Amazon PPC in 2026 looks very different from even two years ago. Between the expansion of Sponsored Brands Video placements, the new AI-powered bidding options, and changes to search term report visibility, sellers who rely on outdated playbooks are hemorrhaging money.
In this guide, we break down every significant change and provide updated strategies for each campaign type.
Sponsored Products: What Changed
The biggest shift in Sponsored Products this year is the expanded role of placement multipliers. Amazon now offers more granular control over where your ads appear, including the new “Rest of Search — Top” placement that sits between the traditional top-of-search and mid-page positions. Early data from our accounts shows this placement converts at 15-20% below top-of-search but at roughly 40% lower CPC, making it an excellent efficiency play.
Bid optimization has also evolved. Amazon’s “Rule-Based Bidding” — still in beta for some accounts — allows you to set conditional bid adjustments based on time of day, day of week, and competitive density. We have seen advertisers using this effectively to reduce weekend spend (where conversion rates typically drop 10-15% for most categories) while maintaining weekday aggression.
Campaign Structure Best Practices for 2026
The single-keyword exact-match campaign structure that dominated 2022-2024 is showing diminishing returns. Amazon’s algorithm has gotten better at broad match targeting, and we are seeing broad match campaigns outperform exact match on ROAS in 35% of our accounts — up from just 12% two years ago.
Our recommended structure for 2026 is a hybrid approach: maintain exact match campaigns for your top 20-30 converting keywords, use phrase match for mid-funnel discovery, and run a well-managed broad match campaign with aggressive negative keyword management for scale. The key is feeding your broad match campaigns with strong negatives harvested weekly from your search term reports.
Negative Keyword Strategy
This remains the single highest-ROI activity in Amazon PPC. We analyze search term reports weekly and apply negatives at three levels: campaign level (for broad category irrelevance), ad group level (for match type refinement), and account level (for brand protection and competitor separation). A well-maintained negative keyword list typically reduces wasted spend by 15-25%.
What Still Works
Despite all the changes, some fundamentals remain unchanged. Product page optimization still directly impacts ad conversion rates. Reviews and ratings still influence Quality Score (or whatever Amazon calls their equivalent). And patience during the learning phase — typically 14-21 days for new campaigns — still separates successful advertisers from those who kill campaigns too early.
The advertisers winning in 2026 are those who combine technical campaign management with strong product fundamentals. No amount of bid optimization can save a product with a 2.8-star rating and two bullet points.