Move search terms from Auto to Manual

On this page you can find the search terms that perform well in your Auto campaigns and build candidates to carve them out as keywords in your Manual campaigns. Use it to concentrate winning search terms into Manual, playing to the division of labor where Auto is for discovery and Manual is for precision.

About this page

Item	Details
What you can do	List candidates to promote from an Auto campaign’s search terms into Manual-campaign keywords, complete with a recommended match type and recommended bid
Applies to	Sponsored Products (SP)
Data & connection needed	The connected account’s search-term and campaign performance data (no extra setup required)
Scope	Analysis and proposal only (read-only). The prompts on this page only build promotion candidates and a migration plan; they do not change ad settings. The actual additions to Manual and the exclusions on the Auto side are carried out through the approval flows on the related pages

Terms used on this page

• Auto campaign (automatic targeting) … a serving method where Amazon automatically chooses the search terms. It plays the “discovery” role of picking up search terms you have not noticed yet.
• Manual campaign (manual targeting) … a serving method where the advertiser specifies the keywords. It plays the “precision” role of concentrating bids on terms that clearly get bought.
• search terms … the words shoppers actually type into Amazon.
• keywords … the words the advertiser registers on the ad. They are distinct from search terms. Registering a search term that performed well in Auto as a keyword in Manual is what we call “promotion”.
• match type … the matching condition of a keyword. Three kinds: Exact / Phrase / Broad.
• negative keywords … a setting that registers search terms you do not want your ad to show against, removing them from the serving pool.
• overlapping delivery … the state where the same search term is picked up by both Auto and Manual, making your own campaigns compete on bids internally. You prevent it by adding a promoted search term as a negative keyword on the Auto side.
• CVR (conversion rate) … the share of clicks that led to a purchase. Higher is more efficient.
• ACoS … Advertising Cost of Sales: ad spend ÷ ad-attributed sales. Lower is more efficient.

How Auto and Manual divide the work

Auto plays the discovery role of “picking up search terms you have not noticed”, and Manual plays the precision role of “concentrating bids on search terms that clearly get bought”. The standard play is to move winning search terms out of Auto into Manual, and to add the same search term as a negative keyword on the Auto side to prevent overlapping delivery.

When to use this

• You want to carve search terms that are selling in an Auto campaign out into keywords in a Manual campaign
• For a new launch you want to see a wide range of candidates under loose conditions; for existing operations you want to pick up only the sure terms under strict conditions
• You want to move high-converting search terms into Manual and, at the same time, exclude them on the Auto side to prevent overlapping delivery
• You want to sort, once a month, the high-converting terms not yet promoted from the terms already in Manual whose bids you want to strengthen

Before you run

• Connected account … if you handle multiple accounts, check first that the target account is correct.
• Target period … “the most recent completed week”, “the past 30 days”, and so on. Same-day and previous-day data can still be unconfirmed, so a recent completed period is safest.
• Destination and exclusion campaign names … in Prompt 3, replace the destination Manual campaign name and the Auto-side campaign name that receives the exclusions with your actual campaign names.
• If you register a target ACoS and the like in Set targets for sales, ad spend, and ACoS, the judgment criteria are used automatically.

Prompt cheat sheet

Goal	What you learn / what gets built	Changes	Prompt
Find Manual-promotion candidate search terms with standard conditions	A list of promotion candidates with recommended match type and bid	No change	Prompt 1
Loosen or tighten conditions to change the range of candidates	A list of promotion candidates under your conditions	No change	Prompt 2
Build a plan to move high-converting search terms into Manual and exclude them on the Auto side	An end-to-end move + exclusion plan	No change	Prompt 3
Sort monthly high-converting terms into promotion and bid strengthening	A list classifying promotion and bid-increase candidates	No change	Prompt 4

This page goes only as far as “building candidates and plans”

As the “Changes” column of the cheat sheet shows — all “No change” — this page goes only as far as building promotion candidates and a migration plan. Actually adding keywords to Manual is done in Create Sponsored Products (SP) campaigns, and excluding them on the Auto side is done in the approval flow of Add negative keywords (essential to prevent overlapping delivery).

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Prompt 1: Find Manual-promotion candidate search terms with standard conditions

Lists, with the evidence behind each, the Auto-campaign search terms worth promoting to Manual-campaign keywords.

When to use — when you want to sweep up the search terms performing well in Auto under standard conditions.

What you need — the target period (defaults to the most recent completed week).

Using the most recent completed week of data, detect candidates from the
Auto campaign's search terms to promote into the Manual campaign.
- 30 or more clicks
- 2 or more orders
- CVR of 5% or higher
Include the recommended match type and recommended bid as well.

What you can change — the target period / click count (e.g. 30 or more) / order count (e.g. 2 or more) / conversion rate (CVR, e.g. 5% or higher). Adjust by rewording the numbers as “N or more clicks”, “N or more orders”, “CVR of N% or higher”.

What you get back — a table of search term × recommended match type (Exact / Phrase / Broad) × recommended bid × observed CVR × order count × whether an Auto-side negative-keyword registration is needed.

Changes — analysis and proposal only. Does not change ad settings.

Next steps — additions to Manual are carried out in Create Sponsored Products (SP) campaigns, and Auto-side exclusions in the approval flow of Add negative keywords (essential to prevent overlapping delivery).

Known issue

When detecting promotion candidates, the same search term can appear multiple times (up to three) as a duplicate (being fixed). Duplicates are removed automatically when the change is applied, so there is no operational impact, but the apparent count is higher than the real one.

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Prompt 2: Adjust conditions to change the range of candidates

Changes how loose or strict the conditions are to adjust the range of promotion candidates. Switch, depending on your goal, between looking broadly with loose conditions for a new launch and extracting only the sure search terms with strict conditions for additions to existing operations.

When to use — when you want to change the range of candidates to fit your goal: broad in the launch phase, only sure terms in mature operations.

What you need — the target period (defaults to the most recent completed week) and the conditions that fit your goal.

Using the most recent completed week of data, detect candidates to promote
from the Auto campaign's search terms into the Manual campaign under the
following conditions:
- 10 or more clicks
- 1 or more orders
- CVR of 3% or higher
Include the recommended match type and recommended bid as well.

What you can change — the click / order / conversion rate (CVR) thresholds. To look broadly, loosen them (e.g. 10 or more clicks, 1 or more orders, CVR 3% or higher); to see only sure terms, tighten them (e.g. 50 or more clicks, 5 or more orders, CVR 10% or higher) by rewording the numbers.

What you get back — the same six-column table as Prompt 1, with a note on the conditions you entered and the intent (broad / standard / strict). With loose conditions the recommendations lean toward Broad / Phrase, and with strict conditions toward Exact, adjusted automatically.

Changes — analysis and proposal only. Does not change ad settings.

Next steps — as with Prompt 1, additions to Manual are carried out in Create Sponsored Products (SP) campaigns, and Auto-side exclusions in the approval flow of Add negative keywords.

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Prompt 3: Build a plan to move high-converting search terms into Manual and exclude them on the Auto side

Identifies the high-converting search terms among your Auto search terms, moves them into the Manual campaign as Exact Match, and at the same time adds the same terms as negative keywords on the Auto campaign — an end-to-end migration plan.

When to use — when you want to concentrate search terms that are clearly getting bought into Manual and clean up the overlapping delivery with Auto in one pass.

What you need — the target period (defaults to the past 30 days), the destination Manual campaign name, and the Auto-side campaign name that receives the exclusions.

From the past 30 days of Auto search terms, identify high-converting search
terms with 3 or more orders and an ACoS of 20% or lower.
Build a plan to move them into the 'Manual-Brand' campaign as Exact Match,
and add them to the 'Auto-Discovery' campaign as Negative Phrase.

What you can change — the target period / order count (e.g. 3 or more) / ACoS (e.g. 20% or lower) / the destination Manual campaign name (Manual-Brand in the example) / the Auto-side campaign name that receives the exclusions (Auto-Discovery in the example). Replace the campaign names with your actual names, and reword the conditions as “N or more orders”, “ACoS of N% or lower”.

What you get back — a table of the keywords to move × recommended bid × Auto-side exclusion proposals (a proposal to exclude them as Phrase match).

Changes — analysis and proposal only. Does not change ad settings.

Next steps — after approval, additions to Manual are carried out in Create Sponsored Products (SP) campaigns, and Auto-side exclusions in the approval flow of Add negative keywords, in order.

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Prompt 4: Sort monthly high-converting terms into promotion and bid strengthening

At monthly granularity, identifies the high-converting terms with many orders and sorts them: those not yet in Manual as promotion candidates, and those already in Manual as bid-increase candidates.

When to use — when you want to sort, once a month, the search terms you should promote from the existing keywords whose bids you should strengthen.

What you need — the target month (defaults to the previous month).

For 2026-04, identify high-converting keywords with 4 or more orders.
Classify the ones not yet made into Manual campaigns as promotion
candidates, and the ones already made into them as bid-increase candidates.

What you can change — the target month (replace with the month you want to analyze; defaults to the previous month) / the order-count threshold (4 or more is a good baseline for a monthly view; reword as “N or more orders”).

What you get back — a table of keyword × order count × ACoS × existing serving status × recommended action (promote / raise bid).

Changes — analysis and proposal only. Does not change ad settings.

Next steps — promotion candidates are carried out in the approval flow of Create Sponsored Products (SP) campaigns, and bid-increase candidates in that of Adjust bids.

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Full promotion flow

1. Detect promotion candidates on this page (Prompts 1-4)
   ↓
2. Add keywords to the Manual campaign in
   [Create Sponsored Products (SP) campaigns](/en/prompts/campaign-creation/) (approval flow)
   ↓
3. Register the same search terms as
   [negative keywords](/en/prompts/negative-keywords/) on the Auto campaign (approval flow)
   (prevents overlapping delivery between Auto and Manual)
   ↓
4. Optimize the promoted Manual keywords with
   [Adjust bids](/en/prompts/bid-optimization/)

Related categories

• Create Sponsored Products (SP) campaigns — Adding keywords to a Manual campaign
• Add negative keywords — Auto-side exclusion registration after promotion (prevents overlapping delivery)
• Adjust bids — Optimizing promoted Manual keywords
• Find high-performing keywords and product targeting — Surfacing additional candidates, including promotion candidates
• Analyze high-performing search patterns with N-grams — Anonymization constraints and interpretation guide for Auto-derived search terms