Key takeaways: Weekly reports track what can be acted on in a week: spend pacing, ACoS by campaign job, wasted spend, out-of-budget campaigns, stock and the changes made. Monthly reports track what needs a month to mean anything: TACoS, organic share, rank on target terms, new-to-brand share and profit per ASIN. Quarterly reviews reset targets and structure. A report that shows a number without saying what changed and what it did is a dashboard, not a report.
Amazon PPC reporting works when each metric is read at the cadence that fits how fast it can change and how quickly you can act on it. ACoS on a control campaign moves week to week and can be corrected week to week, so it belongs in the weekly report. TACoS and organic share move slowly and are distorted by any single week's launch or promotion, so they belong in the monthly view. Strategy, structure and targets are quarterly questions. Reading a monthly metric weekly produces reactions to noise; reading a weekly metric monthly lets problems run for four weeks.
The three cadences
| Cadence | Question it answers | Core metrics | Who reads it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly | Is the account on plan, and what did we change? | Spend vs pace, ACoS by campaign job, zero-order spend share, out-of-budget campaigns, days of cover, change log | The person running the account, the client's day-to-day contact |
| Monthly | Is the strategy working? | TACoS, ad share of total sales, organic rank on target terms, new-to-brand share, conversion rate per ASIN, profit per ASIN | Client decision-maker |
| Quarterly | Is the strategy still right? | Trend of all monthly metrics, structure review, target reset, lifecycle stage per product, competitive shifts | Both, in a review meeting |
Weekly: what can be acted on
The weekly report has five sections, and each exists because there is a decision attached to it.
Spend against pace. Spend to date for each portfolio against the pro-rated monthly target. Behind pace with ACoS in band means budgets or bids come up; ahead of pace means checking whether the extra spend brought extra sales.
ACoS by campaign job. Not one blended figure. Control campaigns against the profit target, discovery campaigns against their looser band, launch campaigns against the launch plan, defense campaigns against impression share. A blended ACoS hides a launch that is on plan behind a profit campaign that has drifted.
Wasted spend. Zero-order spend share from the search term report, and the negatives added this week in response. This is the metric that shows the weekly routine is running.
Constraints. Campaigns that hit their budget cap, ASINs below a stock threshold, any listing that lost the Buy Box or was suppressed. These are the things that make every other number irrelevant if missed.
The change log. Every bid, budget, negative and keyword change made this week, with the reason. A report that shows ACoS fell but not what was done to make it fall cannot be learned from. Every change we make is logged this way, which is the process in B21 · How changes reach your account.
Monthly: what needs a month
Some numbers are only meaningful over a longer window, either because they move slowly or because a single week's events distort them.
TACoS. Total ad spend divided by total sales, paid and organic. This is the number that shows whether advertising is growing the business or just growing itself. It needs a month because one week's promotion or launch spike swings it. It should be reported with launches separated, so a new product's planned high spend does not hide a mature product's drift. That separation is the approach in D6 · Total ad cost creeping up (TACoS).
Organic share and rank. The percentage of total sales that came without an ad click, and organic rank on the target keyword list, both tracked month over month. Rising organic share at stable total sales is the sign that ad spend is building something rather than renting it.
Conversion rate per advertised ASIN. Unit session percentage from Business Reports, compared with the previous month and the category. Falling conversion on a stable listing usually means a competitor or price change; falling conversion after a listing change means the change did not work.
New-to-brand share. For accounts running Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display or DSP with a brand-building objective, the share of orders from shoppers who had not bought from the brand in the past year. This is how upper-funnel spend is judged.
Profit per ASIN. Revenue less Amazon fees, cost of goods and ad spend, per ASIN, per month. The metric that decides which products to scale, hold, fix or retire.
Quarterly: is the strategy still right
Read this flowchart as text
- Quarter closes
- Trend the monthly metrics over 3 months and vs last year
- TACoS trend matches the objective?
- Revisit objective: growth, profit, rank or brand. Reset targets
- Structure still one job per campaign?
- Structure clean-up: merge, split, negate, archive
- Any product changed lifecycle stage?
- Move to new targets: launch to profit, mature to defend
- Next quarter plan: budget by portfolio, events, tests
The quarterly review is where targets are allowed to change. A weekly report that keeps moving the ACoS target is a report that is hiding misses. Targets are set for a quarter, reported against for a quarter, and revisited with the full picture: what the trend did, what the market did, and whether the objective itself is still the right one. The three-cadence rhythm and the meetings that go with it are described in A9 · How and when you hear from us.
What a report should look like
Whatever the cadence, the same three things on every page: the number, what changed since last time, and what was done or will be done about it. A number alone is a dashboard. A number with a change is a chart. A number with a change and an action is a report.
The other test is whether a reader who was not in the account can follow it. If the weekly report needs the person who wrote it to explain it, it is not finished. What clients should expect from an agency's reports specifically is covered in Amazon Agency Reporting: What Good Reports Look Like.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important Amazon PPC metric?
It depends on the objective. For a profit objective, ACoS by campaign against break-even and profit per ASIN. For growth, TACoS and organic share. For a launch, organic rank on target terms. There is no single most important metric, and any report built around one is measuring the wrong thing for at least part of the catalog.
How often should I check my Amazon ads?
Budgets, stock and eligibility daily, because a miss there costs money by the hour. Bids, negatives and ACoS by campaign weekly. TACoS, rank, conversion and profit monthly. Strategy and targets quarterly. Checking a monthly metric daily leads to changes based on noise.
What is the difference between ACoS and TACoS in a report?
ACoS is ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales; it measures campaign efficiency. TACoS is ad spend divided by total sales including organic; it measures whether advertising is growing the whole business. ACoS belongs in the weekly report by campaign. TACoS belongs in the monthly report by product.
What should an Amazon PPC weekly report include?
Spend against monthly pace, ACoS by campaign job rather than blended, zero-order spend share and the negatives added, out-of-budget campaigns and stock warnings, and a log of every change made with its reason. Anything else is optional; those five are not.