When to Fire Your Amazon PPC Agency

When to Fire Your Amazon PPC Agency

One tough month doesn’t mean it’s time to change to a new Amazon PPC agency. Campaigns fluctuate and seasons shift.

Yet, often Amazon sellers make the mistake of sticking with underperforming agencies for six to 12 months because they don’t know the signs of structural problems. This delay is costly, as you’re paying management fees, funding ad spend that’s not being optimized, and losing ground to competitors whose advertising is working.

This guide lists eight specific warning signs that it’s time to fire your Amazon PPC agency and the transition plan so that you don’t lose momentum.

Why Brands Stay Too Long With an Amazon PPC Agency

Sunk cost thinking is the main reason why brands typically stay in a relationship with an agency for too long. They spent months building the relationship, and firing their Amazon PPC agency feels like throwing away everything they invested to get here.

What that mindset ignores is the continuing cost of staying. Each month you remain in a broken agency relationship is another month of underperformance, wasted ad spend, stalled organic rank, and budget going to campaigns that were never going to convert.

The 8 Warning Signs Your Amazon PPC Agency Needs to Go

Sign 1: You Can’t Get a Straight Answer About What Changed Last Week

If you ask your agency what specific changes were made to your account this week, it shouldn’t give you a dashboard link or use the term “continuous optimizations”.

A real answer will show where it made changes to the campaigns, the bid adjustments that were made, and the rationale behind those decisions. 

What’s more, an agency actively working on your portfolio can pull that data in minutes. If it can't, it made no changes or automated changes without a human review. Neither of these two scenarios reflects the daily management for which you’re paying.

Before discussing these issues with your agency, it’s worth checking the Campaign Manager by yourself. Focus on the past 14 business days, and filter by bid and campaign changes.

On most business days, a well-managed account will have activity that a specialist initiates. An account on autopilot will generate only system-generated entries.

The cost is high if your account is on autopilot. For a $30,000 per month account, the difference between daily and weekly optimization is an estimated $25,000 to $35,000 a year in wasted ad spend.

Verdict: You need to fire your agency now. This issue is a structural problem, not a communication one.

Sign 2: Your Agency Reports ACoS and Nothing Else

Agency reports typically show advertising cost of sales (ACoS), ad revenue, and ad spend. What they don't tell you is the total advertising cost of sales (TACoS) per ASIN and any mention of organic revenue trends. 

The issue with only using ACoS is that it doesn't have a feel for organic performance. As such, you're seeing half the picture and making decisions based on incomplete data. 

On paper, an account with ACoS holding steady at 22% can look perfectly healthy, while organic revenue drops month after month. By the time the damage shows up in total revenue, it has been declining for quarters.

This is what Onsen Secret found out the hard way. Its ACoS looked adequate, until TACoS-first reporting revealed the stall that was cutting into its profitability. The real picture was revealed, the account was restructured, and profits tripled.

This is why you need to do your number crunching before you call the agency. To determine your TACoS, you’ll need to pull 90 days of total ordered revenue from the Business Reports and compare it to 90 days of ad spend per ASIN from the Campaign Manager.

Verdict: If an agency isn’t tracking TACoS per ASIN, it’s providing you with a partial picture, and you need to fire them.

Sign 3: You’ve Had More Than One Account Manager in 12 Months

With every manager change, your account is losing strategic context. The new manager doesn't understand your seasonal patterns, the reason behind some keyword decisions, or the structural changes that you're working on.

A new manager will need weeks to rebuild the strategic context, during which time your account will suffer.

When an agency leader says the account manager is “fully briefed", they mean the account manager has read the handover document, not that they understand the reasoning behind the account’s structure.

One of the most significant complaints in Amazon agency reviews is the high turnover of managers. This truly reflects the company's work environment and compensation model, which are unlikely to change because of one client's complaint.

Sign 4: The Team Only Runs Sponsored Products

Sponsored Products is the foundation of Amazon advertising, but it’s only part of the picture. If your agency is still running Sponsored Products alone in 2026, it’s either lacking enough skills or working from a scope that’s too narrow.

Sponsored Brands puts your brand at the top of search results and helps build awareness among shoppers who are still deciding what to buy.

Sponsored Display takes the process a step further by retargeting shoppers who’ve already seen your products or spent time on competitor listings.

A proper, full-funnel Amazon PPC strategy should include at least three types of ads with budgets reflecting your catalog size and growth stage.

If a brand is spending a million dollars or more on Amazon and only running Sponsored Products, it’s almost certainly leaving money on the table in brand defense and upper funnel acquisition.

This is why you need to ask your agency for a written, full-funnel strategy that covers the three ad types and ask the team to explain the reasoning behind each budget allocation.

Verdict: Raise this issue first, give the agency 30 days to develop a plan, and then decide based on that plan.

Sign 5: Its Answer to Every Problem Is "Give It More Time"

When ACoS has been above break-even or the revenue flat for three months and the answer is "it takes time to optimize" or "we’re building a foundation", your concern is being met with a stall.

Instead, it should point out a specific mechanism, describe the structural change it’s making, and specify what metric should change and by when.

If none of these are in the mix, you’re dealing with an agency that either doesn't know what's wrong or doesn't have the tools to fix it.

Request a written timeline from your agency that specifies what measurable improvement you can expect in 60 days and what will specifically drive it.

Verdict: Tackle the issue head-on first. If the answer remains vague, that’s all you need to know.

Sign 6: PPC Is Disconnected From Your Listings, Pricing, and Inventory

The conversion rate drives ACoS. This means that factors unrelated to bidding, like a flagged main image, price increase, or drop in review count, usually push this rate down. 

When ACoS spikes, a siloed agency reacts the only way it knows how, which is to cut bids or pause keywords to force that number back down.

However, if the real cause was a flagged image or price increase, lowering the bids will do nothing. In fact, it will just take away your impressions and rank in addition to the conversion you already lost.

Ask your agency if it changed bids because of a pricing change, an inventory constraint, or a listing update. Also ask the team to give you a specific example. 

If they can’t name anything, the team’s working in silos. 

Verdict: Raise this first, because better communication often solves the problem. Give them a month to build a workflow that ties PPC to the rest of your business.

Sign 7: You’re Spending More Every Month Without Revenue Moving

As your monthly ad spend increases while your overall Amazon revenue remains flat or declines, and TACoS rises (if it’s tracked at all), your account becomes more ad-dependent over time.

There’s a reason why CPCs rise and there are times when spending more to drive velocity makes sense, such as during product launches. However, these situations are temporary and have a clear purpose.

If you have three months or more of increasing spend, flat revenue, and no plan to fix it, the investment is no longer an investment. It’s a sign your agency is managing your budget, not your performance.

This is why you need to request TACoS trends per ASIN for the past 90 days, along with a written explanation of why the ad spend has increased when the revenue didn’t.

Verdict: Raise the issue first and give them 30 days to produce a specific written plan.

Sign 8: Your Agency Can’t Show You the Campaign Change History

A big warning sign is when you ask for a documented history of campaign changes over the last 90 days, but either get a link to a dashboard with performance data instead of the actual change history, or you’re told it’s a “proprietary process”. Either the team made no changes, or there’s no documented log. 

As an owner, you have every right to know what’s happening on your account. If an agency refuses to provide it, it’s either hiding behind inactivity or poor results.

Verdict: Request a documented history in writing and allow them five business days to comply. If it doesn’t, you should consider terminating the agency. This is nonnegotiable.

The Signs Worth Raising Before You Fire Your Amazon PPC Agency

The following are warnings about structural failures that are part of how the agency operates:

• Inability to document daily changes 
• ACoS-only reporting
• Continual account manager turnover
• Refusal to share campaign change history

Talking things over are unlikely to lead to changes. As such, you’ll only waste time. 

The other signs mentioned in this article are worth a direct conversation first. Give them a set period of a month or two to respond with a written plan of action. If the answer is fuzzy or never materializes, you have enough evidence to make a decision.

How to Make the Switch Without Losing Momentum

Changing agencies can feel disruptive, but with proper planning this transition can be seamless.

Before you start a conversation with your current agency about leaving, ensure you have admin-level access to your Seller Central Account and Amazon Ad Console.

Next, gather all of your campaign information, including: 

• Live campaigns
• Current bids
• Budget allocations
• Negative keyword lists 
• Search term reports for the past three months

You’re entitled to this data, but some agencies restrict that access or dial down their effort once they know you’re leaving. It’s worth securing everything first before giving them a notice.

The good thing is that your account stays in your Seller Central the whole time. The only thing that changes is the user access you give the agency, which you can remove once the handover is done.

If your current agreement permits, you can roll out the new agency to the most profitable products first and leave the old agency in a “read-only” position.

After a month, check what the new agency is doing and whether it’s keeping its initial pitch promise, which should’ve included documenting daily changes, reporting on TACoS first, and an accessible specialist in charge of day-to-day account management.

The Bottom Line: What You Should Have Been Getting From Day One

Every warning sign covered in this article describes something that our clients don’t experience while working with us. This is because the operating model that produces these signs isn’t our operational model. With our operating model, you have senior specialists working on your account every day, decisions that are tied to TACoS and not just ACoS, and a clear record of what changed and why.

For example, after working with multiple agencies that left them with disorganized campaigns and wasted ad spend, MatchaBar approached us. Through daily management and proper campaign structure, we were able to add $114,000 per month in Amazon revenue.

Elite Jumps also went through dozens of agencies that failed to make an impact before they found us. Within only three months of managing the account, we increased its revenue by 124% and conversion rate by 51%.

If you identify three or more of these signs from this article, your account deserves a serious look. Get a free marketing plan from Olifant Digital, and we’ll pull your performance data and show you what’s happening and what we would do differently. Plus, with our 60-day money-back guarantee, you don’t have to pay if we don't improve your Amazon results.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Should You Fire Your Amazon PPC Agency?

Fire your Amazon PPC agency if it can’t tell you exactly what it did to your campaigns in the last seven days. Other grounds for firing are only reporting ACoS without per-ASIN TACoS, assigning more than one account manager in 12 months, or no campaign change history. In the case of flatlined results or rising spend with flat revenue, bring up the issue first and give the agency 30-60 days to respond with an action plan before making a decision.

What Happens to My Amazon Account When I Switch Agencies?

When you switch agencies, your Amazon account stays in your Seller Central and doesn't move or reset. What changes is the Identity and Access (IAM) user access you gave to the previous agency. Before canceling, you should request all campaign documentation, change history, and keyword research files in writing and remove the previous agency's access after your overlap period. During the transition, Amazon preserves your account structure, history, and campaigns.

What Should an Amazon PPC Agency Deliver Each Month?

Each month, your Amazon PPC agency should provide a weekly change log, performance report with TACoS per ASIN along with ACoS, as well as ad revenue and organic revenue trends. The change log should list every material change to campaigns made in the last seven days along with the rationale behind each decision. Agencies that provide only ACoS and ROAS on a monthly basis are giving you 30-day-old data on half of your account health.