Intro

Amazon offers reports for their three major ad types, Sponsored Product Ads, Sponsored Brand Ads and Sponsored Display Ads.

The number of options available within these categories can be a bit overwhelming, so let’s do our best here to simplify and explain the offering as much as possible.

While the number of reports available for each type of ad varies, they are all broken down in essentially the same way. They are always going to offer performance metrics grouped by hierarchy level, targeting, or some combination of the two.

Hierarchy level refers to the hierarchy of the advertising structure, for example Campaign > Ad Group > Ad.

Targeting refers to how the ads target a segment of the audience.

Targeting Types

The targeting types themselves can be a bit confusing, as they are not all available for all ad types. But let us just review all the options here.

Keyword Targeting

Keyword targeting let’s you pick specific keywords that the user searches for, such as “organic soap” and the specificity of the match such as “exact”, “phrase” or “broad”.

Audience Targeting

Targeting audience segments. Behind the scenes Amazon attaches various meta-data to their users using their shopping habits to group them “audiences” based on their interests, as well as general demographics.

Product Targeting

Product targeting lets you pick specific products that your ad can be shown next to as an alternative. You can select specificity such as “complements”, “substitutes”, “close-match” and “loose-match”

Category Targeting

Category targeting is similar to product targeting, but instead of picking a specific product, you pick an entire product category.

Targeting Notes

It is worth noting, as this was a point of confusion for me, that target metadata can be fetched through the API (standard API, not reports) much like other metadata. This may be required to create a comprehensive picture.

Product Reports

Just as a side note I have some internal designations for these reports listed here, these are just for myself and won’t be relevant to anyone else. I’ll label these with the key BBID.

Product Reports > Campaigns

BBID: product_report_campaigns

Performance Metrics grouped by Campaign.

Product Reports > Campaigns Placement

BBID: product_report_campaigns_placement

Performance Metrics grouped by Campaign and Placement (IE Top of Page, Detail Page, etc…)

Product Reports > Ad Groups

BBID: product_report_adgroups

Performance Metrics grouped by Ad Group.

Why are there no Ad reports? In Product Ads the products ARE the advertisements, therefore the “Ads” reports, are the Advertised Product and Purchased Product reports.

Product Reports > Advertised Product

BBID: product_report_advertised_product

Performance data for products that are advertised as part of your campaigns. Does not include data on purchases that were made as a result of these ads which were not the target product.

Product Reports > Purchased Product

BBID: product_report_purchased_product

Performance data for products that were purchased, but were not advertised as part of a campaign. The purchased product report contains both targeting expressions and keyword IDs. After you have received your report, you can filter on keywordType to distinguish between targeting expressions and keywords.

Product Reports > Targeting Expressions

BBID: product_report_targeting_expressions

Performance metrics broken down by both targeting expressions and keywords. There are two types of targeting expressions. TARGETING_EXPRESSION and TARGETING_EXPRESSION_PREDEFINED.

A sample TARGETING_EXPRESSION would be a specific ASIN or Product Category, while a TARGETING_EXPRESSION_PREDEFINED would be “complements”, “substitutes”, “close-match” and “loose-match”. Meaning for example “close-match/substitute to the products being advertised in this campaign”.

Product Reports > Targeting Keywords

BBID: product_report_targeting_keywords

Performance metrics grouped by keyword instances. One seemingly identical keyword can have multiple instances. For example “Green Tea” could be a keyword placed in multiple different Ad Groups or Campaigns. All of those instances are grouped individually.

Product Reports > Search Terms Expressions

BBID: product_report_search_terms_expressions

Performance metrics grouped by Search Terms and Targeting Expressions.

Search Terms are the terms that customers actually type in the search bar, which can then match with not only keywords, but also with targeting expressions as defined above.

Product Reports > Search Terms Keywords

BBID: product_report_search_terms_keywords

Performance metrics grouped by Search Terms and Keywords.

Brand Reports

Brand Reports > Campaigns

BBID: brand_report_campaigns

Performance Metrics grouped by Campaign.

Brand Reports > Ad Groups

BBID: brand_report_adgroups

Performance Metrics grouped by Ad Group.

Brand Reports > Ads

BBID: brand_report_ads

Performance Metrics grouped by Ad.

**NOTE: Only Ads within MultiAdGroupEnabled Campaigns are given Ad Id’s, and therefore can have performance metrics broken down by individual Ad instance. This is a limitation of the Brand Ads API < v4.

Brand Reports > Keywords

BBID: brand_report_keywords

Performance metrics broken down by keyword instances. One seemingly identical keyword can have multiple instances. For example “Green Tea” could be a keyword placed in multiple different Ad Groups or Campaigns. All of those instances are broken down individually.

Brand Reports > Placements

BBID: brand_report_placements

Performance Metrics grouped by Campaign and Placement (IE Top of Page, Detail Page, etc…)

Brand Reports > Search Terms

BBID: brand_report_search_terms

Performance Metrics grouped by Search Terms and their matching Keyword Instance.

Will apply only to Ad Groups that use manual keyword targeting.

Brand Reports > Targets

BBID: brand_report_targets

Performance Metrics grouped by Ad Groups and Targeting Expressions. A sample TARGETING_EXPRESSION would be a specific ASIN or Product Category.

Display Reports

Display reports are somewhat unique as Display Advertisements use two main types of targeting Audience Targeting or Contextual (Product) Targeting.

Contextual targeting allows you to target similar products or categories.

Audience targeting allows you to target categories of users.

Campaigns are associated with one of these targeting types at their creation, and cannot use both.

Display Reports > Audience Targeting Campaigns

BBID: display_report_campaigns_at

Performance Metrics grouped by Audience Targeting Campaign

Display Reports > Contextual Targeting Campaigns

BBID: display_report_campaigns_pt

Performance Metrics grouped by Contextual Targeting Campaign

Display Reports > Audience Targeting Ad Groups

BBID: display_report_adgroups_at

Performance Metrics grouped by Ad Groups within Audience Targeting Campaigns

Display Reports > Contextual Targeting Ad Groups

BBID: display_report_adgroups_pt

Performance Metrics grouped by Ad Groups within Contextual Targeting Campaigns

Display Reports > Audience Targeting Ads

BBID: display_report_product_ads_at

Performance Metrics grouped by Ads within Audience Targeting Campaigns

Display Reports > Contextual Targeting Ads

BBID: display_report_product_ads_pt

Performance Metrics grouped by Ads within Contextual Targeting Campaigns

Display Reports > Audience Targeting ASINS

BBID: display_report_asins_at

Performance Metrics grouped by ASINS within Audience Targeting Campaigns

Display Reports > Contextual Targeting ASINS

BBID: display_report_asins_pt

Performance Metrics grouped by ASINS within Contextual Targeting Campaigns

Display Reports > Audience Targeting Targets

BBID: display_report_targets_at

Performance Metrics grouped by Audience Targeting Target

• This report includes the target information (targetId, targetingExpression, targetingText)

Display Reports > Contextual Targeting Targets

BBID: display_report_targets_pt

Performance Metrics grouped by Contextual Targeting Target

• This report includes the target information (targetId, targetingExpression, targetingText)

Display Reports > Audience Targeting Matched Target

BBID: display_report_matched_target_targets_at

Performance Metrics grouped by Matched Audience Target

• This report includes the target information (targetId, targetingExpression, targetingText)
• This report includes the matchedTarget

Display Reports > Contextual Targeting Matched Target

BBID: display_report_matched_target_targets_pt

Performance Metrics grouped by Contextual Target

• This report includes the target information (targetId, targetingExpression, targetingText)
• This report includes the matchedTarget

Display Reports > Audience Targeting Matched Target Campaigns

BBID: display_report_matched_target_campaigns_at

Performance Metrics grouped by Matched Target and Campaign

• This report includes the matchedTarget

Display Reports > Contextual Targeting Matched Target Campaigns

BBID: display_report_matched_target_campaigns_pt

Performance Metrics grouped by Matched Target and Campaign

• This report includes the matchedTarget

Display Reports > Audience Targeting Matched Target Ad Groups

BBID: display_report_matched_target_adgroups_at

Performance Metrics grouped by Matched Target and Ad Group

• This report includes the matchedTarget

Display Reports > Contextual Targeting Matched Target Ad Groups

BBID: display_report_matched_target_adgroups_pt

Performance Metrics grouped by Matched Target and Ad Group

• This report includes the matchedTarget