Amazon Ads Reporting: The Most Important Metrics and Reports for Measuring Performance

Amazon Ads reporting can tell you which campaigns, search terms, products, placements and targeting methods generate sales. However, reporting becomes dangerous when advertisers optimise towards a single headline metric without understanding what it includes.

A low advertising cost of sales does not automatically mean a campaign is maximising profit. A high return on ad spend does not prove that advertising generated incremental revenue. More sales do not necessarily mean more margin, especially when product costs, Amazon fees, discounts, returns and organic sales are excluded from the advertising report.

Effective Amazon Ads reporting should answer several different questions:

• Are the campaigns generating profitable or strategically valuable sales?
• Which search terms and product targets create demand?
• Which advertised ASINs convert efficiently?
• Which other products are purchased after an ad interaction?
• Are ads acquiring new customers or mainly reaching existing buyers?
• Is advertising increasing total Amazon revenue, rather than merely claiming existing sales?
• Where should bids, budgets and targeting be changed?

This guide explains the most important Amazon advertising metrics, how to interpret them and which reports to use when optimising Amazon Ads campaigns.

 

What Is the Most Important Amazon Ads KPI?

There is no single metric that can accurately evaluate every Amazon Ads campaign.

For direct-response campaigns, ACOS or ROAS is normally the principal platform efficiency metric. However, neither metric accounts for product margin, fees, organic sales, repeat purchases or the incremental value of acquiring a new customer.

For overall account management, a stronger measurement framework combines:

• Ad-attributed sales
• ACOS or ROAS
• Total Amazon sales
• TACOS
• Contribution margin after advertising
• New-to-brand sales and orders
• Sales volume and growth
• Organic and paid sales trends
• Inventory availability and product profitability

At campaign level, ACOS is usually the most practical control metric. At business level, contribution profit and total sales efficiency are more important.

An advertiser should therefore avoid asking, “What is my ACOS?” in isolation. The better question is:

“How much profitable, incremental and strategically valuable revenue is advertising helping us generate?”

Amazon Ads Metrics Explained

Amazon Ads includes standard advertising metrics alongside retail and ecommerce metrics. The exact columns available depend on the campaign type, marketplace, advertiser eligibility and report selected.

Impressions

Impressions show how many times an advert was served.

A high number of impressions indicates visibility, but does not prove that shoppers noticed the advert, engaged with it or purchased anything. Impressions are most useful when evaluating reach, placement coverage, search visibility and changes caused by budgets or bids.

Low impressions may be caused by:

• Bids that are not competitive
• Restricted budgets
• Narrow targeting
• Low search demand
• Poor relevance
• Ineligible or unavailable advertised products
• Lost Buy Box eligibility where applicable
• Campaign, ad group or product status problems

Impressions should therefore be treated as a diagnostic metric rather than a sales outcome.

Clicks

Clicks show how many times shoppers clicked an advert.

Clicks indicate traffic, but they do not necessarily equal product detail page views or purchases. Depending on the advert and landing destination, a shopper may visit a product detail page, Amazon Store or another eligible destination.

Clicks become more meaningful when assessed alongside cost, click-through rate, purchase rate and sales.

Click-Through Rate

Click-through rate measures the percentage of impressions that generated a click:

CTR = Clicks ÷ Impressions × 100

CTR helps assess how effectively the advert attracts attention from the audience it reaches.

A low CTR can indicate:

• Weak product imagery
• An uncompetitive price
• Poor reviews or ratings
• An irrelevant search term
• Weak Sponsored Brands creative
• An unattractive promotion
• A mismatch between targeting and shopper intent

A high CTR is not automatically positive. Irrelevant but attention-grabbing ads can generate expensive clicks without producing sales. CTR must be interpreted with purchase rate, CPC, ACOS and profitability.

Spend

Spend is the advertising cost charged during the selected reporting period.

Spend should be compared with:

• Budget
• Ad-attributed sales
• Total sales
• Contribution margin
• Target ACOS
• Inventory availability
• Campaign objectives

Spend is not inherently wasteful simply because it has not yet produced an attributed sale. Low-volume and higher-consideration products may require more time and data. However, repeated clicks without purchases should trigger an investigation into targeting, price, reviews, offer quality and the product detail page.

Average Cost Per Click

Average cost per click shows the average amount paid for each click:

Average CPC = Spend ÷ Clicks

CPC is influenced by bids, competition, placement adjustments, bidding strategy and auction conditions.

CPC should not normally be optimised in isolation. Paying £2 for a click can be excellent if the traffic produces sufficient margin, while paying £0.30 can still be wasteful if the traffic never converts.

The commercial question is not simply whether clicks are cheap, but whether the value of the resulting purchases justifies the cost.

For more detail on controlling bids, see our Amazon Ads bidding strategies guide.

Purchases, Orders, Units and Sales Are Not the Same

Amazon reporting contains several related conversion metrics. Advertisers should avoid using “sales” as a general term for all of them.

Purchases or Orders

Purchases or orders represent attributed purchase events. One order can contain multiple units, meaning orders and units should not be expected to match.

Amazon now uses “purchase rate” in some Sponsored Products reports where advertisers may previously have expected to see “conversion rate”. Amazon defines this as click-attributed purchases relative to advertising clicks in the applicable report. Amazon’s Sponsored Products targeting-report documentation reflects this updated terminology.

Units Sold

Units sold counts the number of individual items included in attributed purchases.

For example, one customer order containing three units may produce:

• One order
• Three units
• One attributed sales value

Units are particularly important for products frequently purchased in multiples.

Ad-Attributed Sales

Ad-attributed sales is the value Amazon attributes to advertising interactions under the applicable attribution rules.

It is not necessarily the same as:

• Total product revenue
• Total Seller Central or Vendor Central revenue
• Revenue received after returns and cancellations
• Net revenue excluding VAT
• Gross profit
• Contribution profit
• Incremental revenue caused by advertising

The sales scope can also differ between advertising products. Amazon describes Sponsored Products ACOS in relation to promoted-product sales, whereas Sponsored Brands can include broader brand sales. Advertisers should therefore verify the definition attached to the exact report and column rather than assume every sales figure uses the same product scope. Amazon’s advertising-product guide explains this distinction.

Purchase Rate

Purchase rate measures the proportion of advertising clicks that lead to an attributed purchase:

Purchase rate = Attributed purchases ÷ Clicks × 100

Purchase rate is one of the most useful diagnostic metrics because it connects traffic quality with listing performance.

A weak purchase rate may be caused by:

• Irrelevant keywords or product targets
• Broad automatic targeting
• An uncompetitive price
• Poor ratings or insufficient reviews
• Weak imagery or product information
• Delivery disadvantages
• A lost or unavailable offer
• Product variations that do not match shopper expectations
• Competitor promotions
• Low stock
• A mismatch between the advert and landing page
• Traffic being sent to a less suitable ASIN

Purchase rate should be compared by search term, target, placement, ASIN and campaign rather than only at account level. An acceptable rate varies substantially by category, product price, brand recognition and shopper intent.

ACOS: Advertising Cost of Sales

Advertising cost of sales compares advertising spend with ad-attributed sales:

ACOS = Ad spend ÷ Ad-attributed sales × 100

If a campaign spends £1,000 and generates £5,000 of attributed sales, its ACOS is 20%.

Amazon describes ACOS as a core measure of advertising efficiency, but also warns against treating it as the only objective. Amazon’s ACOS guide confirms that ACOS is advertising spend divided by advertising revenue.

A lower ACOS means less advertising spend relative to attributed sales. It does not automatically mean the campaign is more profitable or valuable.

A campaign with a very low ACOS may be:

• Capturing existing branded demand
• Advertising only established bestsellers
• Underinvesting in growth
• Missing non-brand category searches
• Reaching existing customers rather than acquiring new ones
• Producing less total profit than a higher-volume campaign

ACOS should be evaluated against a commercially calculated target rather than an arbitrary industry benchmark.

Break-Even ACOS

Break-even ACOS is the maximum percentage of revenue that can be spent on advertising before the order stops generating contribution profit.

Suppose a product sells for £40 and retains £12 after product cost, Amazon fees, fulfilment, expected returns, promotions and other variable costs. The contribution margin before advertising is:

£12 ÷ £40 = 30%

The approximate break-even ACOS is therefore 30%.

• ACOS below 30% should produce contribution profit under these assumptions.
• ACOS at 30% is approximately break-even.
• ACOS above 30% loses money on the immediate attributed sale.

However, an advertiser may intentionally accept an ACOS above immediate break-even when launching a product, acquiring new customers, increasing visibility or pursuing longer-term revenue. That decision should be explicit and supported by evidence, not excused retrospectively.

ROAS: Return on Ad Spend

ROAS is the inverse presentation of ACOS:

ROAS = Ad-attributed sales ÷ Ad spend

A campaign generating £5,000 of attributed sales from £1,000 of spend has:

• 5.0 ROAS
• 20% ACOS

ROAS and ACOS describe the same revenue relationship from opposite directions.

ROAS is useful when comparing Amazon with advertising platforms that use revenue-to-spend ratios. ACOS is often more intuitive when comparing advertising cost with gross or contribution margin.

Neither metric measures profit by itself.

TACOS: Total Advertising Cost of Sales

Total advertising cost of sales compares advertising spend with total Amazon sales, including sales not attributed to advertising:

TACOS = Ad spend ÷ Total Amazon sales × 100

For example, if advertising spend is £5,000 and total Amazon sales are £50,000, TACOS is 10%.

TACOS can reveal whether advertising investment is supporting growth across the wider account. Amazon describes TACOS as advertising spend expressed as a percentage of total paid and organic sales. Amazon’s guidance also distinguishes TACOS from campaign-level ACOS.

The relationship between ACOS and TACOS can provide useful context:

• ACOS decreasing and TACOS decreasing: efficiency is improving, although sales volume must still be checked.
• ACOS stable and TACOS decreasing: organic or non-attributed sales may be growing relative to spend.
• ACOS increasing and TACOS decreasing: advertising may be expanding reach while total sales grow faster.
• ACOS decreasing and TACOS increasing: campaigns may look more efficient while total account growth weakens.
• Both increasing: spend may be scaling faster than sales, although launch activity or seasonality may explain the change.

TACOS is more commercially complete than ACOS, but it does not prove that advertising caused organic sales growth. Price changes, stock levels, seasonality, promotions, reviews, competitors and external marketing can all affect total sales.

Profit and Contribution Margin

The most commercially important KPI is often contribution profit after advertising:

Contribution profit after advertising = Net sales − variable product costs − Amazon fees − fulfilment costs − expected returns − promotions − ad spend

Amazon Ads does not know every cost inside the advertiser’s business. Platform ROAS can therefore look strong while the product generates little or no profit.

A useful reporting system should combine Amazon Ads data with:

• Cost of goods sold
• Amazon referral and fulfilment fees
• Storage costs
• Discounts and coupons
• Refund and return rates
• VAT or sales-tax treatment
• Shipping and packaging costs
• Agency or technology costs where relevant

This produces a more accurate target ACOS for each product or product group. Applying one account-wide ACOS target to products with different margins can cause profitable products to be restricted while low-margin products receive too much budget.

New-to-Brand Metrics

New-to-brand metrics help advertisers distinguish between existing customers and shoppers who have not completed the relevant brand action during the preceding 12 months.

For purchase metrics, a shopper is generally classified as new to the brand when Amazon has not recorded a purchase from that brand during the 12-month lookback period. Amazon also offers new-to-brand measurements for other retail actions, with the lookback assessment corresponding to the relevant event. Amazon’s new-to-brand documentation explains the current metric set.

Depending on campaign type and availability, measurements can include:

• New-to-brand purchases or orders
• New-to-brand sales
• New-to-brand units
• Percentage of purchases new to brand
• Percentage of sales new to brand
• Percentage of units new to brand
• New-to-brand purchase rate
• New-to-brand detail page views
• New-to-brand add-to-cart activity

These metrics are valuable because two campaigns with identical ROAS can have different strategic effects.

One campaign may efficiently capture purchases from existing customers searching for the brand. Another may produce a slightly lower immediate ROAS but introduce large numbers of new shoppers who later make repeat purchases.

New-to-brand does not automatically mean incrementally acquired. A shopper could have discovered or purchased the brand without the advert. However, it provides considerably more customer-acquisition context than total sales alone.

Detail Page Views

A detail page view records a visit to an Amazon product detail page under the relevant measurement definition.

Detail page views should not be treated as interchangeable with clicks. Ads can have different destinations, and one interaction can contribute to a broader shopping journey.

Detail page view rate is commonly calculated relative to impressions:

Detail page view rate = Detail page views ÷ Impressions × 100

Amazon’s reporting documentation defines DPVR using detail page views relative to impressions for the relevant reporting column. It is especially useful for upper- and mid-funnel advertising where the immediate purpose is to move shoppers from ad exposure into product consideration.

For direct-response Sponsored Products management, clicks, purchases, sales, ACOS and purchase rate will usually be more actionable.

Search-Term Impression Share

Search-term impression share indicates the proportion of eligible advertising impressions captured for a reported shopper search term.

Amazon provides search-term impression-share reporting for eligible Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands activity. This was absent from the old article but is valuable for diagnosing growth constraints.

A campaign can have strong ACOS but limited sales because it captures only a small share of available impressions. Impression share helps distinguish between:

• A profitable target with room to scale
• A restricted campaign losing visibility because of budget
• A bid that is insufficient to compete
• A low-volume search with little available demand
• A dominant term where additional spend may have limited potential

Impression share is not a profitability metric. Increasing it can raise CPC and ACOS, especially when pursuing expensive top-of-search inventory.

How Amazon Ads Attribution Affects Reporting

Amazon’s reported conversions are attributed under defined models and attribution windows. These rules vary by advertising product, interaction type, marketplace and reporting context.

The key practical implications are:

• Sales can appear after the original click or impression date.
• Recent reporting periods may be incomplete.
• Historical data can be restated as additional conversions are attributed.
• Different campaign types may not report sales on precisely the same basis.
• View-attributed and click-attributed outcomes should not be assumed equivalent.
• Amazon Ads sales may differ from Seller Central or Vendor Central totals.
• Advertised-product and purchased-product sales can represent different product scopes.

Amazon’s Ads API documentation notes that reporting can continue to be restated after the initial attribution window. Advertisers should therefore avoid making large decisions using only yesterday’s sales data. Amazon’s reporting FAQ explains how attribution and later restatements can affect historical reports.

A practical reporting process should separate:

• Intraday monitoring: spend, budgets, delivery and obvious faults
• Short-term optimisation: search terms, clicks, CPC, placements and emerging purchase data
• Mature performance analysis: ACOS, ROAS, purchases and sales after sufficient attribution time
• Longer-term business evaluation: TACOS, profit, total sales and new-customer growth

The Most Useful Amazon Ads Reports

Report names and availability can vary by advertising product, marketplace, account type and console interface. Advertisers should select the report that matches the question they need to answer.

Amazon provides reporting through the advertising console, downloadable reports and the Amazon Ads API.

Campaign Report

The campaign report summarises performance at campaign level.

It is useful for reviewing:

• Spend and budget allocation
• Impressions and clicks
• CPC and CTR
• Purchases and sales
• ACOS and ROAS
• Campaign-level delivery
• Performance by campaign strategy or product group

This report is best for budget and portfolio decisions, but can hide major differences between targets, search terms and ASINs.

A campaign with acceptable overall ACOS may contain a small number of excellent targets subsidising substantial wasted spend elsewhere.

Targeting Report

The targeting report evaluates the targets selected by the advertiser or Amazon.

Targets can include:

• Keywords
• Product ASINs
• Product categories
• Automatic targeting groups
• Other eligible targeting expressions

The report helps identify:

• Targets that deserve higher or lower bids
• Targets generating clicks without purchases
• Profitable targets with room to scale
• Targets that should be paused
• Differences between match types
• Automatic targets producing useful demand

A target is what the advertiser selected. It is not always the exact shopper query or product detail page that triggered the advert. That distinction makes the search-term and matched-target reporting equally important.

See our Amazon Ads targeting guide for more information about automatic, keyword and product targeting.

Search-Term Report

The search-term report shows the shopper searches associated with advertising clicks and performance.

Contrary to the old article, search-term reporting is not restricted to Sponsored Products. Amazon documents search-term reports for both Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands. Amazon’s reporting guide lists the report for both advertising products.

Use the report to:

• Find converting search terms
• Add proven queries as manually managed keywords
• Identify irrelevant searches
• Add suitable negative keywords
• Compare branded and non-branded demand
• Review differences between broad, phrase and exact matching
• Understand how automatic targeting expands reach
• Discover new product terminology
• Separate research-led searches from purchase-led searches

Do not negate a search term solely because it has not generated a sale after a few clicks. Decisions should consider product margin, typical purchase rate, CPC, statistical uncertainty and the maturity of the attribution data.

Placement Report

Placement reporting compares performance across eligible ad locations, such as top of search and other placements.

It can help determine whether placement adjustments are justified by differences in:

• CPC
• CTR
• Purchase rate
• Sales
• ACOS
• ROAS
• Volume

A placement with a stronger purchase rate is not automatically worth an aggressive adjustment. The higher conversion rate must compensate for any increase in CPC.

Placement analysis should inform Amazon bidding decisions, but bid changes should be calculated from expected value rather than based solely on the placement with the highest reported ROAS.

Advertised Product Report

The advertised-product report shows performance associated with products actively promoted by the campaign.

Use it to compare ASINs by:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Spend
• Purchases
• Sales
• Purchase rate
• ACOS
• ROAS

It can expose products that consume budget but convert poorly. However, weak performance is not always caused by the advertising campaign.

The product may have:

• An uncompetitive offer
• Weak product-page content
• Poor ratings
• Insufficient reviews
• Limited stock
• An unsuitable variation
• A price disadvantage
• Low margin
• A mismatch with the campaign’s targets

Before reducing bids, determine whether the problem is traffic quality or retail readiness.

Purchased Product or Attributed Purchases Report

Purchased-product reporting shows which products shoppers purchased after interacting with an advert.

This is different from the advertised-product report:

• The advertised-product report starts with the item being promoted.
• The purchased-product report reveals the item ultimately bought.

This helps identify cross-selling and brand-halo effects. A shopper may click an advert for one ASIN but purchase another size, variation or product from the brand.

The old article states that this insight is available only for Sponsored Products. That is outdated. Amazon’s later reporting infrastructure introduced Sponsored Brands purchased-product reporting, while Sponsored Brands console guidance also describes an attributed-purchases report showing specific products sold through campaigns. Amazon’s reporting migration documentation confirms the addition of Sponsored Brands purchased-product reporting.

Use this report to:

• Discover products benefiting from advertising indirectly
• Identify stronger variants or substitutes
• Measure cross-product purchasing
• Find products that may deserve their own campaigns
• Understand whether an advertised ASIN acts as an entry point
• Separate direct promoted-product sales from broader brand sales

Search-Term Impression-Share Report

This report shows visibility for eligible shopper search terms.

Use it to find terms where:

• Performance is profitable but impression share remains low
• Additional budget or stronger bids may increase sales
• Visibility has declined following a bid or budget change
• The brand is losing coverage on strategically important searches
• High impression share is producing diminishing returns

This report connects search demand with competitive coverage, making it useful for controlled expansion rather than only waste reduction.

Performance-Over-Time Report

The performance-over-time report summarises metrics such as clicks, spend and average CPC across a selected period.

The old article claims that its purpose is to track whether campaigns are running, paused, ended or terminated. Amazon’s current description instead focuses on changes in clicks, spend and average CPC over time. It should therefore be treated as a trend report, not the principal source for campaign-status management.

It can help identify:

• Sudden spend changes
• CPC inflation
• Seasonal patterns
• Traffic growth or decline
• Effects following structural changes
• Budget restrictions or delivery disruption

How to Turn Reports Into Optimisation Decisions

Reporting should produce controlled actions rather than a collection of disconnected metrics.

A useful review sequence is:

Confirm Data Maturity and Scope

Check the date range, marketplace, campaign type, attribution basis and whether recent conversion data is still developing.

Review Business Outcomes

Compare total sales, contribution profit, TACOS, inventory and product margin before focusing on platform efficiency.

Review Campaign Efficiency

Use spend, attributed sales, ACOS and ROAS to find campaigns above or below their commercially calculated targets.

Diagnose Traffic Quality

Review targets, search terms, CTR, CPC and purchase rate. Determine whether weak results come from expensive traffic, irrelevant traffic or a poor-converting product page.

Compare Products

Use advertised-product and purchased-product reporting to identify direct sales, cross-sales, profitable ASINs and weak listings.

Evaluate Placements

Determine whether placement-level purchase rates justify their CPC and bid adjustments.

Assess Growth Potential

Use impression share, sales volume, new-to-brand performance and total account sales to identify opportunities that a low-ACOS-only strategy would miss.

Make Isolated Changes

Adjust bids, budgets, targets, negatives or promoted products in a controlled way. Record the change and allow enough time for new data to mature.

Our wider Amazon Ads strategy guide explains how campaign objectives should influence these decisions.

Common Amazon Ads Reporting Mistakes

The most common mistakes include:

• Treating attributed sales as profit
• Assuming a low ACOS always means success
• Ignoring TACOS and total account sales
• Applying one ACOS target to every ASIN
• Optimising recent data before attribution has matured
• Comparing periods with different stock, prices or promotions
• Mixing branded and non-branded performance
• Treating orders and units as the same metric
• Confusing targets with actual shopper search terms
• Ignoring products purchased after another ASIN was advertised
• Increasing bids because a placement has a high conversion rate without checking CPC
• Pausing low-volume targets too quickly
• Assuming every campaign type uses identical attribution and sales definitions
• Reporting sales growth without accounting for returns and variable costs
• Allowing highly efficient branded campaigns to disguise weaker customer acquisition

Amazon Ads Reporting Dashboard Structure

A practical monthly dashboard should contain several levels of reporting.

Business Performance

• Total Amazon sales
• Total advertising spend
• TACOS
• Contribution profit after advertising
• Total orders and units
• Average order value
• Refund or return rate
• Inventory availability

Advertising Performance

• Ad-attributed sales
• ACOS
• ROAS
• Purchases
• Purchase rate
• Impressions
• Clicks
• CTR
• Average CPC

Growth and Customer Acquisition

• New-to-brand purchases
• New-to-brand sales
• Percentage of sales new to brand
• Impression share
• Branded and non-branded sales
• Total sales growth
• Organic and paid sales mix

Diagnostic Reporting

• Best and worst search terms
• Target-level performance
• Placement performance
• Advertised ASIN performance
• Purchased-product performance
• Budget-limited campaigns
• Stock or Buy Box issues
• Changes implemented and their subsequent effects

This structure separates commercial outcomes from platform metrics and diagnostic data.

Advanced Measurement with Amazon Attribution and Amazon Marketing Cloud

Standard campaign reports are suitable for most day-to-day optimisation, but Amazon provides additional measurement products for more advanced use cases.

Amazon Attribution measures how eligible non-Amazon marketing activity—including search, social, display, video, email and influencer campaigns—contributes to shopping activity on Amazon. Amazon describes it as a free measurement solution for eligible advertisers. Amazon Attribution is particularly useful when Google Ads, Meta Ads, email or other external channels send traffic to Amazon.

Amazon Marketing Cloud is a privacy-safe clean-room environment for eligible advertisers. It enables more flexible analysis across advertising signals, including path-to-conversion analysis, audience insights, custom attribution work and the controlled connection of pseudonymised first-party data. It complements standard reporting rather than replacing it. Amazon’s AMC overview explains its current capabilities and eligibility.

These tools become more valuable when the customer journey extends beyond a single sponsored-ad click and immediate purchase.

Final Thoughts

Amazon Ads reporting should not be reduced to finding the lowest ACOS.

ACOS and ROAS are useful campaign-efficiency metrics, but they measure attributed revenue rather than profit. TACOS introduces total sales context, while contribution margin determines whether growth is commercially sustainable. New-to-brand metrics help distinguish customer acquisition from existing demand, and detailed reports explain which searches, targets, placements and products drive the outcome.

The most effective reporting framework connects four levels:

• Advertising delivery
• Attributed sales efficiency
• Total Amazon business performance
• Actual profit and customer growth

Use campaign reports to decide where budget should go, search-term and targeting reports to control traffic, product reports to evaluate ASIN performance, and business data to determine whether advertising is genuinely helping the company grow.

For further guidance, explore our complete collection of Amazon Ads guides or learn about our Amazon Ads management services.