Amazon Automatic Campaigns Not Spending? Troubleshooting Low Impressions & Zero Spend

It’s a frustrating scenario many Amazon sellers face: investing time and budget into setting up new advertising campaigns, only to see them yield virtually no impressions and zero ad spend. This issue can significantly hinder discovery for new products or variations, impacting sales potential and brand visibility on the platform. While not affecting sellers of all sizes equally, it can be particularly disheartening for those launching new ASINs or aiming to expand reach with variations like different flavors.

One such seller recently took to the FulfillmentByAmazon subreddit to seek advice after experiencing this exact problem. Despite setting up two automatic campaigns for different ASINs (child variations of a supplement product), each with a $15 daily budget, the campaigns failed to generate any significant activity after several days. This lack of performance raises critical questions for sellers about bid strategy, waiting periods, and the fundamental setup of their automatic campaigns.

Initial Setup and Bid Strategy Concerns

The seller in question, following advice from an Amazon Ads Expert Agency, decided to run automatic campaigns for discovery, complementing their existing manual campaigns that targeted proven exact matches. The initial strategy involved setting up an automatic campaign for each of their two ASINs, with a daily budget of $15 per campaign. Bids were initially set at $0.70 across all four targeting groups: Close Match, Complements, Loose Match, and Substitutes, with a 10% bid for Top of Search (TOS), 15% for Product Pages (PP), and 10% for Ads.

However, the seller felt the initial bid of $0.70 was too conservative, especially for a supplement product. Consequently, they adjusted the bids for both campaigns. The new bid structure was: Close Match at $1.05, Complements at $0.80, Loose Match at $0.65, and Substitutes at $0.90. Despite these adjustments and a waiting period of 48-72 hours, the campaigns showed minimal impressions – a combined 25 for Close Match, 5 for Loose Match, and 9 for Substitutes – across both ASINs. Crucially, no ad spend was incurred.

Diagnosing the Lack of Impressions and Spend

The primary issue is the apparent inactivity of the automatic campaigns. With a $15 daily budget and no spend after three days, it’s clear the campaigns aren’t participating in ad auctions effectively. Several factors could contribute to this. The most probable reason, as the seller pondered, is that the bids, even after adjustment, might still be too low to compete within the Amazon ad auction for the targeted product categories and keywords. Automatic campaigns rely on Amazon’s algorithm to find relevant placements, and if the bid isn’t competitive enough, the ads simply won’t show.

Another possibility is that the initial waiting period, while seemingly sufficient at 48-72 hours, might need to be longer, especially for less competitive niches or if the campaigns are brand new. Amazon’s systems can take time to gather data and optimize. However, the extremely low impression numbers suggest a more fundamental bidding issue.

Community Reaction and Expert Insights

Discussions on the Reddit thread highlight that this is a common challenge for sellers. The consensus leans towards significantly increasing bids. Some users suggested that starting bids in automatic campaigns, especially for competitive categories or products like supplements, need to be much higher to even get a chance to gather data. Recommendations ranged from starting bids at $2.00 or more, with subsequent adjustments based on performance. There was also a note that TOS and PP bid adjustments, while a good feature, are secondary to the base bid’s competitiveness.

One key takeaway from the community feedback is that patience is required, but initial bids must be aggressive enough to allow the campaign to run and collect data. Sellers emphasized that the goal of the initial phase of an automatic campaign is data collection, which cannot happen if the campaign isn’t showing.

Actionable Takeaways for Sellers

If you’re experiencing similar issues with your Amazon automatic campaigns showing zero spend and minimal impressions:

1. Re-evaluate Your Bids: The most critical factor is often bid competitiveness. Even if you’ve adjusted them, consider significantly increasing your base bids for all targeting groups (Close Match, Complements, Loose Match, Substitutes) to ensure your ads have a chance to enter the auction. Start higher than you think necessary to gather initial data.
2. Allow Sufficient Time (Post-Bid Adjustment): After making substantial bid adjustments, give the campaigns at least 48-72 hours to start showing activity. Monitor impressions and spend closely.
3. Budget Considerations: Ensure your daily budget is sufficient to allow for ad spend once bids are competitive. A $15 daily budget might be too low if your adjusted bids start to win auctions.
4. Monitor and Optimize: Once campaigns start spending and gathering impressions, actively monitor their performance. Adjust bids based on the data Amazon provides. The goal is to find profitable placements and bids, then translate those learnings to your manual campaigns.

This situation, as discussed on the FulfillmentByAmazon subreddit ([link to source]), underscores the importance of understanding Amazon’s ad auction dynamics. Properly configured and adequately bid automatic campaigns are crucial for unlocking product discovery and driving sales growth on the platform.

Source: Reddit user /u/NoctFounder, Discussion titled ‘Automatic campaigns x2 (no spend after 3 days and low impressions)’, link to Reddit post