# Amazon Negative Keywords Template (2026 — Starter Lists by Product Type) > Negative keywords are the highest-ROI lever in Amazon PPC. A ready-to-use starter template — categorized by product type, with refresh cadence and removal logic. ## At a glance - Type: Academy guide - Category: Advertising - Author: Maksym Lazuto - Date published: 2026-05-18 - Date modified: 2026-05-18 - Canonical URL: https://bfarm.top/academy/amazon-negative-keywords-template ## Key sections - How auto, broad, and phrase campaigns leak spend - Five categories of Amazon negative keywords - Template — starter negative list by product type - When to add — and when to remove - Automation vs manual review - How BFarm structures negative keyword work - One trap to avoid — over-negating new launches ## Body Negative keywords are the single highest-ROI lever in Amazon PPC at maturity, and they are the most under-used. Most operators treat them as an afterthought — a list they update when reports surface obvious waste. Done right, negatives are a deliberate filter applied weekly, with category-typical starter lists at launch and a removal discipline that prevents accumulated cruft. This template gives you the starter framework BFarm uses across 15 Brands managed since 2015. Use it as a per-product-type baseline and refine from your own search-term mining over the first 90 days. How auto, broad, and phrase campaigns leak spend Three match types intentionally cast wide. Auto-campaigns hand keyword selection to Amazon's algorithm, optimizing for what it predicts will convert. Broad match expands your keyword to include synonyms, plurals, and contextual variations. Phrase match captures any search containing your phrase plus other words. All three are valuable for discovery, all three leak spend on terms you would never bid on if you saw them in advance. The leak is fixable but not eliminable — discovery requires casting wide. What separates efficient accounts from leaky ones is the cadence of mining: pull the search-term report, classify each non-converting term as "still discovering" or "definitively wasteful," and add the wasteful ones as negatives before the next billing week. Five categories of Amazon negative keywords Most negative-keyword work fits one of five categories. Building the starter list by category, then customizing per product type, accelerates the first 30 days post-launch significantly. 1. Competitor brand names. If you do not pay to be on competitor brand searches, negate them. Common pattern: brand name appearing in broad-match traffic because your generic keyword is contextually related ("organic protein powder" pulls in shoppers searching "Orgain organic protein"). Add competitor brand names as negative exact across all non-conquest campaigns. 2. Irrelevant intent or use case. Your product might be a kitchen knife; "wedding cake knife" gets impressions, never converts. Your product might be a baby formula; "adult nutrition" leaks impressions. These are search-intent mismatches, and they are discoverable from the search-term report within 30 to 60 days of launch. 3. Low-converter terms. Some terms convert technically but at a CTR or conversion rate so low that they erode account efficiency. Threshold guidance: if a term has 200+ impressions, under 0.3 percent CTR, and zero conversions across 30 days, it is a candidate. If 500+ impressions, under 0.5 percent CTR, and one conversion at ACoS over 80 percent, also a candidate. 4. Variant mismatches (size, flavor, color, format). You sell 16oz; "32oz" wastes spend. You sell capsules; "powder" wastes spend. You sell adult sizes; "kids" wastes spend. These are obvious from category context and should ship as part of the launch starter list, not be discovered later. 5. Mismatched audience. You sell to consumers; "wholesale" or "bulk" leaks B2B traffic. You sell premium; "cheap" or "discount" leaks bargain-hunter traffic that converts to high return rates even when sales happen. You sell for sensitive skin; "industrial" leaks construction-context searches. Template — starter negative list by product type Below is a category-typical starter set. Add or remove based on your specific SKU. The exact wording is less important than coverage of the obvious leak patterns at launch. Supplements / Wellness: "wholesale", "bulk", "manufacturer", "private label", "loose", "powder" (if you sell capsules), "capsules" (if you sell powder), "for dogs", "for cats", "for kids" (if adult-only), "raw", "organic" (if non-organic certified), competitor brand names, "vegan" (if non-vegan), "free sample". Kitchen DTC: "wholesale", "commercial", "restaurant", "industrial", "outdoor" (if indoor-only), "set of 12" (if you sell single units), "set of 6" (if you sell 12-pack), "antique", "vintage", "broken", "replacement parts" (if you sell whole units), competitor brand names. Electronics / accessories: "wholesale", "bulk", "refurbished" (if new only), "broken", "replacement parts" (if whole-unit only), specific competitor model numbers (iPhone 12 if you sell iPhone 15 cases), "free", "discount code", "manual" (if listing is product, not accessory). Apparel / wearables: "wholesale", "bulk", "kids" (if adult-only), "plus size" (if standard sizing only), "petite" (if not in your range), "second-hand", "vintage", "custom" (if standard SKU-only), competitor brand names, fabric mismatches (cotton vs polyester if you sell one). When to add — and when to remove Add a negative when three conditions align. (1) The term appears in 100+ impressions over the past 14 days. (2) Conversion rate on the term is below half your campaign-level conversion rate, or zero. (3) The term is structurally unlikely to ever convert because it represents a fundamentally different shopper intent — not just a slow-converting variant. Do NOT add a negative when the term is "low-performing but possibly seasonal" — your decision window is too short. Wait 30 to 45 days through at least one weekly business cycle before locking it out. Negatives are easy to add and harder to remember to remove. Removal triggers. Inventory expanded into a previously negated variant. Seasonal flip (back-to-school terms come alive again in August). Discovery that your initial intuition was wrong — the term you negated actually converted on a related ASIN you forgot to cross-check. Run a quarterly negative-keyword audit specifically to surface candidates for removal. The audit takes 30 to 60 minutes for typical mid-market accounts and catches accumulated cruft that quietly suppresses growth. Automation vs manual review Three layers of automation work well at mid-market scale. (1) Rule-based bid adjustment via Amazon's built-in rules (drop bid by 50 percent if ACoS over 60 percent on 14-day window, etc.) — this is bid management, not negation, but it reduces waste before it triggers negation criteria. (2) Scheduled search-term-report pulls via Amazon Ads API or third-party tools, with weekly summaries surfacing candidate negatives for human review. (3) Account-level negative keyword lists (Amazon feature introduced 2023, expanded 2024) — apply ban-once-across-all-campaigns logic for terms that should never run anywhere. Manual review still matters for category-context judgment. An auto-generated "candidate negative" might flag "for dogs" as a high-waste term — but if you are about to launch a pet-product variant, you do NOT want that negative in place. Reviewer judgment on context beats pure automation at the edge cases that matter most. How BFarm structures negative keyword work For accounts in the $5K to $50K monthly ad spend bracket, the rhythm is weekly mining via search-term report pulls, monthly audit pass for removal candidates, quarterly deep review of the full negative-keyword inventory across all campaigns. For accounts under $5K monthly spend, weekly is overkill — bi-weekly is fine. Above $50K monthly, daily mining of high-spend campaigns becomes worthwhile, especially during launches when discovery volume is highest. The integration with broader PPC strategy lives in our companion piece on amazon PPC budget allocation by stage . For the full operator framework see the PPC hub . To evaluate where your own account sits on the negative-keyword maturity curve, start with a free 14-day audit — it surfaces the highest-spend wasteful search terms specifically, alongside the broader PPC efficiency analysis. One trap to avoid — over-negating new launches The most common over-correction during the first 30 days post-launch is aggressive negation of "high impression, zero conversion" terms before the algorithm has finished learning. New ASINs need traffic for ranking signal generation, even traffic that does not convert immediately. A term with 200 impressions and zero conversions in week 1 is normal during launch — you do not have the data to conclude it is structurally wasteful yet. Wait until at least 30 days of stable launch data before locking aggressive negatives. Otherwise you starve the model of signal exactly when it needs more. For the full PPC strategy framework see amazon PPC strategy 2026 . For budget allocation by stage see amazon PPC budget allocation . For agency-selection criteria when in-house capacity caps see how to choose an Amazon agency . --- BFarm — Amazon growth agency for individual Amazon sellers. 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