Insights for Amazon PPC optimization, straight from the bulk file trenches.

Down only keeps your typed bid as the ceiling, fixed bids pay it on every auction, and up and down can double it. Here is what that means on a $3-5 royalty.

Your highest safe bid is the royalty you keep times your conversion rate. Here is that number for five Merch price points, plus what to bid before a design has any data.

Budget rules can run your Q4 budget changes for you. On a thin royalty they need two limits: proven designs only, and a ROAS threshold above your break-even.

Christmas shirt ads pay off when they start early, spend on proven designs only, and stop before late orders can no longer arrive. A dated plan with the royalty maths.

On a Merch shirt your break even ACoS is your royalty divided by the list price, and it moves a lot with price. Here it is for five price points, after returns, with the CPC each one can afford.

Most Black Friday ad guides assume deals, coupons and stock. A Merch seller has a royalty and a bid. Here is the Q4 plan that fits that: budgets up, bids capped at break-even, a clean stop after Cyber Monday.

Textbook TACoS can flatter a Merch account eight times over, because it divides your ad spend by revenue that was never yours to begin with.

Most people searching for an Amazon PPC expert are about to spend $500–3,000 on something they could learn in a weekend. Here is how to tell which group you're in.

There is no correct number of campaigns — only a structure you can still reason about six months from now, and one you can't.

1,645 units and 149 returns over 60 days. The 9.1% account average turned out to be the least useful number in the dataset.

The only report that tells you what shoppers actually typed — and the five cuts worth making in it, with the click threshold that decides each one.

Ten clicks and no sale means nothing — there is a one-in-three chance it was luck. Here is the click threshold that actually justifies a negative, and what to cut first.