How to Note Underperforming Amazon Ads Keywords

What a useful keyword note includes

A note becomes actionable when it captures the specific search term and enough context to make a decision later.

• Search term or keyword — the exact query that triggered the ad.
• Campaign and ad group — where the underperformance appears.
• Match type — broad, phrase, or exact, because the fix may differ.
• Performance snapshot — impressions, clicks, spend, sales, ACoS, ROAS, or wasted spend.
• Date reviewed — so trends can be tracked over time.
• Action decided — such as negate, lower bid, move to exact, or review again.

If a team uses a read-only analysis tool, the note can also record that a query was flagged by the system and still needs manual approval before any campaign change.

How to use the notes after a review

Notes are most useful when they feed a short cleanup workflow. After each review, group recurring underperforming search terms and check whether they appear across multiple ad groups or campaigns. That cross-campaign view helps decide if a term should be negated at the ad group level or more broadly.

Products like the Amazon Negative Keyword Tool by Todoza can help rank underperforming queries using multiple campaign-specific signals, so your notes have a consistent basis instead of relying on a single threshold for every campaign.

When this matters

Underperforming keyword notes become especially valuable when ad accounts grow across multiple marketplaces or when several people share review responsibilities. In those cases, memory and one-off spreadsheets tend to miss patterns. A concise note format keeps the human decision-making step visible, especially when a read-only dashboard flags spend that does not meet target ROAS.

Teams that record these details consistently can identify negative keyword candidates faster and avoid re-analyzing the same non-converting queries every review.