Are your Amazon ads “broken” or is it something else? In this episode, we share a simple audit that reveals what’s really killing performance and the first fix that usually changes everything.

Most sellers assume Amazon PPC is the problem when the real bottleneck is often the offer. In this episode, Carrie Miller and Destaney Wishon walk through a quick, repeatable way to diagnose what’s actually holding growth back: bids, campaign structure, or your product detail page. The goal isn’t “optimize everything.” It’s to identify the one thing that’s breaking performance and fix that first.

Destaney starts with Amazon Advertising’s Brand Metrics Dashboard to compare your conversion rate and traffic vs your category. If your conversion rate is below the category median, PPC can drive clicks all day and still struggle—because you’re paying for traffic your listing can’t convert. She explains how category selection matters (sometimes you need to go broader to get better benchmarks) and why seasonality and market share shifts can fool you if you only look at your own numbers.

From there, the audit shifts into Amazon PPC fundamentals: avoid messy structures like mixed match types without a harvesting system, duplicative campaigns, and multiple ad groups that wreck budget control. The recommended approach is to use one campaign, one ad group, organized by strategy (traffic/rank vs. efficiency/profit). Then bid optimization becomes simpler: focus on the highest-spend targets first, make changes using the right attribution window (not hour-by-hour panic), and allocate budget intelligently—Sponsored Products as the core spend, with Sponsored Brands kept within a reasonable performance range. Stop guessing and start auditing. Hit play, run the same checklist on your account, and you’ll know exactly what to fix first so your next Amazon PPC change actually moves the needle.

In episode 497 of the AM/PM Podcast, Carrie and Destaney discuss:

• 00:00 – Introduction
• 01:00 – Are Your Amazon Ads Broken (Or Is It The Wrong Fix?)
• 02:21 – Start Here: Amazon Advertising Brand Metrics Dashboard
• 03:00 – PPC Only Works If Your Listing Converts
• 04:04 – Conversion Rate vs Category Median
• 05:22 – Traffic Opportunity: Detail Page Views vs Category
• 08:36 – Category Median vs Category Top
• 10:37 – Red Flag: Mixed Match Types Without Keyword Harvesting
• 13:28 – Structure Fix: One Campaign, One Ad Group
• 14:52 – Bid Optimization: The 80/20 Method
• 25:22 – How Often To Adjust Your Amazon PPC
• 28:17 – Budget Split: Sponsored Products vs Sponsored Brands
• 32:01 – Branded vs Non-Branded Budget