Amazon Search Term Harvester
Upload your Amazon Search Term Report to find wasted spend, pull out the terms worth promoting, and spot the same keyword running in more than one ad group. Terms are totalled across campaigns before any threshold is applied. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.
How to download your Search Term Report
- Open the Amazon Advertising console and go to Measurement & Reporting → Sponsored ads reports
- Click Create report and choose Search term as the report type
- Pick a date range: 30 or 60 days gives enough data to act on
- Download the CSV and drop it in above
Two tools that do this on a schedule
Helium 10 Adtomic
Rule based PPC automation with keyword harvesting and negative targeting. Adtomic sits on the Diamond tier.
SELLERSTACK20DataDive
Built for search term and bulk sheet analysis: it reads the same reports and writes the negatives back out.
SELLERSTACKEDHow to use the Search Term Harvester
The search term report is the most useful data source in Amazon PPC. It shows what shoppers typed before clicking your ad and whether that click led to an order. The Search Term Harvester does the spreadsheet work for you.
Upload the report and every term is sorted into five lists: terms to negate, ASIN search terms to add as negative product targets, terms to cut bids on rather than negate, terms worth promoting to exact match, and terms running in more than one ad group where you bid against yourself.
Finding and cutting wasted spend
The negatives tab shows terms that took clicks and returned no orders. Totals are worked out per term across your whole account before your minimum clicks and minimum spend are applied, so a term that took six clicks in two different ad groups is judged on twelve clicks, not six.
The headline figure is deliberately plain: wasted spend on terms with clicks and no orders, in currency and as a share of total spend. It is not a savings promise. Some of that traffic will convert later in the month, and how much you actually recover depends on how tightly you negate. Old rules of thumb put irrelevant traffic somewhere between a tenth and a third of a typical account, but the only number that matters is the one your own report produces.
Promoting high-converting search terms
The promotions tab surfaces terms with at least two orders and an ACoS at or under your target that are not already running as exact match everywhere. These are proven, so they deserve their own exact keyword with a dedicated bid. Moving them out of broad and auto campaigns gives you control over the bid and the placement.
De-duplicating keywords across campaigns
When the same keyword sits in two campaigns, Amazon runs both in the same auction. You compete with yourself and your cost per click rises. The duplicates tab lists overlapping terms with every campaign and ad group they appear in.
Normalisation strips punctuation, sorts word order and folds simple plurals back to the singular, so “blue dog collar”, “dog collar blue” and “dog collars blue” are treated as one term. Non-Latin scripts are kept intact, so Japanese and German reports work the same way.
Exports built for Amazon bulk operations
The bulk sheet uses the current Sponsored Products negative keyword column set: Product, Entity, Operation, Campaign ID, Ad Group ID, the two informational name columns, Keyword Text, Match Type and State. The search term report does not include IDs, so those two columns come out blank. Fill them from your bulk download, or paste the terms into the campaign manager. There is also a terms-only export when you just want the list, and a separate bulk sheet for negative product targets.
Tools that automate this further
This free tool gives you a snapshot. If you manage dozens of campaigns, Helium 10's Adtomic (Diamond tier) runs search term harvesting on a schedule with rule-based bid management. DataDive is built for exactly this job: search term and bulk sheet analysis, with the negatives written back out for upload. See our roundup of the best AI tools for Amazon FBA for more options.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I download my Amazon Search Term Report?
- In the Amazon Advertising console, go to Measurement and Reporting, then Sponsored ads reports. Create a new report and select Search term as the report type. Choose your date range (30 or 60 days is recommended), generate the report, and download the CSV file. Upload that CSV to this tool.
- What are negative keywords and why do they matter?
- Negative keywords are search terms you explicitly exclude from triggering your ads. If a search term generates clicks but no orders, you are paying for irrelevant traffic. Adding these terms as negatives stops your ads showing for those queries, so the budget goes to terms that convert.
- What is a good ACoS target for Amazon PPC?
- It depends on your profit margins. If your product margin is 30%, your break-even ACoS is 30%. Most sellers target an ACoS below their margin to stay profitable. New launches often accept a higher ACoS (40-60%) to build sales velocity, while established products typically aim for 15-25%.
- Why does the Search Term Harvester total terms before applying thresholds?
- The same search term usually appears in several campaigns and ad groups. Judging each row on its own flags a term with 6 clicks in one ad group and 6 in another as harmless, when it has really taken 12 clicks with no orders. The tool adds up clicks, spend, sales and orders per term first, then applies your minimum clicks and spend, then fans the result back out to each campaign and ad group for the export.
- What happens if a term sells in one ad group but not another?
- The tool keeps it out of the negatives list, because the totals show orders, and shows it in a separate warning with the ad groups where it sells and the ad groups where it only takes clicks. Negate it in the ad group that does not convert, not account-wide.
- Why are ASIN search terms handled separately?
- Auto and product targeting campaigns return ASINs (strings like B08X4KZ9LM) as search terms. Amazon will not accept an ASIN as a negative keyword, so the tool routes them to a negative product targets list with its own bulk sheet using the asin="..." expression format.
- What does the keyword de-duplicator do?
- It identifies the same search term (including a different word order or a simple plural) appearing in more than one campaign or ad group. When the same keyword sits in multiple places, you bid against yourself in the auction, which pushes up your cost per click. Consolidating the duplicates into one place removes that.
- Is my data safe with this tool?
- Yes. All processing happens in your browser. Your Search Term Report is never uploaded. The file is read locally, analysed in JavaScript, and the results are drawn on screen. Nothing leaves your computer, and there is no sign-up.
- How often should I harvest search terms?
- Most Amazon PPC managers review search terms weekly or fortnightly. A 30-day lookback gives enough data to spot patterns without drowning in rows. After a launch or a seasonal shift, review more often.