Search terms and keywords

These get used interchangeably, but they’re different things.

A search term is what the shopper types into the search bar. A keyword is what you, the seller, bid on to show up for those search terms. When someone searches “stainless steel water bottle”, that’s a search term. Your keyword might be exactly that phrase, or something broader that matches it.

Match types decide how close a search term has to be to your keyword.

• Exact shows for searches that match your keyword word for word, plus very close variants like the plural.
• Phrase shows when the search contains your words in the same order, with other words before or after them.
• Broad shows for your words in any order, plus synonyms and related searches. It can even show on searches that don’t contain your keyword at all.

Negative keywords do the opposite. They stop your ad from showing for a search. Negative exact blocks one search, negative phrase blocks any search that contains the phrase.

Indexing is the other half. Amazon reads your listing (title, bullets, description, backend search terms) to decide which searches your product is relevant for. If your product shows up anywhere in the results for a search, it’s indexed for it. Auto campaigns lean on this, because Amazon picks the searches from your listing. So the more relevant searches your listing earns, the more places your ads can show.

One opinion of mine from years of doing this. It’s easier to double your traffic than to double your conversion rate. Coverage of relevant searches is usually where the growth is.