What is Auto Targeting Groups?
Amazon Automatic Targeting Groups
The four groups inside an auto campaign: close match, loose match, substitutes and complements, each bid separately.
An automatic campaign does not have one setting. It has four targeting groups, each of which can carry its own bid and can be paused independently. Treating an auto campaign as a single dial is the most common way its budget is wasted.
The four groups
| Group | API clause | What it matches |
|---|---|---|
| Close match | queryHighRelMatches | Queries Amazon judges highly relevant to your listing |
| Loose match | queryBroadRelMatches | Queries loosely related to your listing |
| Substitutes | asinSubstituteRelated | Detail pages of products a shopper might buy instead |
| Complements | asinAccessoryRelated | Detail pages of products bought alongside yours |
The first two are query driven and behave like keyword targeting. The second two are placement driven and behave like product targeting. They belong to the same campaign but they are not the same activity, and their reports read differently: close and loose return a shopper query, substitutes and complements return an ASIN.
Why the split matters
Because the four are bid separately, an auto campaign can be shaped rather than simply switched on or off. Close match usually deserves the highest bid of the four, since it is the group closest to a stated intent. Loose match is a discovery budget and should be priced as one. Substitutes competes for a shopper already reading a rival listing, so its economics track your price and review position. Complements is a cross-sell and is the group most often left running out of habit.
Worked example
Suppose an auto campaign is spending evenly across the four groups and the report shows orders concentrated in close match and substitutes. The instinct is to lower the campaign bid. The better move is to lower loose match and complements specifically, leave close match alone, and let the campaign keep the volume it was earning. A campaign level change would have taxed the two groups that were working.
Auto as a discovery engine
The output of an auto campaign is a list of queries and ASINs to promote into manual campaigns. The promotion gate is two or more orders on the same SKU, genuine relevance, and enough volume to justify separate management. One order is not evidence.
Do not negate a promoted term from the auto campaign by default. The source often keeps winning cheaper clicks, and the continuing data still informs bidding. Restrict negation to real budget pressure.
During a launch, auto campaigns are usually better introduced once the exact match structure is established rather than on day one, because early auto traffic scatters the relevance signal you are trying to concentrate. In Shurq's ad manager these rows arrive labelled by clause, for example Auto: close-match, so each group is priced and read on its own.
Examples
- →Lowering the loose match bid while leaving close match untouched
- →Pausing complements when the report shows spend but no cross-sell orders
- →Promoting a close match query to exact after two same SKU orders
Related Terms
Keyword Harvesting
Finding high-performing search terms from auto campaigns and adding them as targeted keywords.
Broad Match
The widest keyword match type: the words may appear in any order, alongside synonyms and related queries.
Product Targeting
Targeting individual ASINs so your ad can appear against those products rather than against a search term.
Search Term Report
Amazon report showing actual customer search queries that triggered your ads.
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