Skip to main content
Metrics type: Key Metrics • Category: Ad Platform
Auto-campaign search terms with >2 orders + ROAS > target that have not yet been promoted to manual targeting. Promote weekly.

​
At a glance

List of search terms found by Auto Targeting campaigns that converted well (≥2 orders + ROAS > target) and have NOT yet been promoted to manual keyword targeting. The structured-harvest workflow, auto-campaigns discover converting queries; manual campaigns exploit them at tighter bids. Promoting weekly is the canonical Amazon Ads optimisation rhythm. Industry rule: a healthy account harvests 5-15 candidates per week.

​
Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Amazon Ads data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

​
Worked example

A US home-goods seller, weekly harvest review on 12 Apr 26 covering the 7 days from 06 Apr to 12 Apr. The card surfaces 8 candidates. What a paid-acquisition lead does with this:
  1. The 7 non-branded candidates take ~15 minutes to promote. Add each as an exact or phrase keyword to a manual SP campaign with a starting bid 10-20% below the auto-campaign’s average CPC. Then add the term as a campaign-level negative on the auto campaign so the auto stops competing.
  2. The branded candidate is intentionally skipped. Promoting “[brand-name] memory foam pillow” costs more per click than letting it convert organically. Branded harvests are a trap, they inflate ACOS / ROAS visibly while not adding incremental revenue.
  3. Weekly cadence matters because the harvest window is short. A converting auto-term not promoted within 14 days starts to lose its statistical edge as the auto campaign’s bid optimises elsewhere. The 7-day rhythm catches them while the signal is fresh.
  4. The 3.0× ROAS threshold is generous. Some accounts tighten to 4×; others extend to 2.5× to be more aggressive about harvesting. The right threshold equals your category’s target_ROAS (= 1 / target_ACOS).
  5. Promoting + auto-pause is the full pattern, just promoting the keyword doubles your spend on the term (auto + manual both bid). Adding the auto-side negative is the second half.
Quick sanity tests:
  • 5-15 candidates per week = healthy auto-campaign discovery cadence.
  • 0 candidates: either the auto campaigns are too restrictive (loosen targeting) or the team is harvesting daily already.
  • 30+ candidates: backlog of unharvested wins. A one-time bulk sweep is needed; resume weekly after.
  • Same terms reappearing weekly: someone is promoting them but not adding the auto-side negative, auto and manual are competing.
  • Mostly branded candidates: the auto campaigns are over-indexed on branded discovery; tighten audience signals.

​
Sibling cards merchants should reference together

​
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Amazon Ads Console: Amazon Ads Console > Campaign Manager > [Auto Campaign] > Search Terms tab, the Search Terms tab on any Auto campaign shows discovered queries with conversion data. Sort by Orders descending and filter to ROAS > 3 to manually replicate this card. Amazon Ads Console > Recommendations. Amazon’s “Add as keyword” suggestions overlap heavily with this card but use Amazon’s own threshold (typically more permissive). Useful as a cross-check. Amazon Ads Console > Reports > Sponsored Products > Search Term Report, the canonical search-term-level report. Filter to Auto campaigns + Orders >= 2 + ACOS < target. Why our number may legitimately differ from Amazon’s “Recommendations”: Cross-connector reconciliation:

​
Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why is the harvest workflow important? Auto campaigns are good at discovering converting search terms, but they bid generically (Amazon optimises across all auto-discovered queries). Manual campaigns let you bid tighter on the proven winners. The harvest workflow is the structured promotion of auto-discoveries into more efficient manual targeting. Skipping this loop costs 10-25% of attributable ROAS in mature accounts. Should I promote at exact-match or phrase-match? Exact for high-confidence terms (>3 orders, ROAS comfortably above target). Phrase for marginal candidates where you want to capture variants while maintaining some control. Avoid broad-match on harvest, broad just recreates the auto-campaign discovery loop you already have. Why exclude branded harvest candidates? Promoting branded queries you’d win organically just costs more per click. People searching your brand name were going to buy. The 14× ROAS on branded harvest is a vanity number, you’re paying Amazon to defend traffic you already had. Use Branded Harvest Candidates only for competitor-defence campaigns. The threshold of 2 orders + ROAS > 3×, why these numbers? 2 orders is the minimum statistical signal (1 order is noise; 2+ shows the term is reliably converting). ROAS > 3× is a generous threshold that ensures the harvested keyword will be profitable. Tune both numbers to your category: high-margin categories can promote at ROAS 2×; thin-margin categories need 4× or higher. Why do candidates take 7 days to appear? Amazon’s 14-day click attribution window means terms need ~7-10 days of activity before the conversion signal is reliable. Promoting earlier risks adding keywords that haven’t proven themselves; the 7D window is the conservative compromise. My harvest queue is empty every week, is that bad? Probably means: (a) Auto campaigns are too restrictive (turn on broader match types). (b) Auto campaign budget is too small to discover. (c) Your team is harvesting daily already. (d) You’ve already promoted everything obvious. The first three are fixable; the fourth is a healthy mature state. My queue has 50+ candidates, should I bulk-promote all of them? Yes, but in two waves. (1) First wave: top 10-15 by ROAS × order-count product. These are the highest-confidence wins. (2) Second wave: the rest, after first wave’s manual campaigns settle (give them 14 days). Bulk-promoting all 50 simultaneously creates auto-vs-manual competition chaos. Should I always pause the auto campaign once I’ve harvested? No. Auto campaigns continue to discover new terms. The pattern is: harvest a term → add it as a manual keyword → add the harvested term as a campaign-level negative on the auto campaign. The auto keeps discovering, the manual exploits. Can I trust the candidate ROAS for promotion decisions? Mostly. The 7-day data is fairly stable (the 14d attribution window means a few late-landing conversions could improve ROAS further). For marginal candidates (ROAS 3.0-3.5×), wait an extra week before promoting; for clear winners (ROAS > 5×), promote immediately.

​
Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Harvest Queue (ready to promote) is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Amazon Ads and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.