# Exceptions: when you step in and Autron stands back What an exception is, how long one lasts (until a date, or kept), hands-off and ceilings, which to use for a promotion, a test or brand defence, and where to keep or hand them back. **TL;DR:** The goal is the rule for a product; an exception is where you step in with something the engine can't know, and Autron stands back from that one thing. Every change the agent makes directly on Amazon becomes one. Pauses, negatives and hands-off are kept until you say otherwise; a ceiling runs to the date you choose; the rest run seven days. Each product lists its own on Goals. URL: https://autron.ai/help/exceptions Updated: 2026-10-06 By: Autron --- The goal is the rule for a product, and the ad engine runs the bidding loop toward it every day without you. An **exception** is where you step in with something the engine can't know, such as a promotion starting Friday, a term that must never show, or a campaign you run your own way. Autron stands back from that one thing and keeps optimising everything else. Exceptions matter on products the ad engine runs, which comes with Autron Pro. ## Every change the agent makes on Amazon becomes one There is nothing to set up. A change the agent makes on Amazon becomes an exception the moment it lands, wherever you asked: the app, email, Slack, a routine, Claude or ChatGPT. Keywords you hand to the engine don't become one: the engine builds and manages those. Archiving a campaign or target ends its exception rather than creating one. An exception lasts one of two lengths: - **Kept**, until you say otherwise: every pause, every negative and every hands-off. - **Until a date**, seven days out: bids, placement multipliers, budgets, names and portfolios, new campaigns and new targets. Change it again through the agent and the date moves out to seven days from that change. Ask the agent to keep any of them, or to give one a later date. When an exception ends or you hand it back, the engine picks that item up again at its next scheduled run if it runs that campaign, meaning one in Autron AI. A campaign in Autron Strategic, or one of your own, stays as it is, because the engine doesn't run those. ## Kept, hands-off and ceilings Asking the agent to keep an exception, or pressing **Keep**, changes only how long it lasts. | | What Autron does | Use it for | Ask the agent | |---|---|---|---| | **Until a date** | Leaves your change alone for seven days. After that, the engine manages it again if it runs that campaign | A test, a launch push, a short promotion | "Raise the bid on 'garlic press' to $1.50 for the launch" | | **Kept** | Leaves your change alone until you hand it back | A pause that must last, a bid you've settled on | "Keep that bid" | | **Hands-off** | The same as kept, on something you haven't changed | Brand defence, a campaign you run yourself | "Never touch my Brand Defence campaign" | | **Ceiling** | Keeps bidding, but never above your number, until an end date | Holding cost down through a busy spell | "Keep bids on 'garlic press' under $1.20 until the end of the month" | **Hands-off is how you keep something you haven't changed.** Autron treats it exactly like a kept change. The one difference: switching a campaign back on through the agent ends a kept pause on it, and the campaign then runs to a date like any other change. A hands-off stays in place until you hand it back. **A ceiling is the one kind where Autron doesn't stand back.** It keeps bidding, and caps a keyword's bid at your number, though a placement boost can still raise what you pay on that placement. A ceiling only ever lowers what Autron would bid, and it always has an end date, so it can't be kept. To bid higher and have it stick, set the bid through the agent instead. An exception on a campaign covers the campaign itself: Autron won't switch it on or off or change its placements. A hands-off covers its keyword bids too. Inside one of the engine's own campaigns, the engine still adds and removes negative keywords. ## Which one? - **A short promotion:** a bid set through the agent, with a later date if it runs past seven days. Or a ceiling, if you want the engine to keep working beneath a cap. - **A test:** a change through the agent. It ends on its own after seven days. - **Brand defence:** hands-off on the campaign. - **Out of stock:** the engine already lowers bids when FBA stock runs low. To stop advertising the product, switch it off on **Goals** rather than pausing campaigns one by one. - **A term that must never show:** a negative, which is kept. Keep what still reflects something the engine can't know, such as brand defence or a negative that must last. Hand back what has done its job, like a promotion that has ended. ## When not to use one - **If you keep overriding the same product, its goal is wrong.** Change its target on **Goals**, or move it to Max profit. See [Manage goals](https://autron.ai/help/manage-goals). - **Changes made by hand in Amazon Ads are not exceptions.** The engine moves a hand-set bid back toward your target on its next pass. While a product is switched on, it also switches its own paused campaigns back on at its next check. Make the change through the agent instead. ## Where to see and manage them - **The product's page.** Open a product from **Goals** and **Where you've stepped in** lists its exceptions, with columns for **Type**, **What**, **Change**, **Result** and **Ends**. Filter by type, by **Any time**, **Ending this week**, **Ending later** or **Kept**, or by **Any result**. Each row's menu offers **Keep**, **Hand back** and **Ask the agent about this**. Select several rows to keep or hand them back together. - **The Goals list.** The **Exceptions** column counts each product's, and the **Ending this week** filter finds the ones about to end. - **[Today](https://autron.ai/help/today)** shows a to-do when changes you made end that week. - **The [Action log](https://autron.ai/help/action-log).** A change's detail shows an **In place** line, with **Keep** and **Hand back**, while it is still an exception. - **The weekly summary email**, sent when something has changed, lists them product by product. To turn it off, see [Emails and notifications](https://autron.ai/help/emails-and-notifications). The **Type** is what you did: **Paused**, **Enabled** (a paused campaign you switched back on, which runs to a date), **Bid**, **Placement**, **Created** (a campaign), **Added** (a target), **Changed** (a budget, name or portfolio), **Blocked** (a negative), **Hands-off** or **Ceiling**. ## Ask the agent - "What have I stepped in on?" - "Keep it." - "Hand back the garlic press bids." Handing back a negative is different from the rest. The engine's negative clean-up may then remove it from Amazon, and the term can start spending again, so the agent checks with you first. ## Two honest limits - A run already in flight when you make a change can finish with the old value. From the next scheduled run on, Autron stands back for certain. - On the rare run where the engine can't read your exceptions, it keeps optimising rather than stopping. ## Did it help? On the product's page, **Change** shows what Autron bid in the 14 days before you stepped in, then what you set. **Result** compares the row's ACoS since then with an equal window before: lime if it fell, red if it rose or sales stopped, grey if there's too little spend to tell. It shows direction, not cause, as Autron's other changes and the season fall in the same window.