It’s true that Amazon has greatly changed how commerce works, allowing sellers of all products – and from all fields – to sell and promote their own wares to a potentially global market. 

Marketing is a large part of the process, as is using the system to its full potential. This means utilizing positive keywords to encourage views and sales, and taking out negative keywords to ensure the same result. 

But what exactly is a negative keyword, and how exactly can they be used for online sales? 

What Is A Negative Keyword? 

As you probably know, keywords are used in the names and titles of websites and individual products to ensure they pop up when the searcher types in selected words. 

Take for example the sentence ‘Hotel jobs in Los Angeles’. The keywords in this phrase are ‘hotel’ and ‘Los Angeles’. These are positive keywords, in that they suggest the potential for a sale. 

Negative keywords are words that do not promote the possibility of a sale. Within the context of this sentence, the negative keyword would be ‘jobs’ – namely because this pertains to the interests of the searcher (looking for jobs), not the interests of the hotel chains who are looking to take bookings. 

Can Negative Keywords Be Used For Good? 

There are many ways that negative keywords can be used to the advantage of the business owner, and in fact they are usually a necessary part of the title or phrase of the website or product. 

Being Specific

Negative keywords are not only useful for making the sentence in question make sense, but also to specifically hone the advertisement to the needs of the specific individual. 

For example, if laptop owners were receiving things pertaining to desktop computers, and vice versa, then that wouldn’t be appropriate for their needs, and thus wouldn’t result in a sale. However, with negative keywords, you can specify the ad to the needs of the individual, thus granting the potential for a sale afterwards. 

Improving Clickthrough Rate

The use of negative keywords ensures that the ads themselves are not triggering irrelevant queries. This ensures that customers don’t ‘click through’ the ad and move on, and that they stay and potentially buy instead. 

People who have no interest in certain topics, hobbies, activities, or products, are not good prospective customers for said industry, and as such, improving the clickthrough rate means that they can be bypassed and only those who are notable targets can be shown the ads. 

Saving Money

This saves money for the business in question, as it means they are spending less on useless, irrelevant ads that are targeting the wrong people.

With negative keywords, your ads can be more perfectly honed to the target audience, and as such, there are more hits than misses in terms of the ratio of traffic to sales. 

Optimized Campaign Performance

This also means that less time and energy are being wasted on a campaign that isn’t successful. 

If the ads are proving cheaper because they are better targeted, and they are also not as much work, because there is little need to correct them, then this means that the process is working for, instead of the other way around. 

Boosts Conversion Rate

As we mentioned above, the ratio of traffic to sales is the most important thing for any online business, and it can make all the difference when it comes to businesses being a success or a failure.

With negative keywords, you can optimize your ads, targeting them to the right people, and thus increasing the chance that they will see what you are advertising and make a purchase – thus improving your chances of making a profit. 

Using Negative Keywords Effectively

Of course, there is an effective, and an ineffective way to use negative keywords – and only through using them the right way will they serve their intended purpose. 

Avoid List Stuffing

List stuffing is the process of piling tonnes of unnecessary negative keywords into a link or ad, thus overwhelming the core message, and muddying the criteria of the targeted search. 

With advertising of this kind, less is definitely more, and that way you can ensure you are reaching the people you need to reach, and that your profits are on the up and up. 

Check Existing Negatives

This is essential maintenance for any ad campaign, and will ensure that you are not unintentionally blocking potential customers (and thus revenue streams) from reaching your business. 

This is just good common sense, and can pay dividends when it comes to knowing what your business is doing well, and what it is doing poorly. 

Use Them Strategically

You need to be strategic and a little sneaky when using negative keywords to your advantage. For example, you need to use specific sets for specific products or business lines, and similarly you want to use degrees of specificity to ensure people are brought to the different pages of your website. 

This is done by creating specific ad groups, creating different groups for different campaigns, and thus keeping each one pure, simplified, and effective – all while stopping them becoming muddled or confused. 

Use Enough Data

Be sure to run your campaigns for longer periods of time, as this will gather performance data to tell you whether a keyword is negative or not. 

Final Thoughts

And there we have it, everything you need to know about Amazon’s negative keywords, and the best and most advantageous ways to use them. 

It’s true that Amazon does have some negative keywords, which if not used correctly can certainly be a hindrance. However, by following certain methods, you can turn bad into good and ultimately work things to your advantage. 

So if you are looking to make your Amazon ads work for you, then why not give these methods a try?