How to Use the Amazon Ads Dashboard to Find What Changed

Use the Amazon Ads dashboard to find where performance changed, then open the campaigns contributing most to that change. Start by checking the account and date range. A rise in account-level ACoS is a reason to investigate; it doesn’t tell you which bid to change.

A useful review ends with a few specific decisions and the evidence behind them. You don’t need to inspect every campaign equally.

Get the account and reporting period right

Sign in to the Amazon advertising console and select the advertiser account you want to review. Campaign Manager holds the campaign table and performance views. Amazon’s console guide explains the date controls and customizable columns used to inspect those campaigns. Amazon’s console guide

Check the selected marketplace and any filters before reading the totals. A view filtered to one portfolio or campaign status can answer a narrower question than the number at the top suggests.

For a weekly review, compare complete weeks with the same weekdays. If you’re checking partway through a week, compare the equivalent portion of the previous period and label it that way. Promotions and stock availability can make even equal-length periods behave differently, so keep those events beside the numbers.

Also check what the sales metric measures. Advertising-attributed sales can differ from retail sales because of attribution rules and which purchases are included. Purchases can be credited back to an earlier ad interaction, which is one reason a recent period can change after you first inspect it. Amazon’s attribution documentation

Avoid treating the newest conversion figures as settled when you review efficiency.

Read the numbers behind ACoS

For an efficiency review, keep cost and attributed sales visible together. Add clicks and average CPC so you can investigate a change in cost. Orders help you see whether sales changed alongside purchase volume.

ACoS is advertising cost divided by attributed sales, expressed as a percentage. ROAS reverses that ratio. Neither includes the full cost of selling your product. Use your margin and campaign objective to decide what you can accept; our target ACoS guide works through that step.

Now consider a worked example with invented figures.

Cost rose by $200 while attributed sales stayed flat. That gives you a more specific question than whether 24% is good or bad. Find where the additional $200 went.

Start by comparing clicks and CPC. Cost is clicks multiplied by average CPC, so either can explain part of the increase. If clicks rose, inspect the traffic that increased. If CPC rose, check which campaigns and targets account for it. Both can change at once.

Find the campaigns driving the difference

Export the campaign rows for each period, keeping campaign IDs. Match the periods by ID, then subtract previous cost from current cost. Sort by that dollar difference.

Use percentage changes alongside the dollars. A campaign moving from $1 to $3 is up 200%, but it explains only $2 of the account’s additional cost.

In the example above, suppose the campaign detail looks like this.

The core campaign hasn’t changed in these figures. The new product test accounts for the entire $200 increase, and its ACoS moved from 40% to 80%.

Before cutting its bids, check whether that spending was intentional. There may have been an approved test budget, a promotion or a change in availability. Then open the ad groups and targets within that campaign to locate the additional cost. You now have a bounded review, with the core campaign left out of the change list unless other evidence brings it in.

This is also why account ACoS needs context. A larger share of spend going to a higher-ACoS campaign can move the account ratio even when the other campaigns are steady.

Choose a report that can answer the next question

Once you’ve found the campaign, choose the detail that addresses what you still don’t know.

Amazon provides search term, placement and advertised product reports for these different jobs. Their coverage differs, so check the report definition before comparing its total with another view. Amazon’s reporting guide

For current reporting, open Measurement & Reporting, then Reporting. Amazon’s unified report builder supports templates and custom reports across accounts and ad products. It is replacing the older sponsored ads and Amazon DSP report areas, which Amazon says will close by December 31, 2026. Amazon’s unified reporting announcement

When you move between reporting surfaces, match the accounts and dates, and compare the same metric definitions. A matching column label alone isn’t enough to establish that two exports cover the same activity.

Keep the decision beside the evidence

For each campaign you investigate, record the period, the change you found and what you decided to do. If you’re waiting for more data, give the review a date.

A useful note for the example would say that the new product test spent an additional $200 without additional attributed sales in the compared periods. Add whether that was within its approved test budget, which targets contributed, and the action you actually took.

Keep the export with that note. If you changed several settings at once, record all of them. Otherwise, a later improvement can tempt you to credit whichever change you remember.

For repeated filtering in Merch Jar, Segments let you save a view based on conditions and calculated metrics. A Segment can be used for review without attaching an automated Workflow. That gives you a place to revisit the same selection logic. Segments documentation

Start your next account review with the campaign that contributed most to the change. Follow it far enough to identify the relevant targets or products, and leave a record of the decision for the next pass.