Report tool
Why is my ACoS going up?
Drop in a daily Targeting report to see whether higher CPCs, a lower conversion rate or smaller orders pushed your ACoS up, for the whole account and for each target.
- Free, no sign-up
- Your file stays in your browser
Drop your daily Targeting report here
XLSX or CSV with one row per day. A daily Search term report works too.
Your report is read by your browser and never uploaded. Close the tab and it's gone.
A target is compared once it has the minimum clicks in both periods and orders in both. Orders keep being credited to a click for up to 7 days, so leave out the last few days if your report runs to yesterday.
Next step
Do this every day in Merch Jar.
Automation logic you can read, adjust and preview on your account. It's saved switched off, and runs once you turn it on.
Next step
Instructions and tools for a job your AI can do with your files or a connected Merch Jar account.
Which report to download
- 1In the Amazon Ads console, open Reporting under Measurement & Reporting, start from the Targeting template in All templates and set Time unit to Daily, so you get one row per day. A daily report from the Search term template works too, and then each row of the results is a search instead of a target.
- 260 days is a good range. The tool compares the last half of the report with the half before it, or the last 7, 14 or 30 days with the same number before them.
- 3Leave out the last few days with the setting above the results, or download a report that ends a week ago. Orders are credited to the day of the click and keep arriving for up to 7 days after it (14 for vendors), so a report that runs to yesterday makes its newest days look worse than they'll end up.
FAQ
What makes ACoS go up
ACoS is ad spend divided by ad sales. Break both into the numbers behind them and it becomes CPC divided by conversion rate times average order value. So ACoS can only rise when you pay more per click, when fewer clicks turn into orders, or when each order is worth less.
Those three move for different reasons and need different fixes, which is why this tool splits the change instead of just showing it. In the sample data, a garden tools seller's ACoS went from 33.9% in August to 39.5% in September. CPC was up 8.5% and accounts for 3.0 of the 5.6 points. Order value fell 4.7% and conversion rate 2.2%, which explains the rest.
What to do about each driver
The tool names the main driver for the account and for each target with enough clicks. What it means for you depends on which one it is.
- Higher CPC. This is the part bids can fix. Lower bids where ACoS runs above your target, a little at a time. In the sample, the exact keyword "pruning shears" kept its conversion rate, but its CPC went up 30%.
- Lower conversion rate. Usually not a bid problem. Check price, stock, the listing, reviews and the Buy Box, and look at what competitors changed. In the sample, "loppers" got 7 orders from 75 clicks in August and 3 from 78 in September at the same CPC. Cutting its bid would trim the spend without fixing why shoppers stopped buying.
- Smaller orders. Pricing and product mix. In the sample, "pruners" kept its 7 orders, but four were the $12.97 blade pack instead of the $29.97 pruners, so order value fell to $20.26.
A target that had orders before and none now is listed on its own, like "branch cutter" in the sample. It has no ACoS to compare, and it's a conversion problem by definition.
How the split is worked out
Because ACoS is CPC divided by conversion rate times order value, a 10% rise in CPC with everything else flat raises ACoS by 10%. When all three move at once, the tool splits the change with logarithms, so the three parts add up to the ACoS change exactly, then shows each part in ACoS points.
A target is compared once it has at least 20 clicks in each period (you can change that) and orders in both. A change under 10% of the older ACoS counts as steady. The table ranks targets by extra cost, meaning what each one spent in the newer period beyond what the same sales would have cost at its older ACoS.
What happens to your file
Your report never leaves your browser. The page reads it and does the math on your device, with no account and no upload. It reads the targeting (or search term), date, clicks, spend, sales and orders columns, in the header spellings Amazon has used, and skips title rows above the header.
To turn your target ACoS into a bid, use the target CPC calculator. For ACoS by product, try the advertised product report analyzer, and for searches that spent without an order, the search term report analyzer.