Amazon sellers have long depended on keywords to drive traffic and conversion. The equation was simple: grab the right keywords, shell out top price, and Amazon would do the rest. But now, as the platform has evolved and competition has reached an all-time high, that formula no longer works.
The game has changed. Amazon Ads success these days is not just about keywords anymore, but about context — knowing where your ads are serving, why they’re serving there, and how that affects intent and conversion.
The Keyword-Only Mindset is Outdated
Let’s start with the common structure most advertisers use:
- Auto campaigns to let Amazon discover opportunities
- Manual campaigns using keyword match types
- Category or product targeting to expand reach
This structure isn’t wrong — but it’s incomplete.
While advertisers are optimizing for these targeting types, what really drives performance are the outcomes — specifically, the search terms that are actually triggered, and the ASIN placements where ads appear.
Here’s the disconnect: keyword targeting doesn’t guarantee high-quality traffic. A broad keyword can generate dozens of low-converting search terms. Similarly, product targeting can place your ad on irrelevant or low-traffic ASINs, eating into your budget without much return.
Search Terms vs. ASIN Placements: Why It Matters
Think of your ad spend as being funneled into two major buckets:
- Search Terms – These are direct queries typed into Amazon’s search bar. They reflect high intent, clear need, and often, faster decision-making.
- ASIN Placements – These happen on product pages and are often passive in nature. The shopper is browsing, comparing, or undecided — which usually indicates lower intent to purchase your product.
If you’re not analyzing this split, you could be lumping high-converting and low-converting traffic together — making it impossible to scale the good and cut the waste.
Where Most Ad Waste Comes From
One of the biggest (and often unnoticed) areas of ad waste comes from ASIN placements in auto or category campaigns. These placements are often irrelevant, and because they happen in the background, they slip through unnoticed.
You might see a campaign with a decent ACoS and assume it’s working — until you dig into the placement report and realize that a significant portion of spend is going toward low-relevance ASINs that rarely convert.
On the flip side, search terms often reveal gold. Brand terms, high-intent keywords, and long-tail queries can deliver exceptional ROAS — but only if you’re actively mining and optimizing for them.
The Shift: From Targeting to Intent-Based Structuring
What are astute advertisers doing today is that they’re distinguishing search traffic from product traffic completely.
Keyword search-based dedicated campaigns: These are dedicated to reaping and sharpening high-performing search queries. They are simpler to optimize, provide greater control, and better indicate buyer intent.
Targeted campaigns for product: These are less exploratory. You can test competitor or complementary-product ASINs — but be careful to keep a tight rope on spend and utilize ASIN-level negatives to exclude underperformers.
By grouping campaigns by placement type — and not just by targeting method — advertisers can better understand what’s working and what’s not. It also makes it possible to customize bidding, budgeting, and creative strategy based on shopper intent.
Stop Letting Amazon Decide Everything
Amazon’s algorithms are robust, but they don’t always have your brand’s best interests at heart.
If you allow auto and broad targeting campaigns to run free, you’re essentially giving Amazon your wallet and wishing upon a star. That’s not a strategy — that’s a gamble.
I’ve watched brands really enhance their ad effectiveness by getting detailed about where they spend. We’ve cut wasted spend by 30–40% in some instances, simply by blocking irrelevant ASIN placements and doubling down on top-performing search terms.
This degree of optimization is not a “hack”—it”‘s the new minimum if you intend to compete.
Conclusion: Context Is the New Keyword
If you’re still running Amazon ads using only keyword targeting, it’s time to change things up. The context — like where the ad appears, who is seeing it, and where the customer is in their buying process — is now very important for how well your ads perform.
Begin by reviewing your current campaigns.
Are your best search terms buried in mixed campaigns?
Are your product targeting ads eating up budget with poor ROAS?
Do you know which ASINs are driving conversions — and which are silently draining spend?
The more control you have over context, the more confidently you can scale what works — and shut off what doesn’t.
