Amazon Bulk Operations (Bulksheet) Tutorial: Export, Edit & Re-Upload Your PPC File

Short version: Bulk Operations is the free, no-API way to edit Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display campaigns at scale — export a spreadsheet (a "bulksheet"), edit it offline, and re-upload it. The part that trips sellers up isn't the export or the upload, it's the editing: the wrong value in the Operation column, or a field Amazon won't let you touch, silently does nothing or throws an upload error. This tutorial covers the export, the edit rules, the most common manual changes, and where a change file generated for you skips the risk entirely.

If you've ever opened the Amazon Ads console, gone to Campaigns → Bulk operations, and stared at a spreadsheet with dozens of columns and no idea which ones you're allowed to change, this is for you. Bulk Operations is Amazon's own tool for editing campaigns in batches — no Ads API connection, no developer account, nothing to build. It's also the same file our PPC audit checklist tells you to export before you start looking for wasted spend. This guide walks through exporting it, editing it correctly, and re-uploading it, plus the specific mistakes that cause an upload to fail or silently do nothing.

What Bulk Operations actually is

Bulk Operations is a spreadsheet-based tool inside the Amazon Ads console that lets advertisers create and optimize multiple campaigns in batches, cutting down on the time and manual effort of clicking through the console one campaign at a time. You download a workbook (Amazon calls it a bulksheet), it opens with a separate tab for each ad product — Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display — plus a Portfolios tab and, for Sponsored Products, a search-term report tab. Every row represents one campaign entity: a campaign, an ad group, a keyword, a product ad, a negative keyword, and so on.

One housekeeping fact worth knowing before you start: Amazon deprecated the legacy bulksheets template on September 28, 2023. If a saved template, a tutorial, or a spreadsheet from an old download folder looks unfamiliar next to what the console gives you today, it's the legacy format — it no longer uploads. Always start from a fresh export or the current blank template.

Step 1: Export a bulksheet

From the Bulk Operations page in the Ads console:

1. Under "Create & download a custom spreadsheet," pick a date range. This range only controls which performance metrics (impressions, clicks, CTR, ACOS, CPC, ROAS) get pulled into the file — it doesn't limit which campaigns or entities you can edit.
2. Check the boxes for the ad products you want included (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display data), plus the search-term report if you want it.
3. Click "Create spreadsheet for download" to get a file pre-populated with your existing campaigns, or use "Download a bulk operations template" for a blank sheet if you're building campaigns from scratch.
4. Scroll down to "Bulk spreadsheet history" and download the file once it's ready.

Open the file to the tab for the ad product you're editing (for example, "Sponsored Products"). If you're on Excel and checked the "Guidance for Sponsored Products inputs [BETA]" box, the header row and first three columns stay frozen, and clicking into a cell shows you which values are allowed — including dropdowns for Product, Entity, Operation, State, Match Type, and a few other fields. It's optional, but it catches a lot of the mistakes below before you ever upload. One caveat: pasting values directly into the sheet can break this feature — use Excel's "Paste Special → Values" if you're pasting in bulk.

Step 2: Edit it offline

The first three columns — Product, Entity, Operation — are foundational and appear on every row. Product is the campaign type (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display). Entity is what that row represents (Campaign, Ad group, Keyword, Product ad, Negative keyword, Product targeting, and so on). Operation tells Amazon what to do with the row on upload, and it only has three valid values:

• Create — make a new entity (a new campaign, ad group, keyword, and so on).
• Update — change an existing entity, identified by its ID.
• Archive — Amazon's version of deleting an entity. There's no separate "Delete" value, and archiving can't be reversed by re-uploading the same row.

Leave Operation blank on a row and Amazon ignores that row completely on upload, even if you changed other cells in it. A blank Operation column is by far the most common reason a manual edit "doesn't take" — if a bid change or a pause isn't showing up in the console after you upload, check that column first.

Every entity needs its own row, even multiples of the same type — creating five new keywords means five new keyword rows, not one row with five keywords listed. And every ID column (Campaign ID, Ad Group ID, Keyword ID, Ad ID, Product Targeting ID) is read-only: you use the ID to tell Amazon which existing entity to update or archive, but you can never change the ID itself. A few other fields are locked once an entity exists — you can't edit keyword text, change a campaign's Start Date, switch an Auto campaign to Manual targeting, or swap the SKU/ASIN on a product ad. For all of those, the fix is the same: archive the row and create a new one with the value you actually want.

One field deserves its own warning: End Date. Leaving End Date blank on an update does not leave the current end date alone — it clears it, and the campaign runs indefinitely. That's the opposite of how blank behaves on Start Date (blank there just gets ignored). If you're updating a campaign for an unrelated reason and don't touch End Date on purpose, double-check it's still carrying the value you want before you upload.

Common manual edits

Pitfalls of hand-editing a bulksheet

• Blank Operation column — the row gets silently ignored, not flagged as an error.
• Editing a locked field — changing Keyword ID, Start Date, targeting type, or SKU/ASIN throws an upload error instead of applying the change.
• Clearing End Date by accident — a blank End Date on update removes the existing end date rather than leaving it alone.
• Setting State without Operation (or vice versa) — a pause needs both columns changed together.
• Uploading a legacy-format file — anything downloaded before the September 2023 deprecation won't upload; re-export first.
• One row trying to do two entities' worth of changes — each entity, even duplicates of the same type, needs its own row.

Step 3: Re-upload

Once your edits are in place, go back to the Bulk Operations page and upload the file the same way you downloaded it — the console re-reads the Operation column row by row and applies (or rejects) each change. Rows with errors are reported individually, so a mistake on one keyword row won't block the rest of the file from processing. Check the upload history afterward to confirm the rows you meant to change actually show a successful status, not just that the file itself uploaded.

Where an audit tool picks up from here

Bulk Operations is powerful, but it's also entirely manual: you still have to decide which bids are too high, which search terms are burning spend with no orders, and which keywords need a negative. Our PPC audit checklist walks through doing that by hand from the same export. OptimalCentral's Ads Audit automates the finding part: connect your Amazon Ads account and it reads your campaigns for wasted spend, bids running meaningfully above your target ACOS, and negative-keyword candidates, then returns a ready-to-review change list — with the Operation, entity, and ID columns already filled in correctly. You review every proposed change before anything happens: download it as a change file to upload yourself in Bulk operations on any plan, or, from the Brand plan up, apply the changes you approve directly to your account. No Ads API connection is required to use it this way, the same as Bulk Operations itself.

New to Sponsored Products campaign structure before you start editing at this scale? Our Amazon PPC strategy guide for beginners covers campaign types, targeting, and budgets first.

Bulksheet edit checklist

• ☐ Exported a fresh bulksheet (not a legacy-format file from before September 2023)
• ☐ Operation column filled in for every row you want changed — Create, Update, or Archive
• ☐ ID columns left untouched on every Update or Archive row
• ☐ Locked fields (keyword text, Start Date, targeting type, SKU/ASIN) not edited directly — archived and recreated instead
• ☐ End Date double-checked on any campaign update, so it wasn't cleared by accident
• ☐ State and Operation both set together when pausing an entity
• ☐ Upload history checked row by row, not just for a successful file upload

Frequently asked questions

What is Amazon Bulk Operations?

The spreadsheet-based tool inside the Amazon Ads console for managing Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display campaigns in batches, without calling the Ads API. You download a bulksheet, edit it offline, and upload it to create, update, or archive campaigns, keywords, and targets all at once.

What is a bulksheet on Amazon?

The multi-tab spreadsheet Bulk Operations generates — one tab per ad product, with a row per campaign entity and columns for every field that entity supports. Editing the file and re-uploading it is how you make batch changes to campaigns, ad groups, keywords, targets, and negative keywords.

What does the Operation column do in a bulksheet?

It's always the third column, and it tells Amazon what to do with that row on upload: Create, Update, or Archive. Leave it blank and Amazon ignores the row entirely — a blank Operation is the single most common reason an edit doesn't take.

Can I delete a campaign or keyword using a bulksheet?

There's no Delete operation. The three values are Create, Update, and Archive — archiving is Amazon's version of deleting a campaign, ad group, product ad, keyword, or target, and it can't be undone by re-uploading the same row with a different value.

Do I need the Ads API to use Bulk Operations?

No. Bulk Operations lives in the Ads console itself and works entirely by exporting and re-uploading spreadsheets — no API connection, developer account, or code required.

How do I lower a bid or add a negative keyword using a bulksheet?

To lower a bid, find the keyword's row, keep its existing Keyword ID, change Bid to the new amount, and set Operation to Update. To add a negative keyword, add a new row with Entity set to Negative keyword, Operation set to Create, the Campaign ID (and Ad Group ID if it's ad-group-level), the keyword text, and a match type.