Start the ad engine

The ad engine is the part of Autron that runs your campaigns for you — bids, budgets, keywords and negatives, adjusted continuously against a target you set. This article covers turning it on.

Where it lives

Open Goals. Every product you sell is listed with its own goal and its own switch, and the line above the table tells you how many products the engine is bidding on right now.

Choose a target

Each product's goal is two things: what you want more of, and the limit you will accept getting it — Grow sales, ACoS ≤ 30% reads as one instruction. Everything the engine does is in service of it.

• Max ACoS — hold ad cost of sales at your number and spend what that allows.
• Max TACoS — the same idea measured against your total sales, not just ad-attributed ones. Needs a Selling Partner connection.
• Max profit — optimise on margin rather than revenue. Needs your product costs.
• Grow sales — buy volume up to the ACoS limit you set. The usual starting point.

Start it

Switch on the products you want managed, then press Start ad engine. Once it is running the same button reads Stop ad engine, and the Status column starts reporting — On track, or Conflicts with goal where a target cannot be met as set. You can start with one product and add more later — the switch is per product, so nothing forces an all-or-nothing decision.

If you are not sure which to pick, Autron suggests a set for you.

What to expect

• The first day is quiet. The engine studies your history before it changes much, and new campaigns can take a few hours to appear in the Amazon console.
• Leave the campaigns alone. Editing an Autron-managed bid by hand works until the next optimisation pass, which moves it back toward your target. If you want a change to stick, switch that product off first.
• Your existing campaigns keep running unless you tell Autron to take them over. Already running Amazon Ads? covers the transition.

Stopping

Stop ad engine halts it across every product; switching a single product off leaves the rest running. Either way your campaigns stay exactly as they are — stopping the engine stops the changes, it does not pause your ads or delete anything.