Amazon ad management, matched to the size of the job

Should I hire an Amazon PPC agency or use software?

Decide who will do the work each week, and know that there are three options, not two. An agency’s people do the work; software helps your own team do it; a full-service autonomous system does the whole job itself, with models running the account and people reviewing it.

1. 01
   Software fits whensomeone on your team owns Amazon ads and has hours for them every week, and you want your team to make every call. The tool makes that person faster; it doesn’t do the job for them.
2. 02
   An agency fits whennobody in-house has the time, you want one team to cover campaigns, reporting and often listings and creative, and you are paying for people’s hours.
3. 03
   A full-service autonomous system fits whenyou want the whole job done, every relevant search priced every hour, without your team operating a tool or paying for the hours it would take people to do it.
4. 04
   A mix fits whenan in-house lead sets the strategy and wants someone else to do the daily work.

Whichever you choose, the quality of the decisions matters more than the fee. A few points of ad spend saved on fees is small next to a month of bids set above what clicks are worth (how to work out what a click is worth).

Is there an option between an Amazon PPC agency and software?

Yes: a full-service autonomous system, and Laurence is one. Like an agency, it does the whole job, so your team has nothing to operate; unlike an agency, models run the account and people review rather than operate, so bids are repriced every hour instead of when someone has time.

It is not PPC software either. Software is a tool your team runs: it applies the rules your team writes and shows your team what to change. A full-service system finds the searches, launches the campaigns, sets the bids, negatives and budgets, and reports what it did and why, and a person reviews the work. How the three compare, job by job, is in the table below.

How much work does an Amazon ads account take each week?

More than most brands expect. In the median store we run, 1,907 different searches got a Sponsored Products click each week and 511 of them led to an order, and each one is its own question: is a click from this search worth what it costs?

• Half the spend sat in the long tail. The 50 costliest searches took just over half of a typical week’s spend. In 16 of the 17 stores, at least a quarter of the week’s spend went to searches outside its top 50.
• The list changed every week. 56% of a week’s searches had no click in the four weeks before it. Together they took a fifth of the week’s spend and brought 14% of its orders.
• Reading it is two working days. At 30 seconds a search, one week’s 1,907 searches take about 16 hours to read, before a single bid changes.

This is where the three options part ways. With software, the 1,907 searches are a list your team works through with the tool’s rules; with an agency, they are hours its people bill, and nobody judges every one by hand each week; a full-service autonomous system prices every relevant search and reprices its bids every hour. Whoever you hire, ask how the long tail is handled, not only who looks after the top 50.

What does an Amazon PPC agency do?

An agency runs your Amazon ads with its people’s time: they build the campaigns, choose keywords and negative keywords, set bids and budgets, and report on results, usually with software of their own. What varies most is how often someone works in your account and how senior that person is.

• Campaigns: structure, ad types (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, sometimes Amazon DSP) and launches for new products (what each ad type is for).
• Keywords: research, harvesting search terms that convert, and negatives for the ones that don’t (how to find Amazon ad keywords).
• Bids and budgets: changed by people, by the agency’s tools, or both (how to pace an Amazon ads budget).
• Reporting: a weekly or monthly report and a call with an account manager.
• Often more: listing copy, images, A+ content and video, priced in or charged separately.

What does Amazon PPC software do?

Amazon PPC software is a tool your team operates. It connects to your Amazon Ads account, changes bids, budgets and keywords by the rules or targets your team sets, and reports on the results; your team still decides the targets, which products to push, which searches to cut and what to do when results move. That is the difference from an agency or a full-service system: with software, the work and the decisions stay with your team.

1. 01
   Bid-rule toolsapply rules your team writes, such as “lower the bid when ACOS stays above target after enough clicks”, across every keyword, on a schedule.
2. 02
   All-in-one seller suitesadd an ads module, run by your team, to product research, listing and inventory tools.
3. 03
   Retail media platformsrun ads across several retailers for larger in-house teams, often with a managed service sold on top.
4. 04
   Amazon’s own toolscome with the console at no extra cost, such as dynamic bidding by placement (which setting to use) and budget rules, and your team sets them too.

A rule is only as good as the target behind it. A tool that holds every keyword to one target ACOS treats a search that converts at 30% like one that converts at 5%; the bidding guide shows why one target is a weak way to bid.

What is the difference between an Amazon PPC agency, software and a full-service autonomous system?

Who does each job. An agency’s people do it and you pay for their time; with software, your own team does it and you pay for the tool and the salaries; with Laurence, a full-service autonomous system, models do it and a strategist reviews it, and your team does none of the operating.

How much does an Amazon PPC agency cost?

Usually a share of your monthly ad spend with a monthly minimum, or a flat retainer. In the published price lists of four agencies, read on November 10, 2026, fees ran between 5% and 15% of ad spend, with minimums from $975 to $2,500 a month, and some add a one-time setup fee.

• 5% of ad spend, at least $2,500 a month.
• 7% of ad spend or $2,500 a month, whichever is higher.
• 10% of the previous month’s ad spend, at least $1,250 a month, plus a one-time setup fee of $500 to $2,000.
• 15% of ad spend or $975 a month, whichever is higher, at a full-service marketing agency.

The fee comes on top of your ad spend, which you pay to Amazon (what Amazon ads cost per click and order). A share-of-spend fee grows with spend even when the work does not, and pays the agency more for spending more; a retainer stays flat. Some agencies charge a share of sales or a bonus instead: ask how sales are counted, because ad-attributed sales include branded searches you might have won anyway.

How much does Amazon PPC software cost?

A monthly subscription, usually tiered by how much you spend on ads, plus the time of the people on your team who operate it. In the published price lists of three PPC tools, read on November 10, 2026, prices ran from $149 to $1,830 a month, and some tools add a share of ad spend above a threshold.

• $149 a month billed annually, or $179 monthly, for up to $10,000 of monthly ad spend; larger plans add 3% of ad spend above $10,000 to a quoted base fee, at a retail ads platform.
• $275 a month for up to $5,000 of ad spend, rising by tier to $1,830 a month for up to $1.5 million, at a bid-rule tool.
• From $1,499 a month, billed annually, for an enterprise plan covering $25,000 to $1 million of monthly ad spend, at an all-in-one seller suite.

The subscription is the smaller part of the cost. Software has no minimum fee and costs far less than an agency, but your team operates it: someone has to set its rules, read its reports and decide what to change, every week.

A worked example: fees on $30,000 a month of ad spend

The spend is hypothetical; the prices are the published ones above.

The cheapest agency here costs $1,840 a month more than the bid-rule tool, $22,080 a year. That gap is what you have to operate the tool: the hours of the person on your team who reads the searches, sets the rules and makes the calls.

When does running Amazon ads in-house make sense?

When Amazon is central enough to your business to pay for a person who knows its ads well, and that person has the hours. An in-house specialist with software gives you the most hands-on control and keeps what they learn inside the company.

• It fits a brand with steady ad spend, a catalog where product knowledge changes the bid (margins, launches, stock), and ads tied closely to pricing and promotions.
• It strains when one person carries the account: holidays, a resignation or a busy launch month leave nobody watching, and a week’s long tail is more than one person reads.
• A common split: an in-house lead owns the strategy and the numbers, and software, an agency or a full-service system does the daily work.

Can software replace an Amazon PPC agency?

Only if someone on your team takes over the agency’s job. Software applies the rules it is given; choosing those rules, what a click is worth for each product, which searches to cut and when a change in results means something is work your team still does, because your team operates the tool.

Without that person, software keeps running last quarter’s rules. If the aim is to have the whole job done without operating anything, that is what a full-service autonomous system is for.

What should I ask an Amazon PPC agency before hiring one?

Ask who will do the work, how they decide a bid, and what you keep if you leave.

• Who works on my account each week, and how many other accounts do they run?
• How often do bids and budgets change, and does a person or a rule change them?
• How do you decide a bid: from a target ACOS, or from each product’s margin and CVR?
• Do you report branded and non-branded searches separately?
• Will the campaigns run in my own Amazon Ads account, with me as the admin?
• Can I see every change you make, and why you made it?
• What does the fee cover (ad types, Amazon DSP, listings, creative), and how does it change as spend grows?
• What is the notice period, and what happens to the campaigns if we part ways?

Ask the same questions of any full-service system, Laurence included. Amazon keeps a directory of agencies and tools that work with Amazon Ads (Amazon Ads); use it as a list to start from, then ask these questions.

How do I know if my Amazon PPC agency or software is working?

Look at the profit your ads add, not at ACOS alone (what ACOS measures). Compare total sales and profit, ads and organic together, with the same products before the change, and split branded searches from non-branded ones.

Branded searches are the easiest way to make ACOS look better: in the accounts we run, branded clicks converted 1.9 times as often as non-branded ones, so moving spend toward your own brand name lowers a blended ACOS while adding few new customers (how ACOS drifts away from new sales).

• TACOS: total ad spend divided by total sales. If it falls while total sales hold or grow, ads are earning their keep (what a good TACOS is).
• Non-branded share: the share of ad spend and ad sales from non-branded searches, where new customers come from.
• Profit after ad spend: total profit, not ad-attributed sales, before and after the change.
• A cleaner test: change one group of products or one marketplace and compare it with the ones you left alone over the same weeks.

Who owns my Amazon ad account and campaigns if I switch?

You should. Run your ads in your own Amazon Ads account, keep the admin role yourself, and add your agency or tool as a user: Amazon lets an account’s admins give each user access to the whole console or only parts of it (Amazon Ads), so you can take access back without moving a campaign.

If an agency runs your ads in an account it owns, the campaigns and their history can stay with it when you leave. Ask before you sign.

How do I switch Amazon agencies or tools without losing sales?

Overlap, don’t restart. Keep the old campaigns running while the new team builds its own, move products over one group at a time, and pause the old campaigns on a product only once the new ones are serving it.

• Save the history first: download your search term and campaign reports before access changes hands.
• Keep what works: carry over the searches that convert and the negative keywords that stop waste (when to add negatives).
• One campaign per product and search: when the new campaigns go live on a product, pause the old ones on it, so results don’t split between two sets of campaigns.
• Compare like with like: judge the new team on the same products and the same measures as the old one.
• Close the door: remove the old agency’s users and disconnect the old tool once the move is done.

How Laurence differs from Amazon PPC software

Laurence is a full-service autonomous system, not a PPC tool: an AI-enabled service that runs your Amazon ads end to end and delivers the result, rather than software your team operates. Each job a tool hands to your team, Laurence does itself.

• The long tail: the 1,907 searches a week in the median store are what a tool asks a person to work through. Laurence prices every relevant search every hour, including searches with little data of their own (how Laurence runs campaigns).
• Bids: a tool applies the rules your team writes. Laurence prices each click from your product’s margin and its CVR at each placement, reprices bids every hour on Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display, and recalculates Sponsored Products placement adjustments every night (how Laurence values a click).
• Keywords and campaigns: a tool suggests keywords for your team to add. Laurence maps the searches in your markets and launches its own campaigns (how Laurence maps your markets).
• Negatives and the branded split: a tool leaves the search term report to your team. Laurence sets negatives at launch and runs branded, competitor and non-branded searches in separate campaigns once your brand terms are set.
• Budgets: a tool gives your team budget rules to set. Laurence sets campaign budgets inside the budget you agree, and can raise a profitable campaign’s budget for the rest of a day when it runs low.
• Reporting: a tool gives your team dashboards to read. Laurence shows each bid change with its reason, sends a weekly report, and answers questions through Ask Laurence on the platform or in Slack (reporting).
• Beyond search ads: Laurence also runs Amazon DSP on its own seat and Meta ads in beta for select invited customers, and covers listing optimization, repeat purchase value, inventory tracking and deal planning.

It isn’t an agency either. Models run every account and people review rather than operate: a Laurence strategist sets the strategy and guardrails with you, reviews every keyword set before it goes live and reviews what the models did, so the work never waits for someone’s hours. Short answers about how it works are in the Laurence FAQ.

• Your account: campaigns run in your own Amazon Ads account. If you stop, Laurence pauses and archives its campaigns and leaves yours as they were, or you can keep its campaigns running yourself.
• Alongside your team: Laurence can run some marketplaces or product lines while your team or agency runs the others.
• Pricing: Laurence doesn’t publish a price list. Pricing follows the products and marketplaces it runs, and you agree it on a call before anything launches.

SPYLT came to Laurence from an agency and Pit Viper from in-house management; read the SPYLT and Pit Viper stories.

How we measured this. Amazon’s Sponsored Products search term reports for 17 US stores on the Laurence platform, the twelve weeks from August 12 to November 3, 2026. A search is one customer search term, case ignored, branded and non-branded together; rows for product pages, where the search term is an ASIN, are left out. Orders are the orders Amazon attributes to the ads at its default window. A store counts with at least eight full weeks of data and 100 orders; the week a store stopped reporting is left out. The four-week comparison uses only weeks with four earlier weeks of data. Each figure is computed per store and week, summarized as the store’s median week, then across stores; no store is named. Fees are from the price lists linked in the text, read on November 10, 2026.