An Amazon PPC audit is a fixed review of where your ad spend goes and what it returns. Nine checks cover it: spend concentration, zero-sale search terms, break-even ACoS, campaign structure, match-type overlap, placement multipliers, budget caps, negative keyword coverage, and attribution sanity. Budget 90 minutes, once a month. You need two exports and one number.
Table of Contents
What you need before you start
The two files: a bulk file covering the last 60 days, and a search term report for the same window. Both come out of Seller Central. Nothing else is required — no tool, no template purchase, no agency.
The one number: your break-even ACoS. If you don’t have it, stop and calculate it before you go further. Every threshold below is measured against it, and an audit that judges performance against “feels high” isn’t an audit — it’s a mood.
The 9-check Amazon PPC audit checklist
1. Spend concentration
Sort search terms by spend, descending. Add up the top ten and divide by total spend. Above 40% and your account isn’t a portfolio, it’s ten bets wearing a portfolio costume. There’s no correct number here — the point is to write it down so you can compare it next month.
2. Zero-sale search terms
Filter for search terms with clicks and zero orders. The question is never “did it convert.” It’s “did it get enough clicks to know.”
Use a clicks-per-sale threshold. If your account converts roughly one click in ten, a term with 25 clicks and no orders has told you something real; a term with four clicks has told you nothing, and negating it is superstition. The CPS rule sets that line for your account.
Everything past the threshold goes in your waste bucket. Total the spend. That number is the headline of your audit — and if you want to see what this looks like in a real account before you run it on your own, we published one start to finish.
3. Break-even ACoS versus actual
Pull ACoS at campaign level and flag every campaign above break-even. Do it at campaign level specifically, because account-level ACoS is where problems go to hide: a comfortable 28% account average can contain a campaign burning at 71%.
While you’re here, note whether ad spend is buying organic rank or replacing it. TACoS tells you the half that ACoS can’t.
4. Campaign structure
One question, and it’s not a technical one: can you tell what each campaign is for from its name alone? If you can’t, that’s the finding, and it’s upstream of almost everything else on this list. Structural chaos is the reason the same keyword ends up bidding against itself in three places. If you want the longer walkthrough of restructuring rather than just diagnosing it, our step-by-step audit guide covers the rebuild.
5. Match-type and auto/manual overlap
Search the bulk file for keywords that appear in more than one campaign at the same match type. Every duplicate is you outbidding yourself, at your own expense, on purpose, forever.
Then check the quieter version of the same leak: auto campaigns still spending on terms you already harvested into manual. This is the single most common finding we see in accounts that look well-managed, because nothing about it appears broken — the spend just quietly doubles. Reading the search query report properly is how you catch it.
6. Placement multipliers
Compare conversion rate across Top of Search, Rest of Search, and Product Pages. If Top of Search converts at twice the rate of Product Pages and your multipliers are flat, you are paying identical prices for unequal inventory. Fix the multipliers, not the bids.
7. Budget caps
Find campaigns that hit their cap before the day ends. A profitable campaign going dark at 4pm isn’t discipline — it’s a missed evening, every evening, compounding.
8. Negative keyword coverage and conflicts
Two directions, and most audits only run one.
Forward: are the zero-sale terms from check 2 actually negated, or are they still on the invoice? Backward — the one people miss — is an old negative now blocking a term that converts? Negatives added during a launch panic have a habit of outliving the panic by two years. If the match-type logic is fuzzy, here’s how negative match types actually behave.
9. Attribution sanity check
Before you kill anything, confirm your reporting window is longer than your product’s purchase cycle. Judging a considered purchase on a 7-day window means executing keywords that were about to pay you. Short attribution windows wreck decisions quietly, which is what makes them dangerous — the mistake never announces itself.
The audit template
One row per finding, six columns:
| Check | Where to look | Red flag | Fix | Spend at risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CHECK 1Spend concentration | Search term report, sorted by spendSum the top 10 rows ÷ total spend | Top 10 terms > 40% of spend | Nothing yet — record the % and compare it next month | — |
| CHECK 2Zero-sale search terms | Search term report, filter orders = 0Last 60 days |
Clicks above your clicks-per-sale average with 0 orders | Negate as exact; keep terms below the threshold running | Sum their spend — this is your headline number |
| CHECK 3ACoS vs break-even | Bulk file, ACoS at campaign levelNever the account average | Any campaign above your break-even ACoS | Lower bids 15–20%, or pause if it's above break-even for 60 days | Spend above break-even × campaign spend |
| CHECK 4Campaign structure | Campaign name listRead it cold, as a stranger would | You can't tell what a campaign is for from its name | Rename to a convention before changing anything else | Indirect — it hides checks 5 and 7 |
| CHECK 5Duplicate & auto/manual overlap | Bulk file, sort by keywordSame keyword, same match type, 2+ campaigns | Any duplicate — or an auto campaign spending on harvested terms | Keep the best performer, negate the term in the others | Full spend of the losing duplicates |
| CHECK 6Placement multipliers | Placement report: Top of Search / Rest of Search / Product Pages | Conversion rate varies 2×+ while multipliers sit flat | Raise the multiplier on the converting placement, cut the other | Spend on the weakest placement |
| CHECK 7Budget caps | Campaigns with a "budget exhausted" flagCheck by hour if available | A profitable campaign capping out before day's end | Raise the cap only where ACoS is under break-even | Lost revenue, not lost spend — note it separately |
| CHECK 8Negative coverage & conflicts | Bulk file negatives, cross-checked against check 2Then read them for terms that now convert | Waste terms not negated — or an old negative blocking a converter | Add the missing negatives; remove stale ones and watch 14 days | Spend on un-negated terms |
| CHECK 9Attribution sanity | Reporting window vs your product's purchase cycle | Window shorter than the time buyers take to decide | Re-pull the report on a longer window before killing anything | None — this check stops you overcutting checks 2 and 3 |
| Total spend at risk this audit | $ | |||
Two rules keep this from becoming a document nobody opens. Every row carries a dollar figure, because a finding without a number can’t be prioritized. And every row carries a name, because a finding without an owner doesn’t get fixed — it gets discussed.
What to fix first
Order strictly by spend at risk, not by how much the problem annoys you. In practice that means negatives before structure, and structure before placement multipliers.
And never all three in one week. If you change bids, negatives, and structure simultaneously, you will get a result and you will not know which change produced it — which means you learned nothing and can’t repeat it. Over-optimizing is its own category of mistake.
How often to audit
Monthly, on the same date, with the same nine checks.
The value of a repeated audit isn’t the findings. It’s the trend line: check 1’s concentration figure and check 2’s waste total, tracked month over month, are the only honest answer to “is this account getting healthier or am I just busy?” One audit is a snapshot. Six audits are a diagnosis — and they’ll expose the metrics that look fine and aren’t.
FAQ
What is an Amazon PPC audit?
A structured review of ad spend and return across campaign structure, search terms, bids, placements, and negative keyword coverage, ending in a prioritized list of fixes with dollar amounts attached.
How long does an Amazon PPC audit take?
About 90 minutes for a mid-size account once the bulk file and search term report are exported. Your first one will take longer, because you’re building the spreadsheet as well as running the audit.
How often should you audit Amazon PPC?
Monthly. Weekly reviews are optimization, not auditing — audits examine structure, and structure doesn’t meaningfully change week to week.
Can you audit Amazon PPC without a tool?
Yes. All nine checks run on two exports and a spreadsheet. Tools matter for what happens after the audit: keeping negatives and bids current in the 29 days when nobody’s looking, which is exactly when manual accounts drift back to where they started.
Before you close the spreadsheet
Checks 2 and 8 decay fastest. New zero-sale search terms appear every week you don’t look, which is why the same audit finds the same category of waste month after month in accounts where nothing automated is watching between reviews.
That gap is what Ad Badger’s negative keyword automation closes — the audit finds the leak, automation keeps it from refilling.
