Basics

Amazon PPC glossary — 50 terms

Fifty Amazon-PPC terms defined — organised into four sections for scanning: metrics, campaign mechanics, targeting + keywords, and Amazon platform. Each entry is short by design; use this glossary for "what does that acronym mean", not for deep explanation (those live in the other help articles).

Metrics

ACoS — Advertising Cost of Sale

Ad spend divided by sales generated by ads, as a percentage. Campaign-level efficiency measure. Lower = more efficient. Target ACoS depends on product margin.

TACoS — Total Advertising Cost of Sale

Ad spend divided by total product revenue (ads + organic), as a percentage. Strategic measure of how much advertising eats into your overall business.

ROAS — Return on Ad Spend

Sales generated by ads divided by ad spend, as a multiplier. Mirror of ACoS (ROAS = 1 / ACoS). Often used in US contexts; the EU market prefers ACoS.

CPC — Cost Per Click

Average amount paid per click. Not a bid — the bid is your maximum; the CPC is what you actually paid. Varies with competition on the term.

CTR — Click-Through Rate

Clicks divided by impressions. Measures whether your ad compels the click. Healthy CTR on Sponsored Products: 0.3–0.8 %. Below that often means poor keyword-product fit.

Conversion Rate (CR)

Orders divided by clicks. Measures whether your landing page / product page closes. 5–15 % is typical for mature Amazon ASINs; under 3 % suggests a listing quality issue.

Impression Share

Your impressions divided by total impressions available for a keyword. Shows how much traffic you're capturing vs competitors. Not directly shown by Amazon — we approximate from the API data.

AOV — Average Order Value

Total sales divided by number of orders. Useful to compare alongside ACoS: high AOV means each order absorbs more ad cost, so a higher ACoS can still be profitable.

Organic Rank

Your product's position in Amazon's organic (non-sponsored) search results for a keyword. Ads influence organic rank via the halo effect but don't guarantee it.

BSR — Best Seller Rank

Amazon's internal ranking per category. Lower number = more sales. Not a direct PPC metric but tracked because ad-spend efficiency varies with BSR.

CVR — Cohort Conversion Rate

Conversion rate of a defined traffic cohort over time (e.g. clicks from week 1 converting within 30 days). Useful for evaluating longer-fuse products where same-day conversion understates value.

Campaign mechanics

Bid

The maximum you're willing to pay for a click. Amazon's second-price auction means you usually pay less than your bid.

Max Bid / Default Bid

The bid set at keyword or ad-group level. Max Bid is the ceiling; Default Bid is what applies until overridden per-keyword.

Bid Adjustment

Percentage modifier on the default bid for a specific placement (Top of Search, Product Pages, Rest of Search). +50 % on Top of Search means Amazon bids 1.5 × your default for that placement.

Dynamic Bidding — Down Only

Amazon lowers your bid for impressions unlikely to convert. Default setting for most campaigns. Safe starting point.

Dynamic Bidding — Up and Down

Amazon can raise your bid up to 100 % for impressions likely to convert, or lower for unlikely ones. More aggressive; useful once you have conversion history.

Fixed Bid

Amazon uses exactly your bid, no dynamic adjustment. Maximum control, minimum optimisation. Useful for experiments or defensive brand campaigns.

Daily Budget

The maximum Amazon can spend on a campaign per day. Amazon may spend up to 25 % over the daily budget on high-opportunity days, balanced by under-spend on others.

Lifetime Budget

Total budget for a campaign across its lifetime (typically for Sponsored Brands). Amazon paces spend to the end date.

Budget Pacing

How Amazon distributes your budget across the day or campaign lifetime. Default is even pacing; accelerated pacing spends faster (useful for time-limited events).

Dayparting

Scheduling spend to run only during specific hours. Useful when conversion rate varies by time-of-day (B2B 9–17, B2C evenings). Typically implemented via budget-scaling rules, not a native Amazon feature.

Frequency Cap

Maximum times Amazon shows your ad to the same user in a window. Not directly configurable on Sponsored Products; applies to Sponsored Display and DSP.

Targeting + Keywords

Keyword

A search term you bid on. Your ad shows when someone searches for that keyword, subject to match type and bid competitiveness.

Match Type — Exact

Ad shows only for the exact keyword (plus small plural / inflection variants). Highest precision, usually highest conversion, highest CPC.

Match Type — Phrase

Ad shows for search terms containing your keyword as a substring in order. Medium precision. Good for capturing long-tail variants of a core keyword.

Match Type — Broad

Ad shows for search terms semantically related to your keyword (plus synonyms, misspellings, re-orderings). Lowest precision, widest reach, cheapest CPC, source of keyword discovery.

Broad Modified (legacy)

Pre-2021 Amazon match type using `+keyword +term` syntax. Folded into regular Broad Match in 2021. If docs still reference it, they're stale.

Negative Keyword

A keyword you don't want to show ads on. Reduces wasted spend on irrelevant search terms. Added at campaign or ad-group level.

Negative Exact

Negative keyword matching only the exact term. Surgical blocking — won't over-block related relevant terms.

Negative Phrase

Negative keyword matching any search containing the phrase as a substring. Broader blocking; useful for recurring irrelevant modifiers ("free", "used", "for kids" on adult products).

Long-Tail Keyword

A multi-word, specific search term with low individual volume but high intent. Example: "stainless steel french press 1 litre". Typically lower CPC, higher conversion rate.

Branded Keyword

A keyword containing your brand name. High conversion rate (buyer already knows you); low ACoS. Bidding here often cannibalises organic — see brand cannibalisation.

Generic Keyword

Keyword describing the product without mentioning your brand. The new-customer-acquisition workhorse. Higher ACoS than branded; where most scaling happens.

Product Targeting (ASIN Targeting)

Instead of bidding on keywords, bid on specific competitor ASINs or category pages. Useful for head-to- head comparisons on competitor product pages.

Category Targeting

Bid on a whole category instead of individual ASINs. Refinements available: price range, star rating, Prime eligibility.

Auto Campaign

Amazon automatically selects search terms + ASINs to show your ad on, based on its own understanding of your product. Good for discovery, bad for control.

Manual Campaign

You choose the keywords and ASINs to target. More control, more setup work. Default for mature accounts.

Keyword Harvester

Process (manual or automated) of promoting profitable search terms discovered in Auto or Broad campaigns into Exact match campaigns with higher bids.

Amazon platform + reports

ASIN — Amazon Standard Identification Number

Amazon's unique 10-character product identifier. Every product has one. The unit of analysis for most Amazon-PPC metrics.

SKU — Stock Keeping Unit

Seller's internal product identifier, can differ from ASIN. Relevant for inventory and VAT mapping; PPC generally operates on ASIN.

Buy Box

The prominent "Add to Cart" area on the product detail page. Ads only serve when you hold the Buy Box. Lose Buy Box, ads go dark automatically.

Parent / Child ASIN

Hierarchy for product variations (e.g. sizes, colours). Parent is the listing umbrella; children are the actual purchasable variations. Ads target the parent.

PDP — Product Detail Page

The full product page where customers land from an ad. Conversion rate heavily depends on PDP quality (images, A+ Content, reviews).

A+ Content

Enhanced product detail page visuals (large images, comparison tables). Requires Brand Registry. Measurable conversion-rate lift.

Brand Store

A multi-page branded Amazon storefront, reachable from a Sponsored Brands ad. Brand Registry required.

Brand Registry

Amazon programme for trademark-registered brands. Unlocks Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, A+ Content, Brand Store. Prerequisite for most advanced PPC.

SB Video

Sponsored Brands ad variant using a short product video. Higher CPC, typically higher conversion on considered-purchase products.

DSP — Amazon Demand-Side Platform

Programmatic advertising across Amazon and partner sites. Audience-based, enterprise-scale. Typically managed agency-side; Sellerwerk doesn't integrate with DSP at v1.0.

Amazon Attribution

Measurement tool that lets sellers track off-Amazon traffic sources (Google, social, email) driving Amazon sales. Separate from Amazon Ads.

Search-Term Report

Amazon report showing which customer search terms triggered your ads, plus the resulting metrics per term. The single most important report for keyword optimisation.

Category Report

Performance breakdown by product category. Useful for multi-category sellers identifying which categories carry the ad budget best.

Placement Report

Performance breakdown by placement (Top of Search, Product Pages, Rest of Search). Input for bid- adjustment decisions.

Halo Effect

Indirect impact of ads on organic sales — ads raising product visibility improve organic rank, which creates more sales than the ads themselves explain. Unattributed, but real.

Brand Cannibalisation

Paying for ads on your own brand-name keywords, when those customers would have bought organically anyway. Classic low-ACoS, high-TACoS pattern.

LWA — Login with Amazon

Amazon's OAuth service for authenticating Amazon customer accounts. Sellerwerk uses LWA to connect your Amazon Advertising API access.

SP-API — Selling Partner API

Amazon's unified API for sellers. Separate from the Advertising API. Used for inventory and orders; not required for core Sellerwerk functionality but powers inventory-aware rules (Q3/2026 rollout).

Fifty terms isn't exhaustive. Missing something? Email support@sellerwerk.de and we'll add it.