How to Set Up Negative Keywords on Amazon

Negative keywords are one of the simplest ways to control unwanted Amazon Ads traffic. Used correctly, they can prevent irrelevant search queries from triggering your ads and help direct advertising spend toward searches that better match your campaign objective.

To set up negative keywords on Amazon, open the relevant Sponsored Products campaign in Campaign Manager, go to the campaign or ad group's negative targeting section, add the keyword, choose negative exact or negative phrase, and save the change. Amazon's interface can change over time, so the exact labels may vary.

The harder part is not adding a negative keyword. It is deciding which search terms should be excluded, at what level, and with which match type.

That decision is where most of the value comes from.

What Are Negative Keywords on Amazon?

Negative keywords tell Amazon Ads that you do not want your ad associated with particular shopping queries.

Amazon describes negative targeting as a way to exclude keywords, products, or brands that do not meet your campaign objectives. For Sponsored Products, negative keyword targeting can be used in both automatic and manual campaigns.

For example, imagine you sell premium leather belts.

Your campaign may discover searches such as:

• leather belt for men
• genuine leather belt
• formal leather belt
• cheap leather belt
• leather belt replacement buckle
• leather belt for women

Some may be valuable. Some may be irrelevant to your product. Others may be relevant but economically unattractive.

Those are three different situations.

A negative keyword is primarily a traffic-control decision. It should not automatically be used as a substitute for bid optimization.

Negative Keyword vs Negative Product Target

Amazon Ads supports negative targeting beyond keywords.

For Sponsored Products, you can exclude:

• Keywords
• Products or ASINs
• Brands, where supported by the campaign targeting options

This article focuses on negative keywords, which control shopping queries. Negative product targeting is a separate decision because it controls where product-targeted ads can appear.

Negative Product Targeting on Amazon

Negative targeting is not limited to search terms.

Amazon also allows advertisers to exclude specific products, ASINs, and, where supported, brands from eligible Sponsored Products targeting. Amazon describes this as a way to prevent ads from appearing on specific shopping results or product detail pages that do not meet the campaign's performance goals.

This matters because product-targeted advertising works differently from keyword targeting.

With keyword targeting, you are controlling eligibility around a shopper's search query.

With product targeting, you are controlling where your ad can appear around products or categories.

When Should You Use Negative Product Targeting?

Common reasons include:

• A target ASIN receives clicks but does not produce acceptable results.
• A product is not complementary to what you sell.
• Your ad is appearing against an incompatible product.
• A particular competitor or product group is consuming spend without meeting the campaign objective.
• A category campaign is too broad and certain products should be excluded.
• You want to separate traffic between different product-targeting campaigns.

Amazon specifically gives the example of a camera-lens campaign where an incompatible camera is receiving placements. Adding that camera as a negative ASIN prevents the ad from appearing there.

How to Add a Negative Product Target

For a Sponsored Products product-targeting campaign, the practical workflow is:

1. 1Open Campaign Manager.
2. 2Select the relevant campaign and ad group.
3. 3Open Negative targeting.
4. 4Choose the option to add negative product targets.
5. 5Select the products or brands you want to exclude.
6. 6Review the exclusions and apply them.

Amazon's current guidance describes this workflow as selecting the campaign and ad group, opening Negative targeting, and choosing the option to add negative product targets. The exact interface can change over time.

Negative ASIN vs Negative Brand

These two exclusions solve different problems.

Negative ASIN

Use this when one particular product is the problem.

Example:

ASIN B0XXXXXXX receives 40 clicks and no orders.

If the product is irrelevant or its traffic consistently fails the campaign objective, excluding that ASIN can be more precise than excluding an entire brand.

Negative brand

Use this when the issue applies more broadly to products from a particular brand and the campaign's targeting options support brand exclusions.

For example, a category campaign may expose your product to a particular brand whose products are not relevant to your intended audience.

Do not exclude an entire brand simply because one ASIN performed poorly. Start with the narrowest exclusion that solves the actual problem.

How to Find Negative Product Targets

Your search term and targeting data can reveal which products deserve investigation.

Amazon's Sponsored Products Search Term Report can include ASIN-related customer search terms for automatic-targeted campaigns and product-attribute-targeted ad groups. Amazon notes that these ASINs can be blocked through negative targeting or promoted into manual product targeting.

A useful workflow is:

Category or automatic targeting → ASIN-level performance → Evaluate relevance and economics → Negative ASIN or manual target

For example:

Again, zero orders alone are not enough. Relevance, spend, product economics, and campaign objective matter.

Negative Product Targeting Is Not Just for Competitors

A common mistake is to think negative product targeting means only excluding competitor ASINs.

It can also be useful for:

• Irrelevant products
• Incompatible products
• Poor-performing ASINs
• Products outside your intended price or positioning
• Non-complementary products
• Unwanted placements generated by broad category targeting

Amazon recommends considering low-performing ASINs, ASINs you do not want ads to show against, and non-complementary ASINs as negative product-targeting candidates.

Negative Product Targeting in Category Campaigns

Category targeting gives you broader reach, but that reach can include products that are technically related while still being poor destinations for your ad.

For example, suppose you sell a premium $80 water bottle and target a broad category.

Your ad may appear alongside:

• Premium insulated bottles
• Low-priced plastic bottles
• Kids' bottles
• Replacement lids
• Bottle accessories
• Products serving a different use case

The right response is not necessarily to abandon category targeting.

Instead, use performance data to identify which product groups or ASINs are consuming spend without supporting the campaign objective.

Amazon recommends starting with category targeting for broader reach and then using the search term report to identify individual ASINs that generate clicks and conversions, which can help refine targeting.

Keyword Negatives and Product Negatives Work Together

A mature Sponsored Products account can use both forms of negative targeting.

Think of them as two different controls:

Negative keyword

"Do not show my ad for this type of shopping query."

Negative product

"Do not show my ad around this product or brand."

For example:

Keyword targeting
        |
        +--> Relevant query
        |
        +--> Irrelevant query
                 |
                 +--> Negative keyword

Product targeting
        |
        +--> Relevant ASIN
        |
        +--> Poor / incompatible ASIN
                 |
                 +--> Negative product target

This distinction is important when diagnosing wasted spend. A campaign can have strong keyword relevance but still waste money on poor product placements.

Do Not Over-Exclude Product Targets

The same principle that applies to negative keywords applies to negative products.

Do not build a large exclusion list simply because some targets have no orders.

Ask:

1. 1Is the product actually relevant?
2. 2How much has it cost the campaign?
3. 3Has it received enough traffic to make a decision?
4. 4Does it fit the campaign's objective?
5. 5Could the problem be the bid rather than the target?
6. 6Is the target useful for discovery?
7. 7Would excluding it remove a meaningful source of future sales?

Amazon's guidance recommends evaluating performance before adding negative targets and notes that negative targeting can be changed later.

The operator's goal is not to eliminate traffic.

It is to eliminate traffic that does not deserve continued access to the campaign.

How to Set Up Negative Keywords on Amazon

Here is the practical setup process for Sponsored Products.

Step 1: Open Amazon Ads Campaign Manager

Open your Amazon Ads account and go to Campaign Manager.

Step 2: Select the Sponsored Products campaign

Choose the campaign where you want to exclude unwanted search traffic.

The campaign objective matters. A search term that is appropriate for one campaign may be inappropriate for another.

Step 3: Open the campaign or ad group

Amazon allows negative keywords to be applied at the campaign level or to a specific ad group, depending on how you want to control the traffic. Amazon's current targeting guide describes adding negatives from the campaign's Negative keywords area or from the ad group's negative targeting area.

Step 4: Open Negative targeting or Negative keywords

Look for the negative targeting section in the campaign or ad group.

Amazon's interface currently refers to areas such as "Negative keywords" and "Negative targeting." UI labels can change, but the function is the same: define traffic you do not want the campaign or ad group to target.

Step 5: Add the keyword

Enter the search phrase you want to exclude.

For example:

cheap leather belt

Step 6: Choose the negative match type

Amazon recommends negative phrase or negative exact for negative keywords.

Choose based on how broadly you want the exclusion to work.

Step 7: Save the change

Review the keyword and match type before applying the change.

The important question is not:

"Can I add this keyword as a negative?"

It is:

"Do I have enough evidence that this traffic should no longer be eligible for this campaign?"

That distinction prevents aggressive negative targeting from choking discovery.

Negative Exact vs Negative Phrase

This is one of the most important decisions when adding negative keywords.

Negative exact

Negative exact is the more surgical option.

If you exclude:

cheap leather belt

using negative exact, you are attempting to block that specific query and close variations according to Amazon's matching behavior.

This is useful when one specific shopping query is problematic but you do not want to block every query containing those words.

Negative phrase

Negative phrase is broader.

If you exclude:

cheap leather belt

using negative phrase, Amazon says ads will not show on shopping queries containing the complete phrase or close variations.

This is useful when the entire phrase represents an unwanted intent.

Practical rule

Use negative exact when the problem is highly specific.

Use negative phrase when the entire phrase represents traffic you consistently do not want.

Do not choose phrase simply because it removes more traffic. More exclusion is not automatically better optimization.

How to Find Negative Keyword Opportunities

The best source is usually your advertising data rather than a giant prebuilt negative list.

Amazon's Sponsored Products Search Term Report shows customer shopping queries that generated at least one ad click. Amazon specifically recommends using search term reports to identify high-performing searches and to create negative keyword or product targets for searches that do not meet your goals.

A practical workflow is:

1. 1Open the Search Term Report.
2. 2Filter for the relevant campaign, ad group, or ASIN.
3. 3Review search terms with meaningful spend.
4. 4Separate irrelevant traffic from relevant but inefficient traffic.
5. 5Check orders and sales.
6. 6Compare the economics with the campaign objective.
7. 7Add negatives only where the evidence supports exclusion.

This is much safer than exporting a report and immediately negating every term with zero orders.

The Most Important Decision: Irrelevant vs Inefficient

This is where experienced PPC management differs from mechanical optimization.

Consider these three search terms:

The first term may represent the wrong customer intent.

The second may be a relevant query that simply needs more data, a different bid, or a better product detail page.

The third has demonstrated demand, even if its economics need improvement.

Poor economics is not the same thing as irrelevant traffic.

If the search is relevant but expensive, consider bid or conversion changes before blocking it.

For broader campaign optimization, see how to optimize Amazon PPC campaigns.

When Should You Add a Negative Keyword?

There are several common situations.

1. The query is clearly irrelevant

If you sell a premium product and the query clearly indicates a product, use case, size, audience, or feature you do not serve, exclusion may make sense.

For example, if your product is a men's product and a search consistently indicates a completely different product type that you do not sell, that can be a strong negative candidate.

2. The query conflicts with the campaign objective

A search term can be relevant to the product but wrong for the specific campaign.

This becomes important when you deliberately separate discovery, branded, non-branded, product, or other campaign roles.

3. The query has accumulated meaningful spend without producing an acceptable outcome

Amazon suggests evaluating performance before adding a negative target and gives at least 20 clicks as an example threshold. Amazon also recommends letting negative keywords run for two weeks or more before changing the strategy.

That should not be treated as a universal rule.

Twenty clicks on a $1.20 CPC product is not economically equivalent to twenty clicks on a $0.15 CPC product.

A better operator question is:

How much have I spent relative to what this product can afford to spend to acquire an order?

When Should You Lower a Bid Instead?

This distinction deserves its own rule.

Negative the traffic when:

• The query is irrelevant.
• The intent is fundamentally wrong.
• The product cannot satisfy the query.
• The traffic conflicts with the campaign's intended role.

Consider lowering the bid when:

• The query is relevant.
• The query has demonstrated sales potential.
• Conversion is possible but the economics are weak.
• You want to retain some discovery rather than eliminate it.

Keep testing when:

• The query is highly relevant.
• Spend is still limited.
• There is not enough evidence to make a confident decision.
• The campaign is intentionally designed for discovery.

This three-way classification prevents one of the most common PPC mistakes: treating every poor-performing search term as a negative.

Negative Keywords in Automatic Campaigns

Automatic campaigns are one of the most useful places to discover negative keyword opportunities.

Amazon says automatic targeting can help advertisers understand search trends and serve as a source of keyword discovery for manual campaigns.

The workflow can look like this:

Automatic campaign → Search Term Report → Evaluate search term → Promote winners → Exclude unwanted traffic

Suppose an automatic campaign discovers:

stainless steel water bottle 1 liter

and the term produces consistent sales.

You may want to add the proven search term to a manual campaign with a suitable match type while using negative targeting to control unwanted traffic in the discovery campaign, depending on your campaign structure.

Amazon also recommends using search term data to identify high-performing searches and add them to campaigns as targeting.

This is more useful than treating negative keywords as a simple "cut spend" tool.

Negative Keywords and Campaign Structure

Negative targeting becomes more powerful when your campaigns have deliberate roles.

For example:

Discovery Campaign
        |
        | Search-term data
        v
Proven Search Term
        |
        +----> Controlled Exact Campaign
        |
        +----> Negative in Discovery Campaign

The purpose is not to create complicated campaign architecture.

The purpose is to make each campaign easier to manage.

If you are reviewing or rebuilding the architecture itself, see our guide to Amazon PPC campaign structure.

Amazon also recommends distinct campaigns that match advertising goals and using search-term data to improve keyword targeting.

Negative Keywords and Keyword Cannibalization

There is an important distinction here.

SEO keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages on the same website target substantially the same search intent.

That is not what negative keywords solve.

In Amazon PPC, you may instead have overlapping campaign eligibility. Several campaigns can potentially be relevant to similar shopping queries, and your campaign architecture may require you to control that overlap.

Negative targeting can be part of that control strategy.

For example, if a discovery campaign is intended to find new search terms while a separate campaign is intended to control proven exact-match demand, you may use negatives to make the routing more deliberate.

The key is to design the campaigns around decisions rather than assuming that every overlap is inherently bad.

Should You Add Negative Keywords for Every Zero-Sales Search Term?

No.

This is one of the easiest ways to damage a discovery campaign.

A search term with zero sales could mean:

• It is irrelevant.
• It has not received enough traffic.
• The bid is too high.
• The product detail page converts poorly.
• The product is not competitive.
• The search term is relevant but has a long purchase cycle.
• The campaign objective is discovery rather than immediate profitability.

The search term report should therefore be treated as a diagnostic tool.

Amazon says the report can be used to identify both high-performing searches for targeting and low-performing searches for negative targeting.

The decision should come from the combination of relevance + evidence + economics + campaign role.

Common Negative Keyword Mistakes

Mistake 1: Building a huge negative list before collecting data

A large negative list can look sophisticated while blocking valuable discovery.

Start with obvious exclusions and data-backed decisions.

Mistake 2: Using negative phrase when negative exact is enough

If only one specific search query is problematic, a broad exclusion may remove useful variations.

Use the narrowest exclusion that solves the actual problem.

Mistake 3: Negating relevant keywords because ACoS is high

High ACoS does not automatically mean irrelevant traffic.

The first question is whether the search is relevant and whether there are other levers available.

If profitability is the issue, see our guide on how to lower ACoS on Amazon.

Mistake 4: Ignoring the campaign's purpose

A discovery campaign and a tightly controlled exact-match campaign do not necessarily need the same negative strategy.

Mistake 5: Making changes without understanding the routing

Before adding a negative, ask:

Where else should this search term be allowed to perform?

This question is particularly important when you use multiple campaigns to separate discovery and control.

Mistake 6: Never reviewing negatives

Negative targeting should be intentional, but it should not become permanent simply because nobody remembers why it was added.

Amazon notes that negative targets can be removed and recommends allowing time to evaluate the impact before changing strategy.

How Often Should You Review Negative Keywords?

There is no useful universal schedule for every account.

A practical cadence is:

New campaigns

Review search-term data frequently enough to catch obvious irrelevant traffic and understand discovery.

Established campaigns

Review negative opportunities alongside your normal PPC optimization routine.

Large accounts

Prioritize high-spend campaigns, high-volume search terms, and material changes rather than manually reviewing every row with equal attention.

Amazon provides search-term, targeting, advertised-product, placement, and performance-over-time reports for Sponsored Products analysis.

The goal is not to make a negative keyword review another full-time job.

The goal is to catch material opportunities.

A Simple Negative Keyword Decision Framework

Use this sequence:

Question 1: Is the search relevant?

No → Negative candidate.

Yes → Continue.

Question 2: Does the search have enough evidence?

No → Continue testing if the campaign objective supports discovery.

Yes → Continue.

Question 3: Is the problem relevance or economics?

Relevance → Negative candidate.

Economics → Consider bid, conversion, product, or campaign changes.

Question 4: Does the campaign structure require routing this search elsewhere?

Yes → Use negative targeting deliberately as part of the routing strategy.

No → Do not create complexity without a reason.

Question 5: How broad should the exclusion be?

One problematic query → Consider negative exact.

An entire unwanted phrase/intention → Consider negative phrase.

Amazon's documented negative match behavior supports using negative exact and negative phrase for this purpose.

A Worked Example

Suppose you sell a premium $45 leather belt.

Your Search Term Report shows:

The mistake would be:

Zero orders = negative.

The better approach is:

• cheap leather belt: likely an exclusion candidate if the product positioning and economics make the traffic unsuitable.
• genuine leather belt: relevant. Do not negative simply because the ACoS is high.
• replacement buckle: investigate whether your product satisfies that intent before excluding it.
• gift box: likely insufficient evidence to make a strong performance-based exclusion.

This is the difference between traffic control and blind cost cutting.

Negative Keyword Checklist

Before adding a negative keyword, check:

• Is the search term genuinely relevant to the product?
• Does it fit the campaign's objective?
• Is the issue irrelevant traffic or poor economics?
• Has the term accumulated enough evidence to justify the decision?
• Could a lower bid solve the problem instead?
• Should the exclusion be negative exact or negative phrase?
• Should it apply to the campaign or only a specific ad group?
• If the term is valuable elsewhere, have you deliberately routed it?
• Is the change material enough to document?
• Can you explain why the negative was added six weeks later?

That last question matters.

You do not need a log for every routine PPC action. But material negative decisions should have a clear reason, particularly in larger accounts.

How Negative Keywords Fit Into Amazon PPC Optimization

Negative keywords are only one part of PPC optimization.

A strong account management process also considers:

• Search-term quality
• Keyword and product targeting
• Bids
• Budgets
• Placement performance
• Conversion rate
• Product detail page quality
• Campaign structure
• Product economics
• Branded vs non-branded traffic
• Discovery vs controlled campaigns

Amazon's own Sponsored Products guidance recommends reviewing search-term, targeting, advertised-product, placement, and performance data when optimizing campaigns.

For the broader framework, see the complete guide to Amazon PPC optimization.

A Faster Way to Find Negative Keyword Opportunities

Finding negative keyword candidates is useful. Finding them across thousands of search terms every week is where manual work starts to become a bottleneck.

SellerRoot is built to help Amazon PPC teams surface optimization opportunities across search terms, targets, bids, budgets, and campaigns, so operators can spend less time digging through reports and more time deciding what actually needs attention.

SellerRoot does not make campaign changes without user approval. The platform surfaces opportunities and context, while the operator stays in control of the decision. Explore SellerRoot's Amazon PPC optimization platform.

If you want to see what SellerRoot finds in your own Amazon Ads account, you can start with the 14-day trial. Start the 14-day SellerRoot trial.

Final Takeaway

Negative keywords are not a cleanup exercise.

They are a way to control where your Amazon advertising can spend money.

The strongest approach is simple:

Find the search term → determine whether it is relevant → evaluate the economics → decide whether to bid differently or exclude it → choose the narrowest useful negative match → review the impact.

Do that consistently and negative targeting becomes part of a larger PPC decision system rather than a growing list of keywords that someone added because they had zero orders.

About the author

Yogendra Kashyap

Amazon Ads operators

Yogendra Kashyap is the Founder of SellerRoot and an Amazon Ads expert with 9+ years of experience helping brands grow through data-driven advertising. His expertise spans Amazon PPC, campaign optimization, search term analysis, and marketplace growth. Together with the SellerRoot team, he is building AI-powered tools for Amazon advertisers while sharing practical, experience-backed insights to help brands improve profitability and scale on Amazon.