In addition to reviewing metrics, you can take other proactive steps to get the most out of your ads.
Viewing recommendations
We continually track and analyze your campaign performance. If we find an opportunity for improvement, we display it in the Recommendations section of Ads Manager.
You can view recommendations for active campaigns—
Click Campaigns from the menu on the top-left side of the screen.
Select Sponsored product from the dropdown in the top left corner to open the Sponsored product campaigns page.
Click a campaign to open its Campaign overview page.
Click Recommendations on the left.
Use the tabs at the top of the screen to switch between budget, bid, keyword, and ROAS recommendations. (Note: not every type of recommendation is available for every campaign, and we don’t guarantee performance of any recommendation).
Budget
Optimizing your campaign budget can help prevent your sponsored product ads from missing out on auctions. To ensure you have enough budget—
Monitor your remaining budget. We’ll send email reminders when you’re running out of budget and when the budget is exhausted. Proactively increase your budget to ensure your ads keep running.
Monitor campaign statuses. The Sponsored product campaigns page shows a green dot next to active campaigns with a sufficient budget and an orange dot next to campaigns with insufficient budget.
Budget recommendations
We provide different budget recommendations depending on your campaign’s budget profile. Please note, these recommendations can change over time due to changing auction conditions.
Daily budget campaigns
View budget recommendations for daily budget campaigns in the Daily budget tab of the Recommendations section.
To help you determine the right budget, we provide the following insights for the past 7 days—
Percentage of missed auctions: The % of auctions your campaign couldn’t participate in due to insufficient budget.
This doesn’t account for auctions missed due to low bids, missing product images, and other reasons.
Estimated missed impressions: An estimate of how many impressions your campaign couldn’t capture due to missed auctions from the campaign’s budget constraints.
Estimated missed sales: An estimate of how many sales your campaign missed due to budget constraints.
Maximize impressions campaigns
View budget recommendations for maximizing impressions in the Lifetime budget tab of the Recommendations section.
If our system determines your campaign is at risk of exhausting its budget, we’ll recommend increasing your budget so you can participate in more auctions.
Default max CPC bid
Uncompetitive cost-per-click (CPC) bids are unlikely to win ad placements. To help your bids stay competitive, set default maximum CPC bids that reflect what you’re truly willing to pay per click. Our second-price auction model ensures you only pay the minimum amount necessary to win.
Bid recommendations
Competition for sponsored products can change at any time. We suggest checking bid recommendations frequently. View bid recommendations in the Default maximum CPC bid tab of the Recommendations section.
We identify ad groups with uncompetitive default maximum CPC bids and provide the following information—
Bid strength: How often the bid is competitive across all eligible placements.
Suggested max bid: The default maximum CPC bid we recommend to compete with other advertisers in your category. We tailor this recommendation based on the products in your ad group.
Note: Only ad groups with low or uncompetitive bids display in the Recommendations section.
Bid landscapes
Bid landscapes can help you understand how your ads would perform with different default maximum CPC bids. You can view a bid landscape for any ad group with enough historical data.
To view a bid landscape, open the Default maximum CPC bid tab of the Recommendations section. Then, click View landscape.
You can also view bid landscapes for a given ad group from the Campaign overview page.
Navigate to the ad group overview
Click Explore under the Suggested bid column or
Click Apply to immediately apply the suggested bid
Each bid landscape shows a preview of projected impressions, clicks, and sales for various CPC bids over the next 7 days. The Spend column shows how much budget you would need to meet the metric projections. The metrics are estimates only and don’t guarantee any particular result or outcome.
Keywords
You can bid on keywords to win sponsored product ad placements on search results pages. We suggest reviewing your keywords and recommendations regularly to stay competitive in changing auction dynamics.
Reviewing keywords
To review your keywords—
Click Campaigns from the menu on the top-left side of the screen.
Select Sponsored product from the dropdown in the top left corner to open the Sponsored product campaigns page.
Click a campaign to open its Campaign overview page.
Click an ad group to open it.
Click the Keywords tab at the top of the screen.
View the keyword table under the keyword metrics graph.
Tips for reviewing keywords—
Review your default keywords. Consider creating override keywords by increasing the keyword bids. Learn more about default and override keywords.
Review keyword bid strength. Ads Manager provides a bid strength indicator, based on bid amount and conversion probabilities. Strong bids are competitive the majority of the time across eligible placements. This strength can change, so it’s a good idea to review the bid strength frequently and adjust bids when necessary.
Check for ‘low-probability’ keywords. These keywords have a low chance of winning auctions because they aren’t relevant to the products in your ad group. Low-probability keywords have an “X” under Bid strength.
Keyword recommendations
High-potential keywords are keywords with a great potential for the products in your campaign. We identify these keywords and suggest optimal CPC bids to help you allocate your budget effectively. Increasing CPC bids for these keywords can increase the return on ad spend.
You can find recommendations for high-potential keywords in the High-potential keywords tab of the Recommendations section.
Return on ad spend (ROAS)
We provide ROAS recommendations for optimized bidding campaigns in the Campaign ROAS tab of the Recommendations section. Learn more about optimized bidding.
If no recommendations appear, your campaign needs more time to gather data. Try checking back later.