Keyword Performance: search terms, flags and suggested actions
The Keyword Performance page (in the top navigation, next to Reports) answers one question per tab, and every row tells you what to change in Amazon Ads. Nothing changes in your account until you make the change in Campaign Manager or confirm it with Apply Bid.
The first tab, Search Term Opportunities, joins Brand Analytics (what the whole market did on a search) with your Sponsored Products search-term report (what you spent) for one Brand Analytics period at a time (a week, month or quarter). The other tabs are in ASIN Funnel, Price vs Market and Order Timing.
Reading a row
- Row colours: amber needs a change, green performs well or is ready to grow, uncoloured needs nothing. The reason is always written in the Flags column.
- Action, Suggested Action, Spend Impact: what to do, exactly how much to change, and how much spend that frees or adds over the period. Sort by Spend Impact to start with the biggest moves.
- Click a search term to see its history over the last weeks, months or quarters. A dash means unknown, not zero.
The target: the period's average ACOS
Every bid suggestion aims at the period's average ACOS for search terms, shown on the action plan card. Following every suggestion moves budget from terms above that ACOS to terms below it without raising the overall ACOS.
The actions
| Action | When | How much |
|---|---|---|
| Add negative | No ad sale after the clicks that should have brought two orders, and fewer than 5 of your cart adds from the search (with 5 or more it becomes Lower bid −30%) | The whole spend is freed |
| Lower bid | ACOS above the target, or no sale yet after the clicks for one order | To the CPC the target affords, at most −50% in one step (−30% when there is no sale yet) |
| Raise bid | ACOS below the target, with at least 2 ad orders | To the CPC the target affords, at most +30% in one step |
| Add keyword | Untapped: shoppers buy from the search and you have no ads on it | Start at the period's average CPC |
| Fix offer | Cart leak: shoppers add to cart but buy elsewhere | No bid change: fix the offer first |
| Cut spend | A single-product store with COGS set where costs exceed the selling price (a negative break-even ACOS), so no bid can be profitable | Cut spend on every term that has spend |
| Keep | The bid change would be under 10% either way | No change |
| Low stock | A raise is due but the product is low on stock | Restock before scaling |
| Needs more data | Too few clicks to judge | No change yet |
How the bid change is worked out
Affordable CPC = (7-day ad sales ÷ ad clicks) × target ACOS Bid change = affordable CPC ÷ today's CPC − 1 (kept between −50% and +30%)
Example. A term earned ₹46.31 per click. At an 18.10% target it can afford ₹8.38 a click, and it pays ₹10.53 today, so its bid should come down about 20%. Amazon reports CPC, not your bid, so change the bid by the same percentage.
For a store that advertises a single product with COGS set (and Amazon's fees known), the target is also capped at that product's break-even ACOS, so no bid is raised above the margin. See Profit, margin and break-even ACOS.
How many clicks before judging
The bar follows your own ad conversion rate, so a term is not cut for bad luck. At a 0.55% conversion rate (one ad order per about 182 clicks), a term needs about 182 clicks before its bid changes and about 364 clicks without a sale before it becomes a negative. With fewer clicks it says Needs more data. The floors are 10 and 20 clicks.
The flags
| Flag | Colour | Rule | What to change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wasted spend | Amber | At least 1% of the period's ad spend and 10 ad clicks, with 0 ad orders, 0 of your purchases and fewer than 5 of your cart adds from the search (shoppers adding you to cart often buy later) | Add it as a negative exact keyword |
| Performing well | Green | At least 2 ad orders at an ACOS at or below the average | Raise its bid 10 to 20%, or give it its own exact keyword |
| Untapped | Green | No ad spend, at least 50 searches and at least 1 purchase of yours | Add it as an exact keyword at about your average CPC |
| Priced out | Amber | Your clicked price is at least 1.15× the market's, and your conversion is below the market's (10+ clicks) | Lower the bid about 20% or advertise a cheaper ASIN |
| Cart leak | Amber | 5+ of your cart adds, converting under half the market's rate | Fix the offer: price, coupon, delivery promise, stock, Buy Box |
| Strong cart interest | Green | 5+ cart adds and a cart-add share at least 1.25× your click share | A term already on target gets a +10% bid step |
| Low share, high volume | Amber | One of the period's top 1% searches by volume, where you have under 1% of purchases | Decide on purpose: keep a low bid for visibility, or target longer variants |
A row with a warning and Performing well stays green: profitable ads on a crowded search are worth keeping.
Collect negatives
Tick rows and use Add to list to collect terms in the Negative words list, then push them to Amazon. See Keyword lists.
Limits
- Amazon publishes Brand Analytics per week, month or quarter only. Sponsored Products counts about twice the clicks Brand Analytics credits you for the same searches, so we deliberately do not show ad-clicks ÷ search-clicks.
- Search terms that are ASINs (product targeting) have no Brand Analytics query and are left out of the rows.
- Spend Impact assumes clicks stay the same. It is the size of the change, not a forecast. Re-check next period.
- Brand Analytics must be available for your account. See Why are my Brand Analytics pages empty?.
Still stuck? Ask us from the chat bubble in the corner of the page. Tell us the store, the page and the date range.