Amazon PPC Glossary: 36 Terms Explained Simply
Amazon advertising comes with its own vocabulary, and a lot of it sounds alike. This Amazon PPC glossary explains the terms sellers run into most, in plain language, with a link to a full guide wherever you want to go deeper.
A
A+ Content
Enhanced product description content for brand owners, with rich images, comparison charts, and brand story modules. Read the full guide.
ACoS
Advertising cost of sale: ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales. A 30% ACoS means you spent $30 on ads for every $100 of ad sales. Read the full guide.
Alexa for Shopping (formerly Rufus)
Amazon’s AI shopping assistant. It answers shopper questions, compares products, and can watch prices, drawing on listing content and reviews. Read the full guide.
Amazon Attribution
A measurement tool that tags links from outside Amazon, such as Google or social ads, and reports the clicks and sales they drive. Read the full guide.
Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)
A privacy-safe clean room where advertisers analyze the full path to purchase across their Amazon ads and build audiences. Read the full guide.
ASIN
Amazon Standard Identification Number, the unique ID Amazon gives each product listing.
Auto campaign
A Sponsored Products campaign where Amazon chooses which searches and products to match your ad to, used mainly for discovering new search terms. Read the full guide.
B
Backend search terms
Hidden keyword fields in your listing that Amazon indexes for search but shoppers never see. Read the full guide.
Brand Analytics
Reports available to brand-registered sellers, including search term data and Search Query Performance. Read the full guide.
Brand Referral Bonus
A credit, averaging around 10% of sales by category, that Amazon pays brand owners on sales driven by outside marketing through Attribution links. Read the full guide.
Brand Registry
Amazon’s free program for trademark owners that unlocks brand tools such as A+ Content, Sponsored Brands, and Brand Analytics. Read the full guide.
Break-even ACoS
Your profit margin before ad costs. At this ACoS you make zero profit on ad sales. Read the full guide.
Buy Box (Featured Offer)
The main Add to Cart offer on a product page. When several sellers offer the same product, Amazon chooses which offer wins it. Read the full guide.
C
Conversion rate (CVR)
The share of clicks or sessions that become orders. For ads, orders divided by clicks. Read the full guide.
CPC
Cost per click: what you pay each time a shopper clicks your ad. Read the full guide.
CTR
Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions. It shows how compelling your ad looks in results.
D
Dynamic bidding
A bid strategy where Amazon adjusts your bid in real time based on how likely a click is to convert. Options are down only, and up and down. Read the full guide.
E
Exact, phrase, and broad match
Keyword match types. Exact matches a search closely, phrase matches searches containing your phrase, and broad matches loosely related searches. Read the full guide.
H
Harvesting
Moving search terms that convert from auto or broad campaigns into exact-match campaigns, where you control the bid. Read the full guide.
I
Item Highlights
A searchable field of up to 125 characters shown beneath the product title, introduced alongside Amazon’s 75-character title limit. Read the full guide.
M
Manual campaign
A Sponsored Products campaign where you choose the keywords or products to target and set their bids. Read the full guide.
Max CPC
The highest bid you can pay per click and still hit your target ACoS. Calculated as price times target ACoS times conversion rate. Read the full guide.
N
Negative keyword
A search term you exclude so your ad stops showing, and charging you, for irrelevant searches. Read the full guide.
New-to-brand
A customer buying from your brand for the first time within a set lookback period. Useful for judging Sponsored Brands and Display. Read the full guide.
O
Organic rank
Where your product appears in unpaid search results for a keyword, driven largely by sales history, relevance, and conversion. Read the full guide.
P
Placement adjustment
A percentage increase to your bid for a specific placement: top of search, rest of search, or product pages. Up to 900%. Read the full guide.
R
ROAS
Return on ad spend: ad sales divided by ad spend. It is the inverse of ACoS, so a 25% ACoS equals a ROAS of 4.
S
Search Query Performance (SQP)
A Brand Analytics report showing impressions, clicks, cart adds, and purchases for each search query, and your share of each. Read the full guide.
Search term report
The ad report listing the actual searches that triggered your ads, with the clicks, spend, and sales for each. Read the full guide.
Sponsored Brands
Ads for brand-registered sellers showing your logo, a headline, and several products or a video, in prominent search placements. Read the full guide.
Sponsored Display
Ads that target shoppers by audience or by product page context, on and off Amazon. Now part of Amazon’s display ads offering; existing campaigns keep running, and new ones are created as Display campaigns. Read the full guide.
Sponsored Products
Cost-per-click ads promoting a single product in search results and on product pages. The most common Amazon ad type. Read the full guide.
Sponsored Prompts
Ad placements inside Amazon’s AI shopping assistant, drawn from your Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns. Read the full guide.
T
TACoS
Total advertising cost of sale: ad spend divided by total sales, ad and organic. It shows whether ads are growing the whole business. Read the full guide.
Top of search
The first row of search results on page one. Usually the highest converting and most expensive ad placement. Read the full guide.
V
Vine
Amazon’s program that gives new products to trusted reviewers in exchange for honest reviews. Brand Registry required. Read the full guide.
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