Amazon PPC Campaign Structure That Scales

Most Amazon sellers have a PPC mess, not a PPC structure. They've got 47 campaigns with random names, no clear purpose for each one, and they're bleeding money because nothing connects. I've seen brands spending $80K/month in ad spend with zero organizational logic — just a graveyard of "test campaign 3 copy" folders. After managing 50+ brands and $205M+ in Amazon sales at GigaBrands, I can tell you that campaign structure is the single biggest differentiator between sellers who scale profitably and sellers who plateau at $30K/month wondering why their ACoS keeps climbing.

Here's the exact campaign structure framework we use across every brand we manage.

What Is the Best Amazon PPC Campaign Structure?

The best campaign structure isn't one campaign type — it's a system of campaign types that each serve a specific purpose. Think of it like a sports team: every player has a position and a job. When everyone freelances, you lose.

Here are the four campaign types every serious Amazon seller needs:

• Research Campaigns — discovering new converting keywords

• Ranking Campaigns — pushing organic rank on your best keywords

• Defense Campaigns — protecting your brand and listings from competitors

• Branded Campaigns — capturing demand that already knows you

Each campaign type has different goals, different bid strategies, and different success metrics. Mixing these purposes into a single campaign is the #1 structural mistake I see.

How to Set Up Research Campaigns for Keyword Discovery

Research campaigns exist for one reason: finding keywords that convert for your product. They're the top of your PPC funnel.

Auto campaigns are your primary research tool. Set up one auto campaign per parent ASIN with these settings:

• Bid: Start at $0.75-$1.25 (adjust based on category competitiveness)

• Budget: $25-$50/day minimum to generate meaningful data

• Targeting: Default bid with all four match types enabled (close match, loose match, substitutes, complements)

Run a separate broad match manual campaign alongside your auto. This catches longer-tail queries that autos sometimes miss. Use 15-25 seed keywords from your listing, competitor analysis, and tools like Helium 10 or Cerebro.

The critical rule: Research campaigns feed your ranking campaigns. Every week, pull your search term reports. Any search term with 2+ conversions and acceptable ACoS gets graduated to an exact match ranking campaign. Then negate that term in your research campaign so you're not competing with yourself.

This is the waterfall system. Research discovers. Ranking campaigns exploit. If you skip this step, you're paying discovery prices for keywords you've already proven.

How to Build Ranking Campaigns That Push Organic Position

Ranking campaigns are where you make money. These are exact match campaigns targeting keywords you've already validated through research.

Structure them like this:

• One campaign per keyword group (3-5 tightly related exact match keywords per ad group)

• Aggressive bids — 20-40% above suggested bid during the ranking push phase

• Top of Search placement modifier set to 25-50% to win that first position

• Budget: allocate 60-70% of your total ad spend here

The goal isn't just sales from ads. The goal is organic rank improvement. When Amazon sees consistent sales velocity on a keyword through PPC, they start placing you higher organically. That's when your effective ACoS drops dramatically because organic sales don't cost you ad spend.

Track your organic rank weekly for each keyword in your ranking campaigns. When you hit page 1 positions 1-5 organically, you can start dialing back bids. Not eliminating — dialing back. You still need PPC presence to maintain velocity.

What Are Defense Campaigns and Why Do They Matter?

Defense campaigns protect what you've already built. Two types:

ASIN Defense (Product Targeting): Target your own ASINs with Sponsored Products. This puts YOUR ads on YOUR product pages. Why? Because if you don't, your competitors will. I've seen brands lose 15-20% of their detail page traffic to competitor ads sitting right on their listing. That's revenue you've already paid to acquire — don't hand it to someone else. Competitor Conquest: Target competitor ASINs where your product has a clear advantage (better reviews, lower price, superior feature set). These campaigns typically run at a higher ACoS, and that's fine. You're stealing market share, which is a different calculation than pure ROAS.

Defense campaigns usually get 10-15% of total ad budget. They're not your growth engine — they're your moat.

How Should You Structure Branded Campaigns?

Branded campaigns capture people searching specifically for your brand name. These are your highest-converting, lowest-ACoS campaigns because the shopper already knows you.

Why bother bidding on your own brand name?

• Competitors are bidding on it. If you don't show up first, they will.

• Branded campaigns typically run at 5-15% ACoS. They're basically free money.

• They protect your real estate at the top of search results.

Set up one branded campaign with exact match on your brand name and common misspellings. Low bids work here — $0.30-$0.75 is usually plenty because your relevance score is highest for your own brand.

How to Organize Campaigns by Match Type

Here's the organizational hierarchy that actually scales:

```

Portfolio: [Product Line Name]

├── [Product] - Auto Research

├── [Product] - Broad Research

├── [Product] - Exact Ranking (High Priority Keywords)

├── [Product] - Exact Ranking (Medium Priority Keywords)

├── [Product] - ASIN Defense

├── [Product] - Competitor Conquest

└── [Product] - Brand Defense

```

Use portfolios. Amazon's portfolio feature lets you set portfolio-level budget caps. This is critical when you're managing 20+ products. Set a monthly portfolio budget for each product line so one runaway campaign can't eat your entire ad budget overnight. Naming conventions matter. Every campaign name should include: Product name, match type, campaign purpose. Example: "ProteinPowder-Exact-Ranking-Tier1." When you have 100+ campaigns, you need to find things fast.

When Should You Use Auto vs Manual Campaigns?

Use auto campaigns when:

• Launching a new product (you need data, not opinions)

• Entering a new category or sub-niche

• Quarterly keyword audits (turn on a fresh auto to find new trends)

• You have products with seasonal demand shifts

Use manual campaigns when:

• You have validated keyword data from research campaigns

• Pushing rank on specific target keywords

• Running defense or branded campaigns

• You need precise bid control on high-value terms

The mistake is treating it as either/or. Auto and manual campaigns serve different functions in the same system. Killing your autos once you have manual campaigns is like firing your scouts because you already have soldiers.

How to Set Up Day-Parting for Amazon PPC

Day-parting — adjusting bids by time of day — is an advanced lever. Don't touch it until you have 30+ days of data.

Pull your hourly performance reports. You'll typically find that conversion rates peak between 7-10 AM and 7-11 PM in your primary timezone, with a dead zone from 1-4 AM. Reduce bids by 25-40% during low-converting hours. Increase by 10-20% during peak windows.

Day-parting isn't available natively in Amazon's console at a granular level. You'll need either a third-party tool or Amazon's API with custom rules. For most brands under $50K/month in ad spend, the juice isn't worth the squeeze yet. Focus on campaign structure first.

How Does This Scale From $5K to $100K+ in Monthly Ad Spend?

At $5K/month: Run the basic structure — one auto research, one broad research, one exact ranking campaign per hero product. Focus on 2-3 products max. Don't spread thin.

At $20K/month: Full structure per product. Add defense campaigns. Start portfolio budgeting. Weekly search term harvesting.

At $50K/month: Layer in Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display. Add day-parting. Hire or outsource someone to manage search term reports daily, not weekly.

At $100K+/month: You need automation, custom reporting, and likely an agency or dedicated team. The structure stays the same — it's the execution cadence that changes. You're optimizing daily, running A/B tests on ad creative, and managing placement modifiers at the keyword level.

The structure doesn't change as you scale. The rigor and frequency of optimization does. That's the whole point of building it right from day one.

If you're running $50K+ per month on Amazon and your campaign structure looks nothing like this, you're leaving money on the table. We audit PPC accounts every week and the structural problems are almost always the root cause of wasted spend.

Book a free strategy call: https://calendly.com/d/crft-5qs-x9w

Hunter Harris is the founder of GigaBrands, an AI-assisted Amazon growth agency managing 50+ brands with over $205M in total Amazon sales.