Key takeaways

  • One campaign, one job.
  • Harvest winners to exact, negate them in research.
  • Budget by portfolio, not by campaign.
  1. 1Research

    Auto and broad find new terms

  2. 2Performance

    Exact match on proven converters

  3. 3Brand defense

    Own your brand terms

  4. 4Conquesting

    Target rival brands and ASINs

  5. 5Ranking

    Push category terms to page one

Separate campaigns by intent

  • Research: auto and broad campaigns that discover new search terms.
  • Performance: exact-match campaigns on terms that already convert.
  • Brand defense: your own brand terms and your product pages.
  • Conquesting: competitor brands and product targets.
  • Ranking: a small set of category terms you are pushing up organically.

Harvest and negate weekly

Search terms that convert in research campaigns move to exact match in performance campaigns, and are added as negatives in the research campaign so the two do not compete. Terms with clicks and no orders are negated.

Use portfolios for budgets

Group campaigns into portfolios by product line or goal and set budgets there. It keeps spend aligned with the business plan instead of whichever campaign spends fastest.

Name everything consistently

A naming pattern like product, type, match and intent makes reports readable and automation safe. It sounds minor until you manage 200 campaigns.

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