SOP: weekly search-term harvest (10+ clicks, 0 orders)

Every Monday (or your desk day)

1. Export Sponsored Products search-term report (last 7 and last 30 days). Unified Reporting after you migrate.
2. Tag each query: Sold (keep / promote), Waste (10+ clicks, 0 orders), Too new (leave in discovery), Brand (defense layer, not harvest).
3. Promote converters into an exact campaign of their own at a bid under break-even ACOS.
4. Negate waste at the right level (campaign vs ad group) so discovery stays cheap and exact stays clean.
5. Write the count in the founder log: N promoted, N negated, $ waste removed. Four minutes.

Do not

• Dump 4,000 Cerebro rows into the title.
• Mix brand, generic, and competitor in one harvest campaign.
• Let Xnurta / Flywheel / Cobalt harvest into a blended auto campaign.
• Skip a week because “Q4 is busy.” Q4 is when waste is most expensive.

Related: Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout vs the search-term report and the Keyword Intelligence workstream.

Why this is a blog-length SOP

Most “Amazon PPC tips” posts stop at “negate waste.” This SOP is the weekly loop the desk actually runs. Default waste rule: 10+ clicks, 0 orders → negative. Tighten when CPCs are high. Loosen only on brand-new listings still in learning. Source of truth: the search-term report (Unified Reporting after you migrate). Helium 10 Cerebro and Jungle Scout Keyword Scout do not get a vote after you have paid data. Tools suggest. This page decides.

How to confirm the export is the right one

Sponsored Products search-term report, last 7 days and last 30 days. After unified reporting GA, Measurement and Reporting → Reporting with the same grain. Match campaign names to the structure you actually run (exact / phrase / auto). If the file has no search-term column, you downloaded targeting. Start over. Codex/Cursor can tag rows; they cannot choose the floor.

Tagging rules that survive Q4

Sold: keep and promote into exact at a bid under break-even ACOS. Waste: 10+ clicks, 0 orders, negate at the right level (campaign vs ad group) so discovery stays cheap. Too new: leave in discovery. Brand: defense layer, not harvest. Competitor: only if contribution still clears after you steal the click — often it does not. Write N promoted, N negated, $ waste removed in the founder log. Four minutes. Skip a week because “Q4 is busy” and you will pay Q4 CPCs for January junk.

What not to do

• Dump thousands of research keywords into the title.
• Mix brand, generic, and competitor in one harvest campaign.
• Let Xnurta / Flywheel / Cobalt harvest into blended auto.
• Use 10 clicks as if it were Amazon policy. It is an operator rule.

Related: Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout vs search terms, SQP weekly read, unified reporting.

Founder log (four minutes)

Write N promoted, N negated, and dollar waste removed. That is the whole weekly note. Skip a week because “Q4 is busy” and you will pay Q4 CPCs for January junk. After unified reporting, confirm the export still has a search-term column — standardized names can hide a targeting file. Daily harvest is for a launch or a broken account. Quarterly cleanup is how ACOS creeps back. Tighten the 10-click rule when the dollar waste is obvious; clicks are a proxy, dollars are the floor.