The only 5 campaigns you need when you start on Amazon

Published on February 12, 2026

About this video

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If you are just starting out on Amazon and trying to figure out Amazon PPC, you do not need a complex setup with dozens of campaigns. What you need is a clear structure, a simple campaign setup, and a consistent routine to manage your Amazon ads properly from day one.

In this video, I walk through the exact 4 campaign setup I recommend for beginner Amazon sellers, the negative keyword system you should put in place right away, the daily and weekly routine you need to stay on top of your Amazon advertising, and the most common mistakes you should avoid when starting out with Amazon PPC.

When you are new to Amazon advertising, copying advanced strategies from seven figure brands is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Those strategies are built for accounts with established data, bigger budgets, and experienced teams managing them. As a beginner, that kind of complexity will cause you to lose control fast.

The 4 campaign setup I recommend includes an auto cheap campaign, one standard auto campaign, one exact match campaign, and one phrase match campaign. This structure gives you a solid foundation to start collecting data without spreading your budget too thin. You do not need to go beyond this in the beginning. Keep your Amazon ads campaign structure clean and simple so you can actually manage it.

Keyword research is a critical part of setting up your Amazon sponsored products campaigns correctly. Before you launch, you need to spend the time finding the right keywords for your product. There are plenty of resources and videos available that walk through this step by step. Do the research properly before adding keywords to your Amazon PPC campaigns.

The negative keyword system is something you should set up from the very beginning. Think about the most common irrelevant search terms tied to your product and add them as negative phrase keywords. For example, if you are selling a silver product, you should add terms like gold or steel as negative phrases to avoid wasting spend on clicks that are unlikely to convert.

One of the most important habits you can build as a beginner in Amazon PPC advertising is checking your account every single day. Look at what search terms are generating impressions and clicks, check for any unusual spikes in spend, and review your negatives regularly. Using a task management tool like Todoist or Asana to set up a recurring daily task for account checks is a great way to stay consistent.

Once you are comfortable with the basics and feel like you have a solid grip on your Amazon ads account, you can move on to search term harvesting. This means taking the winning search terms from your auto and broad campaigns and moving them into exact match or phrase match campaigns with a bid that is about 10% higher than the source campaign.

Towards the end of the video, I cover the key things you should not do. Do not mix multiple match types inside a single campaign. Do not pause your entire campaign after just a few days because the Amazon advertising campaign needs time to collect data. And do not try to scale too quickly by adding product targeting, sponsored brands, and new campaigns all at once before you have a handle on what is already running.

If you have questions about Amazon PPC, Amazon sponsored ads, or how to structure your Amazon advertising campaigns as a beginner, drop them in the comments below.

Contents: 0:00 Why beginners fail at Amazon PPC 0:38 The simple 4 campaign setup explained 1:22 Keyword research for Amazon ads 1:37 Setting up your negative keyword system 2:10 Building your daily and weekly routine 2:51 Search term harvesting for beginners 3:12 What not to do with Amazon advertising

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Transcript

As a beginner seller on Amazon, you don't need complexity, you need structure. Somebody who's just starting out usually copies seven figure strategies to their brand. That's usually not how it should be done. They create too many campaigns. They neglect search termining. They neglect negatives. And generally there's no structure and there's no habit on what to do and when to do it. If you're launching your first product, this is the only structure that you need. So you can follow this simple four campaign setup and I'll go through the negative system, the weekly routine and what not to do. First, let's start with the simple four campaign setup if you're just starting out regardless if you're tight on budget or not. You shouldn't be going all in. This is simple four campaign setup as a basis, but you can remove or add a few campaigns if you feel like that's something that makes sense and according to best practices that you can find online. First, I would suggest autochip campaign. If you don't know what it is, search it on YouTube. It's an auto campaign that's going to be spending really low amounts of money and earning you profitable sales. Then I would suggest start with one auto campaign, start with one um exact match campaign, add one phrase match campaign, and you're good to go. Now, that doesn't mean that you will just create those four campaigns including the the cheap one, and then just forget about it. What's really important that from the start, you need to do your keyword research properly. Now, I have personally recorded a few methods and there are various videos online and you should look them up and not just look at them. You should follow everything step by step and find the proper keywords to use. You should add your negatives. So, now we're done to negative system. Research what are the most common negative keywords that could be tied to your product and add them as negative phrase. So, if you're selling a silver product, add steel as a negative or add gold. Yes, there could be some people who actually search for gold but end up buying your silver products, but most likely that's not going to be the case and you may end up buying clicks that you can afford especially at the beginning. So add the crucial negatives as phrase and then create a routine. So there should be a weekly routine, a daily routine especially if you're a beginner, you should have your daily routine. What are the keywords? What are the search terms doing? Uh, are there any search terms that were generated but are not relevant to your product? Is every did anything spike out of the ordinary like high spend or you need to be in the actual account day in and day out watching what's happening. Then have some kind of a task management system like to-doist or Asana, whatever you like. There are cheap ones, there are free ones. And set a recurring task to check daily the search terms, check the negatives, check the budgets, what's happening in the account. For the start, that's more than enough. If you're comfortable with that, you could start with search term harvesting. But that may be too much for a beginner. But if you feel like you're getting things done and you are having a grip on your account, then you can proceed to search term harvesting and move the winning search terms to to keywords in the phrase and exact match and add like um bid modifier 10% more than the source campaign and then start from there. Then lastly, but most important, I'm going to share what not to do. So don't create multiple match types in one campaign. Separate match types by campaign. Don't pause the whole campaign of three days. Campaign needs to run in order to gather data. It's not about just enabling or disabling campaign. You need to go in there, check your ad group, check your keywords, check your search terms. There multiple online resources that will enable you to do that properly. If you're new, complexity is your enemy. Stay low. Stay focused on these four campaign types or if you created five or six then work on them and then scale easily. Extract extract those winning keywords into new campaigns. You may add some product targeting. You may add some uh stuff with sponsor brands and just move slowly. Do not go crazy at the beginning because you will lose control on what's happening. I hope you like this video and let me know in the comments if you have any further questions. See you tomorrow in the next video. Bye-bye.

Frequently asked questions

What is the recommended Amazon PPC campaign structure for a new seller just starting out?

Start with four campaigns: an auto cheap campaign (low-bid auto targeting that discovers profitable search terms at minimal cost), one standard auto campaign, one exact match campaign, and one phrase match campaign. This gives you enough coverage to gather data across different targeting approaches without spreading your budget too thin or creating complexity you cannot manage. Each match type should be in its own separate campaign, not mixed together.

What negative keyword habits should new Amazon sellers build from day one?

Research the most common irrelevant search terms associated with your product category and add them as negative phrase keywords before your campaigns go live. For example, if you sell a silver product, add terms like "gold" and "steel" as negative phrases to prevent clicks from shoppers looking for different materials. Adding these negatives from the start prevents wasted spend during the early data-gathering phase when every click needs to count.

What are the most important things a beginner Amazon seller should not do with their PPC campaigns?

Do not mix multiple match types inside a single campaign; keep each match type in its own campaign so you can optimize bids and review performance clearly. Do not pause an entire campaign after just a few days, as campaigns need time to accumulate enough data to make informed decisions. Do not try to scale quickly by adding product targeting, Sponsored Brands, and new campaigns before you have a solid understanding of what your existing four campaigns are doing. Complexity at the beginning leads to loss of control; the priority is mastering a simple structure before expanding.