Amazon PPC

Amazon Search Term Report Guide

An Amazon search term report workflow turns raw customer queries into four decisions: keep converting terms, promote winners, reduce weak terms, and negate irrelevant or wasteful searches. The report is the operating base for PPC waste reduction.

Many campaigns underperform because query quality is weak, not because bids are simply too high or too low. The search term report shows where budget is actually going, which terms drive orders, and which terms keep spending without contribution.

The goal is not aggressive one-time cleanup. The goal is a repeatable triage loop with clear categories: keep, observe, and act.

Build a Term-Triage Framework

• Keep terms: converting terms with acceptable ACOS and stable order contribution.
• Observe terms: terms with clicks but insufficient data for final action.
• Act terms: high spend with no orders, or clear intent mismatch.
• Expand terms: high-converting terms moved into dedicated structures for control.

Weekly 5-Step Loop

1. Export 7- to 14-day search term data and sort by spend.
2. Tag high-spend zero-order terms as priority action items.
3. Extract high-converting terms for exact-match expansion.
4. Apply exact negatives first, then phrase negatives where repeated low-intent roots persist.
5. Review ACOS, CTR, CVR, and order mix before the next batch.

How It Connects to Negative Keywords

The search term report identifies waste. Negatives execute the correction. Use the Amazon negative keywords workflow to separate exact vs phrase use cases, then release changes in controlled batches. For larger accounts, use the negative keyword tiering workflow to decide ad-group, campaign, or account scope.

Search term report workflow matrix

• High spend + no orders: review for exact negative, bid-down, or listing relevance failure.
• High spend + acceptable ACOS: protect and consider exact-match isolation.
• Low spend + strong conversion: move into monitor or scale candidate bucket.
• Low spend + no signal: keep in watchlist until the sample is large enough.

Tie Decisions to Unit Economics

Before term cleanup, estimate your break-even ACOS in the profit calculator. That baseline turns ad decisions into margin-safe rules instead of subjective optimization.

Common Mistakes

• Optimizing for ACOS only while ignoring order contribution.
• Deploying large keyword changes without attribution discipline.
• Treating listing relevance issues as keyword issues.
• Using identical thresholds for launch and mature campaigns.

FAQ

How often should sellers review the search term report?

Weekly during launch and every two weeks for stable campaigns, or earlier when spend thresholds are exceeded.

Should every high-spend non-converting term be negated immediately?

Not always. First confirm whether listing relevance, price positioning, or stock constraints are causing weak conversion.

Do we adjust bids first or add negatives first?

Start by removing clearly irrelevant intent with negatives, then fine-tune bids so performance shifts are easier to attribute.

What should an Amazon search term report workflow produce?

It should produce a prioritized action list: terms to negate, terms to promote, terms to bid down, and terms to keep watching.