A product targeting technique where a listing's own ASIN is entered as its own exact product target. The ad does not display on that same listing page — instead, Amazon shows the ad to that same visitor afterward, in search results or on other listings, functioning like built-in retargeting without a separate remarketing/DSP setup.
Rawlings presents this as an exploit of an Amazon quirk ("a glitch") and cites real examples with notably low ACOS (5%, 8%, 12%) despite modest sales volume, attributing the low ACOS to the delayed/retargeting-style mechanism rather than direct on-listing competition.
Uses the same campaign structure as Manual Product Targeting (Category vs. Individual ASIN) (individual-product exact targeting), distinguished only by targeting the product's own ASIN rather than a competitor's or a different owned ASIN as in Defense / "Shielding" Campaigns (Product Targeting).
Concrete setup when used as brand defense: Sponsored Products > manual targeting > product targeting > individual products > enter your own other ASINs (all of them, or the top ~12 if the catalog is large) > exact match only, not expanded > Dynamic Bids Down Only (Default Steady-State Bidding Strategy), no placement modifiers > set a daily budget > launch. This is one leg of the broader Defense / "Shielding" Campaigns (Product Targeting) matrix, which also covers keyword and category targeting across Sponsored Products/Brands/Display.
Beyond its retargeting use, self-targeting an ASIN with 'expanded' matching (rather than 'exact' ASIN match) surfaces a wide set of long-tail competitor placements — product pages Amazon's algorithm considers similar enough to show the ad against — that cannot be found through manual keyword or product research. This makes expanded self-targeting a discovery tool for otherwise-invisible competitor placements, not just a defensive retargeting play.
Из тем: PPC Campaign Structure & Bidding