The same questions come up again and again from sellers new to Amazon advertising, and from experienced sellers checking whether what they learned years ago still holds. The answers are scattered across help pages, forums and long guides.

This page collects twenty of the most common questions with short, direct answers, grouped by topic. Each answer links to a longer guide where one exists.

The basics

1. What is Amazon advertising?

Paid placements inside Amazon: in search results, on product pages and, for some formats, off Amazon. Most sellers mean Sponsored Products, the pay-per-click ads that look like regular listings. What is Amazon PPC covers the full picture.

2. Who can advertise?

Sellers with a professional selling account and products eligible for the buy box can run Sponsored Products. Sponsored Brands and some other formats require Brand Registry. Vendors advertise through the same console with similar formats.

3. How does the auction work?

Each time a shopper searches, eligible ads compete. Amazon weighs your bid and how relevant your product is to the search. You pay per click, typically somewhat less than your maximum bid. A highly relevant product with a converting listing can win placements that a less relevant product cannot buy even with a higher bid, which is why listing quality matters to ad costs.

4. Which ad type should I start with?

Sponsored Products. They reach shoppers already searching, work without a brand store and generate the search term data everything else builds on.

Costs and metrics

5. How much do Amazon ads cost?

You set daily budgets and bids, so you control the total. Cost per click varies widely by category and keyword. The cost guide shows how to estimate it for your own products.

6. What is ACoS?

Advertising cost of sale: ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales. Lower means more efficient. It ignores organic sales, which is why TACoS exists. ACoS also shifts as attribution fills in over the days after a click, so yesterday's number is usually higher than it will end up.

7. What is a good ACoS?

One below your break-even ACoS, which is your margin before ad spend. A good number for one product can be a loss on another.

8. What is TACoS?

Total advertising cost of sale: ad spend divided by all sales, ad and organic. It shows whether advertising is growing the business or just replacing organic sales.

Campaign setup

9. Auto or manual campaigns?

Both. Auto campaigns discover search terms. Manual campaigns let you bid deliberately on terms that have proven themselves. Most accounts run them together. Converting terms found in auto campaigns move into manual exact match, and are added as negatives in the auto campaign so the two do not compete.

10. What are match types?

Broad, phrase and exact control how closely a search must match your keyword. Broad casts widest, exact is tightest. The match types guide explains when to use each.

11. What are negative keywords?

Terms you tell Amazon not to show your ad for. They are the main tool for cutting wasted spend on irrelevant or non-converting searches.

12. How many keywords per ad group?

Few enough that each gets a fair share of budget and you can read its results. Tight, themed ad groups are easier to manage than large mixed ones.

Running and optimizing

13. How long until ads work?

Expect a learning period of a few weeks before results settle. Attribution itself takes several days to fill in, so judge changes after a week or two, not a day.

14. How often should I change bids?

Weekly is enough for most keywords. Changing bids daily on thin data mostly reacts to noise. Wait until a keyword has enough clicks to say something, then move bids in modest steps and give each change a week before judging it.

15. Why did my budget run out by noon?

The campaign is budget-limited: demand exceeds the daily budget at your current bids. Either raise the budget or lower bids so spend lasts through your best hours. Out of budget by midday covers both fixes.

16. Should ads run around the clock?

Not necessarily. Many accounts have hours that spend steadily and rarely convert. Hourly data shows whether your account does, and scheduling can move that spend to better hours.

Tools and help

17. Is the Amazon console enough on its own?

For a small account, often yes. Its built-in scheduling and rule options are limited, and hour-by-hour control is where third-party software usually comes in.

18. Should I use automation?

For repetitive, rule-shaped tasks, yes: schedules, budget caps, alerts. Keep judgment calls, like which products to push, with a person. When to use automation goes deeper.

19. Agency or do it yourself?

It depends on time, account size and expertise. Doing it yourself is cheapest in money and most expensive in hours. An agency trades fees for time and experience. Software sits in between: it takes over repetitive work while you keep the decisions.

20. What is the most common mistake?

Setting campaigns up and not reviewing them. Search terms, bids and budgets drift. A short weekly review prevents most expensive problems. The common mistakes post lists the others worth checking for.

Frequently asked questions

Where should a new seller start with Amazon advertising?

With Sponsored Products on a few products whose listings already convert well. Run an auto campaign and a manual campaign per product, review search terms weekly, and expand only once those campaigns are stable.

How often should I check my Amazon ads?

Review performance weekly and make most changes then. Check spend daily, or set alerts, so a runaway campaign is caught the same day rather than at the end of the week.

Can I run Amazon ads without an agency or software?

Yes. Many sellers manage their own ads in the console. Software helps with repetitive work like scheduling and monitoring, and an agency helps with strategy and time. Neither is required to start.

Off Hours adds the scheduling, budget rules and free spend alerts the console leaves out, on a 15-minute cadence with every change logged. Start a free 14-day trial.