This article is covering:
✅ What Cost Control is
✅ How it impacts Seller Labs’ tools (bid changes and Ad Genius)
✅ How to disable Cost Control on Amazon
Cost Control on Sponsored Brands/Display Amazon Campaigns
What is Cost Control?
Amazon Advertising offers a feature called Cost Control for Sponsored Brands (SB) and Sponsored Display (SD) campaigns. According to Amazon’s documentation here, Cost Control allows advertisers to:
“Set your preferred average cost-per-click (CPC) for a Sponsored Brands or Sponsored Display campaign. Amazon will help you achieve that average CPC by automatically adjusting your bids in real time, with the goal of delivering results within your desired average CPC.”
In essence, Cost Control places a target average CPC cap across the campaign. Amazon dynamically lowers or raises bids to stay close to this target. This can help advertisers manage costs and achieve more predictable CPCs.
However, Cost Control does not guarantee delivery, impressions, or spend. If the market CPC is higher than your target, your ads might not serve as often—or at all—because Amazon will lower bids to avoid exceeding your set target.
How Cost Control Blocks Bid Change Actions in Ad Genius
Impact on Ad Genius Bid Changes
When Cost Control is enabled:
Amazon overrides manual bids. Even if you submit new bid amounts through Seller Labs tools, Amazon’s Cost Control logic can immediately override these bids with its own adjusted values to maintain the average CPC target.
Bid updates fail or get rejected. API calls attempting to change keyword or product target bids may be rejected or ignored by Amazon’s system because the campaign is under Cost Control. In many cases, the API will return errors stating that “Cost Control is enabled” and prevents bid changes.
Effect on Ad Genius Suggestions
Cost Control breaks compatibility with Seller Labs features that rely on bid optimization:
Ad Genius Bid Updates Suggestions. Many bid suggestions provided in Ad Genius suggestions calculate new optimal bid values based on performance metrics. Cost Control prevents these suggestions from being applied effectively because any bid changes are overridden.
When users apply changes from Ad Genius inside the Keywords tab, those actions trigger bid update API calls. Cost Control can block these updates or cause them to have no effect, defeating the purpose of Ad Genius optimizations.
Summary: With Cost Control active, Ad Genius cannot reliably modify bids, making optimization features largely ineffective for affected campaigns.
How to Disable Cost Control on Amazon
If you want to use Seller Labs bid automation or manual bid updates for your Sponsored Brands or Sponsored Display campaigns, you’ll need to turn off Cost Control. Here’s how:
Log into Amazon Ads Console.
Go to your Sponsored Brands or Sponsored Display campaigns list.
Find the campaign with Cost Control enabled.
Click the campaign name to open its settings.
Locate the Cost Control section. It is often under the Campaign Settings section.
Uncheck the checkbox and save your changes.
Once Cost Control is disabled:
Your bids remain manual.
Seller Labs tools can update bids via the API without Amazon overriding them.
Bid recommendations and Ad Genius optimizations will function as intended.
❗Important Note❗
Cost Control can be useful if you want Amazon to keep your average CPC predictable. However, if you rely on Seller Labs bid automation and optimizations, we strongly recommend disabling Cost Control to avoid conflicts that prevent bid adjustments and optimization efforts.
If you’re uncertain whether a campaign has Cost Control enabled, check directly in Amazon Ads Console under each campaign’s settings.
Summing Up
Cost Control in Amazon SB/SD campaigns caps your average CPC by auto-adjusting bids. This feature conflicts with Ad Genius’ bid changes and suggestions because it prevents bid updates from being applied. To use Seller Labs optimizations, disable Cost Control in your Amazon Ads Console.
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