How to Run Google Ads for Amazon Products

Roughly half of all Amazon shoppers begin their search directly on Amazon. That leaves a meaningful share of potential customers starting somewhere else, most commonly on Google, before ever landing on Amazon at all. If you are only advertising on Amazon itself, you are competing for attention within Amazon’s ecosystem while leaving an entire audience of in-market shoppers to your competitors.

This is exactly the gap that Google Ads for Amazon sellers exists to close. This guide walks through why this strategy works, the policy details you need to get right before you start, how to actually set up and run a campaign, and how to measure whether it is working using the tools built specifically for this purpose.

Why Run Google Ads for Amazon Products? 

Reach Shoppers Who Start Their Search on Google, Not Amazon

Amazon is the largest e-commerce platform in the United States, but it is not the starting point for every product search. Google handles billions of searches every day, and a significant share of those searches are product-related, from people who have not yet decided where to buy. If your keyword gets 2,000 monthly searches on Amazon and the same keyword gets 1,000 monthly searches on Google, running Google Ads for Amazon listings against that second search pool extends your reach to an entirely additional group of potential buyers you would otherwise never see.

This is not a replacement for your Amazon PPC strategy. It is an extension of it, capturing demand at an earlier point in the customer journey, often before the shopper has even opened the Amazon app.

The Organic Rank Boost: How External Traffic and Sales Velocity Connect

This is the part of the strategy most sellers underestimate. Amazon’s search algorithm weighs sales velocity heavily when determining organic ranking. When external traffic from Google converts into an Amazon sale, that sale counts toward your product’s overall sales velocity exactly the same as a sale generated through Amazon’s own search or advertising. Increased sales velocity can also improve your Amazon Best Sellers Rank (BSR), helping products gain additional visibility beyond paid traffic.

This means a Google Ads campaign does not need to be wildly profitable on its own to be worth running. Even a campaign that roughly breaks even on direct ROI can still meaningfully strengthen your organic Amazon ranking by contributing additional sales volume and conversion signals that Amazon’s algorithm rewards. This effect tends to be especially valuable during a product launch, when building early sales velocity quickly is critical. A structured Amazon product launch strategy can help maximize the impact of both external and Amazon-native traffic sources 

The Brand Referral Bonus: Amazon’s Incentive for Off-Amazon Traffic

Amazon has made it explicitly clear that driving qualified external traffic to Amazon listings is something they want to encourage. The Brand Referral Bonus program rewards brand-registered sellers for sales generated from approved external traffic sources, including Google Ads. In most categories, this comes in the form of a referral fee discount, commonly cited at around 10%, applied to sales attributed to qualifying external traffic.

In practical terms, this means a portion of your Google Ads spend is effectively offset by reduced Amazon fees on the resulting sales, improving the overall economics of running Google Ads for Amazon products beyond just the incremental sales themselves.

Can You Link Google Ads Directly to an Amazon Listing?

Google’s Landing Page Policy and Why Amazon Product Pages Don’t Qualify

This is one of the most important technical details to understand before launching any campaign, and it trips up a meaningful number of first-time sellers. Google Ads policy requires that the destination URL, the landing page your ad sends traffic to, be a page you own and control. An Amazon product detail page does not meet this requirement, since it is Amazon’s page, governed by Amazon’s content and design, not yours.

This does not mean you cannot drive Google traffic toward your Amazon listing. It means you need an intermediary step: either a properly structured direct link configuration or a dedicated landing page that you own, which then directs the shopper onward to Amazon for the actual purchase.

Direct Linking vs. a Custom Landing Page: The Real Tradeoffs

Direct linking, where your ad ultimately routes the shopper toward your Amazon listing with minimal friction, is the faster, simpler setup. It requires less ongoing maintenance and gets a campaign live quickly, which makes it a reasonable starting point, particularly for sellers wanting to test the channel before investing more heavily.

A custom landing page, a page you build and own, that introduces your product with supporting content and a clear “Buy on Amazon” call to action, requires more upfront work but offers real advantages. You gain full control over messaging, you can build trust with additional product information before the shopper ever reaches Amazon, you can capture visitor data such as email addresses for future marketing, and you gain considerably better tracking and conversion data than a direct-link approach typically allows.

When Each Approach Makes Sense

A direct-link approach makes the most sense for a quick test of a specific keyword set, for sellers without the resources to build and maintain a landing page, or for an already strong, well-converting listing where the priority is speed rather than relationship-building with the shopper before purchase.

A custom landing page is the stronger choice for serious, ongoing investment in this channel, particularly during a product launch where every advantage in conversion rate and message control matters, or for sellers who want to build a reusable marketing asset (an email list, a brand presence beyond Amazon) rather than treating the campaign purely as a one-way traffic pipe toward a single sale.

How to Set Up Your Google Ads Campaign

Creating Your Google Ads Account and Choosing a Campaign Type

If you do not already have one, creating a Google Ads account starts at ads.google.com. Google frequently offers a matched credit promotion for new accounts, where Google will credit your account a set amount once you have spent an equivalent amount on ads, which is worth checking for and taking advantage of when setting up your first campaign.

Once your account is active, you will choose a campaign type. Google Ads offers several options, including Search, Shopping, Display, and Performance Max, each suited to different goals and creative requirements.

Why Search Ads Are the Right Starting Point for Most Sellers

For most sellers running Google Ads for Amazon products for the first time, Search Ads are the right place to begin. They are text-based and keyword-driven, which makes the setup process genuinely similar to Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns you are likely already familiar with. Search Ads appear above organic Google search results, giving you direct visibility to shoppers actively searching for relevant terms, without the additional creative requirements (product images, video assets) that Shopping or Display campaigns typically demand.

This lower barrier to entry, combined with the close conceptual overlap with Amazon PPC, makes Search Ads the most practical starting point before expanding into other campaign types as you gain experience and data.

Setting Location, Budget, and Bidding Strategy

When configuring your campaign, set your location targeting to match where your Amazon listing actually ships and sells, typically the country or region tied to your specific Amazon marketplace. Set your language targeting to match your primary customer base.

For the budget, start conservatively. A very small daily budget will limit how much data and learning your campaign can generate, but starting modestly and scaling up as you confirm performance is generally a safer approach than committing a large budget to an untested campaign. For bidding strategy, manual CPC bidding gives you the most direct control while you are still gathering initial performance data. Once you have accumulated enough conversion data, typically a meaningful number of conversions per month, shifting toward an automated strategy like Target ROAS or Maximize Conversions often improves efficiency, since Google’s algorithm can then optimize bids using real performance signals rather than your own estimates alone.

Keyword Research for Google Ads (Different From Amazon PPC) 

Why Google Shoppers Are Earlier in the Buying Journey

This is a genuinely important strategic distinction. A shopper searching directly on Amazon has typically already decided to buy something in a given category and is comparing specific options. A shopper searching on Google is frequently earlier in that journey, sometimes still researching, comparing categories, or simply becoming aware that a particular type of product exists.

This means your keyword strategy for Google needs to account for guiding that shopper toward a purchase decision, not just matching their search query the way Amazon PPC keyword targeting does. Including more specific, purchase-intent language in your keyword selection, phrases like “buy” plus your product name, or “[product] for sale on Amazon,” helps filter toward shoppers who are closer to being ready to act rather than still in a purely research phase.

Finding High-Intent, Low-Competition Keywords with Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner, accessible within your Google Ads account under Tools and Settings, is the standard starting point for keyword research. Enter seed terms related to your product to surface keyword suggestions along with estimated search volume and competition level data.

Look specifically for keywords with reasonable search volume but lower competition, since these tend to be more cost-effective to target while still delivering meaningful traffic. More specifically, longer-tail phrases, for example, “non-slip yoga mat for hardwood floors” rather than simply “yoga mat”, typically convert better precisely because they carry clearer intent and face less competitive pressure than broad, generic head terms.

Building a Negative Keyword List to Protect Spend

Just as with Amazon PPC, a disciplined negative keyword list is essential for protecting your budget from irrelevant traffic. Common negative keywords worth excluding from the outset include terms like “free,” “how to,” “DIY,” or other words that signal a searcher with no real purchase intent.

Review your search term performance regularly and continue refining this list over time. A bad click on Google Ads is not just wasted spend. It can also drag down your Amazon listing’s bounce rate and conversion metrics if that irrelevant traffic reaches your listing and immediately leaves without converting, which can have a secondary negative effect on how Amazon’s own algorithm evaluates your listing’s performance. Learning how to find negative keywords for Amazon FBA can help sellers build a more disciplined filtering process across both Google Ads and Amazon PPC campaigns. 

Writing Ad Copy and Structuring Ad Groups

Grouping Keywords Into Tightly Themed Ad Groups

Rather than placing every keyword into a single broad ad group, structure your campaign with tightly themed ad groups built around specific product variations or use cases. For example, separate ad groups for “men’s waterproof hiking boots” versus “women’s trail running shoes” allow you to write more precisely targeted ad copy for each group, rather than a single generic ad trying to speak to multiple distinct audiences at once.

This granular structure improves your Quality Score, Google’s measure of how relevant your ad and landing page are to a given keyword, which in turn tends to reduce your cost per click and improve your ad’s position in search results. The same campaign organization principles are central to effective Amazon PPC optimization.

Writing Ad Copy That Matches Search Intent

Your ad copy should speak directly to the intent behind the specific keywords in that ad group, highlighting the genuine benefits and differentiators of your product rather than generic marketing language. Since many shoppers will not immediately distinguish your ad from one Amazon itself might run, clear, specific, benefit-focused copy that builds credibility matters more than a clever or purely promotional headline.

Include a clear, prominent call to action, directing the shopper toward the next step, whether that is visiting your landing page or proceeding directly to your Amazon listing, so there is no ambiguity about what you want the shopper to do next.

Using a Landing Page or Buy Now Link as the Bridge to Amazon

Your ad’s destination needs to be a page you own, not the Amazon listing itself. If using a landing page, include a clear, prominent “Buy on Amazon” or similar call-to-action button that links through to your Amazon listing, ideally using a properly tagged Amazon Attribution link, so that resulting sales are tracked back to this specific campaign.

Keep the landing page itself focused and uncluttered: a clear product image, a concise value proposition, supporting trust signals like reviews or key differentiators, and a single, unmistakable path toward completing the purchase on Amazon.

Tracking Performance with Amazon Attribution 

Why Standard Amazon Reporting Doesn’t Capture Google-Driven Sales

This is a critical gap many sellers run into after launching their first campaign. Amazon’s standard seller reporting is built around activity that happens within Amazon’s own ecosystem, organic search, Amazon advertising, and direct Amazon traffic. It does not natively distinguish which sales originated from an external source like a Google Ads campaign.

Without a dedicated tracking solution, you would be running a Google Ads campaign with visibility into clicks and spend on the Google side, but no clear way to confirm how many of those clicks actually resulted in an Amazon sale. That makes it impossible to calculate a real ROAS or make informed optimization decisions.

Setting Up Amazon Attribution Tags

Amazon Attribution is the tool built specifically to close this gap. It is available to registered brand owners and allows you to generate tagged tracking links for your external campaigns, including Google Ads. These tagged links, when used as your destination URL or embedded in your landing page’s call-to-action button, allow Amazon to report back on the specific performance of that external campaign: clicks, detail page views, add-to-cart actions, and resulting purchases.

Setting this up involves creating an Amazon Attribution account (accessible through Seller Central or Amazon advertising console for brand-registered sellers), creating a tagged link for your specific campaign, and ensuring that link is what you actually use in your Google Ads destination URL or landing page CTA, rather than a generic, untagged Amazon link.

Metrics That Matter

Once Amazon Attribution is properly set up, several metrics become available that genuinely matter for evaluating campaign performance. Click-through rate on the Google Ads side tells you whether your ad copy and targeting are resonating with the audience you are reaching. Conversion rate from Amazon Attribution tells you whether the traffic that does click through is actually converting into sales once it reaches your listing or landing page. ACoS, calculated using your actual Google Ads spend against attributed Amazon sales, gives you a direct efficiency comparison against your existing Amazon PPC campaigns.

Beyond these direct metrics, also monitor your organic Amazon rank for the relevant keywords over the weeks following increased Google-driven traffic. A meaningful organic rank improvement, even alongside a modest or breakeven direct ROAS, is itself a legitimate, valuable outcome of running this kind of campaign.

Optimizing Your Campaign Over Time 

Reviewing Search Term Reports and Refining Keywords

Just as with Amazon PPC, your Google Ads search term reports will reveal which actual search queries are triggering your ads, which frequently include queries you did not directly target through your keyword list, particularly if you are using broad or phrase match types. Review this data regularly, adding genuinely irrelevant terms to your negative keyword list and identifying strong-performing, unexpected search terms that might deserve their own dedicated keyword target and ad group.

This ongoing refinement is what separates a campaign that improves steadily over time from one that simply runs on autopilot with the same keyword list indefinitely.

Adjusting Bids by Device, Location, and Time of Day

Performance data frequently reveals meaningful differences across device type, location, and time of day, and Google Ads allows you to adjust bids accordingly rather than applying a single flat bid across all conditions. Since the majority of Amazon traffic is mobile, monitor whether your mobile performance justifies a bid increase relative to desktop, or whether the reverse is true for your specific product and audience.

Similarly, if certain regions within your targeted area consistently outperform others, or if specific hours of the day show stronger conversion patterns, shifting budget and bid intensity toward those higher-performing segments, while reducing spend during consistently weaker periods, improves overall campaign efficiency without requiring any change to your core keyword strategy.

When to Shift From Manual to Automated Bidding

Early in a campaign’s life, manual CPC bidding gives you the most direct control while Google’s systems are still gathering performance data on your specific account and keywords. Once your campaign has accumulated a reasonable volume of conversions, commonly cited as at least 15 to 30 conversions per month as a rough threshold, shifting to an automated bidding strategy like Target ROAS or Maximize Conversions often begins to outperform manual bidding, since Google’s algorithm can adjust bids in real time based on a much larger pool of signals than a human manager could realistically track manually.

Test this transition deliberately rather than switching immediately at launch. Automated bidding strategies generally need sufficient historical conversion data to perform well, and switching too early, before that data exists, can lead to a temporary dip in performance while the algorithm has too little information to optimize effectively.

Conclusion

Running Google Ads for Amazon products is not a replacement for your existing Amazon advertising strategy. It is an extension of it, reaching shoppers that Amazon’s own search and advertising tools simply cannot access, since those shoppers have not yet arrived on Amazon at all. Done correctly, with the right landing page approach, properly tagged Amazon Attribution tracking, and Google-specific keyword research that accounts for an earlier-stage buyer, this channel can meaningfully extend your reach, contribute to stronger organic Amazon rankings, and, in many categories, qualify for Amazon’s own referral fee discount through the Brand Referral Bonus program.

The sellers who get genuine value from this strategy treat it as a connected part of their overall growth plan, feeding insights back into their Amazon listing and PPC strategy, rather than running it as an isolated experiment disconnected from everything else happening on their Amazon account.

As a full service Amazon agency, AMZDUDES helps brands build and manage these connected growth systems. Through our Amazon PPC Services, we unify Amazon advertising, listing creative, and customer insights into a single performance-focused strategy. By aligning how shoppers discover, evaluate, and purchase your products, we help improve conversion rates, increase advertising efficiency, and generate stronger returns from both Amazon and external traffic investments. 

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Frequently Asked Questions 

Can I run Google Ads directly to my Amazon product listing?
Not directly in the way many sellers initially assume. Google Ads policy requires your ad’s destination page to be one you own and control, and an Amazon product detail page does not meet that requirement. Sellers typically use either a properly configured direct-link setup that complies with Google’s policy or, more commonly and more effectively, a custom landing page they own that then links through to the Amazon listing.

Why should I use Google Ads for Amazon listings if I already run Amazon PPC?
Google Ads reaches an entirely different pool of shoppers: those who begin their product search on Google rather than directly on Amazon. This represents incremental, additional demand rather than competing for the same audience your Amazon PPC campaigns already reach. Beyond the direct sales, increased sales velocity from this external traffic can also support stronger organic Amazon rankings, and Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus program offers a referral fee discount on qualifying sales generated from approved external traffic sources like Google Ads.

How do I track sales from Google Ads back to my Amazon listing?
Amazon Attribution is the tool designed specifically for this. Available to brand-registered sellers, it lets you generate tagged tracking links for your external campaigns. Using these tagged links as your Google Ads destination URL or landing page call-to-action allows Amazon to report back on clicks, detail page views, and actual purchases generated from that specific campaign, which standard Amazon seller reporting cannot show you on its own.

What type of Google Ads campaign works best for promoting Amazon products?
Search Ads are generally the best starting point for most sellers, since they are text and keyword-based, closely resembling the structure of Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns, which many sellers are already familiar with. Shopping campaigns, which require a product feed and image assets, can also work well for sellers ready to invest in that additional setup, but Search Ads typically offer the lowest barrier to entry for a first campaign.

Do I need a website to run Google Ads for Amazon products?
Not strictly. Some sellers use a direct-link configuration without a dedicated website. However, building a simple, owned landing page generally produces better results, since it gives you control over messaging, allows you to build trust with the shopper before they reach Amazon, and provides significantly better tracking data than a direct-link approach typically allows.

How much should I budget for a Google Ads campaign promoting Amazon products?
Start conservatively with a daily budget that allows you to gather meaningful data without overcommitting before you have confirmed performance. A very small budget will simply take longer to generate the data needed for informed optimization. As you confirm which keywords and ad groups are performing well, scale the budget upward incrementally based on actual results rather than committing a large budget upfront to an untested campaign.