For Amazon sellers, growth often feels like a double-edged sword. You want to increase sales, but the more you advertise, the more you spend. If your ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales) keeps climbing, it can eat away at your profit margins—fast. That’s why smart sellers turn to data-driven strategies that help boost product visibility while lowering ad spend. Here’s how you can do the same.
1. Optimize Product Listings Before Spending on Ads
Before launching or scaling your Amazon campaigns, your product listings must be in top shape. Many sellers overlook this step and rely on ads to do the heavy lifting. But if your product title, images, bullet points, and backend keywords aren’t optimized, you’re paying for traffic that won’t convert.
Quick Tip: Refine your product titles using specific, buyer-intent keywords that reflect how real customers search on Amazon. Use lifestyle images and infographics to build trust. And make sure your bullet points focus on benefits, not just features.
A well-optimized listing improves organic rankings, which means more free traffic. Plus, better conversion rates will increase your return on ad spend (ROAS).
2. Leverage Keyword Research to Lower Wasted Spend
Running Amazon ads without solid keyword research is like throwing darts blindfolded. Use leading-edge tools or Amazon’s own brand analytics to uncover high-converting, low-competition keywords.
Instead of bidding on broad, expensive terms, target long-tail search phrases that your ideal customer is actually typing into the search bar. For example, instead of bidding on “wireless headphones,” consider “wireless headphones with noise cancellation for travel.”
These longer keywords tend to have lower CPC (cost-per-click) and higher purchase intent, meaning lower ad spend and higher conversions.
3. Use Negative Keywords Strategically
One of the most underrated ways to lower Amazon advertising costs is through negative keyword targeting. These search terms should be excluded from your campaigns to avoid irrelevant clicks and wasted ad spending.
Let’s say you are selling luxury yoga mats. If your ads show up for searches like “cheap yoga mats” or “free yoga mat with subscription,” you’re wasting your budget on shoppers who aren’t looking for premium products.
By identifying and excluding irrelevant terms, you can improve your targeting and prevent ad spend leakage.
4. Test Different Campaign Types
Amazon offers several ad formats, including Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Displays. Each serves a unique purpose, and testing them can help you find the most cost-effective combination.
- Sponsored Products: Ideal for boosting individual product visibility in search results.
- Sponsored Brands: Great for brand awareness and showcasing multiple products at once.
- Sponsored Display: Useful for re-engaging potential customers who have already browsed your product but haven’t completed a purchase.
Pro Tip: Focus your budget initially on Sponsored Products, then branch out. Many successful sellers use retargeting ads to recover lost sales at a lower cost per conversion.
5. Focus on Campaign Segmentation
Instead of putting all your products into one broad campaign, segment them by category, performance, or margin. This lets you control budgets and bidding strategies more precisely.
For instance, if one of your stock-keeping units (SKUs) has a higher profit margin, you can afford to be more aggressive with its ads. On the other hand, low-margin products need tight
Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS) controls to stay profitable.
Segmentation also makes performance tracking easier, which is crucial for making informed optimizations.
6. Regularly Analyze and Optimize Campaign Performance
Running a successful Amazon advertising strategy isn’t a “set-it-and-forget-it” task. Weekly or bi-weekly performance reviews can uncover which keywords are working, which products are draining your budget, and which ads need to be paused or scaled.
Keep a close eye on key metrics:
- ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale)
- ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
- CTR (Click Through Rate)
- CVR (Conversion Rate)
By continually analyzing your campaigns, you’ll spot underperformers before they burn through your budget.
7. Partner with an Amazon Advertising Agency
If all of this sounds overwhelming, you’re not alone. That’s why many sellers work with an Amazon advertising agency to handle the heavy lifting. A good agency brings proven strategies, keyword tools, and campaign management skills that can reduce ad spend while driving higher sales.
At The Accrue Agency, we specialize in building lean, efficient Amazon ad strategies that focus on performance. From product listing optimization to advanced PPC campaign management, we help brands scale profitably.
8. Use External Traffic to Diversify and Reduce Dependence
One of the best-kept secrets of top-performing sellers is their use of external traffic sources—like Google Ads, Pinterest, or influencer marketing—to drive sales on Amazon. By doing this, they reduce dependency on Amazon PPC alone and get the added bonus of improved organic rankings.
Amazon rewards products that bring in external traffic and convert well by boosting them in internal search rankings. This is often called the “halo effect.”
Even better? The cost of external traffic can often be lower than Amazon ads when managed strategically.
Final Thoughts
Raising your Amazon sales doesn’t always mean spending more on ads. With the right approach—optimized listings, smart keyword targeting, and precise campaign management—you can grow your revenue while cutting advertising costs.
And if you want expert help along the way, The Accrue Agency is here to take the guesswork out of your growth. We’re here to help transform your Amazon business into a streamlined, high-converting sales machine.