Amazon PPC negative keywords: negative exact, phrase and funneling

Amazon's rules for negatives

• A negative works where you add it: on an ad group it covers every keyword and target in that ad group; on a campaign, every ad group in it.
• You can't change an existing negative's match type: remove it and add it again.
• Amazon says negative keywords can take up to 72 hours to take effect, and negative products up to 96 hours, so judge the result after a few days.

From Amazon Ads' help page Add negative keywords or negative products (updated February 25, 2026).

The example

One month of a coffee-gear store's search term report: an exact campaign, an automatic campaign and a broad campaign for the same pour-over coffee set, $473.50 of ad spend at 21.3% ACoS. An average order brings in $59.97. The search term report checker shows the same example worked through, and does the same with your own report.

Job 1: cut searches that spend without selling

A search that has cost more than an average order brings in, with no sale, is unlikely to pay that back. In the example, coffee filters #4 took 31 clicks and $66.65 in the automatic campaign and sold nothing: shoppers looking for filters, not a coffee maker. A negative exact for it in that ad group stops the spend.

• Wait until a search has had a fair chance: a few clicks without a sale is normal. Spend past an average order's worth is a good line; for an expensive product, a few hundred clicks may still be early.
• Use negative phrase for a word that always means the wrong shopper (a product you don't sell, "replacement", "used"), and keep it short: every search containing it goes dark, including ones that sell.
• A search that is an ASIN is a product page your ad showed on: block it with a negative product target, not a keyword.

Job 2: funnel each search to its exact keyword

Once you bid on a search with an exact keyword, your broad, phrase and automatic ad groups keep buying it too. Your own ad groups then compete for it, the search runs at whichever bid wins, and its numbers are split over several places. In the example, the exact keyword pour over coffee maker sells at 16.5% ACoS, while the same search ran:

A negative exact for pour over coffee maker in the automatic and the broad ad groups sends the search to the exact keyword only: one bid for it, set where you can see what it earns. This is sometimes called negative funneling or keyword sculpting. Three rules keep it from costing you sales:

• Same product. The exact keyword's ad group must advertise the product the other ad group does, or the product drops off the search.
• The exact keyword is live. If it isn't showing (paused, or bid too low to win), the negative turns the search off.
• Not where it sells cheaper. The automatic campaign sells ceramic pour over at 5.3% ACoS, against 17.4% on its exact keyword. Funneling it would trade cheap sales for dearer ones, so it stays.

And never put the negative in the exact keyword's own ad group: it would block the keyword itself.

Job 3: move winners to exact, then funnel them

Discovery campaigns (automatic, broad, phrase) find searches you hadn't thought of. When one sells, give it its own keyword so you control its bid. In the example, pour over coffee set sold 4 times in the broad campaign at 15.0% ACoS with no exact keyword: add it as an exact keyword at about what its clicks cost now ($1.20), then funnel it as in job 2. A product page that sells works the same way: b0d3kq7plm sold 3 times in the automatic campaign, so it becomes a product target (ASIN B0D3KQ7PLM) in a product targeting campaign, and a negative product target in the automatic ad group.

How often

• Every week or two, from the last 30 days of the search term report, leaving out the last two days (Amazon keeps adding sales to a click for 7 days).
• After adding negatives, give them the 72 hours Amazon needs before judging the result.
• Keep a list of what you negated and why: a search that didn't sell in one season can sell in the next.

Mistakes that cost sales

• A negative phrase made of a word that is also in your best searches (a negative phrase coffee in a coffee maker campaign).
• A negative in the exact keyword's own ad group.
• Funneling a search to an exact keyword that bids too low to show.
• Cutting a search after a handful of clicks.
• Forgetting close variations: a negative exact for coffee maker also blocks coffee makers.

Do it from your own report, or every day

The free search term report checker reads the report you download from the Amazon Ads console and lists the searches to cut, to funnel and to move to exact. In MyProfit the profit autopilot does the funneling every day from your Amazon Ads data, knowing which products each ad group advertises, and sets each bid from the product's real margin: see the PPC bid optimization guide.