How the Ads Optimiser decides when to NEGATE a search term

The Ads Optimiser monitors every search term your campaigns spend money on. When a search term accumulates enough spend without generating a single order, the engine recommends adding it as a negative keyword — a NEGATE action. This article explains the logic behind that decision, how your product settings control the threshold, and what happens when you accept, reject, or snooze the recommendation.

Why it matters

Every rupee or dollar spent on a search term that never converts is profit lost. Left unchecked, wasteful search terms quietly erode your margins across dozens or hundreds of ad groups. The NEGATE recommendation is a disciplined, data-driven way to stop the bleeding — it identifies terms that have already spent more than they could ever earn back on a single sale, and flags them for removal.

Without this mechanism, sellers either have to manually comb through search-term reports or accept a steadily rising ACoS. The Ads Optimiser automates the analysis so you can act on it in one click.

How it works

The negate threshold formula

The engine uses a simple formula to decide when a search term has spent too much:

Negate Threshold = Selling Price × Margin Percentage

Both values come from your Products tab. The selling price is the price you have configured for the product, and the margin percentage is your profit margin after Amazon fees, returns, and product cost.

For example, if a product sells at ₹599 with a 30% margin, the negate threshold is:

599 × 0.30 = 179.70

If the cumulative spend on any single search term exceeds ₹179.70 and that term has produced zero orders, the engine flags it for NEGATE.

Why margin is the right anchor

The threshold represents the profit you would earn from a single conversion. If a search term has already spent more than that profit — and has not generated even one order — it is mathematically impossible for a future conversion to recover the loss. Continuing to spend on that term only deepens the deficit.

This makes the threshold neither arbitrary nor aggressive. It is simply the breakeven point for one sale.

How margin affects sensitivity

Your margin percentage directly controls how patient or aggressive the engine is:

Higher margin → higher negate threshold → the engine allows more spend to accumulate before flagging a term. This gives slower-converting but potentially valuable terms more room to prove themselves.
Lower margin → lower negate threshold → the engine flags terms sooner. Sellers in low-margin categories will see more NEGATE suggestions because there is less profit available to justify continued spend.

If you sell in a category with razor-thin margins, expect a higher volume of NEGATE recommendations. That is the engine working correctly — there is simply less room for unproductive spend.

Where the threshold value comes from

Each product on the Products tab displays a calculated Negate Threshold based on the selling price, margin percentage, Amazon fees percentage, and return rate percentage you have entered. This is the value the engine uses when evaluating search terms for that product.

You can also edit the negate threshold manually on the Products tab if you want to override the calculated value — for instance, to give a newly launched product more room to gather data before terms are negated.

The lookback window

The engine sums cumulative spend per search term within a configurable lookback window. The default is 14 days. You can adjust this in Settings. A shorter window makes the engine more reactive; a longer window gives search terms more time to convert before being flagged.

Match type and scope

When the engine generates a NEGATE recommendation, it chooses Negative Exact match by default. This blocks only the precise search term — not close variations, not broader phrases. The intent is surgical: remove only what is proven to waste spend without accidentally blocking terms that might still be useful.

The negative keyword is also scoped to the specific ad group, not the entire campaign. This prevents the negation from accidentally blocking the same term in other ad groups where it might be performing well.

How rules interact with engine suggestions

If you have an active Negative Targeting rule on a campaign, the engine will skip NEGATE suggestions for that campaign entirely. The rule takes precedence, and the engine defers to it. This avoids conflicting actions where both a rule and a suggestion try to manage the same search terms.

When to use it

The NEGATE recommendation appears on your suggestion cards whenever the engine's evaluation criteria are met. You will see a Diagnosis column on each card explaining why the term was flagged — typically confirming that cumulative spend exceeded the threshold with zero orders.

You have three options when a NEGATE suggestion appears:

Action	What it does	When to use it
Accept	Adds the search term as a negative exact keyword in the relevant ad group on Amazon.	When you agree the term is wasteful and want to stop spending on it.
Reject	Dismisses the suggestion permanently.	When the search term is strategically important and you want to keep paying for impressions despite the spend — for example, a branded term or a term you know converts over a longer buying cycle.
Snooze	Hides the suggestion until new data comes in.	When you want to wait one more evaluation cycle to see if orders materialise before making a decision.

Note: There is no editable bid for NEGATE suggestions. Negation is a binary action — the term is either blocked or it is not.

What happens when you accept

When you accept a NEGATE recommendation, the following sequence occurs:

The system sends a request to Amazon's Advertising API with the search term, campaign ID, and ad group ID.
The negative keyword is created in the appropriate ad group (using the SP or SB negative keywords endpoint, depending on the campaign type).
The action is logged in your change log with full before-and-after state for auditability.
The suggestion status updates to Accepted on your dashboard.
From the next auction onwards, Amazon stops serving ads for that search term in the affected ad group.

The effect is immediate from Amazon's next auction cycle. You do not need to do anything further.

Key takeaways

The negate threshold is tied directly to your product's profit per sale — not an arbitrary number.
Keep your selling price and margin percentage accurate on the Products tab. Incorrect values lead to thresholds that are too high (letting waste accumulate) or too low (flagging terms prematurely).
Use Reject sparingly and intentionally. If you reject a suggestion, the engine will not raise it again.
Use Snooze when you are uncertain. It costs nothing and lets the next data cycle inform your decision.
If you prefer to manage negatives through rules, set up a Negative Targeting rule — the engine will step back and let the rule handle it.

Article #31
Article #34
Article #35