Negative Keywords on Amazon: How and When to Add Them

Key takeaways: Add a negative keyword when a search term has spent more than the product's break-even cost of one sale with no orders, or when the term is plainly irrelevant. Use negative exact for single bad terms and negative phrase for whole families of them. Never negate a term because its ACoS is high; lower its bid instead. Review weekly, from the search term report, on a rolling 60-day window.

A negative keyword tells Amazon not to show your ad for a search term. You add one when a term has proven it will not sell for you, either because it spends without orders or because it is clearly for a different product. Done weekly from the search term report, negatives are the cheapest efficiency gain in an account. Done badly, they cut the sales they were meant to protect.

Two kinds of negative, two jobs

Amazon offers negative exact and negative phrase at both campaign and ad group level.

Negative exact blocks one search term, including close plurals and misspellings, and nothing else. It is the precise tool. Use it for a specific term that spent and did not convert.

Negative phrase blocks every search that contains the phrase. Negative phrase free blocks free shipping kettle, kettle free standing and anything else with that word. It is the broad tool. Use it for words that signal a different intent across many searches: used, refurbished, replacement parts, a competitor's brand you do not want to compete with, a material or size you do not make.

There is no negative broad match. If you want to exclude a concept rather than a phrase, you will need several negative phrases.

The threshold we use

The question is not "has this term converted?" It is "has this term had a fair chance to convert?" A term with four clicks and no orders has not been tested. A term with forty clicks and no orders at a 10% expected conversion rate has failed four times over.

Our working rule: a search term becomes a negative exact candidate when its spend, with zero orders, exceeds the product's break-even cost of one sale. If the product sells for $30 with a 35% margin, break-even ad cost per sale is $10.50. A term that has spent $12 with no orders has cost more than the sale it never produced. That is the point at which we act.

For products with long consideration cycles or low conversion rates the window is stretched, because the expected clicks per order are higher. For terms that are plainly irrelevant, no threshold applies; negate them at first sight.

The weekly routine

The 60-day window matters. A 7-day report is too noisy to negate anything but the plainly irrelevant. A lifetime report includes terms that stopped mattering a year ago. Sixty days catches enough clicks to judge while still reflecting the current listing and price.

The check against other campaigns is the step that protects sales. A term that spends without converting in the auto campaign but converts well in its exact campaign is not a bad term; it is a term that has already been promoted and simply needs blocking where it no longer belongs. This is the routine described in B15 · The weekly search-term decision engine.

Negatives as structure, not just clean-up

The most valuable negatives in an account are not reactive. They are the ones that stop campaigns competing with each other.

When a search term is promoted from a broad or auto campaign into an exact control campaign, the same term is added as a negative exact in the campaign it came from. Without that step both campaigns bid in the same auction, the discovery campaign wins some of the impressions at a bid that was never set for that term, and the control campaign's data is incomplete.

The same applies to your brand name. Branded searches convert well at low cost, and they belong in a defense campaign where the bid and the placement modifier are set for that job. A negative phrase on your brand name in every non-brand campaign keeps them there. How that campaign is built is covered in Amazon Brand Defense Campaigns: Protecting Your Own Listings.

Mistakes that cost sales

Negating on ACoS. A term with a 70% ACoS is a term that sells. Its bid is wrong, not its relevance. Negating it removes the sales and the rank contribution; lowering the bid keeps both at a better cost.

Negative phrase on a word that also appears in good terms. Negative phrase black to block black friday also blocks black kettle, which may be your best seller. Check the phrase against your converting terms before you add it.

Negating too early in a launch. A new listing converts poorly for the first weeks because it has no reviews. Terms that fail in week two may work in week eight. Use a looser threshold, or restrict negatives to the plainly irrelevant, until the listing has a review base.

Adding negatives at account level from memory. Bulk-adding a list of "standard negatives" from another account or a template blocks terms you have never tested. Every negative should trace back to a row in your own search term report or a clear relevance rule.

Never revisiting. A term negated when the listing had three reviews and a weak main image might convert now. Once a quarter, sample the negative list against current conversion data.

D9Keywords that spend but do not sell (wasted ad spend)budget moved from terms that do not convert to terms that do.

B13How we structure your campaignsan account where every campaign has a purpose — discovery, control, defence or brand — and nothing overlaps.