What are negative exact keywords on Amazon?
Negative exact keywords on Amazon PPC tell Amazon to block your ad whenever a shopper's search term is an exact match to your negative keyword, preventing you from bidding on that specific query while leaving all other related searches unaffected. When you add a term as a negative exact keyword, Amazon will suppress your ad only when the shopper's full search query matches that keyword. The match is word-for-word but order-independent: if your negative exact is 'bamboo cutting board set', a search for 'bamboo cutting board set' is blocked, but 'large bamboo cutting board set' and 'bamboo cutting board sets' are not. This precision makes negative exact the right tool when you have identified a specific query that consistently wastes budget and you are confident the block will not catch any nearby searches that do convert. Standard exact match keywords target only that precise query and very close variants, helping you focus spend. Negative exact works in reverse: it excludes that specific query from triggering your ad. Both are precise instruments, but they operate on opposite sides of the bid auction. A useful way to think about it: positive exact says 'only bid here'; negative exact says 'never bid here'. You can use both on different terms within the same campaign without conflict. Negative exact is the right choice when you can pinpoint a specific query that is clearly off-target. If you sell bamboo cutting boards for kitchen use and keep appearing for 'bamboo cutting board for school project', adding that phrase as a negative exact will block it without disturbing 'bamboo cutting board large' or 'bamboo cutting board set of 3'. Negative exact is also useful when a competitor's brand name keeps triggering your broad or phrase match keywords. Adding competitor names as negative exact prevents accidental spend on branded traffic, unless you are deliberately running a conquesting strategy. Navigate to your campaign in Seller Central, open the ad group, and go to the Negative Keywords tab. Select 'Negative Exact' from the match type dropdown, enter the query you want to block, and save. Changes take effect within a few hours. You can add negative exact keywords at campaign level, affecting all ad groups within the campaign, or at ad group level, affecting only that ad group. Campaign-level negatives are useful when the exclusion applies broadly; ad group-level negatives allow finer control when the same keyword is relevant in one ad group but not another.
Negative exact keywords on Amazon PPC block your ad when a shopper's search matches your keyword word-for-word, preventing wasted spend on mismatched queries.