7 PPC Mistakes Amazon Sellers Make After Prime Day (And How to Fix Them)

Prime Day is over. The traffic spike has passed, the deal badges are gone, and most sellers are either celebrating their results or trying to figure out why they didn't perform as well as expected.

But here's what the majority of sellers miss:

What you do with your PPC campaigns in the two weeks after Prime Day is just as important as what you did during it.

Prime Day generates an enormous amount of data—search terms, conversion rates, keyword performance, audience behavior—that most sellers ignore. Meanwhile, their campaigns either keep running on Prime Day settings in a completely different market environment, or revert to the pre-Prime Day strategy, ignoring the new data.

In this blog post, we'll break down the 7 most common PPC mistakes sellers make after Prime Day—and how to fix each one.

Mistake #1: Not Adding Negative Keywords From Prime Day Traffic

This is the single most expensive mistake sellers make after a major traffic event.

During Prime Day, your ads received significantly more impressions and clicks than usual. That surge in traffic also means your campaigns were triggered by a much wider range of search terms than normal, including many irrelevant ones.

Shoppers were searching broadly during Prime Day—browsing deals, comparing prices, looking for gifts. Many of them clicked your ads with no intention of buying your specific product. 

You paid for those clicks. And unless you add negative keywords based on that data, you'll keep paying for the same irrelevant traffic long after Prime Day ends.

What to do:

Pull your Search Term Report and filter specifically for the Prime Day period.

Look for:

• Search terms with multiple clicks and zero conversions
• Terms unrelated to your product
• Searches indicating deal-hunting behavior that won't convert at regular pricing ("Prime Day deal," "cheapest," "free shipping only," etc.)
• Competitor brand names you were shown for but didn't convert

Add every irrelevant term as a negative keyword—either negative exact for specific phrases, or negative phrase for broader categories of irrelevant traffic (like "free" or "cheap" applied across all campaigns).

Mistake #2: Not Harvesting High-Converting Search Terms From Prime Day Data

The opposite of Mistake #1—and equally costly.

Prime Day sent a wave of high-intent, buying-ready traffic to your listings. Buried inside your Search Term Report are search terms that converted exceptionally well during that period—terms you may not have been targeting specifically, or terms running inside broad match campaigns without dedicated bids.

These are proven converters under market conditions. Ignoring them means leaving ranking and sales potential on the table.

What to do:

Go back to your Search Term Report for the Prime Day period and sort by conversion rate, not just sales volume.

Look for:

• Search terms with 5 or more conversions during Prime Day
• Terms with conversion rates above 10% (indicating strong purchase intent)
• Long-tail keywords you weren't previously targeting
• Phrases that suggest a specific use case or customer segment you hadn't considered

Extract these terms and move them into dedicated exact match campaigns with their own budgets and bids. Don't leave them buried in a broad match campaign competing for budget alongside dozens of other terms.

Mistake #3: Not Using Prime Day Data to Build Retargeting Audiences

Prime Day brought thousands of shoppers to your product pages who didn't purchase. Some were price-sensitive and waiting for a better deal. Some needed more time to decide. Some got distracted and didn't finish their session.

All of them are warm prospects—significantly more likely to convert than cold traffic. And if you're not retargeting them after Prime Day, you're letting that audience evaporate.

What to do:

Set up Sponsored Display retargeting campaigns for shoppers who viewed your product detail pages during Prime Day.

• Go to Campaign Manager and create a new Sponsored Display campaign
• Set targeting to "Views remarketing"
• Select your Prime Day ASINs
• Set lookback window to 30 days (captures everyone who viewed during the event)
• Use a moderate starting bid and adjust based on performance

For additional reach, layer in audience targeting using "In-market" segments that match your product category. These shoppers are still actively researching and comparing—your retargeting ad appears as they browse elsewhere on Amazon.

Mistake #4: Slashing Bids Too Aggressively After Prime Day

The traffic spike has ended. Costs are elevated from Prime Day bidding wars. The instinct for most sellers is to cut bids aggressively to bring ACoS back down immediately.

This instinct makes sense logically but is almost always executed too fast and too broadly.

Cutting bids too aggressively—especially on keywords that were performing well during Prime Day—removes your ads from positions they were just proven to win. You lose visibility on keywords that had momentum. 

What to do instead:

Make targeted, data-driven bid reductions rather than blind cuts.

• Pull performance data by keyword. Don't look at campaign-level ACoS, look at keyword-level ACoS
• Identify keywords where ACoS spiked during Prime Day due to competitive bidding pressure—these deserve measured bid reductions (10–20%), not aggressive cuts
• Keep bids stable on keywords that converted well—even if the volume drops post-event, these are proven converters
• Reduce bids on keywords that had high spend but low conversion regardless of the event—these were underperforming before Prime Day too

Mistake #5: Not Reducing Bids at All (Leaving Prime Day Settings Running)

The opposite of Mistake #4—and equally damaging.

Some sellers get so caught up in post-event analysis, inventory management, and customer service that they simply leave their Prime Day campaign settings running unchanged for weeks afterward.

Prime Day bids were set for a high-competition, high-traffic environment. That environment no longer exists. Running elevated bids in a normal traffic environment means you're paying Prime Day CPCs for regular daily traffic—inflating your ACoS and burning budget that could be deployed more efficiently.

What to do:

Conduct a systematic campaign audit within 48–72 hours of Prime Day ending.

• Review all campaigns where bids were manually increased before or during the event
• Return these to pre-Prime Day levels as a starting point
• Then apply the data-driven adjustments described in Mistake #4

Create a simple spreadsheet logging your pre-event bids for each campaign so you have a clear reference point when resetting.

Mistake #6: Treating Post-Prime Day as "Back to Normal" Instead of an Optimization Window

Most sellers approach the post-Prime Day period as a return to steady state—they reset bids, review sales numbers, and move on.

What they're missing is that Prime Day just gave them the largest, most data-rich performance snapshot of the year. This isn't the time to go back to normal. It's the best opportunity of the year to upgrade their normal.

What to do:

Use the Prime Day dataset to answer questions that regular monthly data can't:

• Which products performed significantly better than expected? These deserve more PPC investment going forward.
• Which products underperformed despite high traffic? Listing or pricing issues are likely—investigate before spending more.
• Which campaign structures worked best? Replicate those structures across other products.
• Which placements (top-of-search, product pages, rest-of-search) had the best ROI? Make placement bid adjustments to reflect this.
• What time of day did conversions peak? Consider dayparting strategies for ongoing campaigns.

Mistake #7: Not Analyzing Competitor Behavior Post-Prime Day

During Prime Day, your competitors were bidding aggressively, running deals, and competing for the same traffic. Now that the event is over, their strategies are shifting—and if you're not paying attention, you'll miss an opportunity.

Some competitors ran out of inventory during Prime Day and paused ads. Others are cutting bids aggressively to recover margins. A few are in full retreat mode, reducing visibility to protect short-term profitability.

These gaps in competitor coverage are a direct opportunity.

What to do:

• Monitor search result pages for your main keywords daily in the first week after Prime Day
• Identify competitors who have disappeared from page 1 placements they held during the event
• Increase your bids modestly (10–20%) on keywords where strong competitors have pulled back
• Launch or increase PAT (Product Attribute Targeting) campaigns on competitor ASINs that are now receiving less ad support

This window is typically short—1–2 weeks—before competitors recalibrate and return. But for sellers who act quickly, it can translate to meaningful organic ranking gains during a period of reduced competition.

Don't Leave Your Prime Day Data on the Table!

If reviewing Search Term Reports, harvesting keywords, building retargeting audiences, adjusting bids by keyword, and monitoring competitor behavior sounds like a lot to manage in addition to everything else post-Prime Day demands—you're right. It is.

The good news is that you don’t have to do it by yourself. 

Our team can handle this, while you focus on growing your business! 🚀

Get a Free PPC Audit and Find Out How To Leverage Your Prime Day Data!

We'll review your account for free and show you what opportunities your data hides—and what mistakes might already be costing you.

By the end of the call, you'll receive a personalized action plan with tactics to maximize the value of your Prime Day data and boost your results—while keeping ACoS low.

👉Get your free PPC audit now and turn your Prime Day data into a long-term competitive advantage.