How to Create an Amazon Sponsored Product Campaign: Part-1
Launching an Amazon-sponsored products campaign is a critical step for sellers who want to increase their product visibility, boost sales, and improve rankings. However, without the right approach, it’s easy to burn through your budget without seeing a return on investment.
In this detailed step-by-step guide (Part 1), we’ll walk you through how to create Amazon ads properly — including campaign naming, budget setup, targeting types, keyword selection, and bidding strategies. This guide is ideal for new and intermediate sellers and is brought to you by a leading Amazon marketplace management service—YourSeller.
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Check out our step-by-step walkthrough on how to create an effective Amazon sponsored products campaign.
Step 1: Understand Where Sponsored Product Ads Appear
Before diving into campaign creation, it's important to understand where your Sponsored Product ads will appear on Amazon. These placements include:
Top of search results for relevant keywords
Middle or bottom of search results
Product detail pages, in sections such as "Products related to this item"
This visibility gives your listings a competitive edge, especially when organic ranking is still growing.
Step 2: Start Campaign Creation from Amazon Ads Dashboard
To begin:
Go to your Campaign Manager in Seller Central.
Click Create Campaign.
Select Sponsored Products as the campaign type.
Amazon offers other campaign types like Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display, but for this guide, we’ll focus solely on Sponsored Products — the most accessible and effective ad format for most sellers.
Step 3: Name Your Campaign Strategically
A common mistake many sellers make is using vague or confusing campaign names. Instead, adopt a structured naming convention that allows for quick identification and analysis.
For example:
ProductName_TargetingType_MatchType
Example: ChocoBlast36_Manual_Exact
This approach is useful when you're managing multiple campaigns. It is used by professional Amazon advertising services that rely on well-organized data for performance tracking and optimization.
Step 4: Set a Realistic Daily Budget
The next step is to determine how much you're willing to spend on the campaign daily. While Amazon allows you to set any budget, experienced sellers recommend a minimum of $100/day to gather meaningful performance data.
If you're working with a tight budget:
Start with a lower bid strategy (discussed below)
Keep your keyword list tight (no more than 10 highly relevant keywords)
Remember, your daily budget can always be adjusted later based on results.
Step 5: Choose Between Automatic and Manual Targeting
This is where strategy really comes into play. Amazon offers two targeting options:
Automatic Targeting
Amazon selects keywords and product matches based on your listing’s content. This is ideal for beginners or as a way to discover new high-converting keywords. However, it offers limited control and can result in wasted ad spend if not closely monitored.
Manual Targeting (Our Focus for Part 1)
Manual targeting gives you complete control. You choose:
Specific keywords
Match types
Bidding strategy
For experienced sellers or those using expert Amazon product listing services, manual targeting ensures your ads align precisely with your marketing goals.
Step 6: Choose Between Keyword Targeting and Product Targeting
Once you select manual targeting, you’ll see two more options:
Keyword Targeting: Targets specific search terms entered by users.
Product Targeting: Targets specific ASINs or product categories (great for targeting competitor listings).
In this guide, we’re focusing on keyword targeting, as it directly aligns with customer search behavior and provides measurable insights into keyword performance.
Step 7: Select Your Keywords and Match Types
Many sellers mistakenly load their campaigns with 30–50 keywords. Don’t do this. Amazon often allocates budget unevenly, and your best keywords might not get sufficient exposure. Best practice? Use a maximum of 10 keywords per campaign.
Match Types Explained:
Broad Match
Your ad appears for searches that include your keyword in any order along with related terms.
Example: Keyword: running shoes → Ad may show for buy shoes for running
Phrase Match
Your ad shows when a customer searches using your exact keyword phrase, with words before or after it.
Example: black running shoes for men
Exact Match
Your ad appears only when the exact keyword is searched (or very close variations).
Most precise targeting, highest relevance.
Pro Tip: Create separate campaigns for each match type. For example:
Campaign 1: ChocoBlast_Manual_Exact
Campaign 2: ChocoBlast_Manual_Phrase
This segmentation allows better performance tracking and bid adjustments per match type.
Step 8: Add Negative Keywords (Optional, but Recommended)
Negative keywords prevent your ads from showing up for irrelevant or low-converting search terms. For example, if you’re selling premium chocolates, adding "free" or "cheap" as negative keywords can help reduce wasted spend.
However, many sellers add negative keywords after analyzing early campaign data (around 3–7 days post-launch), making it a data-driven decision rather than an assumption.
Step 9: Choose the Right Bidding Strategy
When setting up a Sponsored Products campaign on Amazon, sellers can choose from three different bidding strategies, each suited for specific goals and budgets:
1. Dynamic Bidding – Up and Down
Amazon automatically adjusts your bids in real time, increasing them when a conversion seems likely and reducing them when it’s not. This approach is best for sellers aiming to maximize sales and can accommodate a more flexible budget.
2. Dynamic Bidding – Down Only
With this option, Amazon may lower your bids if a sale is unlikely but never raises them. It’s a more conservative strategy, ideal for new campaigns or sellers looking to keep spending under control while still targeting relevant audiences.
3. Fixed Bids
This method maintains your bid exactly as entered, without any real-time adjustments. While it gives you total control over your bids, it doesn’t respond to fluctuations in buyer behavior, making it more suitable for experienced advertisers who prefer a hands-on approach.
Our Recommendation: Start with Dynamic Bids - Down Only to avoid overspending while collecting initial campaign data.
Final Step: Review and Launch
Before launching:
Double-check your keyword list
Confirm match types
Ensure your daily budget is correct
Select the right bid strategy
Confirm the ad group settings
Once everything is in place, click “Launch Campaign” and start monitoring the performance via the Campaign Manager dashboard.
Maximize Sales with a Winning Amazon Sponsored Products Campaign
A well-structured Amazon sponsored products campaign can put your products in front of high-intent buyers and drive consistent sales — but only if it’s done right.
Whether you're just getting started or struggling to see results from your existing campaigns, now is the time to make a change. Our Amazon marketplace management experts in the USA and India specialize in Amazon PPC campaign setup, precision manual targeting vs. automatic targeting strategies, and data-driven Amazon advertising bidding strategies that deliver real ROI.
From fine-tuning your keyword match types to optimizing daily budgets, we tailor every aspect of your campaign to align with your goals. Combine that with our comprehensive Amazon product listing services, and you’ve got everything you need to outperform your competitors.
Don’t waste another dollar on underperforming ads. Let our team craft and manage a high-converting Amazon sponsored products campaign that scales with your brand.
Get in touch today for a free campaign audit and discover how we can boost your visibility, conversions, and long-term profitability on Amazon!
