Plain-language reference
Amazon PPC, in plain words.
The terms new sellers run into most, each explained in a sentence or two. No jargon to decode the jargon.
- ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales)
- Ad spend divided by the sales your ads brought in, shown as a percentage. A lower number means each ad dollar is earning more. What counts as acceptable depends on your profit margin.
- Ad group
- A folder inside a campaign that holds related ads and the keywords or products they target.
- Ad spend
- The total Amazon charges you for clicks on your ads.
- Auto campaign
- A campaign where Amazon chooses which searches and products to show your ad against, based on your listing.
- Bid
- The most you are willing to pay for one click on your ad.
- Broad match
- Your ad can show when a shopper’s search includes all the words of your keyword, in any order, along with close variations.
- Budget
- The amount you allow a campaign to spend each day.
- Campaign
- The top-level container for your ads. It holds the budget, the settings, and one or more ad groups.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Clicks divided by impressions. It shows how often people who saw your ad chose to click it.
- Conversion rate (CVR)
- Orders divided by clicks. It shows how often a click turns into a purchase.
- Cost per click (CPC)
- What you actually pay for a click. It can be lower than your bid.
- Exact match
- Your ad shows only for the exact search term, or a very close variation of it.
- Impression
- One time your ad is shown to a shopper.
- Keyword
- A word or phrase you give Amazon to match against what shoppers type into the search bar.
- Manual campaign
- A campaign where you choose the keywords or products to target yourself.
- Negative keyword
- A word or phrase you tell Amazon not to show your ad for. It stops spend on searches that do not fit.
- Organic ranking
- Where your listing appears in search results without paid ads.
- Phrase match
- Your ad can show when a search contains your keyword’s words in the same order, with other words allowed before or after.
- Placement
- Where on Amazon your ad appears, such as the top of the search results or on a product page.
- Product targeting
- Aiming an ad at specific products or categories instead of keywords.
- ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
- Sales from your ads divided by ad spend. It is the same information as ACOS, turned upside down.
- Search term
- The actual words a shopper typed. It may differ from the keyword you chose.
- Search term report
- A report listing the search terms that triggered your ads and what happened after each one.
- Sponsored Brands
- Ads that feature your brand name or logo, a headline, and several of your products.
- Sponsored Display
- Ads that can reach shoppers on Amazon and on other sites, including people who looked at your product before.
- Sponsored Products
- Ads for a single product that appear among regular search results. This is where most sellers start.
- TACOS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales)
- Ad spend divided by your total sales, both ad-driven and organic. It shows how much of your overall revenue goes to advertising.
Amazon renames features and changes settings from time to time. If a screen in Seller Central looks different from what is described here, the idea behind the term still holds.