Profit autopilot

The Profit autopilot sets your Sponsored Products bids from what each product really earns, not from one ACoS number for the whole account. It looks at every keyword and product target once a day and proposes a new bid when the numbers say so. You apply the changes you agree with, or let it apply them itself.

The target it aims at

Each ad group's target ACoS comes from the products it advertises:

• Breakeven ACoS = what the products make before ads, as a share of their sales, over the last 60 days: sales less landed cost, every Amazon fee, refunds and reimbursements (the same figures as the Products page). At this ACoS the ads eat all the profit.
• Target ACoS = breakeven less the points you keep as profit (Profit to keep, 10 by default). A product with a 35% breakeven and 10 kept aims at 25%.

So a product with a fat margin can bid harder than one with a thin margin, and a product whose fees went up gets a lower target on its own. Products need their cost on Costs: ad groups whose products have no cost are left alone.

How a bid is worked out

• The numbers: the last 30 days up to 2 days ago, with Amazon's 7-day attribution (sales Amazon reports late are in).
• Sales per click times the target ACoS is what a click is worth to you. Amazon usually charges less than your bid, so the bid is scaled by that over what a click costs now: a keyword at 50% ACoS with a 25% target is paying twice what its clicks are worth. A keyword with few clicks borrows from its ad group's sales per click (as if it had 15 more clicks at the ad group's rate), so one lucky or unlucky sale doesn't swing it, and a bid only goes up when the keyword's own ACoS is under target (and down when over).
• The bid moves toward that number by at most Biggest change per step (20% by default), and never above Highest bid if you set one. Moves of a couple of cents are skipped.
• Under 10 clicks nothing changes, unless the keyword has already spent more with no sale than one and a half sales would be allowed at target: then it comes down one step.
• After a change (by the autopilot or a campaign rule) the keyword waits a week, so the next decision sees the new bid's results.

In manual campaigns each enabled keyword and product target (an ASIN, a category or a brand, with any refinements) gets its own bid. In automatic campaigns each targeting group gets its own bid: close match, loose match, substitutes and complements. A loose match that spends without selling can come down while a close match that sells goes up. Until MyProfit has loaded an automatic campaign's targeting groups (the night after Amazon Ads is connected), its ad group's default bid is adjusted instead. A target that has never had its own bid runs on the ad group's default bid until the autopilot gives it one.

Stock

With Bid by stock on (the default), the autopilot also looks at each ad group's FBA stock: units sellable at Amazon plus units you have shipped that Amazon hasn't received yet, against how fast they sold over the last 60 days. SKUs on one FBA barcode count once.

• Running low: when the stock won't last your Restock time (45 days by default: from ordering to sellable at Amazon), the target ACoS comes down in proportion and no bid goes up. 20 days of stock with a 45-day restock aims at under half the usual target. When stock is short, organic sales alone can use it up before the restock lands, so money spent on ads only brings the stockout closer. Selling slower also keeps more days of supply, which can keep you clear of Amazon's low-inventory-level fee (under 28 days of supply).
• Overstocked: past 22 weeks of stock, where Amazon's storage utilization surcharge starts, it keeps half your usual profit points so bids can push harder to sell it down.
• Out of stock with nothing on the way: left alone (Amazon isn't showing those ads).

Proposals made because of stock show the days of stock next to the target. Products you ship yourself are bid on their numbers alone. Turn Bid by stock off to bid on profit only.

Placements

Every bid has three placement increases, set per campaign: top of search, rest of search and product pages (Amazon's report calls the middle one "Other on-Amazon"). With Placement bids on (the default), the autopilot sets them from what a click sells on each placement over the last 30 days. Where an ad shows changes what a click is worth, not what you bid, so bidding in proportion to sales per click puts every placement on the same ACoS:

• The placement that sells least a click runs on the base bid (0%).
• Each other one gets its sales per click over that one's, less one: top of search selling $9 a click against $4.50 on product pages gets +100%.
• A placement needs 30 clicks in the window to count, at least two must have them, a setting moves at most 50 points at a time (up to +300%), then waits a week. While the products' stock runs low, increases only come down.

The keyword and target bids then set the base level from the campaign's blended numbers. Your campaigns' bidding strategy and any audience bid adjustments are left as they are. Ads shown off Amazon have no setting and don't count.

Modes

Off	Nothing is proposed or changed.
Recommend	Every day the page lists the changes it would make, with the numbers and the reason. Tick the ones you want and click Apply, or dismiss them. The next day's run replaces anything left.
Automatic	It applies the day's changes itself (on the Seller plan). They are listed under Applied in the last 30 days.

Safeguards

• Before sending, MyProfit reads each bid from Amazon. If you changed it in Amazon since the proposal, or the keyword is paused, the proposal is dropped.
• Ad groups a campaign rule set runs on are left to the rules, so the two never fight. Remove the rule set from an ad group to hand it to the autopilot.
• Every change shows on the Ads overview chart as a marker, with what Amazon answered.

Good to know

• It works on enabled keywords in enabled campaigns. It doesn't add or pause keywords or targets: Keyword harvest finds new keywords and blocks the search terms that don't sell.
• It runs once a day in the morning, Pacific time, after Amazon's reports for the day before are in. Run now works it out again from the latest numbers.