Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns use one of three bidding strategies. Dynamic bids, down only lowers your bid when a click is less likely to convert. Dynamic bids, up and down also raises it, by up to 100% at top of search and 50% elsewhere, according to Amazon's help page. Fixed bids uses your bid as set. Down only is the safe default for most Indian sellers.
| Strategy | What Amazon does to your bid | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic bids, down only | Lowers it, up to 100%, when a click is less likely to convert | Most campaigns, especially auto and broad |
| Dynamic bids, up and down | Raises it up to 100% at top of search and 50% elsewhere when a sale looks likely; lowers it when not | Proven exact keywords with good margin |
| Fixed bids | Nothing; your bid plus placement adjustments | Tests and tightly controlled budgets |
The percentages are from Amazon's Sponsored Products help page on bidding strategies. Blooprint's dynamic bidding glossary entry defines the terms; this page is about choosing and fixing the effects.
This is where CPCs surprise people. Placement adjustments are applied first, then dynamic bidding. In the Seller Central India forum thread Amazon Cost Per Click is 3 to 5 times higher than Bid Amount, an Amazon staff reply explains that a 400% top-of-search adjustment turns a ₹10 bid into ₹50. Add up and down on top and the ceiling for that click can reach ₹100. Amazon charges less than the ceiling in most auctions, but the ceiling is what it will pay when competition is heavy. Our CPC higher than bid guide works through the arithmetic.
The fix is not to avoid up and down, it is to never combine it with a large placement adjustment until you have seen the numbers for each separately.
These pull in loosely related searches. Letting Amazon cut the bid on weak ones saves money without much lost volume.
You need a clean read on what each keyword costs before Amazon starts adjusting. Run two weeks, then decide.
Where ACoS is well below break-even, paying more for the top slot usually brings more orders at an acceptable cost.
Up and down plus event-day competition is the most common cause of a spent budget by noon. Our Great Indian Festival guide covers bid plans for events.
Pull the placement report for the campaign for the two weeks before and after the switch. If top-of-search CPC rose and top-of-search conversion rate rose with it, and ACoS stayed within target, it is working. If CPC rose and conversion did not, Amazon is paying more for clicks that were not more likely to buy, and you should switch back to down only. The same check applies in reverse when you move a campaign off up and down: orders should hold while CPC falls.
Change one thing at a time. If you switch strategy and change placement adjustments in the same week, the placement report cannot tell you which change moved CPC. Leave each change for at least a week, and longer for low-volume campaigns, because the 7-day attribution window means the last few days of orders are always incomplete.
Strategy is set per campaign in the console, one at a time. BlooprintAI lists every Amazon India campaign with its bidding strategy, placement adjustments, CPC and ACoS in one table, so you can filter the campaigns on up and down with ACoS above target and change their strategy in one action after a summary. It does not switch strategies on its own or bid for you.
Filter every keyword and target by ACoS, CPC, CVR or spend and change bids in one go.
Learn more →Turn target ACoS, price and conversion rate into a starting bid in ₹.
Learn more →Placement multipliers and dynamic bidding explained with the ₹10 to ₹50 example.
Learn more →Adjust bids by placement without blowing up CPC, with the placement report.
Learn more →Dynamic bids, down only for most campaigns, especially auto and broad. Use up and down only on proven exact keywords with ACoS well below break-even, and fixed bids for clean tests.
Up to 100% at top of search and up to 50% on other placements, according to Amazon's help page. This is on top of any placement adjustment.
Usually dynamic bids, up and down or a placement adjustment, or both. A 400% top-of-search adjustment turns ₹10 into ₹50 before up and down is applied.
Slightly, on searches Amazon judges less likely to convert. Those are usually the impressions you want to pay less for.
Yes. Filter campaigns by strategy and ACoS, then change the strategy for the ones you select in one action after a summary. It never changes strategy on its own.
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