How to identify low-performing keywords in your Amazon PPC campaigns?

Step 1: Download your Amazon PPC reports

To get started, download the reports that provide key insights into your campaign performance. You can find these reports under Sponsored Products (SP) and Sponsored Brands (SB) campaigns. The key reports are:

• SB search term report

• SP search term report

• SB keyword reports

• SP targeting reports

These reports will contain data like campaign details, keywords, search terms, match type, and performance metrics such as:

• 7 day sales

• ACoS (advertising cost of sales)

• RoAS (return on ad spend)

• Orders, units, CTR (click-through rate), CVR (conversion rate)

• Impressions, advertised SKU units, and advertised sales

If you need more data, you can also download:

• SB search term impression share report

• SP search term impression share report

These reports provide additional metrics like search term impression share and rank, useful for benchmarking against competitors.

Step 2: Download bulk PPC data reports

For more advanced users, bulk spreadsheets are the best way to consolidate keyword data across campaigns. Here’s how to download them:

• Go to campaign manager in Amazon seller central.

• On the left panel, select bulk operations.

• Download up to 3 months of data for analysis.

This report allows for efficient keyword analysis by isolating low-performing keywords. You can also pause or archive keywords directly through the spreadsheet.

Step 3: Clean and filter your data

Once you have the reports:

• Remove duplicates from the search term reports.

• Create an “index” column by combining campaign name, ad group name, targeting, match type, and customer search term to ensure each row is unique.

Step 4: Start filtering for low-performing keywords

Now comes the analysis. Use Excel’s filtering tools to isolate "bleeding" keywords—keywords that are spending money but not converting. 

Here's how:

Clicks > 10, spend > $1, and orders = 0. These keywords are generating clicks and spend, but no sales, making them low performers.

For advanced filtering, isolate keywords based on ACoS:

Filter for ACoS > 100%—these are keywords where the ad spend exceeds the revenue generated.

Step 5: Optimize your keywords

Once you've identified low-performing keywords, pause the keywords in the bulk file by updating the status column.

If you’re unsure about permanently removing a keyword, pause it instead of archiving, so you can reactivate it later if needed.