Amazon PPC match types: broad, phrase, exact and when each one pays

1. 1Discover

   Auto and broad at low bids find new search terms

2. 2Harvest

   Terms with 2+ orders at target ACoS become exact keywords

3. 3Negate

   Harvested terms are negated in the campaigns they came from

4. 4Bid

   Each match type gets a bid from AOV x CVR x target ACoS

5. 5Prune

   Terms spending one order value with no sale are negated

What Amazon PPC match types are

When you add a keyword to a manual Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands campaign, you choose how loosely Amazon may match it to what a shopper types. There are three positive match types: broad, phrase and exact. Exact is the narrowest, broad is the widest and phrase sits in between.

Auto campaigns do not use keywords at all. Amazon reads your listing and matches the ad itself, through four targeting groups you can bid on separately: close match, loose match, substitutes and complements. Product targeting, where you aim at specific ASINs or categories, is a separate tool again.

Small filler words such as "the", "of" and "and" are ignored by every match type, so you never need to add them as variations.

Broad, phrase and exact, with one example

Take the keyword "insulated water bottle" for a 32 ounce steel bottle. Here is how each match type treats real searches.

One warning: sources disagree on misspellings. Some agency guides say exact catches minor typos, others say no positive match type does. Do not rely on Amazon to catch them. If a misspelling shows real volume in your search term report, add it as its own keyword.

• Exact: serves on "insulated water bottle" and the plural "insulated water bottles". It will not serve on "best insulated water bottle" or "water bottle insulated".
• Phrase: serves on any search that contains the words in that order, such as "insulated water bottle with straw" or "best insulated water bottle for kids". It will not serve on "water bottle that is insulated".
• Broad: serves on the words in any order with extra words, such as "water bottle insulated 32 oz", and according to Amazon's own wording can also serve on synonyms and related terms where the keyword itself is not in the search at all.

What changed in 2026, and why broad got riskier

Broad match used to mean the same words in any order. Amazon's current definition, as quoted by Adbrew from the Amazon Ads help pages, says broad can match synonyms and related terms based on the meaning of the keyword and the product. That is useful for discovery, but it means a broad keyword can now buy clicks on searches you would never have written yourself.

The console has also added new ways to reach shoppers that sit on top of match types. Adbrew reports that prompts in Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands reached general availability in the US on March 25, 2026, and that Amazon is testing keyword groups, described as simplified broad match keyword management, in a US beta. Where Amazon cannot see a search term, for example on some placements off Amazon, its documentation now says it will infer one from context.

The practical result: less of your spend is tied to the literal words you chose. That makes the search term report, cross negatives and match type level bids more important in 2026, not less.

Negative match types and their limits

Negatives work the other way round: they stop your ad from showing. Amazon offers only two negative keyword types in Sponsored Products, negative exact and negative phrase. There is no negative broad, which is the single most common surprise for sellers coming from Google Ads.

Both have hard limits that several tool and agency guides report consistently. A negative phrase can be at most 4 words and 80 characters. A negative exact can be up to 10 words and 80 characters. Adbrew also notes that negative keywords can take up to 72 hours to take effect, so do not judge a new negative on the next morning's report.

Match type also cannot be edited after you create a keyword. To move a term from phrase to exact you add it again as exact and pause or negate the old version.

• Negative exact: blocks only that search and its close variants. Use it to cut one wasted term without hurting longer searches that convert.
• Negative phrase: blocks every search that contains the words in order. Use it for words that are always wrong for you, such as "used", "refill" or a rival's brand.
• No negative broad: if a word is wrong in any position, add it as negative phrase, and keep it to one or two words so it catches more.

How to bid each match type

Most guides say to bid highest on exact and lowest on broad, and stop there. The better approach is to work out each bid from the money you can afford per order and the conversion rate each match type really delivers. The formula is simple: bid equals average order value times conversion rate times target ACoS.

Your target ACoS should come from margin, not a rule of thumb. If a product keeps 35 percent of its price after Amazon fees and product cost, a 35 percent ACoS is break even, and the target sits below that so ads leave profit.

Once a match type has 20 or more clicks a week, replace the starting conversion rate with its own figure from the last 30 days and recalculate.

Worked example with illustrative numbers

These numbers are illustrative, not from a real account. Say the bottle sells for $25 and the target ACoS is 30 percent, so you can spend $7.50 in ads per order.

Your last 30 days show exact converting at 14 percent of clicks, phrase at 10 percent and broad at 7 percent. Exact bid: $25 x 0.14 x 0.30 = $1.05. Phrase bid: $25 x 0.10 x 0.30 = $0.75. Broad bid: $25 x 0.07 x 0.30 = $0.53.

Now the mistake most accounts make. If all three keywords sit in one ad group at $1.05, every broad click costs up to $1.05 but only 7 in 100 buy, so each broad order costs about $15 in ads. That is a 60 percent ACoS on a product built for 30. The bid, not the keyword, is what turned discovery into waste.

Campaign structure that stops match types competing

When the same search qualifies for several of your keywords, the one with the highest bid usually wins the auction. If broad is set high, it can grab searches that your exact keyword would have bought more cheaply and with better data.

The fix is cross negation. Keep each match type in its own campaign or ad group, then negate downward so every search lands in one place only.

• Exact campaign: no negatives needed for your own terms.
• Phrase campaign: add your exact keywords as negative exact.
• Broad campaign: add your exact keywords as negative exact and your phrase keywords as negative phrase where they fit the 4 word limit.
• Auto campaign: add harvested exact terms as negative exact, and set separate bids for close match, loose match, substitutes and complements.

Match type playbook: 5 steps for this week

Each step names who does it, where it happens and how you know it worked.

• Ads manager pulls the Sponsored Products search term report for the last 30 days in Amazon Ads under Measurement and reporting, and sorts by spend. Metric: share of spend on terms with zero orders, written down as your baseline.
• Ads manager adds every search term with two or more orders at or below target ACoS as a new exact keyword in your exact campaign. Metric: exact match share of total ad sales rises over the next four weeks.
• Same person negates those terms as negative exact in the auto, broad and phrase campaigns they came from. Metric: the term stops appearing in the source campaign's search term report within about a week.
• Owner or finance confirms margin after fees per product, then the ads manager resets each match type bid with the formula above. Metric: ACoS per match type moves to within a few points of target.
• Ads manager negates terms that have spent more than one average order value with no sale, using negative phrase for words that are always wrong. Metric: wasted spend share falls against the baseline from step one.

When this advice does not apply

Very new products have no search term data, so there is nothing to harvest yet. For the first few weeks, run auto and a short list of broad keywords at modest bids and let the data build before splitting by match type.

Small accounts with only a few clicks a day per keyword will not get reliable conversion rates by match type. Group similar terms, use longer date ranges and avoid changing bids on less than about 20 clicks.

If your listing does not convert, no match type will fix it. Sort out the listing, price and reviews first. This is where help can save months. PPC Spider's Amazon PPC management runs this structure on flat monthly plans from $995 for up to $10k in monthly ad spend, with targets set from margin and SpiderOS monitoring the account 24x7. Plans move to Growth at $1,250 and Scale at $2,200 as spend rises, with a 90 day initial term.

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