Most Amazon sellers review their PPC performance by looking at ACOS and calling it a day. That’s like checking your car’s speedometer and ignoring the engine light.

A proper PPC audit goes deeper. It examines campaign structure, keyword strategy, bid management, budget allocation, and the relationship between paid and organic performance. This checklist covers the 25 questions we ask when auditing a new client’s Amazon advertising account. If you can’t answer most of these confidently, there’s money being left on the table.

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Section 1: Campaign Structure

1. Are your campaigns organized by match type (exact, phrase, broad)?

Mixing match types in a single campaign makes bid optimization nearly impossible. Each match type behaves differently and needs its own budget and bid strategy.

2. Are branded and non-branded keywords in separate campaigns?

Branded keywords inflate performance metrics and hide the true cost of customer acquisition. They must be isolated.

3. Do you have a dedicated auto campaign for keyword harvesting?

Auto campaigns should feed your manual campaigns with converting search terms, not run indefinitely without a harvest schedule.

4. Is each campaign serving a clear, defined purpose?

Every campaign should have an objective: discovery, ranking, defense, or profitability. If you can’t name the purpose, the campaign shouldn’t exist.

Section 2: Keyword Strategy

5. When was the last time you reviewed your search term reports?

If the answer is “more than two weeks ago,” you’re flying blind. Search term reports reveal what shoppers are actually typing, and where your money is actually going.

6. How many negative keywords do you have across your campaigns?

A healthy account has more negative keywords than target keywords. If your negative keyword list is thin, you’re paying for irrelevant clicks.

7. Are you targeting competitor brand names?

Competitor targeting can be highly effective when done strategically. It can also be expensive when done carelessly. The key is monitoring conversion rates and adjusting bids accordingly.

8. Do you have a keyword ranking strategy beyond just bidding?

PPC should support organic ranking goals. If your keyword strategy doesn’t include rank tracking and organic velocity targets, it’s incomplete.

Section 3: Bid Management

9. How often are bids adjusted?

Weekly is the minimum. Daily during launches and peak seasons. Monthly is negligent.

10. Are you using placement modifiers?

Top-of-search placements convert significantly higher. If your placement modifiers are at 0%, you’re treating all placements equally when they’re not.

11. What’s your bid strategy for new vs. established products?

New products need aggressive bids to gain visibility. Established products need efficiency-focused bids. Using the same approach for both is a common and costly mistake.

12. Are you using dayparting or time-based bid adjustments?

Conversion rates vary by time of day and day of week. If your bids are static 24/7, you’re overpaying during low-conversion hours.

Section 4: Budget Allocation

13. What percentage of total ad spend goes to your top 5 performing ASINs?

The 80/20 rule applies aggressively in Amazon PPC. Your top performers should get disproportionate budget allocation.

14. Are any campaigns consistently hitting their daily budget cap?

A campaign that runs out of budget by 2 PM is missing half the day’s potential conversions. Either increase the budget or improve efficiency to stretch it further.

15. How is budget allocated between Sponsored Products, Brands, and Display?

Each ad type serves a different purpose in the funnel. If 100% of your spend is on Sponsored Products, you’re missing brand-building and retargeting opportunities.

16. Do you have a separate launch budget that doesn’t compete with ongoing campaigns?

Launch campaigns need their own budget pool. Pulling from existing campaign budgets to fund launches hurts both the launch and the established products.

Section 5: Performance Metrics

17. What’s your TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sale)?

TACoS measures ad spend against total revenue, including organic. It’s the single most important metric for understanding whether your advertising is building sustainable growth.

18. What’s your organic-to-paid sales ratio?

A healthy ratio is typically 60-70% organic, 30-40% paid. If paid sales dominate, your ads are compensating for weak organic performance rather than amplifying it.

19. Do you track ACOS at the ASIN level, not just the campaign level?

Campaign-level ACOS can mask underperforming products. ASIN-level analysis reveals which products are profitable and which are dragging down the portfolio.

20. Are you tracking new-to-brand metrics?

Amazon provides new-to-brand data for Sponsored Brands campaigns. This tells you whether your ads are acquiring new customers or just retargeting existing ones.

Section 6: Integration & Strategy

21. Is your PPC strategy aligned with your listing optimization?

Driving traffic to a poorly optimized listing is the most expensive mistake in Amazon advertising. PPC and listing quality must work in tandem.

22. Are you using PPC data to inform product development decisions?

Search term reports contain market intelligence. High-volume search terms with no matching products in your catalog are product development opportunities.

23. Do you have a seasonal advertising calendar?

Prime Day, Black Friday, back-to-school, and category-specific seasons all require different strategies. If you’re running the same approach year-round, you’re missing peak opportunities.

24. Is your advertising strategy documented and repeatable?

If your PPC strategy lives in one person’s head, it’s not a strategy. It’s a dependency. Document everything: bid rules, budget allocation logic, keyword harvesting schedules, and optimization cadences.

25. When was your last full account restructure?

Amazon PPC accounts accumulate debt over time: legacy campaigns, outdated keywords, inefficient structures. A full restructure every 6-12 months keeps the account healthy and aligned with current goals.

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How to Score Your Audit

Count the questions you answered confidently with a clear, documented process.

20-25: Your PPC foundation is solid. Focus on incremental optimization and advanced strategies.

15-19: You have the basics covered but significant optimization opportunities exist. A structured review could unlock meaningful improvements.

10-14: There are material gaps in your PPC strategy that are likely costing you money. A professional audit would identify quick wins and structural improvements.

Below 10: Your advertising account needs immediate attention. The good news is that the upside potential is enormous once the fundamentals are in place.

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Want us to run this audit for you? We’ll go through every question, analyze your account data, and deliver a prioritized action plan. No fluff, no upsell, just a clear picture of where your ad dollars are going and where they should be going.

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