Amazon PPC
Amazon PPC Launch Strategy: 90-Day Playbook
Feb 16, 2026
Launching a product on Amazon without a PPC strategy is like opening a store in a mall with the lights off. Nobody finds you. Your listing sits on page 12, collecting dust while competitors with established review counts and sales velocity dominate every keyword you need. I've launched hundreds of products across 50+ brands at GigaBrands, and the difference between a product that gains traction and one that dies in obscurity almost always comes down to the first 90 days of PPC execution.
Here's the exact launch PPC framework we use — phase by phase, with real budget expectations.
What Should You Do Before Launching Amazon PPC?
The launch doesn't start on launch day. It starts 2-4 weeks before your product goes live. Skip this phase and you'll waste your first week of ad spend figuring out what you should already know.
Pre-Launch Keyword Harvesting:
Pull keywords from four sources:
Competitor reverse lookups. Use Cerebro or similar tools on your top 10 competitors. Export every keyword they rank for. Sort by search volume and relevance.
Amazon search suggestions. Type your main seed keywords into Amazon's search bar and document every auto-suggestion. These are high-intent, real queries.
Brand Analytics. If you have Brand Registry, pull the Top Search Terms report for your category. This shows actual search frequency data from Amazon — not estimated volume from third-party tools.
Your listing copy. Every keyword in your title, bullets, and backend search terms should be in your campaign plan. If it's in your listing, it should be in your PPC.
Organize keywords into three tiers:
Tier 1 (5-10 keywords): High volume, high relevance. These are the keywords that define your category. You need to rank here eventually, but they're expensive and competitive at launch.
Tier 2 (15-25 keywords): Medium volume, high relevance. These are your launch sweet spot — achievable rank targets with reasonable CPCs.
Tier 3 (25-50 keywords): Long-tail, very specific queries. Low volume individually, but they convert well and are cheap to bid on.
How to Set Up PPC Campaigns on Launch Day
Launch day campaign setup should take you 30 minutes because you've already done the hard work in pre-launch. Here's the exact structure:
Campaign 1 — Auto Discovery
Type: Automatic targeting
Bid: $1.00-$1.50 (above category average — you need impressions day one)
Daily budget: $50-$75
Purpose: Catch keywords you missed and find ASIN targets
Campaign 2 — Broad Match Research
Type: Manual, broad match
Keywords: All Tier 1 and Tier 2 keywords
Bid: Amazon suggested bid + 25%
Daily budget: $40-$60
Purpose: Cast a wide net on validated keywords
Campaign 3 — Exact Match Ranking
Type: Manual, exact match
Keywords: Tier 2 keywords only (Tier 1 is too expensive with no reviews)
Bid: Amazon suggested bid + 30-50%
Top of Search placement modifier: +40%
Daily budget: $50-$100
Purpose: Aggressive rank push on achievable keywords
Campaign 4 — Long-Tail Exact
Type: Manual, exact match
Keywords: Tier 3 long-tail keywords
Bid: Amazon suggested bid (these are already cheap)
Daily budget: $25-$40
Purpose: Low-cost conversions to build sales velocity
Total day-one ad budget: $165-$275/day. Yes, that's $5K-$8K for the first month. This is the cost of launching properly. Underfunding your launch is the most expensive mistake because you can't get momentum back easily.
What Is the Aggressive Bidding Phase?
Days 1-14: The Aggression Phase
This is where most sellers flinch — and where launches succeed or fail.
During the first two weeks, your product has zero reviews, zero sales history, and zero organic rank. Amazon's algorithm has no reason to show you organically. PPC is your only visibility channel. You need to overpay for that visibility to build initial velocity.
What this looks like in practice:
Bids 30-50% above suggested amounts
ACoS will be ugly — 60%, 80%, maybe 100%+. This is expected.
You're not optimizing for profitability yet. You're optimizing for indexed keywords and initial sales velocity.
Check search term reports every 3 days. Negate obvious garbage (irrelevant terms, competitor brand names you can't compete with). But don't over-negate — you need volume.
The mindset shift: Think of this phase as inventory investment, not advertising expense. You're investing $3,000-$5,000 in market position. The ROI comes in months 2-6 when organic rank kicks in.
Monitor your keyword indexing. Search for your ASIN + each target keyword to confirm Amazon has indexed you. If you're not indexed for a keyword, PPC bids on that keyword are wasted. Fix your listing backend search terms and re-check.
How to Execute the Ranking Phase
Days 15-45: The Ranking Phase
By now you should have 5-15 reviews (from organic purchases, Vine, or your launch strategy). Your conversion rate improves. Amazon starts to take you seriously.
Shift your strategy:
Pull search term reports. Graduate any search term with 3+ conversions from broad/auto campaigns into exact match campaigns. Negate those terms in the source campaign.
Start bidding on Tier 1 keywords with exact match. You now have enough social proof to compete. Begin at suggested bid + 15% and adjust based on performance.
Reduce auto campaign bids by 15-20%. It's done most of its discovery job.
Reallocate budget: 70% to exact match ranking campaigns, 20% to broad research, 10% to auto discovery.
Track organic rank religiously. Use Helium 10 Keyword Tracker or similar. You should see movement on Tier 2 and Tier 3 keywords — page 5 to page 3, page 3 to page 2. If you're not seeing movement after 30 days of consistent PPC sales on a keyword, either your listing relevance is weak or the keyword is too competitive for your current review count. Add negative keywords aggressively during this phase. You now have enough data to know what doesn't convert. Every dollar saved on non-converting terms is a dollar redirected to terms that actually rank you.
When Should You Start Optimizing for Profitability?
Days 45-75: The Optimization Phase
This is where your ACoS should start coming down toward break-even.
Key actions:
Reduce bids on keywords where you've achieved page 1 organic rank. You don't need to outbid everyone when Amazon is already showing you for free. Drop bids to the suggested amount or 10% below.
Increase bids on keywords where you're on page 2 and close to breaking through. A small push now yields long-term organic benefit.
Start placement analysis. Check your "placement" reports in Campaign Manager. If Top of Search converts at 2x the rate of Rest of Search, increase your Top of Search modifier and lower your base bid.
Add Sponsored Brands campaigns for your highest-converting keywords. The brand banner at the top of search is a powerful conversion tool once you have reviews and ratings to show off.
Introduce product targeting campaigns against weaker competitors (lower review count, higher price, worse ratings than you). These ASIN-targeted ads are often very cost-effective during the optimization phase.
Budget reallocation at this stage:
Total spend should decrease 10-20% from launch levels
75% exact match ranking campaigns
15% broad/auto (maintenance discovery)
10% product targeting and Sponsored Brands
How to Transition to Maintenance PPC
Days 75-90+: The Maintenance Phase
Your product should now have 20-50+ reviews, established organic rank on Tier 2 and Tier 3 keywords, and improving organic rank on Tier 1 keywords.
Maintenance mode means:
Weekly bid adjustments, not daily
Monthly search term harvesting (your auto and broad campaigns still find new keywords)
ACoS at or below break-even on most campaigns
TACoS trending downward month over month — this is the #1 metric that tells you the flywheel is working
Defense campaigns activated — target your own ASINs so competitors don't steal your detail page traffic
Seasonal adjustments — increase bids and budgets during peak shopping periods, reduce during slow periods
The long-term target: Most mature products in our portfolio run at 15-25% TACoS with stable organic rank on their target keywords. The PPC spend maintains rank and captures incremental sales that wouldn't happen organically. It takes 4-6 months to reach this equilibrium for most products.
What Budget Should You Plan for an Amazon Product Launch?
Here are real numbers based on our experience across categories:
Low competition categories (niche products, sub-5,000 search volume main keywords):
Month 1: $3,000-$5,000 in ad spend
Month 2: $2,000-$4,000
Month 3: $1,500-$3,000
Total 90-day PPC investment: $6,500-$12,000
Medium competition categories (mainstream products, 5,000-50,000 search volume):
Month 1: $5,000-$10,000 in ad spend
Month 2: $4,000-$8,000
Month 3: $3,000-$6,000
Total 90-day PPC investment: $12,000-$24,000
High competition categories (supplements, beauty, electronics):
Month 1: $10,000-$20,000 in ad spend
Month 2: $8,000-$15,000
Month 3: $6,000-$12,000
Total 90-day PPC investment: $24,000-$47,000
These numbers make sellers uncomfortable. Good. Underfunded launches are failed launches. You either invest properly upfront or you spend more over 12 months trying to claw back momentum you never built. The math always favors front-loading your PPC investment.
If you're launching a product and want a team that's done this hundreds of times across 50+ brands, we should talk. We handle the entire PPC launch execution so you can focus on supply chain and product development.
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.