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Ads Analytics

What your Amazon ads cost, what came back, and which campaign is responsible.

90 second readAppears on: /amazon/ads

Ad spend is the one cost you can change today, before anything else on Amazon moves.

This page tells you where it went, what it bought back, and which campaign or product is answerable for it.

The cards

What you spent, what came back, and what the exchange cost you — in that order.

Ad SpendAd SpendRead it next to ROAS and sales; spend only helps if the return holds. · CPACPAWhat one order costs you to win through ads. · ClicksClicksRaw traffic from ads; only valuable if clicks convert, so read beside CTR. · CTRCTRHow well your ad grabs attention in the feed.0.5% or more is healthy · CPCCPCYour cost for each visit from ads. · ACOSACOSThe share of ad revenue eaten by the ads themselves.Under 20% is healthy · ROASROASRevenue earned for every ad dollar spent.4 or more is healthy · ImpressionsImpressionsPure visibility; only matters if clicks and sales follow. · Ads Attr. SalesAds Attr. SalesWhat advertising directly drove; weigh against spend. · PurchasesPurchasesHow many sales advertising drove; pair with CPA for the cost.

Each card carries the number, a change against the previous period, and a small trend line. Five of them — CPA, CTR, CPC, ACOS and ROAS — also carry a graded badge, because a rate can be judged without knowing the size of your business. Ad Spend, Clicks, Impressions, Ads Attr. Sales and Purchases show no badge for the same reason.

Read them in three moves

  1. What did you spend? Ad Spend
  2. What came back? Ads Attr. Sales · Purchases
  3. At what price? ACOS · ROAS · CPA

Everything else on the row — impressions, clicks, CTR, CPC — explains why the price moved. Read it after, not before.

Three pairs worth checking

ACOS + ROAS are the same fact told twice, so they always agree. If one looks fine and the other alarming, you are comparing against the wrong standard, not seeing two signals.

CPC + CTR separate an auction problem from a creative problem. CPC up while CTR holds means the auction got more expensive; CPC up while CTR falls means your ad stopped earning its placement.

Clicks + Purchases separate an ad problem from a listing problem. Clicks steady with purchases falling puts the fault on the product page the ad points at.

The charts

A month of ads averages into a number that hides the week it turned. These show you the turn, and whether the cause was the auction or your own creative.

Both are drawn by date from the ads data, so they follow whichever ad account is selected.

Ad Spend & ACOS

Shows: ACOS as a line, Ad Spend as bars, day by day.

Ad Spend & ACOS
ACOS down
ACOS up
Spend up

Room to push

You added money and the price per sale improved. This rarely lasts a full month, so check it weekly rather than assuming it.

Raise budgets while the shape holds.

Paying up for volume

More spend, worse price. That is a fine trade while ACOS stays under margin and a bad one the moment it crosses.

Hold it against your margin before adding more.
Spend down

Cut worked

You removed waste and efficiency improved. The risk is that you removed volume with it.

Check that Purchases held before you celebrate.

Look outside the campaign

Spending less and paying more per sale means something changed off the campaign — Buy Box, price, stock or a new competitor.

Open SKU Performance and check Buy Box % on the advertised SKUs.

Ignore single-day spikes at the right-hand edge. Today is a partial day, and Amazon keeps crediting sales to clicks after the click.

CTR & CPC

Shows: CTR and CPC, both as lines, day by day. CTR is read on the percentage axis, CPC in your currency.

CTR & CPC
CTR up
CTR down
CPC up

The auction got hotter

Your ad is working harder and every click costs more. Common in a busy season, when everyone bids on the same terms.

Check ACOS — a better ad can still be a worse deal.

Creative is fading

Fewer people click and each one costs more. This is the shape of an ad that has been shown to the same audience too long.

Refresh the main image and title before touching bids.
CPC down

Working

More people click and each click is cheaper. Whatever changed in the ad or the term list, keep it.

Find where else this creative can run.

Cheap and ignored

Cheap clicks nobody wants are still money. Falling CTR usually means your ad is showing somewhere less relevant.

Check Impressions — you may have drifted onto weaker placements.

The tables

This is where the money actually sits, and where you decide what to blame — a campaign, or the product it points at.

Both tabs hold the same metrics, so the tab you pick decides what a row means.

Campaigns

One row = one campaign.

Columns: Campaign · Ad Type · ACOS · ROAS · Ad Spend · CPA · CPMCPMWhat it costs to reach a thousand people. · CTR · CPC · Impressions · Clicks · Purchases · Ads Attr. Sales, each followed by a % △ against the previous period. Opens sorted by Ad Spend, highest first.

Ad Type names the format — SP, SB, SD or ST — so you can compare like with like before you compare campaign to campaign.

How to scan it

  1. Sort by Ad Spend, highest first
  2. Look across at ACOS
  3. The row that matters big spend with ACOS above your margin. Fix or stop the top three and you have moved most of the money

Then sort by ACOS, highest first, and read Ad Spend beside it. A terrible ACOS on a tiny budget is a test, not a problem — deal with it after the expensive rows.

Products

One row = one advertised SKU.

Columns: SKU · ASIN · ACOS · ROAS · Ad Spend · CPA · CPM · CTR · CPC · Impressions · Clicks · Purchases · Ads Attr. Sales, each with its own % △. Also opens sorted by Ad Spend.

How to scan it

  1. Sort by Ads Attr. Sales, highest first
  2. Look across at ACOS and CPA
  3. The row that matters a product carrying a large share of ad revenue at an ACOS you can live with. That is the one to protect stock on, not the one with the prettiest ratio

This tab only lists SKUs that ads touched. A product with no ad spend is absent here even when it is selling well — SKU Performance is where the whole catalogue lives.

Filters

Account and date decide what the page is about. Search, the view switcher and Export only change what you do with it.

Select Ad Account switches the ad account and marketplace. It appears only when more than one is connected, and it shows one at a time — the cards, both tables and both charts all follow it together.

The date range at the top of the app drives everything on the page, and every % △ compares against the period immediately before.

Search inside a table matches the first column and filters rows only. The summary row is hidden while a search is active, because it totals every row in range rather than the ones you searched for.

The view switcher turns either table into a bar, line or pie chart. It opens on Ad Spend, takes up to three metrics and up to ten rows, and Compare overlays the previous period.

Export downloads the tab you are on.

Watch out for

“ACOS is 18%, so the account is in good shape.”

ACOS only sees sales the ads were credited with. It says nothing about the products you do not advertise, and a great ACOS on a small slice of the catalogue is a small fact.

“I paused it yesterday and it is still spending.”

Amazon credits sales to a click for days after the click. Numbers for the last few days keep moving, so judge a change once its window has closed, not the next morning.

“Campaigns and Products should add up to the same totals.”

One campaign can advertise several products and one product can sit in several campaigns. Read each tab against itself.

“Ads Attr. Sales is my Amazon revenue.”

It is only the part advertising was credited with. Total Amazon revenue lives on Amazon Summary, and money that actually landed lives on Amazon P&L.

CPM appears in both tables but has no card. If you want a cost-per-thousand read across the account, take it from a table row, not the top of the page.

Do this first

Sort Campaigns by Ad Spend, look only at the top five rows, and compare each ACOS against your product margin. Those five rows hold most of your budget, and every decision worth making today is in one of them.

See yoursYour campaigns and advertised products for the last 30 days, ranked by spend.

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