Amazon PPC Audit Template: Free Checklist From 52+ Accounts

We run this exact checklist on every one of the 52+ Amazon accounts we manage. Not a version of it. This one, the actual template, column by column. If you want the free Amazon PPC audit template our team uses, this is it: copy the structure below into a spreadsheet and run it today.

Most sellers ask for a PPC audit template expecting a fill-in-the-blank worksheet. That's not what finds waste. What finds waste is nine specific checks, each with a pass/fail threshold, run in order. Here's the whole thing.

If you want the narrative version that walks through why each step matters, we published that separately: how to run your own Amazon ads audit. This post is the checklist you print out and check off, item by item, without the explanation getting in the way.

The Template Structure

Before the checklist itself, here's how to set up the spreadsheet. Six columns, one row per check:

| Column | What Goes Here | |---|---| | Check # | 1-9, matching the list below | | What to Pull | The exact report name from Seller Central or Advertising Console | | Threshold | The specific number that separates pass from fail | | Your Number | What you actually found | | Status | Pass / Fail / Needs Review | | Fix (if Failed) | One line, what action closes the gap |

That's the whole template. No macros, no formulas required. The value isn't in spreadsheet engineering. It's in having the threshold written down before you look at your own data, so you're not rationalizing a bad number into looking acceptable.

The 9-Point Checklist

1. Wasted Search Terms

Pull: Search Term Report, last 60 days, sorted by spend descending.

What to look for: Any search term with 15+ clicks and zero orders.

What good looks like: Zero terms above that threshold left un-negated. In practice, most accounts we open have never had this check run even once.

Fix if failed: Negative-match every qualifying term at the campaign or ad group level. This single check usually surfaces the largest recoverable dollar amount on the whole list.

2. ACOS by Campaign Type

Pull: Campaign performance report, grouped into three buckets: branded, category/non-branded, competitor.

What to look for: A single blended ACOS number instead of three separate ones.

What good looks like: Branded under 10%. Category/non-branded in the 18-35% range. Competitor targeting in the 30-40% range.

Fix if failed: Split reporting into the three buckets permanently, not just for this audit. A blended 24% ACOS can hide a branded campaign at 8% propping up a competitor campaign bleeding at 55%.

3. Branded vs Non-Branded Spend Ratio

Pull: Total branded campaign spend divided by total ad spend, last 60 days.

What to look for: A ratio above 20% or a ratio near 0%.

What good looks like: 10-15% of total spend on branded defense.

Fix if failed: If over 20%, you're overpaying to defend traffic that often converts organically anyway. If near zero, a competitor may be bidding on your own brand name uncontested. We've found competitor ads sitting above a brand's own organic listing, on a search for the brand's own name, more than once.

4. Placement Bid Mismatches

Pull: Placement Report, showing Top of Search, Rest of Search, Product Pages.

What to look for: Zero placement bid adjustments set, or adjustments that don't match current performance data.

What good looks like: Bid adjustments that direct more budget toward Top of Search when it's converting best, with Product Pages and Rest of Search weighted lower.

Fix if failed: Set adjustments based on the last 60 days of actual placement performance, then recheck quarterly. Placement performance shifts as competitors change their own bids.

5. Dayparting and Budget Pacing

Pull: Daily budget vs actual daily spend, last two weeks, by campaign.

What to look for: Any campaign hitting its budget cap before noon on 3+ days.

What good looks like: Budget lasting through the full day, or dayparting in place to concentrate spend in the highest-converting hours.

Fix if failed: Raise the budget if the cap is choking strong keywords, or add dayparting to pull bids down during low-converting high-traffic hours (late-night browsing is the usual culprit) and free up budget for hours that actually convert.

6. Negative Keyword Coverage

Pull: Cross-reference your active negative keyword list against the Search Term Report from Check 1.

What to look for: Recurring non-converting terms that keep showing up and aren't on the negative list.

What good looks like: A negative list that's been updated in the last 30 days, not built once and abandoned.

Fix if failed: Build the review into a weekly habit. Search intent shifts constantly. A negative list from six months ago is already stale.

7. Campaign Structure by Match Type

Pull: Campaign list, grouped by product.

What to look for: A single campaign per product covering auto, broad, and exact match all together.

What good looks like: Separate campaigns by match type and intent, so a converting broad-match term can be promoted into its own exact-match campaign at a higher bid instead of staying buried in a mixed-match campaign at the wrong bid.

Fix if failed: Split the campaign. This is structural, not a bid tweak, and it's the difference described in how we structure PPC campaigns across 85+ brands.

8. Listing-Level Audit (the amazon listing audit section)

PPC efficiency has a ceiling if the listing it's driving traffic to has problems. This is the part of the checklist most PPC-only audits skip, and it's worth its own pass. An amazon listing audit inside this template covers four things:

Title compliance and structure. Check for keyword stuffing, missing required identifiers (brand, size, quantity), and characters that risk suppression. If you're unsure where the current character ceiling sits, see Amazon product title optimization for 2026.

Prohibited or restricted words. Scan title, bullets, description, and backend search terms. Amazon's compliance scanning covers backend terms too, not just visible copy. A single flagged word can get a listing removed with no warning.

A+ Content presence and freshness. Confirm A+ Content exists on every ASIN receiving meaningful PPC spend, and that it hasn't gone stale against current brand guidelines.

Image and buy box status. Confirm main images meet current standards and the buy box is actually won on the ASINs you're advertising. Driving paid clicks to a listing that's lost the buy box is spend with no possible return.

What good looks like: Zero prohibited-word flags, A+ Content live on every actively-advertised ASIN, buy box won on every advertised ASIN.

Fix if failed: Prioritize by spend. Fix the listing issues on your highest-spend ASINs first, since that's where broken listings cost the most per day.

9. The Red Flags Scorecard

Score yourself across all nine checks above. Each "Fail" is one flag.

0-2 flags: Reasonable shape. Re-run this monthly.

3-5 flags: Real, recoverable waste. Most of it closes in an afternoon.

6+ flags: The account needs a structural rebuild, not a cleanup pass. At this point the time cost of doing it yourself usually exceeds the cost of having it done.

A consumer electronics brand we worked with scored high on the ACOS-by-campaign-type check specifically: ACOS sat at 59.02% blended, with no separation between campaign types to show where the waste actually was. Once spend was reallocated toward what was already converting and cut from what wasn't, PPC sales grew 352% in one week while ACOS dropped to 14.97%. That's the full efficiency-first PPC reset breakdown, and it's the clearest example we have of why Check 2 on this list matters more than any single other line item.

Free Amazon PPC Tools to Run This With

You don't need paid software to run this checklist. Every report above comes free inside Seller Central and Advertising Console. If you want a bit more structure than a blank spreadsheet:

• Google Sheets or Excel: for the template itself. No add-ons needed.
• Amazon Brand Analytics: free inside Seller Central for registered brands, useful for search term and market basket context beyond what the standard Search Term Report shows.
• Seller Central Business Reports: free, covers sales and traffic by ASIN, useful for cross-referencing Check 8's listing-level review against actual conversion data.

Paid tools like Helium 10 or Pacvue speed up ongoing management once you're running this monthly and want automation. They add nothing to a first audit pass. Don't buy software to run a checklist a spreadsheet already handles.

How Long This Actually Takes

Budget 60-90 minutes for a first pass across all nine checks. Checks 1 and 2 take the longest, roughly 10 minutes each, because they involve the most raw data. The listing audit in Check 8 can run longer if you're auditing a large catalog, in which case prioritize by spend and only audit ASINs receiving real PPC dollars first.

Once you've run it once, subsequent passes go faster because you already know where to look. Monthly maintenance runs closer to 20-30 minutes.

What This Template Won't Catch

This checklist finds spend-level waste and listing-level compliance risk. It won't tell you whether declining organic rank is quietly forcing your ad spend higher every month, and it won't benchmark your numbers against comparable accounts in your category. If your ACOS numbers pass every check here but total revenue is still flat, the deeper read is in TACoS vs ACoS: what the difference costs you. A clean ACOS with rising TACoS means the organic foundation is eroding underneath ads that look fine on paper.

The Bottom Line

The template is nine checks: wasted search terms, ACOS split by campaign type, branded spend ratio, placement bids, dayparting, negative keyword coverage, campaign structure, listing compliance, and a scored summary. Every report it needs is free. The only cost is the 60-90 minutes it takes to run it once.

Running it once finds the obvious waste. Running it every month is what actually protects the account, and that's the part most sellers don't keep up with once the initial cleanup is done.

If you run this checklist and score 3 or more red flags, or you'd rather skip the spreadsheet entirely, get a free Amazon PPC audit from our team. We run the same nine checks plus organic rank correlation and cross-account benchmarking, and hand back a specific findings document within 48 hours.

For accounts that need this run every week, not just once, see how our Amazon management service works. We share the exact waste patterns and fixes we're finding across managed accounts every week in the newsletter, including which checks on this list are turning up the most damage that month.

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Related posts:

• Amazon Ads Audit: Find Wasted Spend in Under an Hour (2026). The narrative walkthrough behind this checklist, with the reasoning spelled out step by step.
• Amazon PPC Strategy: How We Structure Campaigns for 85+ Brands. The campaign architecture Check 7 is testing your account against.
• Amazon TACoS vs ACoS: What the Difference Costs You. Why a clean ACOS can still hide a declining business.
• Fix Your Amazon Ads Funnel: 7 Gaps Killing Your ROAS (2026). What to check when this template comes back clean but ROAS still isn't there.
• Amazon Product Title Optimization for 2026. The title-specific rules behind Check 8's listing audit.