This is the longest routine in the system and the one worth mastering first. Every week, you look at each campaign's last 7 and 30 days and apply a small number of rules to steer it toward what you want it to do.
Not automatic. The rules are mechanical, but choosing which rules to apply to which campaign is the judgement, and that is where the performance comes from.
Prefer to watch? One hundred and twenty-three seconds on the six rules with their real thresholds, how to combine them to steer a campaign, and why Sponsored Products earns more patience.
The idea: navigate, do not fix
You are not trying to make each campaign perfect this week. You are nudging it in a direction.
ACoS too high? Apply the rules that lower bids.
ACoS comfortably low? Apply the rules that raise bids, and buy more volume.
Both fine? Small changes, or none at all.
Doing nothing is a real option and often the right one. Every change carries risk, and a campaign that is performing does not need saving.
The six rules
Four adjust bids, two act on the campaign.
1. Lower bids on targets with clicks and no sales
Graduated by how much evidence you have:
| Clicks, no orders, last 30 days | Action |
|---|---|
| 6–7 | reduce bid by 5% |
| 8–14 | reduce bid by 10% |
| more than 14 | pause the target |
This is the safest rule in the set, because it only touches targets that have produced no sales at all. It can reasonably be applied to every campaign.
Adjust the thresholds if your product converts below 10%. On a low-CVR product, fourteen clicks without a sale is not yet strong evidence, and you would be pausing targets that were merely unlucky.
This graduated approach is the operational version of The Bleeder Reports — taper first, pause when the evidence is strong.
2. Lower bids on targets above an ACoS threshold
This one acts on targets that do convert but cost too much. Set a threshold, then reduce each target's bid by the difference between its ACoS and that threshold.
With a 40% threshold:
| Target's ACoS | Bid reduction |
|---|---|
| 44% | 4% |
| 49% | 9% |
| 58% | 18% |
The elegance is that the correction scales with the size of the problem. A target slightly over gets a nudge; a target wildly over gets a real cut. Nothing gets an aggressive change it did not earn.
Set the threshold near the campaign's average ACoS, not at your break-even. If the campaign averages 39%, a 40% threshold pulls the worst targets toward the middle without disturbing the rest.
3. Raise bids on targets with almost no clicks
Targets with 1 or fewer clicks in 30 days: raise the bid by a set percentage — 10% is a sensible default.
These targets are not losing you money; they are invisible. Their bid is under the going rate, so they never enter the auction. Nudging them upward, week after week, gradually brings them into play.
This is how you keep testing without launching anything. Every campaign accumulates targets that never got a chance, and this rule slowly gives them one.
4. Raise bids on targets with good ACoS
Set a "good" ACoS ceiling, then raise the bid on every target below it by a set percentage.
If good means under 24% for this campaign, every target beating 24% gets, say, +10%. More impressions on the traffic you already know works.
The ceiling is per campaign. A 24% ceiling is right for a high-margin product in a soft category and completely wrong elsewhere.
5. Change the campaign budget
Set a new daily budget outright.
6. Pause the campaign
For campaigns that cannot be rescued by bidding.
Combining rules to steer
The rules only mean something in combination:
| Situation | Apply |
|---|---|
| ACoS too high | rules 1 and 2; maybe a small rule 4 on your best targets |
| Want more volume, ACoS is healthy | rules 3 and 4 |
| Budget-capped, good ACoS | rule 5 — raise the budget |
| Budget-capped, bad ACoS | rules 1 and 2 — lower bids, do not raise budget |
| Performing well, no concerns | nothing |
The budget-capped pair is worth internalising. A campaign hitting its budget every day is telling you something, but what to do depends entirely on ACoS. Good ACoS means you are leaving sales on the table. Bad ACoS means you are buying too expensively, and more budget just buys more of the problem.
Two principles that override the rules
Sponsored Products deserves more patience
SP campaigns build organic rank in a way SB, SBV and SD do not. Their value is partly in a place the ACoS column cannot see.
So allow SP a higher ACoS than you would allow the others, and give it more second chances. Judged purely on last-click efficiency, you will cut the campaigns doing your long-term work.
Under target ACoS, decide deliberately
When a campaign is beating its target, you have two honest options: leave it alone, or spend more and accept a worse ACoS.
If ACoS sits at 23% or below over both 7 and 30 days, raise bids. Even if it drifts to 26–29%, that is still strong, and you will have bought real extra volume.
If ACoS is already around 29%, be careful. Raising bids may take it to 35%. That might be a trade you want — but make it a decision rather than a side effect.
Either way, move in small weekly increments. Focus increases on targets with good ACoS and on targets with almost no clicks, which is where the upside is cheapest.
How to work through it
Sort by 30-day spend, grouped by portfolio. Best-selling product first.
Give each campaign attention proportional to its spend. Big spenders may warrant opening the campaign itself. Small spenders get a glance and a decision.
Then stop. The temptation is to keep tuning. The routine works because it runs every week, not because any one pass is exhaustive.
Related
- Placement Bid Optimisation — the same weekly slot, one level up.
- The Nine-Report PPC Routine — where this sits in the schedule.
- Keywords and Match Types — the screen these decisions are made on.
- Scaling Profit Campaigns — steering campaigns once they are scaling.