Amazon Advertising Targeting Types: Maximize Your Amazon Sales

Advertising on Amazon is increasingly complicated with new targeting options rolling out all the time. Here we’ve organized all the different Amazon targeting types so you can understand what your options are for growing sales on Amazon. 

This article will focus primarily on what professional seller accounts have access to on Amazon and will not cover DSP, KDP, Audio, Custom or vendor accounts.

The 3 Types of Amazon PPC (Pay Per Click) Ads

There are 3 main types of ads you can use to advertise on Amazon: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display. Each one shows up differently in search results, has different targeting options and generally focuses on different areas of the funnel. 

In General Sponsored Products are at the bottom of the funnel, Sponsored Brands in the middle and Sponsored Display up top but each one can be used in different ways all along the funnel. 

While a lot overlap, each has access to a different array of targeting options and match types. 

An Introduction to Keyword Match Types

Before we get into each ad type it’s important to understand some of the targeting options available for each one. After all, these are the actual things you will be advertising against. 

It may seem complicated in the beginning but, like all things, becomes easier once you get used to it. 

There are 5 main targeting types to consider when advertising against keywords in different ad types. The most common are: 

• Exact
• Phrase
• and Broad

But there are a couple of others to consider as well.

Exact Match:

This means the “exact” word or phrase you’ve put into the ad. So for example if you were adverting for “pet probiotics” you would show up when someone enters exactly that in search.

Phrase Match:

If you are advertising in phrase match then Amazon can show your ads to any search that has the phrase “pet probiotics” in it. Some examples could be: 

• Pet probiotics zesty paw
• Zesty paw pet probiotics 
• 16oz pet probiotics 
• Pet probiotics large

Broad Match:

Here Amazon has a lot more leeway on what they’ll show. Amazon will show anything that contains the words in the search, in any order. Some examples could be:

• Pet probiotics 
• Probiotics pets 
• Probiotics for pets (they’ve inserted “for” here as it is a common word) 
• Pet small probiotics

Notice the difference between phrase and broad? Phrase match ads will keep the order of the words you use, only inserting words before and after while broad match will use all of the words you target but in any order (and will insert some common words) 

A special note on Broad Match: Amazon Advertising is changing and evolving all the time and they tend to continually widen the scope of what “broad” means. In the future they may advertise against similar terms that do not include any of the words you’re advertising against. 

Some additional notes about keyword match types: 

• You do not usually need to launch separate ads for plurals. Amazon says they will consider the words “probiotics” and “probiotic” the same 
• Amazon will also remove common words such as the, of, for, etc. so you do not need to launch separate versions of these and doing so could result in splitting the data between the search terms, so be careful! 

Special Keyword Match Types 

There are two:

Broad Match Modifiers:

This is a special and less well-known match type as it’s not available for selection. It only works in Sponsored Brands Ads and requires that you put a “+” in front of the search term. An example would be: 

• +pet +probiotics 
• +small +pet +probiotics 

Negative Match:

If you want to make sure an ad doesn’t show up for a specific term or phrase. You can use a negative match in your campaign. You can use a negative in phrase or exact and negatives can be set on both the campaign and at ad group level.

⚠️ Warning!

Using negative matches is not advised if you do not fully understand what will be negated. In general, we do not use negative matches when managing client campaigns as it can result in a lot of unintended consequences. Especially negative phrase matches. 

We’ve also seen a lot of issues with negatives being implanted from software tools that automate the process. Please do not turn these on. The negatives will trigger no matter the reason and will be very difficult for you to notice. If you run out of inventory for a product or there is a data delay from Amazon then the software might start negating your primary search terms (that normally convert well). 

An Introduction to the Basic Targeting Types for Amazon Ads

Auto Targeting 

Auto Campaigns have 4 main targeting types: Close Match, Loose Match, Compliments and Substitutes. Each one shows ads to different targeting types and relevancy criteria to your product. They are the broadest type of advertising and great for discovery. 

Ads will show up against both keyword search terms as well as product targets. 

Here is what Amazon provides in the support documentation for explaining the auto targeting types: 

Product Targeting (ASIN Targeting)

Product targeting allows you to target specific product pages (ASINs) on Amazon and is a great tool for getting your product in front of more buyers by showing up on pages that already get a lot of traffic or products that may be relevant to your target customer. 

To add them to your campaign you have several options. You can add them from the suggested tab, search for a specific ASIN you have from previous research, enter a list or bulk upload targets. 

Amazon has also recently added an “expanded” product targeting type which acts a bit more like broad match vs traditional product targeting. 

One thing that is important to remember about product targeting is that your ads are not necessarily appearing on just the product page. 

Product targeting ads can also appear in the search results as shown below.

Category Targeting

Category targeting is a sub-type of Product Targeting and is a good way to increase impressions at a (hopefully!) low cost. Just remember to keep your bid low. 

A great thing about category targets is that because they’re so broad, you have some extra ability to “refine” the targeting. 

This way you can filter out anything that you think would be a waste of money to advertise against. 

Refinement options include: 

• Brand 
• Price Range 
• Star Rating 
• Shipping (Prime eligibility) 

And Amazon will let you know an estimate of the number of products that meet those criteria. 

Category Targeting also gives you the option to exclude (negate) specific brands. This would most commonly be used to negate your own brand so that you can better keep track of branded purchases in other campaigns. 

What Targeting Types are available in Sponsored Products Ads?

Sponsored Products campaigns feature the basic targeting types for Keyword Targeting (Exact, Phrase. Broad) as well as Product targeting (Product, Category). It’s also the only ad type that has auto targeting options (Close, Loose, Substitutes, Compliments).  

You also have the option to exclude keywords, brands and ASINs. Although brands is only available in category targeting. Otherwise you need to exclude the brand keyword.

Here’s a summary of match types by targeting type in Sponsored Products: 

Keyword Targeting:

• Exact 
• Phrase 
• Broad 
• Negative Exact 
• Negative Phrase 
• Negative Broad 

Product Targeting:

• ASIN Targeting 
• Category Targeting 
• Negative ASIN Targeting 
• Negative Brand Targeting

Auto Targeting:

• Close Match 
• Loose Math 
• Substitutes 
• Compliments 
• Negative Exact 
• Negative Phrase 
• Negative Broad 
• Negative ASIN Targeting

What Targeting Types are available in Sponsored Brands Ads?

Sponsored Brands gives you access to Keyword targeting (Exact, Phrase, Broad) and product targeting (ASIN, Category) which work across all 3 types of Sponsored brand ad types (Product Collection, Store Spotlight, Sponsored Brand Video). 

Like in Sponsored Products, you have the option to exclude keywords, brands and ASINs, although excluding brands is only available in category targeting. Otherwise you need to negate the brand keyword as a phrase.  

Here’s a summary of match types by targeting type in Sponsored Brands: 

Keyword Targeting: 

• Exact 
• Phrase 
• Broad 
• Negative Exact 
• Negative Phrase 
• Negative Broad 

Product Targeting:

• ASIN Targeting 
• Category Targeting 
• Negative ASIN Targeting 
• Negative Brand Targeting

What Targeting Types are available in Sponsored Display Ads?

Sponsored Display is the most complex of the ad campaign types and its targeting options are a little different than the previously mentioned Keyword and Product Targeting.  

You can choose either “contextual targeting” or “audiences” for your targeting strategy. 

One of the reasons for this is that your ads can appear both on and off Amazon.  

Here’s how Amazon explains both (as of early 2023): 

Sponsored Display Contextual Targeting 

With contextual targeting, you can show ads to audiences who are visiting products and categories that you select and similar products. Your ads may serve on and off Amazon, including Amazon detail and shopping result pages, third-party websites and apps, and Twitch. 

Sponsored Display Audiences

With contextual targeting, you can show ads to audiences who are visiting products and categories that you select and similar products. Your ads may serve on and off Amazon, including Amazon detail and shopping result pages, third-party websites and apps, and Twitch. 

Where it shows is generally up to Amazon and also depends on the creative you put in the ad which is a bit beyond the scope of this article. 

Going back to the targeting types… 

Contextual targeting looks much like product targeting in Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands. It just has the option to also have “dynamic segments” but still has the product targeting and category targeting options.

Audiences gets even more complicated.

You’ve got 3 options: 

• Amazon Audiences 
• Views Remarketing 
• Purchases Remarketing 

Views Remarketing gives you access to Segments and Audience Categories which function like normal categories and is based on whether or not those targets were “viewed.” 

Purchases remarketing is similar to views remarketing except based on whether or not a customer has made a purchase.

Here’s a summary of match types by targeting type in Sponsored Brands: 

Contextual Targeting:

• ASIN Targeting 
• Category Targeting 
• Dynamic Segment Targeting (similar to advertised products) 

Audience Targeting:

• Audience 
• ASIN Targeting 
• Category Targeting 
• Dynamic Segment targeting 

Of course, there’s an incredible number of options within those targeting options. 

As of the time of this writing, we have not seen the ability to exclude terms or brands in Sponsored Display.

Key Takeaways

So which should you choose? That depends. Advertising on Amazon is not as simple as it was 5+ years ago when all you had was an auto campaign.   

Each targeting type is designed for a specific objective and can be used for different purposes depending on your goals, available resources and product/category mix.  

If you are interested in learning more about how you can use Amazon Ads better, please reach out to us with the simple form below.