Match types, bidding strategies, and placements
The three knobs that separate discovery from precision — and how to set them per campaign goal.
Every Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaign you launch has three structural settings that determine where your ads show, how much you pay, and what signal the data produces: match type, bidding strategy, and placement modifiers. Getting these right is the difference between a campaign that teaches you something and one that burns budget without feedback.
Match types
Match type controls how loosely Amazon interprets your keyword target when deciding whether to show your ad for a given shopper query.
| Field | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exact | keyword | no | Amazon shows your ad only when the query matches your keyword exactly, with minimal variation (plurals, misspellings). The tightest targeting. Use for ranking campaigns where you need precise purchase-velocity signal on a specific term, and for graduated keywords where you know the query converts. |
| Phrase | keyword | no | Amazon shows your ad when the query contains your keyword as a contiguous phrase, with words allowed before or after. Tighter than broad, looser than exact. Use for medium-volume root keywords where you want to capture long-tail variants without the full spread of broad. |
| Broad | keyword | no | Amazon shows your ad for queries that contain any combination of your keyword terms, in any order, along with related terms. Maximum reach, maximum irrelevance risk. Requires active negative keyword management. Use for discovery across keyword root groups and for broad performance campaigns where you're fishing for new converting queries. |
| Broad Modified | keyword | no | A stricter variant of broad: all terms you mark with a plus sign (+) must appear in the query, in any order. Sits between phrase and broad in precision. Use for consumables with high-volume root keywords where phrase is too restrictive but broad is too noisy. |
| Product | product targeting | no | Target a specific ASIN or set of ASINs. Your ad appears on or near those product detail pages, and may also appear in search results for queries related to those products. In 2026, product targeting frequently delivers the lowest ACoS and highest sales volume of any campaign type. |
| Category | product targeting | no | Target an entire product category (or subcategory) on Amazon. Add refinements — minimum star rating, price range — to narrow to listings where your product has a visible advantage. Category targeting is lean by design: you're letting Amazon find the right PDP placements within your defined constraints. |
| Audience | product targeting | no | Target shoppers based on Amazon audience segments — purchase history, browsing behavior, category affinity. Used in Sponsored Display campaigns and in the audience bid adjuster inside Sponsored Products. |
| Theme | keyword | no | A newer Amazon format: target clusters of related search intent ("keyword themes") rather than individual queries. Amazon manages the keyword expansion within the theme. Works well for broad awareness and for accounts moving away from rigid exact-match-only structures. |
Bidding strategies
Bidding strategy tells Amazon's auction system how it can adjust your base bid in real time based on its prediction of conversion likelihood.
| Field | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dynamic Down Only | strategy | no | Amazon can reduce your bid below the amount you set, but never raise it. The default for almost every campaign type. Use this when you want predictable spend and don't want Amazon inflating your bids on low-intent placements. |
| Dynamic Up and Down | strategy | no | Amazon can raise your bid by up to 100% or lower it, based on its conversion prediction. The only campaign type that benefits from Up and Down is the Self-Targeted Product Placement (STPP) campaign, where the conversion intent is already high (the shopper is on your own listing) and you want Amazon to bid aggressively to defend that placement. |
| Fixed Bids | strategy | no | Amazon uses exactly the bid you set — no adjustment. Use for Brand Keyword Shielding campaigns where you want complete control over the bid floor and ceiling, and for campaigns where Down Only is causing your ads to go under-served on preferred placements. |
Placements
Placements determine where your ad appears on Amazon's pages. They are set at the campaign level as percentage modifiers on top of your base keyword or product bid.
Top of Search is the first row of results on the search results page. It has the highest CTR and the highest CVR of any placement — and therefore the highest CPC. For ranking campaigns, you want 80% or more of clicks to come from Top of Search. Set the placement modifier high (start around 50–100%, adjust based on placement report data).
Rest of Search covers all other positions on the search results page — rows 2 through the end of the page, plus product carousels that appear mid-page. Lower CTR than top of search, but often profitable in performance campaigns where you're not paying for rank, just for conversions.
Product Pages (PDP) are the sponsored placements on product detail pages. These placements compete in a separate auction from search placements. For product-targeting campaigns, PDP is the primary delivery surface. For keyword campaigns, PDP placements tend to have lower CVR than search — they often warrant a lower modifier or, in ranking campaigns, zeroing out entirely to concentrate spend on top of search.
Bidding rules of thumb
Start conservative. For new campaigns with no historical data, calculate your starting bid from the formula: target ACoS × (product price × conversion rate). This gives a bid floor anchored to your economics. Raise from there if you're not winning impressions; lower if ACoS is running above target.
Placement modifier tuning. After 7–14 days, pull the placement breakdown report. Set the worst-performing placement modifier to 0% and gradually increase the other two by approximately 25% increments. For ranking campaigns, keep adjusting until top of search absorbs 80% or more of your spend.
Scale on converters. When a broad or phrase campaign surfaces a query that converts below your ACoS target, extract it — add it to an exact-match campaign at 75–85% of the CPC it was paying in the discovery campaign. Then add it as a negative exact in the source campaign so it stops drawing budget there.
Cap on diminishing returns. If a ranking campaign's top-of-search bid is producing ACoS well above your target and organic rank isn't improving over 3–4 weeks, the keyword may be too competitive at current CVR. Either strengthen the listing (improve CTR and CVR benchmarks first) or redirect that spend to cheaper placements — product targeting campaigns often achieve comparable ranking effect at far better economics.
Brand terms bid higher. Brand keyword campaigns should start at 1.5× your normal bid — you're defending your own brand name against competitor conquest, not discovering new demand. STPP campaigns similarly benefit from higher bids (Dynamic Up and Down) because the shopper intent is already established.