BookAdsAIDoes BookAdsAI harvest keywords at zero clicks?
No. BookAdsAI does not harvest search terms, and it does not promote phrase or broad keywords at zero clicks. There is no mode that reads a search-term report and adds new phrase or broad keywords while they still have no clicks. Bid changes use clicks, spend, and sales that were already reported for a keyword or product target. A target with fewer than 5 clicks is left unchanged. Zero clicks is below that bar, so Autopilot does not raise, lower, or turn on that target.
Search-term harvests are not a BookAdsAI feature
Some ads workflows harvest search terms: they read queries that shoppers typed, then add the promising ones as new phrase or broad keywords, sometimes before those new targets have any clicks of their own. BookAdsAI does not do that. It does not invent search terms. It does not copy a search-term report into new keywords. It does not have a setting called phrase-broad, and it does not have a zero-click harvest.
The public homepage mentions search-term harvests as manual work authors do in Campaign Manager, next to morning bid edits. That sentence describes a chore. It does not describe a button, a job, or a rule inside Autopilot. There is no separate “find me winning keywords” mode. If you were looking for a harvest procedure, it is not in this product, and this page will not invent one.
What the product does with keywords is narrower. When Amazon has already reported a keyword target or a product target, and the book is Live, Autopilot may leave the bid alone or step it inside fixed limits. The target has to already exist in the reported rows. BookAdsAI does not create it from a query string that has never been a target.
What happens to a keyword with zero clicks
A reported keyword or product target needs at least 5 clicks before a bid can move. It also needs some reported spend. Zero clicks fails the click test. One, two, three, or four clicks fail it too. The bid rule returns no change. Autopilot does not “give the keyword a chance” by lifting a bid, and it does not pause a keyword only because the click count is zero. It leaves the target as it is.
That is true for whatever match type the target already has. Amazon keyword targets can already be exact, phrase, or broad. BookAdsAI does not read match type when it decides a bid. It does not add a phrase keyword because a broad keyword had a click, and it does not add a broad keyword because a phrase keyword had none. Zero-click phrase targets and zero-click broad targets are treated the same: no bid step.
A brand-new target that has never appeared in a stored report is not a special case that gets a starter bid from Autopilot. If there is no reported row, there is nothing for the rule to score. Book-level spend and royalties, with no target rows, do not produce a bid change either. The daily job records that there is nothing to rebid. It does not fill the gap with invented keywords.
When a reported keyword bid can move
All of the following have to be true. The book’s Autopilot switch is Live. The allowlist contains at least one eligible campaign ID, and that campaign is not refused as Launch Recovery. For the daily job, today’s report for the book is stored. Reported rows exist for the keyword or product target, not only a book total. The target has at least 5 clicks and some reported spend. The proposed step actually changes the bid after the ceiling and the floor are applied.
The step is at most 10% of the current bid. The bid is never set above $2.50 or below $0.20. If the current bid is already at the ceiling, a step up does not go through. If it is already at the floor, a step down does not go through. If the rounded step would land on the same bid, Autopilot leaves it and can log that no bid step was large enough to take.
Run now uses the same bid rule on the latest reported rows already stored. It does not harvest new terms, and it does not treat a missing report as zero clicks that should be promoted. A missing report is a missing report. The dashboard shows zero for numbers that were not stored. Those zeros are not a keyword research result.
How reported ACOS chooses the direction
When the click and spend tests pass, ACOS decides the direction. In this rule, ACOS is reported ad spend divided by reported ad-attributed sales. It is not royalties, and it is not the profit figure on the dashboard. Profit is royalties minus ad spend from reports that landed. The bid rule does not use that profit number.
Above 40% ACOS, including spend with no sales, the bid steps down by at most 10%. Under 15% ACOS, the bid steps up by at most 10%. At or between 15% and 40%, the bid stays put even though the target has enough clicks. A target can be busy and still see no change. That band is intentional. It is not a harvest threshold and it is not a ranking target.
Spend with no sales is treated as above the ceiling, so the bid can step down once the target also has at least 5 clicks and some spend. A target with spend and no sales but only 3 clicks still does not move. The click minimum is not waived for a bad ACOS, and it is not waived for a good one. Five clicks is not evidence that a keyword will stay profitable. BookAdsAI does not forecast that.
Phrase, broad, and exact are not a harvest setting
Authors sometimes ask for a setup that runs phrase and broad matches at zero clicks so Amazon can discover queries, then peels winners into exact match. BookAdsAI does not automate that setup. It does not add phrase keywords at zero clicks. It does not add broad keywords at zero clicks. It does not peel search terms into exact match. Match type is not a control on the book page.
If phrase, broad, or exact targets already exist in your Amazon Ads account, they can show up as reported keyword rows later. Only then does the bid rule apply, and only after 5 clicks and some spend, on a Live book, inside the allowlist. Until those reported rows exist, Autopilot has no harvest step that creates them. Leaving a book Paused also skips the bid rule entirely, match type included.
The rest of the refusal list still applies. Autopilot will not launch Recovery campaigns, will not select AUTO_FOR_SALES targeting by default, will not invent spend or royalties, will not add product targets before an ENABLED product ad exists for the book ASIN, and will not edit campaigns that are not on the allowlist. None of those refusals hide a keyword harvester. The change log records skips and bid steps that did run. It does not list discovered search terms, because the job does not discover them.
What to use instead of a harvest
Use the Amazon Ads console if you want to add keywords yourself. BookAdsAI will not turn those new keywords into a zero-click experiment, and it will not bid them up before they have 5 reported clicks. After reports exist, a Live book can pause allowlisted campaigns at the daily cap or step a qualifying bid. New books start at a $25 cap until you change it. The cap is not a keyword tool.
Public monthly prices are Starter $29, Pro $49, and Agency $99. Paying for Starter, Pro, or Agency does not add search-term harvesting. The plans are the same Autopilot. Cancel the subscription in the Stripe customer portal from Settings if you only wanted a harvester. Amazon still bills any campaigns that keep serving in the console.
BookAdsAI does not guarantee that leaving zero-click keywords alone is the most profitable choice, and it does not guarantee that a later bid step will improve royalties. The limits above are the whole keyword behavior: no invented search terms, no phrase or broad harvest at zero clicks, and no bid move before the reported click and spend tests pass.
Does BookAdsAI harvest search terms into new keywords?
No. BookAdsAI does not read a search-term report and create phrase, broad, or exact keywords from it. It does not invent search terms. There is no harvest mode and no “find me winning keywords” mode.
What does BookAdsAI do with phrase or broad keywords at zero clicks?
Nothing. A keyword needs at least 5 reported clicks and some reported spend before a bid can move. Zero clicks is below that line, for phrase, broad, and exact alike. Autopilot does not add those keywords and does not promote them.
When can BookAdsAI change a keyword bid?
On a Live book, after reports land, for an allowlisted campaign, when that keyword or product target has at least 5 clicks and some spend. The step is at most 10%, never above $2.50, and never below $0.20. Above 40% ACOS the bid steps down. Under 15% ACOS it steps up. From 15% through 40% it stays.
Does a higher plan unlock keyword harvesting?
Public monthly prices are Starter $29, Pro $49, and Agency $99. They do not add a harvest, a zero-click phrase or broad mode, or a different bid rule. BookAdsAI does not guarantee profit either way.
Use BookAdsAI
Create an account, then connect a US Amazon Ads profile from Settings. New books stay Paused until you set a daily spend cap, confirm the allowlist, and turn that book Live.
Profit = royalties − ad spend, from reports that landed. Cancel in Stripe yourself.