Amazon Auto Campaign Targeting Groups Explained

Amazon auto campaigns have four targeting groups: close match, loose match, substitutes and complements. The first two show your ad on search results for searches Amazon thinks are closely or loosely related to your product. The last two show your ad on other products' detail pages, either similar products (substitutes) or products bought alongside yours (complements). You can set a different bid for each group, or pause any of them.

Key takeaways

• Close and loose match target searches. Substitutes and complements target product pages.
• Each group can have its own bid. Most sellers bid highest on close match and lowest on loose match and complements.
• Judge groups by the targeting report, not the campaign total. One weak group can hide behind a strong one.
• Auto campaigns accept negative keywords and negative ASINs. Use them.
• Use auto campaigns for discovery, then move winners into manual campaigns.

What an auto campaign is

In a Sponsored Products auto campaign, you don't pick keywords. Amazon reads your listing (title, bullets, category and more) and decides where to show your ad. This makes auto campaigns fast to set up and good at finding searches and competitor products you hadn't thought of.

The trade-off is control. With one default bid, Amazon spends the same on a perfect-fit search as on a vague one. Targeting groups give you back some of that control.

The four targeting groups

Amazon's own help pages describe the groups this way:

Close match

Close match is usually the highest-intent group. The shopper's search looks a lot like how your product is described. Conversion rates tend to be the best of the four, so this group can usually take the highest bid.

Loose match

Loose match casts a wide net. It finds broader and adjacent searches. It is useful for discovery, because it surfaces terms you would never have guessed. It also wastes the most money if left unchecked, so it needs regular negative keywords and a lower bid.

Substitutes

Substitutes show your ad on detail pages of products a shopper might buy instead of yours. In practice, these are often competitors. This group works well when your offer is stronger than the products you appear next to: a better price, more reviews or a higher rating. If you are the weaker offer, shoppers compare and leave.

Complements

Complements show your ad on pages for products that pair with yours. The shopper is already buying something related, so your ad is a cross-sell. Conversion is often lower than substitutes, but costs per click can be lower too. It works best for accessories and add-ons.

How to set bids for each group

You set targeting group bids in the ad group's Targeting tab. In Campaign Manager, open the auto campaign, open the ad group and click Targeting. You'll see all four groups, each with an on/off toggle and its own bid.

Start from your maximum cost per click

First work out what you can afford per click. The standard formula is:

Max CPC = Price × CVR × Target ACoS

CPC is cost per click. CVR (conversion rate) is orders divided by clicks. ACoS (advertising cost of sale) is ad spend divided by ad sales.

Worked example. Say your French press sells for $34.99. Your listing converts at about 12%, and your target ACoS is 30%.

Max CPC = $34.99 × 0.12 × 0.30 = $1.26

You can work out your break-even and target ACoS from your real fees in the Break-even ACoS & Max Bid Calculator.

Then scale the bid by expected conversion

Each group converts differently, so give each a share of that max CPC. A common starting split looks like this. These are rules of thumb, not Amazon guidance:

Check these against Amazon's suggested bid range in the console. If your bid is far below the suggested range, the group may get almost no impressions. If it's far above, you may overpay.

Adjust after 2 to 4 weeks

Once each group has real clicks, use its actual numbers. Say after three weeks you see:

Recalculate each group's max CPC with its own CVR:

• Close match: $34.99 × 0.138 × 0.30 = $1.45. It currently pays $1.08 per click. Room to raise the bid.
• Loose match: $34.99 × 0.05 × 0.30 = $0.52. It pays $0.78. Lower the bid toward $0.50 and add negatives.
• Substitutes: $34.99 × 0.105 × 0.30 = $1.10. It pays $1.00. Roughly on target. Hold.
• Complements: $34.99 × 0.033 × 0.30 = $0.35. It pays $0.60. Cut the bid or pause it.

The campaign total here is about 28% ACoS, which looks fine. But two of the four groups lose money on their own. That is why you judge groups separately.

Where to see performance by targeting group

There are two places to look:

• Campaign Manager: The ad group's Targeting tab shows clicks, spend, orders and ACoS for each of the four groups.
• Targeting report: In Measurement & Reporting → Sponsored ads reports, create a Sponsored Products Targeting report. Auto groups appear as targets such as close-match and loose-match.

To see which actual searches and ASINs each group triggered, use the Search term report. Searches appear as text. Product page clicks from substitutes and complements usually appear as ASINs (strings starting with "b0"). Our guide to the Amazon search term report explains each column.

Using negatives in auto campaigns

Auto campaigns accept three kinds of negatives:

• Negative exact keywords block one specific search.
• Negative phrase keywords block any search containing that phrase.
• Negative product targets block your ad from showing on a specific ASIN's page.

Use them for two jobs:

1. Blocking waste. Searches or ASINs that get clicks but never sell. Many sellers negate after 10 to 15 clicks with no sale. Irrelevant terms get negated right away.
2. Avoiding overlap. When you move a search term or ASIN into a manual campaign, add it as a negative in the auto campaign. This is the core of keyword harvesting.

One campaign or four?

There are two common setups.

Setup A: one auto campaign, four bids. Simple. Good for new products with little data. The downside is that all four groups share one budget and one set of placement bid adjustments.

Setup B: one campaign per targeting group. Create four auto campaigns. In each, keep one group on and pause the other three. Each group then gets its own budget and its own placement settings. This is popular for established products because:

• A wasteful loose match group can't eat close match's budget.
• You can raise top of search bids for close match without raising them for complements.
• Reports are cleaner.

The cost is more campaigns to manage. Many sellers start with Setup A and switch to Setup B once a product has a few weeks of steady traffic. If you go this way, read our guide to Amazon placement bid adjustments, because placement settings sit at the campaign level.

Bidding strategy for auto campaigns

Sponsored Products offers three campaign bidding strategies: Dynamic bids – down only, Dynamic bids – up and down, and Fixed bids. For auto campaigns, down only is a common safe choice. Amazon lowers your bid in real time when a click looks less likely to convert, which suits loose match and complements well. Up and down can raise bids sharply on some placements, which can get expensive on broad discovery traffic.

Common mistakes

• Leaving one default bid on all four groups. You overpay for loose match and complements and underbid close match.
• Judging the campaign, not the groups. As the example shows, a healthy total can hide two losing groups.
• Pausing a group too soon. Give each group enough clicks to judge. A group with 15 clicks and no sale isn't proof yet.
• Never adding negatives. Auto campaigns drift without them, especially loose match.
• Running auto with no manual campaigns. Auto is for discovery. The profit usually comes from manual exact and product targeting campaigns built from what auto finds.
• A weak listing. Auto targeting reads your listing. Thin titles and bullets give Amazon less to match, which leads to poor matches.

Bottom line

Auto campaign targeting groups split Amazon's automatic matching into four parts you can bid on separately: close match and loose match for searches, substitutes and complements for product pages. Set each bid from your max CPC and expected conversion rate, judge each group on its own numbers, and use negatives to keep the waste out. Treat auto as your discovery engine and move what works into manual campaigns.

Frequently asked questions

Amazon fees, policies and features change often. Figures here were checked in October 2026; confirm current rates in Seller Central before making pricing or budget decisions. Sotrics is not affiliated with Amazon.