Sponsored Products: build a controlled first campaign

Start with clear targeting and budgets, then use search-term evidence to decide what to keep.

A practical sequence

1. Check account and product eligibility.
2. Select one objective and a small related product set.
3. Separate automatic discovery from manual targeting.
4. Set bids and daily caps from contribution margin, not generic benchmarks.
5. Review impressions, clicks, spend and attributed orders over a defined period.
6. Promote proven queries carefully and document exclusions.

Work through an example

$40 spend on $100 attributed sales is 40% ACoS; it does not prove profit without margin and attribution context.

Common mistakes

• Using ROAS as profit.
• reacting before relevant traffic accumulates.
• ignoring stock and listing changes..

Before you move on

• Budget ceiling set.
• structure supports learning.
• query decisions documented.
• paid and organic results separated..

Sources and next steps