Amazon Ads Reports Explained: Which Report Answers Which Question

Amazon Ads reports are downloadable data sets in the advertising console, under Measurement and reporting, then Sponsored ads reports. Each report slices the same underlying ad data a different way: by search term, by target, by placement, by product and so on. The trick is knowing which report answers the question you have.

This guide covers the reports sellers use most, what each is for and how to read them. Report names and columns change occasionally, so check the console's report type list if something looks different.

How to create a report

1. In the Amazon Ads console, open the left menu and go to Measurement and reporting, then Sponsored ads reports.
2. Click Create report.
3. Choose the ad product (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands or Sponsored Display) and the report type.
4. Pick the time unit (summary or daily) and the date range.
5. Optionally schedule it to run daily, weekly or monthly, and add email recipients.
6. Run it and download the file once it shows as completed.

The console only keeps a limited lookback window for most reports, typically a couple of months to roughly three months depending on the report. If you want year-over-year comparisons, download and store reports regularly or use a tool that keeps history.

Sponsored Products reports

Search term report

This is the most valuable report for most sellers. Each row is one customer search term matched to one of your keywords or targets, with impressions, clicks, spend, orders and sales. Use it weekly to find winners to move into exact match and losers to add as negatives. Our full search term report guide explains each column, and harvesting keywords from auto campaigns covers the workflow.

Targeting report

Where the search term report shows what shoppers typed, the targeting report shows how each of your own keywords and product targets performed in aggregate. Use it to set bids: sort by spend, then compare ACoS to target.

Placement report

Use the placement report before changing placement bid adjustments. If top of search converts at 14% and product pages at 5%, a top-of-search adjustment usually makes sense. See placement bid adjustments.

Purchased product report

This shows sales of ASINs that were not the one advertised but were bought after an ad click and counted in attribution. If you advertise a starter kit and shoppers often buy the refill, you will see it here. It helps explain why some campaigns look better or worse than the advertised product alone suggests.

Sponsored Brands reports

• Keyword report: performance by keyword target.
• Search term report: actual searches that triggered your Sponsored Brands ads.
• Campaign report and placement report: totals and placement splits.
• Attributed purchases report: which products were purchased after Sponsored Brands clicks.
• Category benchmark report, where available to your account: how your brand compares with the category on a few metrics.

Sponsored Brands reports include new-to-brand metrics for brand-registered sellers. See new-to-brand metrics for how to use them.

Sponsored Display reports

• Campaign report, targeting report and advertised product report, similar to Sponsored Products.
• Purchased product report for halo sales.
• Matched target report, which shows the products or audiences your contextual and audience targeting actually matched.

Sponsored Display reports can include view-through conversions for campaigns optimized for reach, which is why their sales numbers are not directly comparable with search ads.

Attribution windows: why numbers differ by report

Sponsored Products credits sales within 7 days of a click for sellers (vendors see 14 days), counting the advertised product in some columns and any of your brand's products in others. Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display use 14 days. So a Sponsored Brands campaign can look stronger than a Sponsored Products campaign partly because it has a longer window. Read the attribution window guide before comparing ad types.

Worked example: a 30-minute weekly reporting pass

1. Budget report: find any campaign that ran out of budget before evening on most days last week. For those with ACoS under target, raise budget.
2. Targeting report, last 14 days: sort by spend. For each target above target ACoS with at least 15 clicks, lower bid 10 to 20%. For each with ACoS well under target, raise bid 10%.
3. Search term report, last 30 days: filter to 10 or more clicks and zero orders. Negate irrelevant ones. Then filter to 2 or more orders at or under target ACoS in broad, phrase or auto campaigns, and add them as exact keywords.
4. Placement report, last 30 days: compare conversion by placement and adjust top-of-search bid adjustment if the gap is large.
5. Advertised product report: check that spend is going to the products you want to grow, not a low-margin SKU.

Run it on the same day each week so the date ranges line up and changes are easy to compare.

Common reporting mistakes

• Judging the last 2 or 3 days. Attributed sales keep arriving for days after the click.
• Mixing summary and daily reports without noticing. Daily reports have one row per day per entity, so totals look huge if you sum the wrong way.
• Comparing ad types without accounting for different attribution windows.
• Never downloading data, then losing history beyond the console's lookback.
• Treating 'sales' as advertised-product sales when the column includes brand halo sales, or the reverse. Check column names.

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