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Amazon PPC
Chris Rawlings argues that Amazon product targeting — advertising on other products' listings rather than in search — has recently become one of the most powerful, cheapest-CPC strategies on Amazon, and that a deliberate system of defense/"shielding" campaigns, offensive competitor-brand targeting, and a self-targeting "glitch" that mimics retargeting can outperform other campaign types across all three ad formats.
Product targeting shows your ad on other product listings (competitors' or your own) instead of in search results, and is available in all three ad types (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display), unlike keyword targeting which only works in Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands.
Product targeting placements tend to have the cheapest cost per click, though those clicks are often lower intent.
Exact targeting restricts the ad to only the input ASINs; expanded targeting gives Amazon leeway to also show the ad on other listings it selects, and Rawlings recommends testing both since Amazon currently 'likes more leeway.'
Three ways to source target ASINs: top competitors ranking for your major keywords, ASINs priced higher or rated lower than yours (a weaker offer), and tool-based research like Helium 10.
Category targeting's 'refine' filter (max star rating, min price) surfaces a pool of qualifying ASINs; you review their performance, then promote the winners into a permanent exact-match product target list.
Fixed bids are recommended for competitive product targets to 'force your way' onto a listing, set near your average CPC or near where winning targets already sit; test fixed, up-and-down, and down-only bidding.
Sponsored Brands requires selecting 'Drive page visits' (not 'Grow impression share') for the product targeting option to appear.
Sponsored Display ASINs can be found via a listing's URL (right after '/dp/') or the 'Product information' section of the listing.
Defense campaigns ('shielding') target your own other ASINs to stop competitors from advertising on your own listings; the cannibalization concern is dismissed because the benefit outweighs any organic sales lost, and it denies competitors a slot they'd otherwise buy.
Offensive campaigns target every ASIN of a specific competitor brand once you've found your offer converts well against them ('sniping'/'siphoning' their sales), and Rawlings frames this as necessary because 'people are doing this to you' if you skip brand defense.
Even with exact targeting set on ASIN targets, Amazon's search-term report shows spend and sales landing on keyword search terms too, not just the target ASINs — the only exception is Sponsored Display, where nearly all impressions stay on-listing.
The self-targeting technique: enter a product's own ASIN as its own exact product target; the ad does not show on that same listing but instead shows the visitor the ad afterward in search or on other listings, acting like built-in retargeting.
Real account examples shown live: defense campaigns, competitor-ASIN campaigns, and lower-rated-ASIN campaigns rank among the top-revenue and best-ACOS campaigns across multiple brands Rawlings' agency manages.
Product Targeting — Advertising your product on other products' listing pages (competitors' or your own) instead of via keyword search results, available across Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display. Apply: In campaign creation, select manual targeting, choose 'Product targeting,' go to individual products, enter list, and input the ASINs you want to advertise on.
Exact vs. Expanded Targeting — 'Exact' restricts the ad strictly to the ASINs you input, while 'expanded' gives Amazon leeway to also show the ad on other listings it judges similar. Apply: Test both settings even when you already know your target ASINs, since Amazon currently rewards giving it more leeway according to Rawlings.
Category Targeting with Refine (rating/price filter) — A targeting mode where you select your product category and use 'refine' to cap the maximum star rating and/or set a minimum price, surfacing ASINs with a weaker offer than yours. Apply: Set a rating ceiling and/or price floor, check Amazon's estimated target count, review the performance of resulting placements, then add the strong performers as individual exact-match product targets.
Fixed Bids strategy — A bid-strategy setting for product targeting campaigns that Rawlings says helps 'force your way' onto competitive placements. Apply: Set the fixed bid near your average CPC or near where your currently-winning product targets already sit, and test it against 'up and down' and 'down only' bidding.
Defense / "Shielding" Campaigns — Product targeting campaigns that target your own other ASINs to stop competitors from buying ad placements on your own listings. Apply: Create a product targeting campaign with your other catalog ASINs as exact targets, accepting some organic-would-have-converted clicks because the payoff outweighs losing that placement to a competitor.
Offensive Competitor-Brand Targeting ("sniping"/"siphoning") — Targeting all ASINs of a specific competitor brand once you've found that brand converts well for your product, diverting its traffic to your own listing. Apply: Identify a brand that converts well from existing campaigns, then build a dedicated exact-match product targeting campaign against that brand's full ASIN list across all three ad types.
Self-Targeting / Instant Retargeting hack — A campaign where a product's own ASIN is entered as its own product target, which doesn't show the ad on that same listing but instead re-shows the ad to that visitor afterward in search or on other listings, acting like built-in retargeting with reportedly very low ACOS. Apply: Create a Sponsored Products campaign advertising a product, then set that same product's ASIN as the exact product target.
Sponsored Brands "Drive Page Visits" prerequisite — A required goal setting in Sponsored Brands campaign creation that must be chosen (instead of 'Grow impression share') for the product targeting option to appear. Apply: When building a Sponsored Brands product targeting campaign (e.g., with video ads), select 'Drive page visits' before scrolling down to targeting.
ASIN lookup via listing URL/product info — A way to find any product's ASIN either from its URL (the characters right after '/dp/') or from the 'Product information' section on the listing page. Apply: Use either method to collect target ASINs before entering them into a product targeting campaign's individual-products list.
The exact/expanded toggle doesn't fully constrain placement — search-term reports on 'exact' campaigns still show meaningful spend/sales attributed to keyword search terms Amazon associated with the product targets, a platform quirk Rawlings says 'doesn't make sense when you first think about it.'
Defense/shielding spend is reframed as insurance rather than cannibalization: paying for a click on your own ASIN that might have converted organically anyway is treated as cheap compared to the hypothetical infinite ACOS of losing that slot to a competitor entirely.
The self-targeting hack reportedly works via a delayed/retargeting mechanism (the ad appears after the listing visit, not on the same page), which Rawlings says is why it can produce very low ACOS (cited examples: 5%, 8%, 12%) despite low sales volume.
Category targeting with the 'refine' filter functions as a two-stage discovery workflow: first cast a wide net with rating/price filters to generate a candidate ASIN pool, then lock in only the ASINs that perform well as permanent exact-match targets.
Rawlings frames competitive targeting explicitly as adversarial and already happening to the viewer ('we're basically sniping their sales... people are doing this to you'), positioning brand-defense campaigns as retaliation/protection rather than a purely proactive tactic.
«Product targeting has recently become one of the most powerful and effective strategies you can employ on the Amazon platform.»
— 00:00
«Product targeting is available in all three ad types. Sponsored products, sponsor brands, and sponsored display.»
— 01:01
«So, that's kind of an unseen benefit from product targeting defense campaigns or what we call shielding.»
— 07:52
«By the way, people are doing this to you, which is why brand defense campaigns with product targeting are so important because this brand,»
— 08:52
«We're basically sniping their sales. We're saying always advertise our products on all of this brand's products because we tend to convert better than them.»
— 09:00
«when it comes to the Amazon marketplace, it is a dog eat dog marketplace. You need to be aggressive and you also need to defend properly.»
— 09:40
«So what's the secret product targeting campaign that exploits like a glitch in Amazon?»
— 13:26
«it's kind of like instant retargeting, which is why the a cost tends to be super low.»
— 14:46
Reception
Mostly positive and engaged, with viewers praising the content and asking detailed follow-up questions, tempered by a few complaints about pacing and lack of step-by-step detail.
This is a practitioner-level tactical breakdown from a self-described top Amazon-ad spender, illustrated with the presenter's own live account dashboards and search-term reports as evidence for the named techniques, though the ACOS results cited come solely from his own managed accounts rather than independently verifiable data.
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