Advertising on Amazon is getting more expensive, and for many of the businesses that we speak to, the results simply aren’t delivering value.
As Amazon continues to expand its marketing real estate, competition for visibility intensifies. More brands + more bids = more noise. In this environment, PPC is no longer optional. It’s simply the cost of doing business on Amazon.
For those who’ve been questioning whether they ‘should’ spend on Amazon ads, you need to accept that it’s just a cost of doing business on the platform. The question is whether your ad spend is working as hard as it should.
You Can’t Grow Market Share on Amazon Without Advertising
Organic visibility on Amazon is earned and without efficient fulfilment, happy customers and metrics at 100%, no amount of ad spend will improve your position. Only by addressing underlying inefficiencies can you deliver sustainable growth. Then effective Amazon PPC can further improve organic visibility.
For those selling in highly competitive categories, PPC is your permission to play. As with any mature marketplace, participants need to speculate to accumulate, with short-term investment often being key to unlocking long-term performance.
‘Can You Cut Ad Costs and Still Grow?’
This is one of the most common questions we’re asked, and the honest answer is: ‘not without doing the fundamentals exceptionally well’.
Improving advertising efficiency doesn’t start inside the ads console. It starts with understanding what’s driving cost in the first place.
Three areas that matter most in this consideration are:
1. Organic Conversion Determines Ad Efficiency
If a product doesn’t convert organically, advertising will always be expensive.
Poor listings, weak imagery, unclear propositions, or uncompetitive pricing all inflate PPC costs. You pay more per click, and you need more clicks to generate a sale.
Before asking how much to spend on ads, we encourage businesses we work with to ask:
- Do our key products convert competitively without advertising?
- Are listings optimised to meet shopper intent?
- Are reviews, pricing, and availability aligned with the category?
The fact is that advertising amplifies what’s already there, whether good or bad. So let’s make it good!
2. Software Alone Doesn’t Create Advantage
Automation tools are valuable. They bring consistency, speed, and scale.
But when teams rely entirely on PPC software, opportunities are often missed. Algorithms optimise to rules, not context.
Human intuition still matters when it comes to:
- Understanding seasonality and demand shifts
- Interpreting performance changes beyond the data
- Making strategic decisions on where to push, pause, or protect
The strongest Amazon accounts we’ve seen blend automation with human insight. In our experience, software works at its best for businesses where it’s supporting performance rather than replacing judgement.
3. Consistency and Technical Excellence Beat Budget
Ad spend is not the primary driver of success on Amazon. Execution is.
Consistent bid management, clean account structure, disciplined search term harvesting, and rigorous testing all matter more than headline budgets.
Two businesses can spend the same amount on ads and see very different outcomes. The difference is rarely spend, it’s more down to how well the channel’s managed.
The most successful teams focus on:
- Technical excellence in account setup
- Consistent optimisation routines
- Clear objectives aligned to commercial outcomes
We meet many Amazon teams who have been struggling to figure it out for themselves. In our experience, a little investment in their development goes a long way to ensuring that those teams can really excel.
Informed Ad Spend
There is no universally accepted blanket percentage to apply to Amazon ad spend.
The right level of spend is defined by:
- Your unit economics
- Your conversion rates
- Your competitive landscape
- Your growth objectives
Advertising spend needs to be seen as an investment with a clearly defined role, rather than a default response to declining performance.
Advertising Is a Lever, Not a Strategy
Amazon PPC is powerful, but it’s not a strategy in isolation.
When organic performance is strong, listings are optimised. When execution is disciplined, advertising becomes more efficient. Costs stabilise. Growth becomes predictable.
The businesses that win on Amazon aren’t necessarily the biggest spenders but the smart spenders. They’re the ones that understand why they’re spending, and what needs to be in place for that spend to deliver real return.
If you’d like to explore how to make your Amazon ad spend more strategic and efficient, then please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.
Have you read The CEO Playbook yet? Six smart pages of fundamental ‘need-to-knows’ for CEOs of businesses looking to sell more profitably on Amazon. Read it now