Amazon Advertising Reports Explained: How to Download, Read, and Act on Your Data

Why Reporting Is the Foundation of PPC Success

Data-driven decision making separates successful Amazon advertisers from those who waste money guessing. Amazon provides a rich set of advertising reports that contain everything you need to optimize your campaigns, but most sellers either do not download these reports regularly or do not know how to analyze them effectively.

The advertising console dashboard gives you a high-level view, but the real insights live in the downloadable reports. These reports contain granular data at the keyword, search term, placement, and product level that is not fully visible in the dashboard view. If you are making PPC decisions based only on what you see in the console, you are working with an incomplete picture.

This guide covers every major Amazon advertising report type, explains the key columns in each, shows you how to download them, and provides analysis workflows you can follow to extract actionable insights.

Accessing Amazon Advertising Reports

Before diving into specific report types, let us cover how to access and download reports.

In the Amazon Ads console: Navigate to Measurement and Reporting, then click Reports. You can create new reports by selecting the report type, date range, and other parameters. Reports can be downloaded as CSV files for analysis in spreadsheets.

Report scheduling: You can schedule reports to run automatically on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Set up recurring reports for your most frequently used report types so you always have fresh data available without manual effort.

Date range considerations: Select date ranges that provide enough data for meaningful analysis. For keyword-level optimization, use at least 14 to 30 days. For strategic decisions, use 60 to 90 days. Always ensure your date range ends at least 7 days ago (14 days for Sponsored Display) to account for Amazon's attribution window. Data from the past week is still being updated as late-attributing conversions are recorded.

Data freshness: Amazon advertising data is not real-time. There is typically a 12 to 48 hour delay before data appears in reports, and the attribution window means conversion data continues to update for 7 to 14 days after a click occurs.

Report Type 1: Campaign Report

The campaign report provides performance data aggregated at the campaign level. It is your highest-level view of advertising performance.

Key Columns

Campaign Name and Campaign ID: Identifies which campaign the data belongs to. Use consistent naming conventions so you can quickly identify campaigns.

Impressions: How many times your ads were displayed. High impressions with low clicks suggest your ad is not compelling enough, or your targeting is too broad.

Clicks: How many times shoppers clicked your ad. Clicks multiplied by CPC equals your spend.

Spend: Total amount spent on the campaign during the selected period.

Sales (Orders Revenue): Total revenue attributed to the campaign through Amazon's attribution window.

Orders: Number of orders attributed to the campaign.

ACoS: Advertising Cost of Sales, calculated as Spend divided by Sales.

ROAS: Return on Ad Spend, calculated as Sales divided by Spend.

CTR (Click-Through Rate): Clicks divided by Impressions. Indicates how compelling your ad is to the audience seeing it.

CPC (Cost Per Click): Average cost per click, calculated as Spend divided by Clicks.

Analysis Workflow

Step 1: Sort by Spend descending to see where your money is going.

Step 2: Flag any campaign where ACoS exceeds your target by more than 10 percentage points. These need immediate attention.

Step 3: Check CTR. Campaigns with CTR below 0.2 percent may have relevance issues. Review the keywords and targeting in those campaigns.

Step 4: Identify campaigns with strong ACoS but limited daily budgets. These are candidates for budget increases.

Step 5: Compare campaign performance over time (week over week or month over month) to identify trends. A gradually rising ACoS often indicates increasing competition or stale campaigns that need refreshing.

Report Type 2: Targeting Report

The targeting report breaks down performance by individual keyword or product target within each campaign and ad group.

Key Columns

In addition to the standard metrics (impressions, clicks, spend, sales, ACoS), the targeting report includes the targeting expression (the keyword or ASIN you are targeting), match type (exact, phrase, broad, or targeting type for product targets), and state (enabled, paused, or archived).

Analysis Workflow

Step 1: Filter for keywords with spend above your CPA target times three and zero orders. These are your top candidates for bid reduction or pausing.

Step 2: Identify your top 20 keywords by total orders. These are your power keywords. Ensure they have adequate bids and are not budget-constrained.

Step 3: Look for keywords with high impressions but very low CTR (below 0.15 percent). These may be too broad or your listing may not be competitive for those terms.

Step 4: Calculate the target bid for each keyword using the formula: Target Bid equals (Orders divided by Clicks) multiplied by Average Order Value multiplied by Target ACoS. Compare to actual bids and adjust.

Step 5: Identify keywords with CPC very close to your bid. These keywords are maxing out your bid in most auctions. If performance is strong, increase the bid to ensure you do not lose impressions.

Report Type 3: Search Term Report

The search term report is arguably the most valuable Amazon advertising report. It shows the actual search queries that triggered your ads and their resulting performance.

Key Columns

Beyond standard metrics, the critical column is Customer Search Term, which shows the exact text the shopper typed into Amazon's search bar. The report also shows which keyword or target triggered the ad, allowing you to see the connection between your targeting and the actual customer behavior.

Analysis Workflow

Step 1: Harvesting. Sort by orders descending. Any search term with 2 or more orders at an acceptable ACoS should be promoted to an exact match campaign if it is not already there.

Step 2: Negative identification. Sort by spend descending. Any search term with spend above three times your target CPA and zero conversions is a negative keyword candidate. Check that the term is genuinely irrelevant before adding it as a negative.

Step 3: Relevance audit. Randomly sample 50 to 100 search terms. For each one, assess whether the search term is relevant to your product. Calculate the percentage of irrelevant terms. If it exceeds 20 to 25 percent, your campaigns need tighter targeting or more negative keywords.

Step 4: Opportunity identification. Look for search terms with high conversion rates but low click volume. These terms are converting well but you are not getting enough traffic. Check if your bid is competitive for these terms and increase if needed.

Step 5: N-gram analysis. As discussed in our negative keyword guide, break search terms into individual words and two-word combinations. Sum the metrics for each word or phrase to identify systematic patterns of waste or opportunity.

SellerPilot AI automates this entire search term analysis workflow, flagging harvesting opportunities, negative keyword candidates, and waste patterns so you can take action in minutes instead of spending hours in spreadsheets.

Report Type 4: Placement Report

The placement report shows how your campaigns perform across different ad placements on Amazon.

Key Placements

Top of search (first page): Your ad appears in the first row of search results. This is the premium placement with the highest visibility and typically the highest conversion rate.

Rest of search: Your ad appears in search results but not in the top position. Lower visibility but still captures active searchers.

Product pages: Your ad appears on product detail pages. These placements reach shoppers who are already evaluating specific products.

Analysis Workflow

Step 1: Compare conversion rates across placements. Top of search typically converts 1.5 to 3 times better than other placements.

Step 2: If top of search conversion rate significantly outperforms other placements, consider adding a positive placement adjustment in your campaign settings to bid more aggressively for top position.

Step 3: Calculate ACoS by placement. Even though top of search has higher CPC, the higher conversion rate often produces lower ACoS.

Step 4: If product page placements consistently underperform, your product may not be competitive when shown alongside other products. Review your main image, price, and star rating to identify potential weaknesses.

Step 5: Track placement distribution over time. If Amazon is increasingly serving your ads in lower-performing placements, your bids may need to increase to maintain top-of-search presence.

Report Type 5: Purchased Product Report

This lesser-known report shows which products in your catalog were actually purchased after a shopper clicked your ad. This is critical because the product that was advertised is not always the product that was purchased.

Why This Matters

If your ad for Product A generates clicks but shoppers consistently purchase Product B from your catalog instead, this reveals important information. Your Product A listing might have issues that prevent conversion. Product B might be a better match for the keywords you are targeting. You might achieve better results by directly advertising Product B for those keywords.

Analysis Workflow

Step 1: Compare the advertised ASIN to the purchased ASIN for each row. Identify cases where they differ.

Step 2: If a significant percentage of sales (more than 20 percent) from a campaign are for a different product than the one advertised, investigate why. The keyword may be better suited to the purchased product.

Step 3: Create separate campaigns for the purchased product targeting the keywords that drove those purchases.

Step 4: Use this data for cross-sell strategy. If shoppers who click on Product A frequently buy Product B as well, consider bundling opportunities or cross-sell advertising.

Building Your Reporting Workflow

Consistent reporting is more valuable than occasional deep dives. Here is a practical workflow.

Daily (5 minutes): Check the campaign dashboard for any unusual spikes in spend or dramatic changes in ACoS. This is just a quick health check, not a deep analysis.

Weekly (30 minutes): Download the search term report for the past 7 days. Identify obvious negative keyword opportunities and harvesting candidates. Make bid adjustments on keywords with sufficient new data.

Biweekly (1 hour): Download targeting and placement reports for the past 14 days. Perform the full analysis workflows described above. Adjust bids, budgets, and placements based on findings.

Monthly (2 hours): Download all report types for the past 30 days. Perform comprehensive analysis including n-gram analysis, purchased product review, and trend comparison against previous months. Document findings and action items.

Quarterly (half day): Conduct a full PPC audit using the 20-point checklist. Review 90-day trends. Assess strategic direction and make structural changes to campaign organization.

Common Reporting Mistakes

Analyzing data that is too recent. Data from the past 3 to 7 days is incomplete due to attribution lag. Always use data that is at least 7 days old for reliable analysis. For Sponsored Display, wait 14 days.

Looking at averages without segmenting. A campaign with 25 percent ACoS might have some keywords at 5 percent and others at 100 percent. The average tells you the campaign is okay, but the detail tells you there is significant waste to eliminate and strong performers to scale.

Not downloading reports at all. Surprisingly common. Many sellers rely entirely on the dashboard, which hides critical details like individual search terms and placement performance. Download the actual reports.

Comparing different date ranges without normalizing. Comparing a 30-day period to a 7-day period without adjusting for time scale leads to misleading conclusions. Always compare equal time periods.

Ignoring the purchased product report. This report reveals cross-sell patterns and listing issues that no other report shows. Include it in your monthly analysis.

The reports Amazon provides contain everything you need to make informed advertising decisions. The challenge is not access to data but rather building the discipline to regularly download, analyze, and act on that data. Establish your reporting cadence, follow the analysis workflows, and use the insights to drive continuous improvement. The sellers who master their data consistently outperform those who operate on intuition alone.