How do negative keywords work on Amazon, and when should I add one?
A negative keyword stops your ad appearing on a query. Add one when a search term has taken enough clicks to be evidence rather than noise and produced no orders — a useful threshold is spend equal to the profit on one unit. Use exact negatives to block a single query and phrase negatives to block a family of them. Because the same irrelevant query usually leaks into several campaigns, negatives are best kept as a shared list applied to all of them at once.
The decision is about evidence, not annoyance
An irrelevant-looking query is not automatically a negative. “Stainless steel kettle” looks wrong for a glass kettle listing, and it can still convert because the customer changed their mind on the page.
The test is spend without orders, not relevance as it reads on screen.
Exact and phrase, and when phrase hurts
| Type | Blocks | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Exact | One precise query | Slow — needs one entry per query |
| Phrase | Every query containing the sequence | Can block converting queries |
A phrase negative on “cheap” blocks “cheap kettle” and also “cheapest gooseneck kettle for pour over” — which might have been your best converting term. Phrase negatives are worth the extra minute of thinking.
Why lists beat per-campaign entry
Adding the same negative by hand to thirty campaigns is slow, and the one you forget keeps paying. A list written once and attached where it belongs stays in sync as it grows. Re-applying it is harmless — entries that already exist are skipped.
Checklist
- Does each negative have a spend-without-orders threshold behind it?
- Are phrase negatives checked against converting terms first?
- Are negatives kept as lists rather than per campaign?
- Is wasted spend per negative recorded, so the list can be justified?
Frequently asked questions
When should I add a negative keyword?
When a search term has spent roughly the profit of one unit with no orders. Below that, you are reacting to noise.
Exact or phrase negative?
Exact blocks one specific query. Phrase blocks every query containing that sequence. Phrase is powerful and easy to over-apply — it can block converting queries you did not think about.
Do I have to add a negative to every campaign?
The same irrelevant query usually appears in several. A shared negative list applied to the relevant campaigns and ad groups does it in one action and keeps them in sync.