Hey everyone,

I’m hoping to get some outside perspective on an issue I’m troubleshooting with one of my established products.

The Setup:

I have a mature SKU with a pretty diversified ad structure. Normally, I spend around $120-$140 per day across 8-10 campaigns.

  • The two core campaigns are SP Broad and Phrase match on my biggest head terms. They have a $25 budget each and historically always overspent by the end of the day.

  • The supporting campaigns (exact match on head/medium/long-tail terms, ASIN, and category targeting) each have $10-$15 budgets.

  • I’ve paused all auto campaigns. The search terms I was getting were mostly irrelevant, tanking my ACOS, so I killed them to stop the wasted spend.

The Problem:

Out of the blue, with no major account or listing changes, my daily ad spend has been cut in half, now sitting around $70-$80. The two core campaigns, which used to blow through their $25 budgets, are now struggling to spend even $10 a day. Some of the supporting campaigns are spending normally, others are barely hitting $5. This inconsistency is absolutely killing my conversion stability and is starting to drag down my organic rank and sales.

My Initial Diagnosis & Actions:

  1. Competition for Top of Search: My first guess was that competitors raised their bids, pushing me out of my usual placements. My response was to increase bids (by about $0.20 to $0.40) and adjust my bidding strategy—cranking up the bid adjustments for top-of-search—to try and win back those key spots.

  2. Market Trends: I compared week-over-week data. Even with the lower spend, my total impressions are up about 15%. This tells me the market demand is still there, maybe even growing. This makes me think my listing just isn’t competitive enough for the better placements right now, and my bids can’t keep up.

  3. Listing Health: Could it be an issue with the listing itself? It's an older product with a solid history, so a sudden drop in relevance or conversion rate seems less likely, but I’m not ruling it out.

  4. Internal Cannibalization: I have a similar SKU (priced lower) that I also sell. I’m wondering if that’s pulling traffic/sales away from this one. But then I think, with all the external competition out there, is my own product really the main culprit here?

Results of My Adjustments:

After increasing bids, the overall daily spend has crept back up to around $110. But the pacing is completely off. I used to wake up and see $80-$90 spent by 9 AM. Now, I’m looking at closer to $60 spent by that time. The main issue persists: my core campaigns are still inconsistent.

My Main Question:

Did I not raise my bids enough? Or is my higher-level diagnosis wrong and I’m treating the symptom instead of the real problem?

If you’ve run into a similar wall where your go-to campaigns just stopped spending, what was the root cause for you? Any insights or suggestions on what to check next would be massively appreciated.

Thanks.