AIX Advertising Services
Amazon PPC Management for DTC Brands
Your Amazon ads are running. The agency sends a report every month. ACOS looks fine. ROAS looks fine. And yet you have no idea whether those ads are actually making you money, or just making the dashboard look green while your margins quietly erode.
AIX manages Amazon PPC for DTC brands using a measurement framework that connects every campaign, every keyword, and every dollar of ad spend back to your actual unit economics. We don't optimize for ACOS targets pulled from thin air. We optimize for contribution margin, incrementality, and organic momentum, because those are the things that determine whether your Amazon channel grows or bleeds.
The Problem: PPC Management That Optimizes the Wrong Things
Here's how Amazon PPC management typically works at most agencies: they set a blanket ACOS target, say 25%, and optimize every campaign toward that number. Brand defense, non-brand discovery, competitor conquest, auto campaigns: all measured by the same yardstick.
That approach creates three problems DTC brands feel but rarely diagnose:
Blanket targets throttle growth
A 25% ACOS target on a discovery campaign kills it before it can produce results. Discovery campaigns targeting cold audiences will naturally run at higher ACOS than brand defense, and they should, because they are acquiring new customers, not recapturing existing demand. When you hold both to the same number, you systematically underspend on the campaigns most likely to grow your business.
Zero-order spend accumulates invisibly
Search terms and targets that absorb clicks without producing orders are the single largest controllable cost in most Amazon accounts. But most agencies don't have a systematic method for identifying, validating, and eliminating this spend. They do periodic "search term cleanups" without a threshold framework, which means waste reappears as fast as it's cut.
Nobody measures whether the ads are building anything durable
Amazon advertising has two jobs: produce a direct return on the spend, and compound into organic rank improvements that reduce future paid dependency. Most PPC management measures only the first. If your organic share of sales hasn't grown after 12 months of aggressive advertising, your ads are buying rentals, not assets.
The AIX Approach: PPC Tied to Real Economics
AIX structures every Amazon PPC account around the same five-KPI framework we use for full account management, but the advertising layer gets the deepest application:
Break-Even ACOS (BE-ACOS) sets the ceiling
Every SKU gets its own ACOS target derived from its actual unit economics: COGS, Amazon fees, returns allowance. Brand defense campaigns run well below BE-ACOS. Discovery campaigns can run at or above it deliberately, because you're buying customer acquisition with full visibility into what it costs.
Contribution Margin After Ads (CMaA) gates every scaling decision
Before we increase budget on any campaign, we confirm the incremental spend is margin-positive at the SKU level. If a product has negative CMaA, no amount of bid optimization fixes the underlying economics.
Incremental TACOS (iTACOS) validates that spend is creating net-new demand
Standard TACOS can look great when seasonality or external traffic lifts sales. iTACOS strips that out and shows you whether your ads are actually the cause of growth, or just along for the ride.
Organic Share tracks the long-term payoff
If advertising is working, organic share should trend upward as rank builds. If it's flat or declining after sustained investment, the campaign structure needs to change, not the budget.
Session CVR is checked before bids are touched
When ACOS rises, the first diagnostic is always conversion rate. If CVR dropped, the problem is the listing, not the ads. Adjusting bids when the listing is underperforming wastes time and money.
This framework is detailed on our Amazon Profitability Framework page, with formulas and worked examples for each KPI.
What's Included
Campaign Architecture
- Full Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display management, built from scratch or rebuilt from an existing account.
- Portfolio segmentation by intent: branded, non-branded discovery, competitor conquest, and product targeting, each with its own budget guardrails and ACOS targets derived from BE-ACOS.
- Campaign naming taxonomy and placement modifiers for full transparency. You can read the account structure yourself and understand exactly where every dollar goes.
Waste Elimination
- Dynamic-threshold zero-order identification: we compute the click threshold from your account's observed conversion rate and variability, then systematically flag, validate, and eliminate search terms and targets above that threshold with zero attributed orders.
- Weekly search-term mining and negative keyword discipline, not periodic cleanups, but a repeatable cadence that prevents waste from reaccumulating.
- Match-type governance: Broad and Auto campaigns are treated as discovery engines with explicit graduation paths. Converting terms are harvested into Exact and Phrase campaigns. Non-converters are negated after validation.
Scaling and Budget Allocation
- Budget allocation gated by iTACOS: we only scale spend into campaigns that demonstrate incremental demand, not campaigns that are capturing sales that would have happened organically.
- Non-brand efficiency management: non-brand campaigns get an explicit ACOS operating target derived from your margins, not a generic benchmark. We tighten toward that target before expanding volume.
- Auto vs Manual mix rebalancing: we use a quality-weighted allocation model (ROAS adjusted by zero-order spend share) to determine where budget should shift, not gut feel about which campaign type is "better."
- 7-day conversion stability gates: no budget is reallocated until the new allocation demonstrates stable conversion for a full week. We protect what's working before we experiment with what could work.
Reporting That Connects to Your P&L
- Weekly optimization report: what changed, what we cut, what we scaled, and the efficiency impact of each action.
- Branded vs non-branded performance separation, so you know how much of your "great ROAS" is just recapturing your own demand.
- Monthly executive summary tied to CMaA and Organic Share trends, not just ACOS and ROAS snapshots.
- Zero-order spend tracking as a named line item. You will always know how much money is going to clicks that produce nothing, and what we're doing about it.
What You Get
Ad spend that produces margin, not just attributed revenue
Every dollar is measured against what it costs you after COGS, fees, and returns, not against a ROAS number that ignores your actual economics.
Zero-order spend reduced to a controlled minimum
Through a systematic, threshold-based process, not occasional cleanups that let waste reaccumulate between reviews.
A non-brand strategy that actually grows
Most DTC brands on Amazon have strong branded performance and terrible non-brand efficiency. We fix the non-brand side without sacrificing the branded side.
An organic flywheel that your ads are actively building
You'll see organic share tracked weekly and connected to your advertising decisions, so you know your spend is compounding into rank, not just buying temporary visibility.
Campaign structure you can read and understand
No black-box account management. The naming conventions, portfolio logic, and budget allocations are transparent and documented.
Proof
These findings come from real AIX Clarity Audits. Every number is from the actual data.
Energy Drink Brand
An energy drink brand spending $226K in ad spend over 60 days
125.8%
Non-brand ACOS
$46,507
Zero-order spend
74.6%
Spend in "No Portfolio"
Non-brand ACOS was running at 125.8%, spending $1.26 to produce $1.00 of non-brand ad sales. Zero-order spend totaled $46,507 across SP and SB. Auto campaigns showed a 1.04x ROAS compared to Manual's 2.65x, but Auto's zero-order spend share was 65.2% versus Manual's 15.0%. The account had $160,276 of spend (74.6% of total) sitting in "No Portfolio" with no structural guardrails.
Result: The audit identified $80,000+ in 90-day opportunity across non-brand efficiency improvements, validated zero-order elimination, and structural governance.
Home & Lifestyle Brand
A home and lifestyle brand with $14,727 in zero-order spend, nearly 50% of total ad budget
~50%
Budget to zero-order
34.9%
Non-brand ACOS
99%
Spend in "No Portfolio"
Auto campaigns were outperforming Manual on ROAS (3.88 vs 3.56), but the account was under-invested in Auto because nobody was measuring quality-adjusted efficiency. Non-brand ACOS was 34.9% against a blended account average of 27.7%. Portfolio structure was virtually nonexistent: 99% of spend sat in "No Portfolio."
Result: The 90-day plan targeted $12,790 in reclaimed waste from negating validated losers with 30+ clicks and zero orders, plus $37,500 in sales lift from tightening non-brand bids to hit the account's own blended efficiency.
Baby Tech Brand
A baby tech brand with $215K in ad spend and $81,825 in zero-order clicks
38.3%
Spend to zero-order
51.3%
Non-brand ACOS
98.1%
Spend in "No Portfolio"
38.3% of total ad spend was going to clicks that produced zero attributed orders. Non-brand ACOS was 51.3%. The No-Portfolio concentration was 98.1%, meaning virtually the entire account was ungoverned. High and Very High ACOS efficiency bands were consuming meaningful spend while producing comparatively little sales.
Result: The audit modeled a combined 90-day base-case opportunity of $273,658 across zero-order reclaim, ACOS compression, Auto/Manual rebalancing, non-brand improvement, and portfolio governance.
Pet Supplements Brand
A pet supplements brand with 72.9% non-brand ACOS
72.9%
Non-brand ACOS
28.2%
Spend to "Bleeders"
42.2%
Blended ACOS
Blended ACOS was 42.2% on $27,305 in ad spend. The highest-cost ACOS range, known as "Bleeders" (spend with zero attributed orders), consumed 28.2% of total spend. The account's observed conversion rate of 28.06% was used to compute a dynamic click threshold of 7, which identified a base-case reclaimable spend pool.
Result: The plan sequenced waste removal first, then Auto/Manual mix rebalancing using quality-weighted target shares, then non-brand scaling under a data-derived ACOS guardrail.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What's wrong with managing PPC to an ACOS target?
- Nothing, if the target is derived from your actual unit economics. The problem is that most ACOS targets are not. They are pulled from industry benchmarks or previous agency recommendations that have no relationship to your specific product margins, fee structure, or return rates. A 25% ACOS target makes sense for some SKUs and is disastrously wrong for others. AIX replaces blanket targets with SKU-specific Break-Even ACOS derived from your actual contribution margin before ads. That number is your real ceiling, and everything else is a guess.
- How do you handle the transition from our current agency?
- Every engagement starts with an Amazon Clarity Audit. We analyze your current campaign structure, identify where money is leaking, and build a 90-day plan before we touch anything. The transition is data-first: we don't change bids or restructure campaigns until we understand the full picture. Most transitions happen in the first two weeks after the audit is complete, with zero disruption to live campaigns.
- How quickly will we see results?
- Waste elimination is typically the fastest lever. Zero-order spend reduction shows up in the first two weeks because it removes spend that produces nothing. Efficiency improvements from structural changes and non-brand optimization usually show measurable impact within 30 to 45 days. Organic share improvements are longer-horizon: 60 to 90 days for initial movement, 6+ months for meaningful compounding. We set expectations around all three timeframes during the audit.
- Can you manage PPC without managing the full account?
- Yes. PPC management is available as a standalone service. However, we always start with a Clarity Audit that examines the full account, including listings and organic performance, because ads and listings are deeply interconnected. If Session CVR is low because of a listing problem, optimizing bids won't fix it. We'll flag listing issues during the audit and recommend our listing optimization service if they're material to your performance.
- What reporting do we get?
- Weekly optimization reports covering what changed and why, plus a monthly executive summary tied to the five-KPI framework. You'll see zero-order spend tracked as a named line item, branded vs non-branded performance separated, Organic Share trends over time, and CMaA by SKU. The reporting is designed to answer the question "Is Amazon actually making us money?" and not just "How are the ads performing?"
For Brands Already on Amazon
Amazon Clarity Audit
Seven data sources. One dollar figure: how much is leaking, what it's worth to recover, and the week-by-week plan to fix it. Perfect for DTC brands currently investing in Amazon ads.