Keyword research tools are useful. They are not the starting point. The best source of converting keywords for your product is the record of what shoppers actually typed before clicking your ad and buying, and that record is free, in your own account, in the search term report. This playbook builds a keyword list from free sources, lets an automatic campaign find the rest, and turns the findings into campaigns.
Step 1: the starting list, from free sources
Spend an hour. Aim for 20 to 40 candidate terms.
Amazon's search bar. Type your product type and read the suggestions. Then type it followed by each letter of the alphabet. The suggestions are real searches, ranked by how often they are typed. Note the ones that describe your product.
Competitor listings. Open the top five listings for your product type. Read their titles and bullets. The terms that appear in all of them are terms the category uses.
Your own listing. The words in your title and bullets are terms Amazon already associates with your product.
Customer language. Your reviews, and competitors' reviews, show how buyers describe the product in their own words. Those words are often search terms nobody else is bidding on.
Filter the list to terms that describe your product specifically. A term that fits half the category will spend on shoppers who want the other half.
Step 2: let the automatic campaign discover
Run an automatic Sponsored Products campaign alongside your manual one. Amazon shows the ad on searches it thinks match your listing, and the search term report shows which ones. This is discovery at the price of the clicks, and it finds terms no research tool would have suggested, because they are the terms shoppers actually used for your product. The first campaign walkthrough covers the setup.
Give it two to three weeks before reading the report. Discovery needs clicks.
Step 3: read the search term report
Download it for the automatic campaign. Sort by orders, then by spend. Three groups:
Converters. Terms with orders at an acceptable ACoS. These are your best keywords, proven on your product. Move them to the manual campaign as exact match.
Spenders. Terms with clicks and no orders, past a threshold you set (often 15 to 20 clicks for a product that converts around 10 percent). If they do not fit the product, add them as negatives. If they do fit, leave them for more data.
Too early. Terms with a few clicks. Leave them.
Step 4: build the manual campaign from what works
Exact match for the converters, with bids based on how well each one converted. Phrase match for a handful of short, broad terms whose longer variations you want to discover in a more controlled way than the automatic campaign allows. The match type guide covers when each fits.
Keep the list short. Twenty keywords you watch beat two hundred you do not.
Step 5: repeat every two weeks
The search term report keeps producing. New converters move to exact match. New spenders become negatives. The automatic campaign keeps discovering, and the manual campaign keeps growing from proven terms only.
Add negatives from each pass to the automatic campaign too, so it stops paying to rediscover terms you have already judged. And add your exact match converters as negatives in the automatic campaign, so the two campaigns do not compete for the same searches.
When paid tools help
At scale. With many products, estimating search volume before you launch helps choose which terms deserve a test. Competitor keyword data helps find terms a competitor ranks on that you have not tried. Those are real uses, and for larger catalogs a research tool pays for itself.
For a seller with a handful of products, the search term report does most of the job, and the money a tool would cost is often better spent on the clicks the automatic campaign needs to do its discovery.
Common mistakes
Importing a research tool's export straight into a campaign. Hundreds of keywords, most irrelevant, all spending.
Never reading the search term report. The automatic campaign finds terms; if nobody harvests them, it keeps paying discovery prices forever.
Treating high search volume as a reason to bid. A high-volume term that does not describe your product precisely spends a lot and converts little.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a paid tool for Amazon keyword research?
Not to start. Amazon's search bar suggestions, competitor listings, and your own automatic campaign's search term report produce a working keyword list. Paid tools add search volume estimates and competitor data, which help at scale but are not required to run profitable campaigns.
How many keywords should a new Amazon campaign have?
Fewer than most sellers start with. Ten to twenty well-chosen exact match keywords plus an automatic campaign for discovery is a better start than a hundred keywords from a research export. Small lists are easier to manage and their data is easier to read.
What is the Amazon search term report?
A report in the advertising console that lists the actual searches shoppers typed before clicking your ad, with impressions, clicks, spend and orders for each. It is the most reliable source of converting keywords because it shows what real shoppers searched before buying your product.
Once the keyword list is built, Off Hours handles the schedule and the budget around it, with performance rules that react to yesterday's ACoS. Start a free 14-day trial.