’re more likely to get clicks and impressions.

Of course, it’s not a guarantee because bids can fluctuate throughout the day - morning bids might be different from evening bids due to changing competition.

But most of the time, this approach helps you collect useful historical data to make smarter decisions later on.

Now, with all this information, you might wonder, “how to actually create a campaign or how to build a strategy using this?”

In our experience, we usually break it down into three main strategies: passive, normal, and aggressive.

When Should You Run a Passive Campaign

Adrian: A passive strategy is for sellers with lower profit margins or smaller advertising budgets.

If you’re using a passive approach, you might choose the down-only bidding strategy.

That means Amazon won’t bid above your set amount, helping you control costs.

You would also stick closely to the suggested bids.

For example, if the suggested bid is 85 cents, you’d leave it at that and see if you get conversions at that price.

It’s a safer, more conservative way to start advertising without overspending.

You can use phrase match keywords for those campaigns during the research phase.

That’s the passive way to start.

Once you’ve collected enough data, you take the search terms from your research campaign and move them into a separate campaign as exact match keywords with exact bids.

For those who aren’t familiar, a search term is the actual phrase a customer types into Amazon’s search bar.

For example, if your keyword is “water bottle” in phrase match, some search terms could be “mineral water bottle” or “water bottle one liter.”

These are the real search queries that people use, and you find them in your campaign’s search term report.

By moving these search terms into an exact match campaign with exact bids, you can focus your budget on the keywords that actually bring traffic and conversions.

That’s the passive approach.

What Does a Normal Campaign Look Like

Adrian: Then, there’s the normal strategy.

With that, you usually use the up-and-down bidding strategy to give Amazon more flexibility to adjust bids.

This approach balances cost control with competitiveness and helps you get better performance as you grow your campaigns.

We also use broad match primarily for research purposes.

When combined with the up-and-down bidding strategy, broad match helps you build more brand awareness.

It gives you access to a larger variety of search terms, which is valuable because you can find long-tail keywords within those search terms.

These long-tail keywords can be very useful for optimizing your campaigns later on.

For the suggested bids in this approach, we usually take the suggested bid and add about 10% on top.

This helps us gain more impressions and clicks faster, speeding up the data collection process.

We consider this a more normal strategy - it’s not quite aggressive, but it’s also not passive.

It sits comfortably in the middle.

This normal strategy is useful if you want to maintain your current sales levels or even grow them, especially if you haven’t optimized your PPC campaigns before.

It’s a solid approach for steady improvement.

Why Use an Aggressive Campaign for Product Launches

Adrian: After that, we have the aggressive campaign strategy.

Here, you still use a broad match for research, combined with the up-and-down bidding strategy, but you increase your bid to about 20% over the suggested bid.

This higher bid ensures that you get clicks and impressions quickly.

It’s perfect for boosting sales fast, and especially useful during product launches.

When launching a new product, you enter what’s called the “honeymoon phase,” where Amazon evaluates how well your product sells.

Sales volume is a major factor in this evaluation.

To do well, you need to drive a lot of sales quickly.

Going all-in with an aggressive bidding strategy helps kickstart that momentum and helps your product rank more organically later on.

For aggressive campaigns, you don’t need to focus too much on your ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales).

You should expect higher budgets and higher margins.

Even if your ACoS looks unsatisfactory at first, it’s something you can overlook for the sake of growth.

Because in the bigger picture, you’re going to gain a lot more benefits later on by using this approach.

This phase is mostly about research in your PPC campaigns.

After that, it’s really important to review the search terms generated by every campaign - whether it’s passive, normal, or aggressive.

You need to look closely at all the search terms your campaigns bring in and figure out which ones are actually performing well for you.

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How Do You Move Winning Search Terms Into Exact Match Campaigns

Adrian: Once you find search terms that are working, the next step is to move those into a different campaign.

This would be a manual campaign using exact match keywords with exact bids.

By doing this, you rely on historical data to make smarter decisions.

You already know which terms are effective because you tested them in your research campaigns.

You know what bids work well for those terms, what the average bid is, and whether the ACoS is good.

Moving these high-performing search terms into manual campaigns with fewer keywords helps you better control your budget and optimize performance.

This way, you cover both the research phase and the ranking phase.

You test and identify keywords that work, then focus your efforts on them.

Depending on your strategy, if you take a passive approach, you’d simply move the search term with the bid you saw working in your search term reports.

But if you’re following a normal or more aggressive strategy, you might increase that bid by about 10% to get more visibility and clicks.

So, let’s say you have a search term with an average bid of $1.

When you move that search term into your next campaign, you might increase the bid to $1.10.

This campaign would focus more on exact bids and exact targeting.

If you’re using an aggressive strategy, you can even raise the bid by 20% above what you saw working in your search terms.

Doing this can significantly boost your keyword ranking and improve your chances of winning more clicks.

This approach also helps during the research phase by guiding you to the right bids for your keywords.

What Should You Do If Your Campaign Doesn’t Perform Right Away

Adrian: If you don’t see results right away when you start a campaign, don’t panic.

It’s important to wait a few days because campaigns need time to gain traction.

Don’t make decisions based on just one or two days of data.

If after some time you’re not getting impressions or clicks, you can gradually increase your budget or bids for the keywords until you start seeing impressions.

Next, if you get impressions but no clicks, give it a little more time.

If clicks still don’t come, increase your bids a bit more.

This slow, steady adjustment is a more passive way to find the right bid that works for your campaign.

Once your campaign starts generating search terms consistently, you can then move those winning terms into exact match campaigns to further optimize your ads and improve performance.

Vova: Pretty cool, man.

Thanks so much for this detailed, step-by-step explanation - it’s really awesome.

Just to remind our readers, we have AdFixer, which is the software you guys created based on this knowledge and even more experience.

So, people can definitely try managing their bids on their own using this guide as a solid blueprint.

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AdFixer basically automates this entire process based on the strategies and phases you’ve shared for different parts of Amazon PPC.

For anyone who wants to learn more, I’ve got a video tutorial that walks you through how to use AdFixer, along with the best deal available for the software.

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What Advanced PPC Strategies Can You Try Later

Vova: Before we wrap up this conversation, is there anything else you’d like to mention about Amazon PPC bids?

I know we’ve covered a lot already, but if there’s any final advice or tips you want to share, now’s the time!

Adrian: I think we covered most of it, yeah - not everything, but the majority of important points.

There are definitely more advanced strategies out there for people who really know their products inside and out.

For example, sellers who have been doing PPC for a year or more and have tested many different approaches.

Those experienced sellers can get creative, like running campaigns with only one keyword at a time or focusing on top-of-search keywords.

We actually talked about those strategies in another video.

But for anyone just starting out or looking for solid guidance on what kinds of bids to use and how to approach bidding strategies, I believe this conversation is a great starting point.

After experimenting a bit and gathering data, they’ll be ready to explore more advanced techniques.

Vova: Yeah, that’s pretty awesome.

Just a reminder: the best deals are listed below for AdFixer - your go-to Amazon PPC automation software - and Amvisible, the agency these guys run that helps Amazon sellers in many ways.

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Thanks so much, guys.

It was a real pleasure having you here today.

Adrian and Kris: Thanks for having us, Vova. Bye-bye!

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The Key Takeaway

So, to wrap up, Amazon PPC bid optimization is all about understanding the different keyword match types and bidding strategies to create campaigns that deliver the best results for your budget.

You learned how broad, phrase, and exact match keywords serve distinct purposes - from research to precise targeting - and how exact, down-only, and up-and-down bidding strategies affect your ad costs and visibility.

Choosing between passive, normal, and aggressive campaign approaches depends on your goals, budget, and stage in the selling process.

The key is to gather data patiently, analyze search term reports, and adjust your bids based on what drives clicks and conversions.

By moving high-performing keywords into exact match campaigns with tailored bids, you gain better control and improve your campaign’s efficiency.

For sellers looking for help managing this process, tools like AdFixer automate bid optimization using these proven methods.

With this guide, you now have a clear path to build, test, and refine your Amazon PPC bids for stronger performance and growth.