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I want to build a profitable advertising program

Starting point
Live marketplace listings with little or no paid advertising running yet.
Objective
Build a marketplace advertising program that's structured, budgeted against your real economics, and measured well enough to know if it's actually profitable.
Prerequisite
At least one live, reasonably optimized marketplace listing (see Listings & Catalog Management first if you don't have one).
Expected outcome
A running, correctly structured campaign, a budget grounded in your real break-even ROAS, and a recurring cadence for measuring and optimizing it.

The sequence

  1. Understand how marketplace ad auctions actually work
  2. Learn the ad formats available to you
  3. Calculate your break-even ROAS before setting a budget
  4. Set your advertising budget
  5. Launch your first campaign
  6. Structure campaigns correctly by SKU/category/match type
  7. Set targeting and negative keywords
  8. Learn ROAS vs. ACOS vs. TACOS so you're measuring the right thing
  9. Set a recurring optimization cadence