What Are Negative Keywords and How to Find Them for Amazon – Beginners Guide!

Amazon Negative Keywords are words or expressions that keep your promotion from showing up on the Amazon SERP web index results page if those terms are in a client’s hunt question. At the end of the day, utilize a negative watchword to disclose to Amazon when you don’t need your promotion to show. We say you sell plastic bowls on Amazon, and you bid on the phrase “bowls.”

Without negative keywords, your ad for plastic bowls may appear in the search for “glass bowls” because there are still “bowls” expressed in this inquiry question. The shopper may even click on your ad, realizing that this is not what they want, and right away. They just left. Amazon will still charge you for this click, but you won’t have any sales to show it.

Without negative keywords, chances are your ads will show up in hundreds, if not thousands, of searches:

  • Irrelevant
  • Without Benefit
  • Keep click-to-rate (CTR) low
  • Have low conversion rates (CVR)

If you are unsure or confused  about how to handle this, well, that’s why we have created this guide – explaining everything in the easiest way possible. Olifant Digital has developed this guide so that anyone, regardless of their PPC skill level, can use the power of negative keywords.

Negative Keywords Vs. Regular Keywords on Amazon

Simply put, negative keywords are the opposite of common words. That’s why you are commonly called “positive keywords”. Positive keywords trigger ads to appear on the search page, and negative keywords are not triggered for that page. Additionally, there are three different types of matches in regular keywords: broad, phrase, and exact.

Negative keywords have only two matching types: sentence and exact. Learn more about choosing the type of keyword match.

Negative Phrase Match

Let’s keep misspellings aside for a moment and consider this: the role of a negative phrase is to make sure your ad is NOT shown in search results that include your negative phrase. It’s that simple.

For example, if we have the phrase “junior tennis racket” as a negative, here are some questions that show your ad and others that will stop it. The first two ads show because they do not contain exact sentences, only part of them. The last two are going to be blocked. If you haven’t guessed already, is because they contain a negative sentence.

Negative Exact Match

With negative precision, the search term must match your keywords, with allowances for multiplicity and minor misspellings. What if the “junior tennis racquet” was negative?

Even when the whole match is in it, your ad still appears because it includes additional words outside of the negative exact match. The last two contain only the full negative sentence or misspellings, so they are blocked.

How to Find Good and Negative Words?

This process is simple, and even if you do not understand the concept, you can follow the guidelines to get the results. The measurability of Amazon Advertising makes it easier for us to handle such searches. You simply need protection around your ad campaigns to make sure such terms do not show up.

The following are matrix guidelines, not rules, that can be adjusted to fit different niches. To identify low performing terms, you should use three metrics here which should be converted to negative keywords i.e.:

  • Low CTR non-converters
  • High-cost non-converters
  • High Click Non-Converters

You do not want your campaign to suffer unnecessarily. Which of these metrics is the culprit in your Amazon campaigns?

Low CTR Non-Converters

Search terms that get your ad more than 2500 impressions with a CTR of less than 0.18 percent and are not worth the conversions of your time. They are damaging the quality of your product. Stop them

Spend More on Non-Consumers

This may vary depending on your budget and your product’s profit margin, but it’s safe to say that any search term should generate more than 35% of the money in the ad without conversions.

Click on Non-Converters

Noting that the average conversion rate for Amazon sellers is 9.8%, anything with more than 34 clicks that hasn’t changed yet is already suffering badly.

Exceptions To The Rule

So, can a brand name be used as a positive keyword for your marketing? For example, Pepsi-Cola runs sponsored product ads on “Coke” keywords in an attempt to steal consumers from its competitors. Search queries containing the word “Coke” will not replace the word “Pepsi” or even “Cola” with them, but Pepsi is still seeking paid traffic if there is such an opportunity.

That they snatch the user walking behind it. When targeting a competitor’s brand, you have to forgive the poor performance of your keywords because they have a more difficult target. If you have a tool that automates the process of negative keywords for you, be sure to create a white list of any competitor’s keywords you are bidding on.

How to Add Negative Keywords to Amazon Seller Central?

Learning how to include negative keywords in your Amazon Seller Central is one of the most important points in this article, and we present to you five easy steps.

Step 1: Go to your desired campaign/ad group. Negative keywords do different things at different levels.

Campaign Level: When you add a negative keyword to the campaign level, it automatically joins all of the campaign’s ad groups.

Ad Group Level: Adding negative keywords at the ad group level will only apply to a negative match with an ad group involved in this campaign.

Step 2: Click on the “Negative Keywords” tab.

Step 3: Choose the type of match you want, negative phrase or negative exact.

Step 4: Add your negative keywords. Ensure every catchphrase goes on a different line.

Step 5: Click “Add Keywords” then “Save”.

And you’re done! You can remove any negative keywords at any time by navigating to the Negative Keywords page, selecting the negative keywords, and clicking “Archive”.

Note for beginners: If you don’t know where to start, the safest and easiest way is to include your negative keywords as an exact match at the ad group level.

Conclusion

Negative keywords are an essential element of any good Amazon PPC campaign because they reduce unnecessary costs, increase product rankings, and counteract keyword sterilization. The sooner you start using them, the faster you will realize all the dreams of your Amazon seller.