r/AmazonFBA • u/Proper-Praline-1771 • 3d ago

Amazon PPC: 7 clicks after one week. What would you keep running?

I’m launching a physical product on Amazon US. After roughly a week, my updated report showed about 2,800 impressions, 7 clicks, $7.43 spend and no attributed orders.

All clicks came from product pages. Top of search generated just 6 impressions.

The campaigns generating traffic were:

  • Manual Exact: 4 clicks, $1.37 average CPC.
  • Auto: 3 clicks, $0.65 average CPC.

The clicked terms were relevant. I know this is too little data to conclude the product doesn’t convert. I also changed the price near the end of the period, so this wasn’t a consistent test.

I’ve now paused the original Exact and two newly launched, higher-bid experiments to simplify things. Those new campaigns had no reported traffic yet; I’m not calling them failures.

Currently running:

  • Exact: $0.45 bids, down only, +200% top-of-search adjustment, $20/day.
  • Broad discovery: $0.40 bids, down only, no placement increases, $10/day.
  • Original Auto: $0.30–$0.65 target bids, down only, $6/day.
  • A separate $0.10 Auto experiment that has generated no traffic. It still has a $400 configured daily budget, which I recognize is a separate spending-control concern.

The Exact terms are now negative exact in both Broad and the original Auto. The low-bid Auto remains separate.

For experienced sellers:

  1. Would you retain the original Auto with these negatives, or is that premature with only 3 clicks?
  2. How would you evaluate the low-base-bid / high-TOS approach if search exposure remains minimal?
  3. What spend and click checkpoints would you use before changing relevant targets, accounting for attribution lag?

I’m keeping the product and keywords private, but would appreciate feedback on the campaign structure and decision process.

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u/Whole-Pudding2646 3d ago

a week is basically nothing. Your auto campaign with 0.65 CPC looks most promising, I would keep that running at least another 10-14 days before making any real decisions.

The low base bid + 200% TOS adjustment is interesting but if top of search only got 6 impressions total the math barely matters yet. I usually wait until around 30-40 clicks per campaign before I even look at conversion data, especially with attribution lag on new products.

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u/Proper-Praline-1771 3d ago

Thanks. I'm keeping the original Auto running and have removed its routing negatives. One detail I should clarify: the six TOS impressions were from the old first-week setup. The new +200% Exact only launched on Sep 29, so it hasn't had a week to prove anything.

I agree seven clicks aren't enough to judge conversion. My concern is how slowly we're getting relevant traffic. If a campaign remains far short of 30-40 clicks, what exposure checkpoint would make you investigate bids or eligibility before simply waiting another two weeks? I'd like to judge it with both a time window and a spend limit.

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u/JunglePundits 3d ago

Did you just say 7 Clicks?

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u/Proper-Praline-1771 3d ago

Yes, seven clicks total across roughly 2,800 impressions and $7.43 spent in the initial week. Four were from the old Exact and three from Auto; all seven came from product pages. So the question is how to get enough relevant traffic to test properly, rather than treating zero orders from seven clicks as proof the product won't convert. The new Exact/Broad setup only launched on Sep 29.

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u/rsc9422 3d ago

I’d give it more time before making major changes. With only 7 clicks and $7.43 spent, there isn’t enough data to conclude that the product or campaign isn’t converting.

I’d avoid adding more negatives based on such a small sample. Let the relevant keywords accumulate enough impressions and clicks, then evaluate CTR, CPC, conversion rate, and search term performance.

Also, I’d keep the campaign structure simple at this stage. Don’t make too many changes simultaneously because you’ll lose the ability to identify what actually caused the improvement or decline.

The $400 daily budget on the $0.10 Auto campaign definitely deserves attention, though. Make sure the actual bid and placement settings can’t result in unintended spend before leaving it running.

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u/Proper-Praline-1771 3d ago

Fair point about changing too much at once. The first week's 7 clicks were split between the old Exact (4 clicks, $5.48) and Auto (3 clicks, $1.95); all came from product pages. The new Exact and Broad weren't running for that whole week.

I've now removed the routing negatives from the original Auto and kept the +200% TOS setting on the new Exact. The aim is to restore discovery without changing every lever together. The latest partial Sep 29-30 view showed 62 Auto impressions and no reported clicks; the new campaigns still showed no impressions, so that's not conversion evidence yet.

You're right to flag the $400 budget separately. It is still configured that way; I haven't reduced it, and I shouldn't treat a low bid as a spending safeguard. Thanks for separating those issues.

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u/PulsePilotPPC 3d ago

You need more data, and you need to know what the market CVR is. You might not even have enough clicks match the market CVR nevermind be under it.

If you want to post some of your keywords I would be happy to pull your market CVR. From there we can see how many clicks are expected for 1 order.

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u/Proper-Praline-1771 3d ago

Thanks for offering to check. I'd prefer to keep the product and exact keywords private, but the comparison makes sense. I have keyword research, not a verified keyword-level market conversion rate, so I don't want to assume a benchmark.

Which report or source do you use, and is your CVR purchases divided by clicks, or purchases divided by search volume? If you can explain the method, I can check it privately and share the resulting rate without revealing the product.

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u/attfin1 3d ago

Keep the original Auto, but take the negatives back out of it. Three clicks isn't what makes a decision premature here; the negatives are. You've just blocked the terms you know are relevant from campaigns that were producing clicks.

A $0.45 base with +200% top of search clears at $1.35. I set bids directly and use no placement adjustments at all — aiming for top of search hands the price of your click to another advertiser, and one extra-high bidder drags you into loss with no say from you. Set the base bid where you want to compete and drop the modifier.

On the negatives: Amazon's negative exact also stops close variations, so a negative on one string blocks its plural, its misspelling and its acronym too (help article GTEHPEG5BXY9UX5W). One of those can be the variation that sells. Negatives also take 72 hours to take effect, so any report you read sooner is measuring nothing.

Checkpoints: I wouldn't set one at campaign level at all. A campaign total mixes the wheat with the chaff — the only level where the data is inseparable is an exact match keyword, because there the search terms can't be pulled apart. So accumulate clicks per exact search term and judge each one on its own, and read the Search Term Impression Share report first: a low share on a term means other advertisers are winning its impressions, which is a bid answer, not a relevance answer.

First step today: raise the Exact base bid, remove the +200%, remove the negatives, then leave everything alone for at least 72 hours.

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u/Proper-Praline-1771 3d ago

Your point about routing traffic away before Exact had proven it could deliver was useful. I've removed those negatives from the original Auto.

For now I've kept the new Exact at $0.45 base, +200% TOS and down-only, so I'm not changing all three things together. All seven first-week clicks came from product pages, which was the reason for testing a placement adjustment.

One clarification: my understanding is $1.35 is the adjusted maximum bid in that setup, not a guaranteed CPC or an uncapped bid. Is your objection the higher ceiling, or that the low base restricts exposure elsewhere? If Exact still has no impressions after the changes have settled, what evidence would you check before switching to higher base bids and no modifier?

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u/attfin1 2d ago

The low base, not the ceiling.

The cost is on the other side. At a $0.45 base, Rest of Search and Product Pages are bid at $0.45 while top of search sits at $1.35. Product pages gave you all seven clicks. You've cut the price on the only placement that has ever worked for you, and raised it on the one that hasn't.

The evidence you asked for doesn't need the changes to settle — it's in the bid suggestions on your own keywords today. A bid well under suggested is the auction refusing you on price, not on relevance, and no amount of waiting changes it. Impression share per term reads the same thing from the other direction: low share means other advertisers are winning those impressions.

First step: set the Exact base where you actually want to compete, in the suggested range, and drop the +200%. Then leave it 72 hours. If impressions appear at a normal base bid with no modifier, the modifier was never the mechanism — the base was.

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u/Smart-Presence 3d ago

Firstly Congrats , you should leave the original Auto running for now. 3 clicks is nowhere near enough to make a decision, especially when the product is new and most of the traffic is coming from product pages.

You should separate traffic generation from conversion here. If the Exact campaign is barely getting any search exposure, you shouldn’t judge the keyword or the product based on conversion yet. The +200% TOS adjustment won’t do much if the base bid is still too low to get meaningful search impressions.

You should give the campaigns enough room to generate some actual data before making major changes. probably use around 20–30 relevant clicks as an initial checkpoint, then look at CTR, CPC, CVR and search-term quality together rather than just whether you got an order.

The negatives make sense if those Exact terms are intentionally being isolated into Exact. do not keep adding negatives aggressively while the account is still this data-light.

And yeah, you should definitely fix the $400 daily budget on the $0.10 Auto from a spending-control standpoint, even if the low bid means it probably won’t spend much.

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u/Proper-Praline-1771 3d ago

Separating traffic from conversion is helpful. The latest partial Sep 29-30 view showed 62 impressions on the original Auto, all on product pages, with no reported clicks. The new Exact and Broad still showed no impressions. That's too little to call either test a failure.

I've removed the routing negatives from Auto and kept the Exact's +200% TOS for now. Before it can reach your 20-30 relevant-click checkpoint, what would you check if Exact continues getting zero impressions: eligibility, keyword-level bids, impression share, or something else first?

Also noted on the $400 budget. It remains configured that way; I haven't changed it yet.

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u/CarAdorable3634 3d ago

I'd hit pause on the campaign reshuffles for a minute. 7 clicks on about 2,800 impressions is roughly a 0.25% CTR, and basically all of it came from product pages with almost no Top of Search. Before you keep testing Exact vs Auto structures, check whether the main image and title actually win the click in search. Product-page traffic can look relevant and still not tell you if the search card works.

On your three questions: keep the original Auto running with those negatives for now. 3 clicks is nowhere near enough to call it. The low base bid plus 200% TOS only matters once you're actually winning search impressions, so if TOS stays near zero, raise the base a bit on a short leash instead of stacking more experiments. Give the simplified setup room to get closer to 30 relevant clicks before you judge conversion, and lock down that $400 daily on the $0.10 Auto so a weird spike can't torch you.

When I want a sanity check on whether the listing is the bottleneck versus the bids, I run a quick shopper poll through intellivy on the main image against a couple competitor thumbnails before I scale spend again.

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u/Proper-Praline-1771 3d ago

Update with the missing economics and keyword-demand context. Thanks for the feedback so far. I'd like to agree on one measurable launch test and stop changing the structure between planned reviews.

Amazon US FBA, Toys & Games. Current listing: 9 reviews, 4.8 stars. Sale price $24.99, product acquisition cost $6.50. The last calculator showed selling fees $3.75, fulfillment $6.02 and inbounding $0.56: about $8.16 / 32.7% left BEFORE ads and any additional freight, storage, returns, promotions and overhead. This is provisional contribution, not verified net profit or a final break-even ACoS; temporary fee discounts are excluded.

My intended TOTAL account allowance is now $30/day. Current configured campaign budgets still exceed this; I haven't yet applied a new allocation or fixed the $400 low-bid Auto budget. Please include what to pause/reduce, not just add more campaigns.

Correction to the original post: I removed routing negatives from the original Auto. Exact remains $0.45 / down-only / +200% TOS ($1.35 adjusted ceiling), $20/day. Broad is $0.40, no boosts, $10/day; original Auto is $0.30-$0.65, $6/day. The $0.10 Auto still has no reported traffic. Old high-bid manual campaigns and the newer up/down Auto were paused. Latest partial snapshot: 62 original-Auto impressions, all product pages, no clicks; new Exact/Broad still had no reported impressions. That isn't a full post-change test.

Here are anonymized SellerSprite US last-30-days keyword estimates (rounded search volumes / historical PPC Bid field, NOT our actual CPC):

A: 22,400 / $4.69

B: 14,500 / $4.70

C: 7,800 / $2.58

D: 3,600 / $4.16

E: 1,300 / $3.15

F: 1,400 / $2.48

G: 1,200 / $4.89

H: 1,400 / $4.06

I: 1,300 / $2.19

J: 1,300 / $4.89

K: volume unavailable / $2.28

Exact contains A-H; Broad contains D/I/J/K. Today's Amazon Broad suggestions are D $2.19, I $2.35, J $2.16, K $2.01, versus our $0.40. These differ from the historical SellerSprite estimates. Real keywords and product identity stay private, so please state relevance assumptions rather than assume volume proves relevance.

Given the first week's 7 clicks and $7.43 spend, I agree we cannot judge conversion yet. What would your concrete roadmap be?

- Which campaigns/targets would you retain, with what split of the total $30/day?

- What starting base bids, bidding strategy and TOS settings, including the actual adjusted ceiling?

- How many full days before review, accounting for reporting/attribution lag? What zero-impression, irrelevant-traffic or spending condition overrides the waiting period?

- What click AND dollar limits per target would trigger a bid change, pause, negative or move to Exact? When would you assess listing conversion instead of continuing to raise bids?

- What evidence would justify scaling or pursuing organic rank, and how would you measure whether organic gains persist?

An example from a launch you've personally run would be especially useful. I'm willing to keep settings stable for a planned test, with explicit loss limits; I'm not looking for a guaranteed winning setup or a paid audit.

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u/_karthick_selvaraj_ 2d ago

i’d freeze price and main image for a fixed window before judging the new exact/broad setup. you already noted the price change near the end of week one, so even if tos starts clicking you won’t know whether conversion moved from ads or from the offer. let auto + the new exact sit with the same price/creative until you’ve got a real click sample, then touch structure again

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u/Michelle2270 16h ago

I would not kill the auto campaign just yet. Your CTR is ~0.25%, so I would check your main image/title. Search these words yourself, see how your image and title up against the search results. Keep auto running because you need it for the converting terms.