Targeting size
How to Adjust the Number of Keywords and Product Targets in Targeting
Going to Targeting > Settings lets you control the criteria used to build targeting, including match types, the maximum number of keywords, and the search for new keywords. Generally, we recommend keeping the default settings.
Selection from search term reports
By default, the "Balanced" option (recommended) is active, where search terms (keywords/product targets) that have generated at least one order are selected or, if no orders have been generated, those with a high CTR. This ensures that the targeting only includes relevant terms (because the customer has purchased) or those likely to be clicked (high CTR).
If you want to narrow down the selection, you can choose "Conservative - Orders Only," where a search term will only be included in targeting after it has generated at least one order. The order can come from an automatic campaign or a keyword with a phrase/broad match.
Maximum
By default, we limit the number of keywords and product targets to 1,000. Although this might seem high, the number of words generating monthly traffic is much lower. You might want to reduce the count to better "distribute" the budget, but remember that in Amazon Ads, the budget is not distributed but consumed passively. So, even if there are many keywords in the targeting, the budget is spent on a smaller subset.
However, you can change the maximum count, and the top X will be selected based on the impressions generated, provided they meet the above criteria.
Match Type
By default, a search term is added as a keyword in all three match types (exact, phrase, broad). The bid is progressively reduced, so the bid for phrase match is lower than exact match, and broad match is lower than phrase match. The broad match will include a "+" (plus modifier) to ensure that search terms generated contain at least that word, meaning you will rarely encounter irrelevant search terms, and you can confidently leave it active. In general, we recommend keeping all three active, but you can choose which ones to enable if desired.
Keyword Research
Automatically, we identify the initial keywords even if there is no historical data, using various sources, and continue to do so over time to find new keywords or competitor product pages. We use very stringent filters to avoid adding irrelevant terms.
Search Term Data
Here, you can choose whether to use data from search term reports to build the targeting and determine the types of targets.
In general, we recommend keeping both options enabled. If you disable them, the targeting will be empty, and only the keywords/product targets you have added in Custom Targeting will be used.
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