How to add keywords of an existing Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brand campaign

To either add or remove keywords to existing Amazon PPC campaigns follow these steps:

• Navigate to the “Campaign Manager” section
• Click into the campaign you want to edit
• Select the ad group you want to edit
• Go to the “Targeting” tab
• Select “Add Keywords” next to the search bar

Please note that you cannot update keywords by changing the keyword text. Instead, you should pause or archive an existing keyword, and then add new ones to the campaign.

How to remove (pause) keywords in an existing Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brand campaign

Removing keywords from a campaign works similar:

• Navigate to the “Campaign Manager” section
• Click into the campaign you want to edit
• Select the ad group you want to edit
• Go to the “Targeting” tab
• Toggle off the status button in the “Active” column for the keywords you wish to pause or remove

As a next step, you may also want to learn more about how to add negative keywords to Amazon PPC campaigns.

How to change the campaign bidding strategy for Sponsored Products campaigns

For Sponsored Products ads Amazon offer three basic bid strategies: Dynamic bids (down only or up only), fixed bids and rule-based bidding that allows Amazon to determine how high or low your bids are (based on a ROAS target that you set). This is how you can change your bidding strategy:

• Navigate to the “Campaign Manager” section
• Click into the campaign you want to edit
• Select “Campaign Settings”
• Navigate to the “Campaign bidding strategy” section
• Choose the right bidding strategy for your entire ad campaign

How to change keyword bids (for Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brand campaigns)

In situations where you want to edit keyword level bids you can do so by:

• Navigate to the “Campaign Manager” section
• Click into the campaign you want to edit
• Click into the appropriate ad group
• Go to the “Targeting” tab
• Find the relevant keywords to adjust by either:
• Clicking “Apply” in the “Suggested bid” column to automatically use a suggested bid, or
• Increasing or decreasing your bid in the “Keyword bid” column
• Click “Save” to update changes

To figure out how to set appropriate bids read our complete guide on Amazon PPC Bidding Strategy and our blog posts on: Amazon PPC suggested bid and Bid Management for Amazon PPC.

How to edit creatives of live campaigns (Sponsored Brand and Sponsored Display)

You can edit the products included, headline copies, swap out still visuals or videos and logos in a live campaign without needing to re-creating the respective Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display campaign. Your existing campaign will continue to run until the new creatives have been system approved. Here is how to change creatives:

• Navigate to the “Campaign Manager” section.
• Click on the campaign you want to update.
• Click on the “Creative” tab which will preview your latest creative.
• Click on the “Edit creative” button on the preview toolbar and make your edits.
• Click “Submit campaign” for review.

How to change the target audience for Sponsored Brand and Sponsored Display Campaigns

Not that you can either add new, or remove existing audiences to your live campaign. To do so follow these steps:

• Navigate to the “Campaign Manager” section
• Click into the campaign you want to edit
• Click into the appropriate ad group
• Click on the “Targeting” tab
• Select “Audiences” and make your edits.
• Click “Submit campaign” for review.

Need help beyond simple edits?

If you need more help beyond just making basic campaign edits, take a look at our Amazon Advertising Management Services, Amazon Product Listing Optimization Services and Amazon SEO Services that have helped some 30+ Amazon Sellers generate more than $600m in Amazon sales.

The post How to Edit Amazon Advertising Campaigns appeared first on SellerMetrics.

Did you know that over 200 million Amazon Prime members actively shop on the Amazon Marketplace? As one of the market leaders in e-commerce with a global customer footprint, Amazon has become an indispensable marketplace for buyers and sellers worldwide.

While this means a massive opportunity for Amazon sellers, it also means there is more competition to get products noticed on the Marketplace without a clear marketing strategy in place. Amazon Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a cornerstone strategy for brands aiming to thrive on the Marketplace, but is it actually worth it for Amazon sellers? 

In this article, we’ll uncover the pros and cons of Amazon Advertising, compare it to other advertising platforms, dive into ad types and strategies, and offer tips for campaign optimization to help you elevate your brand presence and bottom-line growth. By the end, you’ll have a clearer understanding of whether Amazon PPC advertising is worth the investment for your brand.

The Benefits of Advertising on Amazon

Access to Massive Audiences

Amazon’s platform is home to millions of active shoppers around the world who frequently turn to the marketplace as the first destination when researching brands and products to buy. According to PowerReviews, up to 50% of all online shoppers in the US start their purchase journey directly on Amazon, as compared to only 31% on Google. These significant levels of high-intent customer traffic means that PPC ads on Amazon gives you direct access to motivated customers already in a buying mindset by placing your product at the top.

Significantly Higher Conversion Potential

With Amazon’s massive customer base with high-intent to purchase, your conversion potential is significantly higher. Amazon product listings can achieve conversion rates of 10–15% on average. Other direct-to-consumer e-commerce websites typically achieve significantly lower conversion rates between 1–2%. With Amazon PPC, your product listing is directly integrated into customer search results and increases your sales conversion. By also appearing alongside organic product placements, your listing often captures high click-through rates from customers seeking out specific items.

Advanced Targeting & Retargeting Capabilities

As a dominant market leader, Amazon’s targeting capabilities are built on a wealth of customer data from browsing history and purchasing behavior. As an Amazon seller, you can run ads that target relevant keyword searches, customer interests and so on. 

With Sponsored Display ads, you can also retarget shoppers who have previously viewed your products, or similar products of competing sellers. This can also be useful for driving repeat purchases or for cross-selling complementary products.

With Sponsored Brands ads, you can drive traffic to your brand store or product listing with banner-style ads that are prominently placed at the top of customer search results. This provides a strategic opportunity to increase your brand awareness and showcase multiple products that help build strong brand recognition.

The Challenges of Advertising on Amazon

Increased Competition and Cost

Due to the growth and demand of the Amazon Marketplace, Amazon sellers can find themselves contending for customer attention with increased competition. This has driven an increase in the cost-per-click (CPC) on Amazon with the average CPC varying largely from one product category to the next depending on its popularity and commercial relevance of the target keyword (related blog post: Our Guide on Amazon PPC Keyword Research). The steady rise of competition may require brands to allocate more budget to achieve a positive return-on-investment, especially in competitive categories like electronics and health supplements. One critical step in optimizing Amazon ads is therefore bid management. As a leading Amazon Seller Agency we have developed an Amazon PPC software that leverages advanced algorithms to automate bids 24/7 to ensure that your bids are fully optimized to meet your ACoS Goals (let us know if you need help, we provie free and fully human driven Amazon PPC Ad Audits.

Ad Success May Require Significant Initial Investments in Learning and Optimization

The learning curve for Amazon PPC can be steep especially if you are new to Amazon advertising. As with most marketing strategies, testing and refining your campaigns is crucial to finding the right formula and success. This may require more investment upfront, including time, effort and budget, before seeing the positive returns on your investment. One advantage working with an Amazon advertising agency is that brands can leverage the experiences of the agency without having to “acquire” those same learnings by spending ad budget and wasting time (learn more about our Amazon Advertising Services). 

Types of Amazon Ads and Their Strategic Use Cases

Sponsored Product Ads

Sponsored Product ads showcase individual products directly in search results and on product detail pages that drive traffic to specific listings. This ad type is particularly effective and typically generates the best return on ad spend . Most sellers start out with sponsored product ads, as they also do not require any creative assets. Ads drive traffic directly to product listing pages.

Sponsored Brand Ads

Sponsored Brands ads are banner-style ads that sit prominently at the top of search results, featuring your brand logo and multiple products. This ad type can help boost brand awareness while still generating a healthy ACoS (Advertising cost of sales).

Sponsored Display Ads

Sponsored Display ads can be used to reach larger audiences pools (prospecting) or to retarget customers who have previously viewed your product listing and haven’t yet made a purchase. Performance can differ significantly, depending on whether you use it for prospecting or remarketing. Typically only larger sellers have remarketing audiences that are sufficient in size to use Sponsored Display ads in a cost-effective way. Smaller Sellers simply do not have enough shoppers visiting their product pages to build up sizable remarketing audiences. Read our blog post on Amazon Retargeting Ads to learn how you can get the most out of your remarketing campaigns. Note that for display ads you also need to provide custom creatives (Related blog post: Amazon ad creative best practices with examples).

Differences Between Google, Meta, and Amazon Advertising

Google search ads are similar to Amazon Sponsored product ads: They target users who are already searching for something (i.e. a product) and have thus high intent. The difference between Google search and Amazon search is that on Google not all users are looking for products. While there are also users who are already in “buying-mode” when they search on Google, their share is overall lower compared to users on Amazon. Other popular Google ad types, such as Google Display Network Ads (GDN) or YouTube ads typically focus on users who are not yet in a purchasing mindset (display remarketing ads being an exception to that). They often target larger behavior and affinity based audiences.

Meta ads can reach users “full-funnel”, so across the entire purchase journey, but because Meta is not a search engine, the level of intent can never quite compare to a user typing a product related keyword into a search engine, or into the Amazon search bar. Meta’s strengths are its native ad experience and its unparalleled ability to harness first-party and third-party data to optimize ad efficiency. 

Amazon ads really perform best in terms of reaching customers who are closer to the purchase stage of their journey. While it is possible to also reach potential customers earlier in the purchase journey using Amazon ads, building a brand can be difficult on the platform as the overall user experience is highly dominated by the Amazon platform and it is difficult for individual brands to really stand out and to create a well differentiated brand experience.

Amazon’s ad formats are thus more transactional, focusing on keywords, product categories, and behavioral retargeting. 

Conversion Rates and Performance Vary by Platform

When it comes to conversion rates, Amazon PPC typically outperforms Google and Meta as shoppers on Amazon tend to have a higher purchase intent and are likely also existing Amazon customers, potentially with a Prime account. As mentioned above, on Amazon even conversion rates for non-Prime shoppers are typically between 10-15%. This is much higher than conversion rates on D2C ecommerce websites that are typically just 1-2%. 

Thus while Google Search and also Google Shopping Ads can offer strong results the road to purchase from add-to-cart to payment on an ecommerce site is less seamless than it is on Amazon. 

Meta ads can mostly only compete with Amazon and Google ads when it comes to remarketing: shoppers who have looked at a product detail page, or added a product to cart but have not yet completed their purchase can often be converted via remarketing ads that offer an additional incentive to complete their purchase.

Scenarios where Amazon Advertising Likely Benefits a Brand

High Intent to Purchase Product Categories

Niche-segments within popular categories such as electronic goods, beauty products, and home goods tend to attract higher conversion due to the higher demand and a clear product feature and benefit understanding. Amazon ads in these categories tend to see stronger performance due to higher customer intent to purchase and repeat buying. 

New Product Launches – with Limitations

New product launches can be challenging without an existing customer base and lack of brand exposure. Amazon ads can help newly launched brands/products gain rapid traction by driving early sales velocity that are crucial for high organic ranking in search results. However, the caveat here is that new products by default do not have any reviews. This can be a significant barrier to purchase and it is thus important to pursue a holistic launch strategy instead of relying purely on ads. 

In addition to that, the competitiveness of the target segment is also critical. Entering a “red ocean” market segment that is already overserved by hyper-competitive sellers will be difficult, even with significant ad spend.

Brands with Strong Organic Rankings

Brands with an already strong organic ranking can further amplify their visibility and boost sales by combining PPC advertising that can reinforce the brand’s credibility and help maintain market share in an increasingly competitive market.

Common Amazon Advertising Mistakes and Pitfalls to Avoid

Promoting Low-Margin Products

Lower margin products can struggle with profitability due to higher CPCs and advertising costs that can easily surpass profit margins if not managed strategically.

Targeting Highly Competitive Niches

In niche product categories where CPCs are high due to intense competition, sellers might see diminishing returns unless they refine their advertising strategy or invest more heavily into marketing.

Inconsistent Inventory Levels

Inconsistent inventory levels can disrupt the performance of ad campaigns. For example, if your products go out of stock while your ads continue to run, you will result in unsatisfied customers with wasted ad dollars and a negative brand perception.

The Positive Impact of Amazon Ads on Organic Rankings and Sales

One of the main reasons why we still believe that Amazon Ads are still worth it for most sellers is that Amazon PPC can also boost organic sales. This is because Amazon’s A9 ranking algorithm considers sales performance as a critical ranking factor. In simple terms: products that sell better also rank better! Increased sales velocity from Amazon ads can thus lead to improved organic search rankings. Other benefits are:

Brand Exposure

Amazon ads can boost your brand exposure in a competitive market, encourage more reviews and enhance trust among potential customers, which can indirectly influence organic rankings and sales.

Cross-Selling Opportunities

Amazon ads can lead to greater brand visibility while promoting related and other products from your store.

How to Get the most your of your Amazon Ad Campaigns

Targeted Keywords

Thorough keyword research is foundational to the success of your ad campaigns. Identifying high conversion relevant keywords that reflect your audience’s search intent and prioritizing them in your campaigns will boost the visibility and performance of your ads.

Efficient Budgeting and Bidding Strategies

Set realistic budgets to avoid over-expenditure and manage bids dynamically based on the performance of your campaigns. Do not make the mistake to follow Amazon’s suggested bid recommendations when setting bids and find a strong partner who can provide automated bid optimization. Get in touch with us if you want to learn how we can support you on this.

Campaign Monitoring and Adjustments

Monitor the performance of your campaigns regularly by assessing key metrics such as ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales), conversion rates, and click-through rates. Use these insights to adjust your campaign strategy, including bids, budgets, and targeted keywords to improve your performance for best results.

Conclusion: With the Right Strategy, Amazon Ads are Definitely Worth the Investment for most Sellers

Although selling on Amazon can be competitive, the platform’s potential for high ROI remains unmatched compared with other platforms. By utilizing strategic Amazon ad types, brands can reach customers at various stages of their buying journey and drive significant brand visibility and product sales. With the right keyword targeting, bidding strategy, and campaign management, brands can maximize advertising returns and boost organic sales on Amazon.

Related readings: How to master Amazon Advertising Bulk Operations and our guide on How much Money can you make from KDP.

The post Is Amazon PPC Still Worth It? Pros & Cons appeared first on SellerMetrics.

8 min read By Rick Wong  Updated May 4, 2026

Without a doubt Amazon advertising plays a critical role in boosting brand visibility and driving sales for sellers. With the right strategies, sellers can effectively reach their target audience, make sure that their product listings appear on top of the Amazon search results page and maximize their return on investment (ROI). Sounds like a charm, doesn’t it? While things may seem straightforward, many Sellers make common mistakes when running their Amazon PPC ads. In this blog post we list the most common and most costly mistakes that we have seen and also tell you how to avoid making these “Amazon Advertising Mistakes”.

1. Poor Amazon Ad Campaign Structures

A poorly structured Amazon ad campaign can lead to budget waste and low returns. Below are a few examples of lapses in campaign setup that are indicative of a poor campaign structure. As you read through you will find that the common denominator of ‘poor campaign structure’ is a lack of consistency: If you mix things that don’t match, performance will suffer, data is hard to analyze and optimization nearly impossible.

Adding too many Product Listings to a Campaign

This is a classic mistake. Unless you only sell very few products that are all very similar, lumping all your products (or too many) into one single campaign is a sure-fire way to sink any campaign. The reason therefore is that later in the campaign setup, keywords or audiences that you target need to be aligned with the products that shoppers see in ads. If your brand sells sofas and tables, putting both types of products in the same campaign will be a problem if you later decide to bid on the keyword “sofa”. No matter how nice your tables are, shoppers who search for “sofas” are not looking to buy your tables.

A good way to segment your products into different campaigns is to consider product similarity, as well as product sales performance. For certain campaigns, you may only want to show your best-selling product pages to increase conversion probability.

Poor Keyword Selection & Keyword Match Types

This applies to sponsored brand (learn more about our Amazon Ads Management Services) and sponsored product campaigns. Ideally, you would want to create an ad campaign that revolves around a single keyword cluster. For example your brand name, or specific, common search queries centered on an important product feature. When you start throwing too many different keywords that are not topically aligned into the same campaign, the performance of different keywords can vary a lot. Shoppers who search for your brand name, for instance, are more likely to convert than shoppers who search for more navigational, product category type of keywords. So mixing these very different keyword types in the same campaign would not lead to ideal results. 

Structuring your campaigns in a logical way, based on semantic proximity of different keywords is thus important.

Campaigns that Rely Too Much on Broad Match Keywords

Amazon Advertising offers three basic keyword match types: exact match, phrase match and broad match (Here our blog posts on Amazon Keyword Match Types). Many sellers get confused by this because they are not aware that there is a difference between a ‘keyword’ and a ‘search query’. A search query (or search term) is/are the word(s) that a user has actually typed into the Amazon search bar and a keyword is essentially a word cloud that targets a query/queries. How narrowly that word cloud is defined depends on the keyword match type you select. Let’s break it down:

• Broad Match Keywords: Any search query that contains your target keyword may trigger your ad. So if you bid on the keyword ‘table’, your ad would show up for queries such as ‘wooden table’, ‘cheap table’, ‘return table’ and so on. The advantage of broad match keywords is that they tend to cover a wide range of search queries and thus get many impressions. The downside is that many of these queries may be of low commercial intent or even contain competitors’ brand names. That is why, from a return of ad spend (ROAS) point of view, these keywords tend to not perform as well.
  
• Phrase Match Keywords: Phrase match keywords allow you to narrow things down a bit. You can target a term such as “wooden table” and your ad will only serve for queries that contain the words “wooden table” in that order (for example ‘brown wooden table’). This increases keyword vs search query fit.
  
• Exact Match Keywords: With some exceptions (misspellings, plural vs singular etc), exact match keywords will only trigger your ads when a shopper’s search query EXACTLY matches your target keyword. Thus, if you pick commercially viable keywords, this increases the chances that shoppers buy your products and this is the reason why this keyword match type tends to perform best. The downside of using exact match keywords is that the search volume for a very specific term may be limited and that you may also be losing out on sales if shoppers search for slightly different terms. 

Selecting too Many Audiences

When running Sponsored Display Campaigns you can select different types of audiences, such as remarketing audiences (so shoppers who have viewed your product pages but not yet purchased your products), shoppers who have viewed products similar to yours, or Amazon users who may just have a loose interest in your product category. 

You can probably already see why bundling up all these different types of audiences in one campaign is a bad idea: their levels of intent and also the sizes of these audiences differ vastly. While the size of your remarketing audiences may not be that big, these shoppers are more likely going to convert. Amazon visitors who have just started researching your product category on the other hand are far less likely going to buy your products straight away. For these reasons it is better to keep these different audience segments separate. This way you can more accurately evaluate and optimize their performance and also make more informed budget allocation and bid setting related decisions (For more on this topic read our guide on Amazon Ads Target Audience Selection).

2. Inadequate Keyword Research, Including Negative Keywords

We have already discussed the issues of keyword overload and keyword match types. Not selecting the right keywords and most importantly not reviewing search term reports to weed out ineffective keywords is another cardinal sin that will tank your advertising account performance (Deep-dive on Negative Phrase vs Negative Exact Amazon). Keep in mind that the Amazon advertising platform ultimately generates revenue from clicks. So while the algorithm has your best interests at heart (irony mode off), it most deeply cares about Amazon’s own interests. That’s why conducting thorough keyword research and efficient Amazon keyword targeting is the starting point for setting up any Amazon PPC campaign (also interesting How to conduct Amazon reverse keyword search)

Especially for new Sellers figuring out which keywords work and which ones don’t, can be a lengthy and costly exercise. After all you need to spend on clicks before you know which ones convert and which ones don’t. As an Amazon ad agency one of our advantages is that across all the accounts that we manage we can draw on accumulated experiences spanning several million USD in ad spend. Based on these learnings we already have a good understanding as to which type of keywords perform better. Get in touch with us to learn how we can help you get a head start. 

3. Not Optimizing Amazon Product Listing Pages

This point may not be obvious to everyone managing Amazon PPC ads, but it is a vital one: The quality of your Amazon product pages matters! Driving quality traffic to your product listings won’t work if your product copy is missing important product details, or if product images look like they were taken with a 1990s Polaroid. This is also where Amazon PPC and Amazon SEO intersect: Well optimized product pages with well-crafted product listing headlines, comprehensive bullet-point copy, best-practice product images and infographics and value adding A+ content will perform better across organic and paid search. Also keep in mind that for Amazon Sponsored Product Ads, your product listing IS your ad creative (If you need help with this check out our Amazon Product Listing Optimization Services). So it’s really critical that you use high-quality images and detailed, engaging descriptions to attract buyers. Include and add relevant keywords in product titles, bullet points, and descriptions to improve search rankings (Learn which ranking signals the Amazon A9 Algorithm uses).

If you are not sure how to optimize your Amazon product listing pages, explore our Amazon SEO Services.

4. Inefficient Bidding Strategies

Amazon PPC bidding strategy is also a huge area where we often see room for improvement. Consider a scenario where you constantly bid more for a keyword than you should to hit your target Advertising cost of sales – ACoS (What is ACoS?). You would sabotage your Amazon success click by click (Related blog post on Amazon PPC Suggested Bid). If you bid too low on the other hand, you may be underbidding and thus miss out on sales. While bid optimization is one of the most direct levers a Seller can adjust to boost sales performance on Amazon it is also the one that is most difficult to calibrate. This is precisely the reason why we have built our own Amazon PPC Management Software. Our proprietary bid optimization software uses advanced algorithms to automate your bidding 24/7. This ensures that your bids are fully optimized towards your ACoS target.

5. Over Reliance on Automatic Campaigns

With automatic campaigns you put Amazon in the driver’s seat: Amazon decides when to serve your product ads based on the keywords that Amazon deems appropriate (based on your product title, description and other sections of your product listing page).

While there are certainly scenarios where automatic campaigns can make sense, we generally advise brands to be very cautious (everything you need to know about Amazon PPC Automatic Campaigns). With automatic campaigns you simply have insufficient control and there is a risk of budget waste. As a general principle, it is probably not the best idea when an advertising platform that manages the ad auction is also in charge of selecting keywords and setting bids. Imagine a casino deciding your bets for you – you can see how a conflict of interest may arise. 

6. Focusing on the Wrong Amazon PPC Metrics and KPIs

With Amazon ads, as with any advertising platform, a lack of data is a problem that no one has ever heard of (Everything about Amazon Advertising Reports). As soon as you start spending on ads your analytics reports surface all sorts of metrics: Click-through-rates (CTRs), Cost-per-click (CPC), impressions, clicks, ACoS and many more. 

The question is: which of the metrics matter? ACoS may seem like a straightforward KPI to track, but is it really if you run a campaign that only targets your own brand keywords? In scenarios where shoppers are already looking to buy your products and your ad is just the last nudge that reminds them to click and buy, ACoS may NOT be the most relevant KPI to track.  Likewise brands that are obsessed with a certain target CPC, or an industry benchmark CTR (What is a good CTR on Amazon?) may also be missing the point. KPI selection is thus a highly strategic task that heavily depends on the type of campaign you are running.

7. Not Bidding on Your Brand Keywords

The last point we want to include in our list is brand bidding. Brand bidding describes the process of a brand bidding on keywords that contain their own brand or product names. While one may argue that it is a waste of money to show ads to Amazon shoppers who have already set their eyes on your product listings, you need to remember that you are not the only fish in the sea. Defending your brand keywords is vital for maintaining visibility and protecting market share. Plus if you do not bid on your own brand keywords your competitors will likely fill the void and take a bite out of your business. A common misconception is that ranking in position one organically is sufficient. This myth has been debunked over and over again. Many Amazon shoppers may not even recognize that there are ads on Amazon and click-through-rates of top of the search results listing are easily double digit numbers. This is high quality traffic that you never want to miss out on. 

However, there are certainly ways to cost-optimize bidding on your brand keywords so that you end up spending as little as possible to secure these high value clicks. Contact us to learn how we help our clients achieve this.

8. Neglecting Placement Modifiers (The “Top of Search” Dilema)

Many sellers spend a lot of time tweaking their base bids but completely ignore where that bid is actually placing them. Note that Amazon allows you to set percentage increases (up to 900%) for “Top of Search” and “Product Pages”.
A common mistake that we see is setting one flat bid across all placements. Remember that the position in which your ad shows up makes a huge difference in terms of performance! Not all ad impressions are worth the same. A higher placement is correlated with a much higher CTR (click-through-rate).
You might be bidding $1.00, but your competitors are bidding $0.80 with a 50% Top-of-Search multiplier, effectively outbidding you for the most visible spots while paying less for lower-tier placements.
By not utilizing placement modifiers, you are often overpaying for “Rest of Search” visibility that converts poorly, while failing to win the premium slots that drive the highest click-through rates.

9. The “Budget Cap” Blind Spot (Going Dark at 2 PM)

This one is a classic mistake: If your campaigns consistently run out of budget by mid-afternoon, you aren’t just missing out on sales, you are handing market share to your competitors during peak evening shopping hours.
While Amazon research shows that conversion rate differ by hour of the day and for most categories peak in the mornings (around 5-10 AM PST) on weekdays, not running any ads when shoppers are off work and switch back into shopping mode is a huge mistake. Also, conversion rates do not equal cost per conversion! So, for many categories, conversions later in the day are actually cheaper than during other times.
When your ads go dark, Amazon’s algorithm stops gathering data on your product’s performance. This interruption signals to Amazon that your product is less relevant during those hours, potentially hurting your organic ranking over time. Instead of arbitrarily capping budgets to “save money,” analyze your campaign performance by hour. If a campaign is profitable (ACoS is within target), capping the budget is effectively capping your profit.

10. Killing “Legacy” Campaigns Prematurely

A frequent error among sellers is pausing older, “messy” campaigns to start fresh with a perfect structure. We get it.. you have seen someone boasting on LinkedIn or seen a convincing video on YouTube and now want optimize your campaigns.
But keep in mind: Amazon advertising campaigns are a bit like wine: they tend to get better as they age. While a clean structure is desirable, Amazon’s algorithm heavily favors history. A campaign that has been running for two years has a “relevance score” and data history that a brand-new campaign cannot replicate immediately. Pausing a legacy campaign to launch a new one often results in a sudden drop in impressions and a spike in CPC as the new campaign enters the “learning phase.” Instead of turning off old campaigns, gradually transition high-performing keywords to new structures while keeping the legacy campaign active at lower bids to preserve its historical authority. And reality is, sometimes your “inefficient” old campaigns simply outperform newer “more optimized ones”.

11. Internal Keyword Cannibalization

Are you bidding on the keyword “stainless steel water bottle” in three different campaigns? That’s another classic mistake that we see. This is known as keyword cannibalization. When you target the exact same keyword with the same match type in multiple campaigns, you split your data and confuse Amazon’s algorithm. It doesn’t know which campaign to prioritize, often choosing the one with the higher bid or better history, leaving the others to languish. This prevents you from getting a clear picture of that keyword’s true performance and makes optimizing bids nearly impossible.
Running exact match, phrase match and broad match campaigns can increase the chance of this happening as with increasing campaign complexity it becomes more difficult to consider all scenarios that could result in involuntary keyword cannibalization.
Ensure a strict “one keyword, one home” policy where specific keywords live in designated campaigns, or use negative exact matches to funnel traffic correctly.

12. Ignoring TACoS aka Falling for the ACoS Trap

Focusing solely on ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales) gives you tunnel vision. You might have a campaign with a high 40% ACOS that you deem a “failure,” but that same campaign might be driving the majority of your organic keyword ranking. If you pause it, your organic sales may plummet, causing your overall profitability to drop even if your ad efficiency looks better on paper. This is why tracking TACOS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales) is critical. TACOS measures ad spend relative to total revenue (organic + paid). A rising ACOS is acceptable if your TACOS remains stable or decreases, as it indicates your ads are successfully fueling organic growth (the “Halo Effect”).

Conclusions: Avoiding these Common Amazon PPC Mistakes will help you save time and money

Avoiding the common Amazon advertising mistakes listed in post can significantly improve ad performance and ROI. We encourage Sellers to review their Amazon advertising strategies and to implement the best practices shared here. Continually optimizing your advertising campaigns will help you push the barrier and to succeed in the competitive Amazon marketplace. If you are new to Amazon advertising check out our step-by-step guide on how to edit Amazon ads.

FAQ: Common Amazon PPC Mistakes

The post 12 Surprisingly Costly Amazon PPC Mistakes & How to Avoid Them appeared first on SellerMetrics.

8 min read By Rick Wong  Updated Feb 16, 2026

Guidance on Creating Amazon Ads that Convert

In our always on, constantly stimulated, and noisy digital landscape, first-impressions matter and rich media content can act as a powerful hook to reel in your audience. As reported in a study by media agency GroupM Amazon advertisers that met the media agency’s criteria for Amazon Ad Creative Best-Practices enjoyed a 3x higher Click-Through-Rate (CTR) and a 6.5x greater Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) than brands that did not meet the criteria (Source). In this blog post, we share some creative best-practices. 

Amazon Ad Types that allow for Custom Creatives

Whereas Amazon Sponsored Products ads only feature product listings and do not require creative input, Amazon Sponsored Brand and Amazon Sponsored Display ads require custom visuals, headline copy and optionally also video. Optimizing creative assets is thus vital to achieve optimal results.

Sponsored Brands Ads

Sponsored Brands include custom headline, visual and optionally video assets. They prominently display your brand and products on top of Amazon search results and in other placements such as product listing pages. 

Sponsored Display Ads

Sponsored Display allows for broader reach and retargeting of audiences both on and off Amazon—they may appear on Amazon’s product detail pages (i.e. on a competitor’s listing), Amazon’s search results, or on third-party websites and apps (depending on your country locale). With Amazon display ads, you can use custom ad copy, visuals or videos.

Engineering Creatives that Increase Brand Awareness and Engage Amazon Shoppers

Building a recognizable brand helps your audience easily remember and identify you from the competition while brand consistency strengthens trust and loyalty amongst your customers. Use the guidelines below to drive better brand awareness through high-quality assets that can extend your reach across different devices, placements and regions. 

Tips for Creating Visually Appealing and Cohesive Ad Creatives

In principle, keyword research for PPC campaigns works exactly the same as keyword research for Amazon SEO. Once you have identified relevant terms, you target them with ads. Include keywords in product titles to increase the chances that users click on your ads.

• Color Palette: Use a consistent color palette that aligns with your brand’s identity. This helps in creating a unified look across all your ad creatives.
  
• Imagery: Use high-quality images that reflect your brand’s style and values. Consistent imagery across ads can significantly enhance brand recall. Steer away from stock images.
  
• Templates: Develop templates for your ad creatives to maintain consistency while streamlining your design process to ensure more time is spent on creativity than execution.

Understand Your Target Audience to Craft Communication Angles that work

Understanding your target audience is fundamental to creating ads that resonate and convert. It’s important to know their preferences, behaviors, and needs so you can tailor your creatives for maximum impact.

Tips for Leveraging Shopper and Data Insights to Craft Compelling Messages

• Customer Reviews: Analyze reviews to gain insights into customer preferences and pain points. Important: do not only go through your own reviews – also go through reviews of competing product listings. For the latter you focus on negative reviews. Understanding what shoppers love about your products and dislike about competitors’ effectively provides you with the most compelling reasons why anyone would buy your products. 
  
• Competitor Analysis: Study your competitors products to identify how their features differ from the features of your products. Is your product weather resistant while competing offers are not? Find important points of differentiation. 
  
• Amazon Analytics: Utilize Amazon’s analytics to gather data on customer demographics and behavior. You can often reverse-engineer this by going through search term reports and then identifying queries that were driving sales.
  

Effective use of Logos in Amazon Ads

Studies show that shoppers engage 20% more on desktop and 13% more on mobile with ad campaigns when their brand logo met the logo requirements. A logo is a visual representation of your brand and plays a critical role in brand recognition. Including your logo in Amazon ads reinforces brand identity and ensures that customers can easily associate the ad with your brand. Logos may appear in different sizes, on different devices, and atop different backgrounds so it’s important to anticipate this when you upload your logo assets.

Logo Placement and Size Best Practices

Understanding the distinct approaches and goals of keyword research for SEO and PPC on Amazon can help you develop a comprehensive strategy that enhances both organic visibility and targeted ad performance that ultimately drives more traffic and sales.

• Visibility: Ensure your logo is clearly visible without overshadowing other critical elements of the ad and avoid interacting with complex or cluttered graphical elements.
  
• Placement: Typically, placing the logo in the top left or bottom right corner works well as these areas are where the eye naturally gravitates.
  
• Size: Your logo should be large enough to be easily recognizable but not so large that it dominates the ad.

Logo Ad Creatives Do’s and Don’ts

Below are some examples for the correct (and incorrect) usage of logos in Amazon ads.

Image credit: Amazon

Practical Examples of Good Logo Usage in Amazon Ads

Logo that is clear, visible and large enough without distracting the ad is more effective than a logo crowded with additional imagery, taglines or extra content.

Brand Messaging: Get to the Point Fast and Provide Compelling Reasons to Buy

To combat today’s crowded digital landscape and limited audience attention span, your brand message should have personality to create emotional resonance with your audience, be easily understood at a glance, and compelling enough to prompt further interest. Your messaging should be aligned with your brand tone and voice to create consistency and trust while succinctly conveying the value proposition of your product offering.

Tips for Effective Brand Messages

• Customer-Centric Messaging: Focus on the benefits that your product offers rather than just its features—what are you solving for your customers and what will they gain in return?
  
• Emotionally Driven Content: Craft messages that evoke emotions, whether it’s humor, excitement, joy, or a sense of urgency—it’s that spark that makes your advertising memorable and impactful. 
  
• Consistency Across Platforms: Ensure consistency in your brand messages across different platforms to build a cohesive brand narrative—consistency bolsters trust.

Examples of Effective Brand Messaging in Amazon Ads

Lifestyle Images: Showing your Product in Use Helps Shoppers Visualize their Needs

Lifestyle images show your product being used in real-life scenarios, helping customers visualize how it fits into their daily lives. These images enhance relatability and evoke positive emotional connections with your audience, such as happiness or comfort, making the product more appealing.

Best Practices for Selecting and Incorporating Lifestyle Images

• Authenticity: Use authentic images that reflect real-life usage of your product.
  
• Diversity: Include diverse representations to appeal to a broader audience.
  
• Quality: Ensure high resolution and professional quality to enhance credibility.

Examples of Effective Lifestyle Images in Amazon Ads

Video Ads: Capture Attention more Effectively

Video content is king in digital advertising. It offers a dynamic way to showcase your product and engage customers.

Key Elements of Effective Video Ads

• Storytelling: Craft a compelling story around your product to captivate viewers.
  
• Length: Keep videos concise. Your videos should be no longer than 30 seconds and key messages and your brand logo should be communicated within the first 5 seconds (after that viewer numbers will drop off significantly).
  
• Visuals: Use high-quality assets to create an enriching experience.
  
• Call-to-Action: Include a clear and compelling call-to-action to prompt immediate response from the video.

The Amazon Video Ad Ecosystem: Choosing the Right Format

Before diving into creative best practices, you must understand that “Amazon Video Ads” is not a monolith. Amazon offers four distinct video ad placements, each serving a uniquely different stage of the buyer’s journey. Deploying the wrong video format for your specific goal will result in rapidly wasted ad spend.

• Sponsored Products Video (SPV): This is your bottom-of-funnel powerhouse. SPV ads appear directly in the search results grid alongside organic listings. Because they target shoppers with high purchase intent (people actively searching for specific keywords), these videos should skip the lifestyle fluff and focus entirely on high-fidelity product demonstrations. SPV is unparalleled for driving direct, immediate conversions.
• Sponsored Brands Video (SBV): Appearing as a massive, mid-search-result banner, SBV is a mid-to-bottom funnel hybrid. When a shopper clicks an SBV ad, they are driven directly to your product detail page or your Amazon Brand Store. These videos are ideal for brand storytelling combined with product education, allowing you to cross-sell multiple items within your catalog.
• Sponsored Display Video (SDV): SDV allows you to reach audiences both on and off Amazon (like Twitch and third-party websites). It uses audience targeting (retargeting shoppers who viewed your product but didn’t buy) and contextual targeting. SDV is the ultimate tool for recovering abandoned carts and staying top-of-mind.
• Amazon DSP & Prime Video Ads (Streaming TV): This is the top of the funnel. Through Amazon DSP, brands can run non-skippable OTT (Over-The-Top) streaming ads on platforms like Freevee, Twitch, and Amazon Prime Video. While the minimum investment is higher, the ability to use Amazon’s first-party data to target incredibly specific household demographics on the biggest screen in the house is a game-changer for massive brand awareness.

Best Practices for Successful Video Ads

• Key Takeaway First: Put the most important takeaway in the first few seconds (plus your logo)
  
• Legible Text: Use text that’s clear and legible over the background
  
• Use Captions: Most shoppers will see your video with sound off. That’s why it’s important to add stylized captions. 
  
• Allow Sufficient Reading time: Keep text on screen long enough for it to be read
  
• Mobile Optimization: Optimize for mobile screen sizes as most customers shop on mobile

To get detailed overview as to which best-practices work best for Amazon video ads, check out our dedicted article on Amazon Video Ads Best Practices.

Seasonal and Event-Based Advertising

Leveraging Seasonal Trends and Events to Boost Ad Engagement

Leverage seasonal trends, shopping periods and of course Prime Day in your ads. These provide unique opportunities to capture more awareness and interest. Tailoring ad creatives around significant moments can boost engagement and sales, especially if customers are anticipated to shop around this event (i.e. Christmas). 

Tips for Resonating with Shoppers During Holidays and Special Events

• Timely Themes: Align your ad themes with current holidays and events.
• Special Offers: Highlight limited-time offers and discounts.
• Festive Imagery: Use seasonal imagery to create a festive atmosphere.
• Urgent Messaging: Create a sense of urgency

Amazon Ads Guidelines and Acceptance Policies

Understanding Amazon’s ad guidelines and policies is crucial to ensure ads are approved and perform well in the marketplace. These guidelines cover various aspects, including common pitfalls to avoid to ensure your ad gets approved, image quality, and ad formatting. 

It’s important to stay up-to-date on Amazon’s guidelines and policies by regularly reviewing the official Amazon pages and subscribing to their official communication channels to help you stay informed on frequent changes.

Things to Avoid to Ensure Ad Approval

• Misleading Information: Ensure all claims are accurate and verifiable.
• Poor Quality Images: Use high-resolution images that meet Amazon’s standards.
• Irrelevant Content: Keep your ad content relevant to the product being advertised.
• Avoid Prohibited Content: Abstain from prohibited content listed on Amazon’s guidelines.

Resources for Further Information on Amazon Ad Policies

• Amazon Ads Guidelines and Policies: Amazon’s official guidelines and acceptance policies.
• Amazon Advertising Blog: Regularly updated with tips and policy changes.
• Seller Central: Amazon’s official resource for sellers and advertisers.
• Amazon Advertising Support: Direct support for any queries related to ad policies.

Takeaways – Be Strategic when Crafting Creatives and Test, Test, Test

While staying informed and adhering to Amazon’s guidelines ensures success in your Amazon ad campaigns, creating effective Amazon ads goes beyond technical precision—it’s about infusing creativity and energy into your campaigns that resonate at a deeper level with your audience. Emotion is a powerful force to shift behavior changes and influence decision-making that will ultimately help you win over customers. If you are not sure how to edit your campaigns check out our step-by-step guide on how to edit Amazon advertising campaigns.

Oftentimes it will take you a while to figure out the best communication angle, or to tweak creatives until they deliver maximum impact. Testing and learning is thus an important part of the process. As an Amazon advertising agency we have significant experience deploying creatives that are proven to work. Contact us today to get a free consultation and to learn how we could help you turbocharge your creative iterations to reach maximum ad efficiency faster. 

Related readings: How to conduct Amazon PPC keyword research and our guide on Amazon retargeting ads.

FAQ: Amazon Ad Creative Best-Practice

The post Amazon Ad Creative Best-Practices: Practical Recommendations & Examples appeared first on SellerMetrics.

What a better way to fully understand Amazon systems, services, and functions than by knowing the terms, acronyms and abbreviations. For this reason, we have created this list to help researchers and sellers to better understand the concepts that are behind Amazon.

Acronyms vs Abbreviations

Acronyms and abbreviations are shortened forms of words or phrases. These two terms are often interchanged but have different meanings.

An abbreviation is a shortened form of words used to represent the whole (e.g., Q1, AMZ, FBA). On the other hand, an acronym typically contains a set of the initial letter or letters to form another word (e.g., BOGO, BOLO, COG). The main point of reference is that an abbreviation is only a series of letters. Thus, you read abbreviations letter by letter.

An acronym forms a new word or word(s) which you read as the new word (we read BOGO like that instead of B-O-G-O).

Amazon Related Acronyms & Abbreviations

[Updated July 29,2024] Here’s a list of 213 acronyms related to Amazon. This list is constantly growing, and we’ll update it with new terms whenever needed!

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1P – 1st Party Seller

The marketplace acts as the retailer and the brand is the wholesale supplier.

3P – 3rd Party Seller

Also referred to as retailer. A company that sells products that are not in their own brand.

3PL – 3rd Party Logistics

Also referred to as 3rd Party Fulfillment. 3PL is a fulfillment option where you move fulfillment to an operating partner. A 3PL company is one that assembles, prepares, and/or ships products on behalf of a seller.

A

A/B Testing

Also referred to as split testing. A method of trying or testing two different websites (website A vs website B) or product listings (product listing A vs product listing B) to compare and contrast sales metrics.

A+ Content

Sometimes referred to as enhanced content. An extended version of the product detail page where the product description has enhanced content and branding. This includes graphics, images, and videos embedded into the page.

A-Z – A-Z Claim

Sometimes referred to as AZ Claim or A to Z Claim. Amazon’s guarantee in products sold on Amazon.com when customers decide to purchase directly from a seller. A-Z claim is guarantee of timely delivery of products and that said products are delivered in good shape. Customers can file an A-Z claim provided they first contact the seller and wait two days to give the seller an opportunity to resolve the problem. This gives the customer and the seller a bit of time to resolve the issue on their own before Amazon steps in.

A10 – Amazon A10 Algorithm

Amazon’s most recent SEO algorithm and successor to the Amazon A9 algorithm. A10 algorithm aims to increase visibility for listing with legitimate reviews and sales. The focus is to eliminate fake profiles while addressing the major problem of counterfeits and fake reviews.

Another view in A10 is that a buyer’s search inquiry holds more relevance than it did before. It guides shoppers more directly to what they’re really looking for. Internal sponsored links no longer hold as much importance as they used to after the introduction of the A10 algorithm.

A9 – Amazon A9 Algorithm

The system by which ranking on Amazon search pages work. A9 holds the key difference between Google and Amazon’s SEO ranking (How to rank organically on Amazon), with the latter having more emphasis on sales conversion, causing listings with stronger sales history and higher conversion rates to rank higher (more about our Amazon SEO services).

AA – Amazon Associate

Also referred to as the Amazon Affiliate program. An affiliate marketing program free for website owners and bloggers to advertise products from Amazon.com on their sites by creating links. When customers click the link and buy products from Amazon, they earn referral fees.

AAP – Amazon Advertising Platform

Now known as Amazon DPS. AAP is the program that advertisers use to buy and create display and video ads. AAP is also an advertising platform allowing advertisers to drive traffic from other websites or mobile apps to Amazon.

ACoS – Advertising Cost of Sale

Sometimes, ACoS (it’s easier to type in all upper case). Also sometimes referred to as TACOS or Total Advertising Cost of Sale. ACoS is related to Amazon sponsored product ads and its metrics of how well your products are performing relative to their cost. In general, percentage of attributed sales spend on advertising is ACoS. For more insights on ACoS check blog posts on What is a good ACOS on Amazon, Amazon listing optimization and How to Structure Amazon PPC Campaigns.

ACS – Amazon Creative Services

Refers to Amazon’s creative tools and features that sellers and brands can use to establish their brand equity and promote shopper loyalty.

AGS – Amazon Global Selling

A program which allows sellers to list and sell products on Amazon’s global marketplaces. There are currently 13 Amazon online marketplaces (or websites) globally, enabling sellers to scale their business throughout the world, irrespective of where they are physically in the globe.

AL – Allocated

A replenishment term used for Amazon Private label.

AM – Area Manager

A role in Amazon fulfillment centers with the operational and financial responsibility for a defined region or territory. Duties include defining sales targets, setting financial goals, and working with senior department or location managers.

AMG – Amazon Media Group

A program that runs ads outside of Amazon and on Amazon devices like Kindle to drive traffic to the site. Also, a premium advertising offer within Amazon’s vendor services accessible via Amazon Marketing Services.

AMS – Amazon Marketing Services

Now known as Advertising Console within Amazon Advertising. AMS is Amazon’s PPC advertising platform for vendors, which allows the creation of Sponsored Products, Headline Search Ads, Product Display Ads, and Lock Screen Ads.

AMZ – Amazon

Also abbreviated as AZ. An American multinational technology company based in Seattle, Washington, which focuses on ecommerce, digital marketing, and cloud computing.

AMZL – Amazon Logistics

Also referred to as Amazon Shipping or Amazon Delivery. Refers to any deliveries that Amazon makes in the United States using its delivery service and its own logistical arrangements.

AOV – Average Order Value

Average sales price for an ASIN for a specific period of time. AOV is the average sales by the number of orders. Generally, AOV = Sales / Orders.

API – Application Programming Interface

A code which allows two platforms or software programs to talk to one another.

APR – Annual Percentage Rate

Refers to the interest rate for a whole year, rather than just a monthly fee/rate, as applied on a loan, mortgage loan, credit card, etc.

AR – Amazon Robotics

Formerly Kiva Systems and a subsidiary of Amazon.com. A Massachusetts-based company that manufactures mobile robot fulfillment systems.

ARA – Amazon Retail Analytics

ARA provides sellers with basic information about their products’ performance. Performance metrics include statistics based on trends, operations, customer behavior, and overall sales. A selection of basic reports for vendors.

ARAP – Amazon Retail Analytics Premium

An add-on option with varied and more detailed reports that look at vendor’s traffic and customer behaviors. An analytics tool available on Amazon Vendor Central sold through an Amazon Vendor Manager.

ASIN – Amazon Standard Information Number

Amazon’s internal tracking identifier for each listing in their catalog. A 10-digit alphanumeric code identifying items for sale on Amazon. Simply put, ASIN is a product identifier unique to Amazon. You can search for ASINs on Amazon to find product pages.

ASN – Advanced Shipment Notification

A system of notification used to communicate shipment’s tracking number and other logistics information to Amazon in advance of delivery. Calculated by Net Sales / Number of Products Sold within the same time period.

ASP – Average Selling Price

Refers to the average price that a seller on Amazon sells their products for.

ATOP – At the Time of Posting

ATOP is the price of an item at the time the post was made. You are likely to see this on Amazon related Facebook groups selling products and goods.

AVS – Amazon Vendor Services

A vendor-funded support service which provides Brand Specialists on Amazon to support a Wholesale business on Amazon.

AWS – Amazon Web Services

A comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, with over 200 fully featured services from data centers globally. A subsidiary of Amazon providing on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on metered pay-as-you-go basis.

AZ – Amazon

Also abbreviated as AMZ. An American multinational company on ecommerce, cloud computing, and digital marketing.

B

B2B – Business to Business

Refers to the relationship of two businesses, rather than a business and a consumer.

B2C – Business to Consumer

Refers to the relationship between a business, a firm, or a company and an individual or a consumer.

BB – Buy Box

Also refers to Amazon Buy Box. A button on an Amazon detail page that buyers use to purchase a product.

BISS – Business Industrial and Scientific Supplies

A specific selling category on Amazon.

BL – Big Lots

An American retail company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, with over 1,400 stores in 47 states. The significance of Big Lots is that several Amazon FBA sellers frequent their stores.

BM – Brick & Mortar

Refers to the traditional street-side, customer-facing businesses that offer products and services to its customers face-to-face in an office or a store that the business owns or rents. The opposite of an online store.

BOGO – Buy One Get One

A type of promotion for sellers where buyers get one additional item free for the price of one.

BOGOF – Buy One Get One Free

Same as BOGO.

BOL – Bill of Landing

A type of proof of delivery. BOL is required by a carrier at the time of pickup.

BOLO – Be On the Lookout

Used to refer to an item that is profitable that you might be able to find in nearby stores. To be alert or attentive when watching or searching for something or someone.

BOPIS – Buy Online Pick Up In Store

An ecommerce term that refers to the shopping model where consumers buy the items online to be picked up at a retail location, rather than getting delivered.

BSR – Best Seller Rank

Also referred to as sales rank. A ranking score which gives an idea of how well an item is selling in relation to others. Order and ranking of a product in its listed category. Rank updates hourly and considers recent and past sales history. For new products, the rank will be “None.”

BTS – Back To School

A calendar period used by merchants to promote and boost product sales related to school items and services.

C

CA – Canadian or Canada

An abbreviation for the Canadian marketplace.

CAGR – Compound Annual Growth Rate

CAGER is the rate of return required for an investment to grow from its starting balance to its ending balance, assuming the profits were reinvested at the end of each year of the investment’s lifespan.

CCC – CamelCamelCamel

A free online tool for Amazon sellers which allows user to track Amazon price history charts, ranks, price watches, and price drop alerts.

CCR – Counterfeit Complaint Rate

The rate by which sellers get complaints about their products being fake or counterfeit. Some wholesalers or distributors require low CCR for their resellers.

CD – Continuous Deployment

In AWS, Continuous Deployment is a software development practice where code changes are automatically prepared for a release to production without explicit approval. In contrast, Continuous Delivery is where manual approval is needed to update to production.

CM – Change Management

In cloud computing, CM is one of the processes responsible for controlling the life cycle of IT infrastructure. CM’s main objectiveis to enable changes to be made while ensuring minimum disruption in IT services.

CoGS – Cost of Goods Sold

Sometimes COGS. The value of goods sold during a certain period of time. COGS is an accumulated total of all costs used to create or provide products or service sold.

CPC – Cost Per Click

Refers to the sponsored ads and the amount Amazon charges the seller or vendor when a customer clicks on their ads. CPC is the amount of money you spend every time someone clicks on your ad. ​ CPC = Spend / Clicks.

CPI – Consumer Price Index

A measure of the average change overtime in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.

CPI – Cost Per Impression

Sometimes referred to as CPM. An advertising practice that refers to the price you pay each time people view your ad.

CPM – Cost Per Mil

Similar to CPI, but CPM refers to the price for an ad for every thousand (or mil) views.

CPT – Critical Pull Time

The time in which an order is in danger of not shipping in time for customer delivery cut-offs. When an order is in danger of being shipped out late to a customer, CPT occurs. Amazon really doesn’t want this to happen! Amazon will send out PAs or PGs to pull them and take them to be shipped out ASAP.

CRaP – Can’t Realize a Profit

Refers to products that Amazon identifies as having low profit values, being unprofitable or items are at risk of being unprofitable. Amazon’s finance team created the term to describe items that are structurally unprofitable for the company to sell on its marketplace.

CS – Customer Service

The service or support companies provide to their customers for inquiries, service requests, complaints, returns, etc.

CTI – Category, Type, Item

The hierarchical structure for categorization with multiple levels or layers of classification. Typical hierarchical structure stems from creating a category list first, then different types per category, then different items per type.

CTR – Click Through Rate

A metric that measures the number of clicks per impression of an advertisement. The percent of shoppers who see your ad and click on it, calculated as # of clicks / impressions (relate blog post: What is a good CTR on Amazon).

CVR – Conversion Rate

The percentage of shoppers who have clicked on your ad and purchased. ​ Ordered units divided by glance views​.

CX – Customer Experience

Also referred to as User Experience. A term encompassing the multiple interactions that factor into the customer’s experience with a vendor or a brand. The totality of customer’s feelings, impressions, and insights towards the company upon buying goods or receiving services. CX is a very important factor for sellers aiming for positive reviews.

D

D2C – Direct-to-Customers

Also DTC. An ecommerce practice and strategy where traditional B2B businesses start selling directly to end-consumers. D2C differs from B2C since the latter usually relies on a retailer or distributor to provide the products to end-users.

DDP – Delivery Duty Paid

A shipping method where the supplier is responsible for arranging carriage and delivering the goods at the named place, cleared for import and all applicable tariffs and duties paid.

DEA – Dynamic Ecommerce Ads

A component of Amazon DSP where ads will have Ecommerce features built within the display ad, such as retail price and review ratings.

DOTD – Deal of the Day

On Amazon’s Gold Box or Deals page, a single item or small set of closely related items discounted for a period of 24 hours.

DP – Detail page

DP is the listing page where an ASIN is sold on Amazon.com. It’s also known as Product Detail Page and may contain a single ASIN or a parent ASIN with variations, such as child ASINs. This displays important info such as price, title, bullets, description, customer reviews, etc.

DPMO – Defects Per Million Opportunities

Also referred to as Nonconformities Per Million Opportunities. The ratio of the number of defects in a sample to the total number of defect opportunities multiplied by 1 million. DPMO is a long-term measure of process performance, and may require you to think reversely. It is a measure of the error rate of a process indicating how good your process is towards committing mistakes.

DPV – Details Page View

A metric showing the number of impressions of a single detail page. This occurs when a shopper visits one of your brand’s product detail pages after clicking on your ad.

DPVR – Details Page View Rate

Refers to the total number of promoted products on Amazon Detail page views, divided by number of ad impressions, presented as a rate (Related blog post: Amazon page views vs sessions).

DS – Drop Shipping

Refers to shipping a product directly from a supplier to the end customer. Dropshopping is a fulfillment method where products are not kept in-house and shipped directly to the customer.

DSP – Demand Side Platform

Amazon’s display advertising program. Amazon’s targeted advertising programs that drive and retarget consumers based upon demographics and shopping behavior.

DTC – Direct to Consumer

See D2C.

E

EAN – European Article Number

A particular type of Global Trade Item Number (or GTIN). It is either an 8-digit code or a 13-digit code. Used in most countries except the United States and Canada. For other barcodes and item numbering or identifying systems, see post on Different Amazon FBA Barcodes.

EBC – Enhanced Brand Content

Predecessor of A+ Content. A detail page where the product description has enhanced content and branding, which includes graphics and images embedded into the page. As of 2020, EBC has been obsolete and replaced by A+ Content.

EFN – European Fulfillment Network

An option provided to Amazon’s European sellers, allowing them to sell in other Amazon marketplaces while fulfilling their orders from local fulfillment centers.

EOD – End of Day

Refers to the close of a particular working day.

ExSD – Expected Ship Date

The system’s estimate of when an item will leave the FC and corresponds to a truck’s critical pull time.

EXW – Ex Works

Refers to a state where the seller is responsible and liable for the entire shipment from door to door. This means you’re responsible for everything from the door of the supplier to the final destination. Your supplier finishes the products, sets them in their warehouse for pickup, and the ownership of the goods becomes yours upon full payment.

F

FBA – Fulfillment by Amazon

Amazon’s fulfillment service where third party sellers are allowed to store their products in Amazon Fulfillment Centers. Upon sale, Amazon will pick, pack, ship, and handle customer service on behalf of the seller (related blog post: FBA inventory reimbursement).

FBM – Fulfillment by Merchant

Also referred to as MF or Merchant Fulfilled, or MFN or Merchant Fulfillment Network. MF is a fulfillment type where merchants handle shipping, packing, and inventory instead of being handled by Amazon.

FC – Fulfillment Center/s

FC are Amazon’s fulfillment warehouses or centers where products are stored, prepped, and shipped.

FCA – Free Carrier

Sometimes referred to as Free to Carrier. A trade term indicating that the seller of goods is responsible for delivery of those goods to a destination specified by the buyer. The seller is responsible and liable once the shipment is handed over to the carrier, typically near the port in the country of origin. It means that the supplier has the responsibility to just get your products out of their gates and at the gate of the port. They do not handle the supplier’s country custom and loading it onto the ship.

FFP – Frustration-Free Packing

An Amazon sustainability program that eliminates excessive packing and overboxing.

FinTech – Financial Technology Lenders

FinTech companies give ecommerce businesses financial assistance, among other things. They are mostly online financial institutions which offers almost paperless loan application and approval.

FNSKU – Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit

Assigned by Amazon when you ship your product to its fulfillment center. Shipping your products to the Amazon fulfillment center means that Amazon will be in charge of the delivery of your products. Each product that goes through the company’s fulfillment center needs the FNSKU code. You can attach this code to your product on your own before shipping them to the fulfillment center, or you can also pay Amazon to do the job for you. The company usually charges $0.20 for each product. For other barcodes and item numbering or identifying systems, see post on Different Amazon FBA Barcodes.

FOB – Free on Board

A trade arrangement where the supplier is responsible for getting your goods from the factory to the port. FOB cost will be added to the manufacturing cost.

FPY – First Pass Yield

A measure of quality in a process that reflects the percentage of product made correctly without any rework or corrective activity.

FS – Financial Statement

Refers to the records of a company’s business activities and financial performance.

FT – Fast Track

A glance view weighted in stock metric for Amazon.  In order to get a Fast Track offer, the ASIN must be in stock, win the buy box and be prime eligible. ASINs with Fast Track generally have higher conversion. ​

FTL – Full-Truckload

An Amazon freight shipping service where the shipment combines individual boxes on pallets for delivery. The truck might contain shipments to other destinations.

G

GIR – Growth Incentive Rebate

Also referred to as Volume Incentive Rebate (VIR). A type of discount or rebate linked to higher volume and growth. Higher volume sales result in a greater discount, making this a beneficial scenario for both the seller and the supplier.

GLN – Global Location Number

Unique identification code of a physical location that is used to identify locations and legal entities. Comprised of a GS1 Company Prefix, Location Reference, and Check Digit.

GS1 – Global Standards 1

An international standards organization with member bodies in more than 100 countries worldwide. The global authority for the unique identification of products and companies, which serve as the building blocks for barcodes. For other barcodes and item numbering or identifying systems, see post on Different Amazon FBA Barcodes.

GST – Goods and Service Tax

A destination-based tax on consumption of goods and services, levied at all stages right from manufacturer up to the retailer who sells the goods for final consumption. Some of the countries implementing GST are: France, India, Canada, Vietnam, Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom, Monaco, Spain, Italy, Nigeria, Brazil, and South Korea.

GTIN – Global Trade Item Number

GTIN is a type of barcode. It is recognized almost everywhere in the world. GTIN is used to identify different product information such as the name of the retailer or the manufacturer of the product. For other barcodes and item numbering or identifying systems, see post on Different Amazon FBA Barcodes.

GV – Glance View

Glance views are the number of times an ASIN is viewed. GV is calculated on a child ASIN level. Parent ASINs do not generate glance views.

H

Hazmat – Hazardous Materials

These items may be flammable, dangerous, corrosive, pressurized, etc. and require special precautions and regulations when transporting or storing.

HTF – Hard to Find

HTFs are often associated with a BOLO post. It comes into play when an item is rarely seen in stores anymore.  

I

IDQ – Item Data Quality

Refers to the condition of an item’s information, for example, if the product has bullet points and images.

IL – InventoryLab

A service used to assist in accounting and analysis related to Amazon business.

IP – Intellectual Property

Refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names, and images used in commerce. For Amazon’s IP Policy, check this post from Amazon Seller Central.

IPI – Inventory Performance Indicator

An Amazon IPI score combines the past three months of sales, inventory levels, and costs into a single rolling metric. When an IPI gets below a certain threshold, sellers will be subject to storage limits which might hinder their ability to add new inventory or create new items.

IRDR – Inventory Record Defect Rate

IRDR is a random inventory count, where the virtual is matched with the physical in a bin. If IRDR is high, then a picker could be sent to a bin to pick a unit, but it won’t be there. Downstream implication is that the shipping cut off could be missed because Amazon has to chase that unit from elsewhere.

ISBN – International Standard Book Number

A 13-digit number assigned by standard book numbering agencies to identify individual books, editions of a book, or book-like products like e-books or audiobooks. ISBNs used to be 10 digits until the end of 2006. For other barcodes and item numbering or identifying systems, see post on Different Amazon FBA Barcodes.

ITK – Item Type Keyword

A set of search keywords chosen by a vendor, from a list Amazon maintains, that show an ASIN in search when a customer searches for any word(s) in the ITK string.

K

KB – Knowledge Base

A repository of resources such as articles, guides, and video tutorials, intended to educate customers about the products, processes, claims, etc.

KDP – Kindle Direct Publishing

Amazon’s self-publishing platform for authors. Related blog posts on to maximize Amazon KDP Earnings, KDP Advertising, Amazon KDP Keywords and KDP metadata guidelines.

KPI – Key Performance Indicators

Also referred to as metrics. A measurable value that determines how well your business or organization is performing against set objectives.

L

LBB – Lost Buy Box

When a product loses the Buy Box button, the brand is losing it to another seller that has better offer as determined by Amazon’s algorithm. If a product is out of stock, naturally it’s a lost buy box.

LD – Lightning Deal

Lightning deal is a type of promotion on Amazon. LDs are offered in a limited quantity for a short period of time. These are available one per customer until either the deal’s promotion period ends or all the available inventory is claimed.

LSA – Latent Semantics Analysis

An information retrieval method which works by decomposing the original matrix of words to maintain key topics. This is a useful topic modeling algorithm in that it can rank topics by itself.

LTH – Long Term Hold

LTH is storing stocks of products to be sold at a later date. For example, storing unsold Christmas lights in late December to be sold starting in October or November the following year.

LTL – Less-Than-Truckload

An Amazon freight shipping service where you essentially combine partial loads to create full multi-stop truckloads, which can be very efficient. LTL shipment combines individual boxes on pallets for delivery. The truck might contain shipments to other destinations.

M

MAP – Minimum Advertised Price

A price that you agree not to list with a lower value when you purchase a product from a wholesaler or distributor. This term often comes into play with wholesale sourcing.

MCA – Merchant Cash Advance

MCA is a financing option available to Amazon sellers through third party providers, which allows a business to grow against its future sales. Loan application approvals by MCA are relatively fast but may be of high interest since this industry is still unregulated.

MCF – Multi-channel Fulfillment

Also multichannel fulfillment. A fulfillment type where storage is not limited to one company. Some inventory may be fulfilled by Amazon through FBA and other inventory by other sales channels or by the seller themselves.

MCI – Multi-Country Inventory

An Amazon fulfillment option which allows FBA sellers to choose the countries where they want to send their inventory and have orders for that Amazon store fulfilled by local fulfillment centers.

MF – Merchant Fulfilled

See FBM.

MFN – Merchant/Manufacturer Fulfillment Network

See FBM.

MoM Growth – Month-Over-Month Growth

Shows the change in the value of a specific metric as a percentage of the previous month’s value. Often used to measure the growth rate of monthly revenue, active users, number of subscriptions, or other key metrics.

MOQ – Minimum Order Quantity

The minimum amount of items consumers can order. This typically applies to orders from wholesalers or distributors.

MSRP – Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price

Also referred to as the list price, SRP (Suggested Retail Price), or RRP (Recommended Retail Price). The price at which the manufacturer recommends that the retailer sell the product.

MTD – Month-to-Date

From the beginning of the month until this time of the month. Referring to the period in a month with respect to the month as a whole. Often seen when sharing sales or a certain metric since the beginning of the month. 

MWS – Marketplace Web Services

Refers to Amazon’s Marketplace Web Services and is where you get access to your API or MWS keys. While AWS refers to the cloud computing platform, MWS is the specific service that Amazon provides for sellers.

N

NAFN – North American Fulfillment Network

Vendors in North America (US, Canada and Mexico) may find their products shipped to any of these countries using Amazon’s fulfillment channels.

NDA – Nondisclosure Agreement

Covers items such as what is confidential, who the information can be shared with, breach of contract, amendments, and other important parts of every non-disclosure agreement.

NIS – New Item Setup

Refers to the initial creation of an item from accepting the terms and agreements, to developing an ASIN, and filling out the detail page info.

NP – New Product

A newly listed item on Amazon.

NPMO – Nonconformities Per Million Opportunities

See DPMO.

NR – Non-Replenishable

Also Non-replenishment. An item that is not available and could be deleted from the catalog.

NTB – New to Brand

Amazon’s advertising metric that determines whether an ad-attributed purchase was made by an existing customer or one buying a brand’s product on Amazon for the first time over the prior year. NTB advertisers receive campaign performance metrics such as total new-to-brand purchases and sales, new-to-brand purchase rate, and cost per new-to-brand customer. This was launched in 2019.

O

OA – Online Arbitrage

Also referred to as Retail Arbitrage. Purchasing items from online retailers to resell on Amazon.

OB – Obsolete

The abbreviation OB is typically used when referring to stocks.

OB – Outbound

Used when referring to FC scheduling.

ODR – Order Defect Rate

The percentage of orders that have received negative feedback or significant issue on, an A-to-Z Guarantee claim or a service credit card chargeback.

OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer

A company that produces parts and equipment that may be sold by other companies. This term is normally used when discussing warranty.

OOS – Out of Stock

A replenishment term referring to items being out of stock in retail store or Amazon themselves being out of stock.

Ops – Operations

Mostly used to refer to the operations department.

OS – Off-Season

A replenishment term referring to an item that is not currently in season. Can be used to temporarily unpublish an item that will be back in stock during a relevant season or a specific time of the year.

OTC – Over the Counter

Also referred to as off-exchange trading. A trading practice that is done directly between two parties, without the supervision of an exchange. It is contrasted with exchange trading, which occurs via exchanges.

P

P2P – Peer-to-Peer

Also referred to as “crowd lending,” or “social lending.” A type of lending which enables individuals to obtain loans directly from other individuals, cutting out the financial institution as the middleman. Make sure to understand the risks before entering this type of lending.

P&L – Profit and Loss

Generally referring to Profit and Loss Statement; also referred to as income statement. A financial statement that summarizes the revenues, costs, and expenses incurred during a specified period, usually a fiscal quarter or year. These records provide information about a company’s ability or inability to generate profit by increasing revenue, reducing costs, or both.

PA – Process Assistant

A position in an Amazon warehouse who works as a supervisor under the Area Manager.

PAN EU – Pan European

Refers to the European marketplace. Also refers to the state where a seller is actively selling on Amazon’s European marketplaces. PAN EU is an option that allows sellers to send their products to one fulfillment center. Then Amazon ships the items to their fulfillment centers around the continent.

PCOGS – Product Cost of Goods Sold

Also Projected Cost of Goods Sold, and sometimes written as PCoGS. The amount needed to procure an item or a product.

PDA – Product Display Ads

A type of display advertising where a product’s ad appears throughout Amazon on category and product pages.

PDP – Product Display Page

See DP.

PED – Prime Exclusive Discount

A limited-time del available to Amazon FBA sellers for Prime-eligible items. This can be in the form of an amount or a percentage off.

PG – Process Guide

A role in Amazon fulfillment centers supporting a Process Assistant and an Area Manager.

PL – Private Label

An item manufactured or packaged for sale under the name of the retailer rather than of the manufacturer. For a better understanding of PLs, see this post on Cost to Sell on Amazon FBA via Private Label.

PM – Price Match

Refers to matching the price of other retailers. You will typically see this for retailers claiming they have the lowest prices for their products and offers consumers a price match if they find other vendors with lower prices.

PNOV – Preliminary Notice of Violation

A notification from Amazon informing sellers of their probable violation. Sometimes the initial notice gets skipped especially if there are multiple violations.

POD – Proof of Delivery

A customer-signed document from the shipping company indicating that the item was delivered. This term normally comes up when a customer claims that he has not received the package but the shipping company says otherwise. Note that a tracking number from the delivery company may not suffice as a POD. Seller Central suggests that an actual signature of the customer is needed.

PPC – Pay Per Click

In Amazon, PPC is an advertising feature that can help sellers reach buyers, boost sales, promote brand awareness, and measure success in Amazon. It allows vendors, sellers, agencies, and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors to advertise their products at the top of Amazon’s product detail pages and SERPs. Just like any other PPC ad, you will only pay for your Amazon PPC ads whenever users click them. For more information, see blog posts on Amazon PPC: A Complete Beginner’s Guide and How to Optimize Amazon PPC AND Retain High Organic Rank.

PPE – Personal Protective Equipment

Often required for working in certain job roles at an Amazon financial center.

PPM – Pure Product Margin

Calculated by the following formula (Revenue – P-COGS) / Revenue.

PPV – Product Price Variance

Happens when a vendor raises an invoice and the item price on the invoice differs from what Amazon has in the system.

PQV – Product Quality Variance

Happens when a vendor sends inventory to Amazon and the amount they shipped differs from the amount Amazon received.

PR – Planned Replenishment

A replenishment term referring to items that are automatically reordered.

ProbRec – Problem Received

Percentage of units received in Amazon warehouse with a problem which needs to be solved, such as missing barcode, wrong warehouse, overage quantity, etc.

PVR – Provisions for Receivables

Temporary credit memos or credit holds that Amazon places on a warehouse account related to forcasted payables due to Amazon.

Q

Q1 – Quarter 1

Refers to the first quarter of the year from January to March. For some businesses, this is the most challenging quarter as it follows Q4, where sales are expected to go up.

Q2 – Quarter 2

Refers to the second quarter of the year from April to June.

Q3 – Quarter 3

Refers to the third quarter of the year from July to September.

Q4 – Quarter 4

Q4 – Refers to the fourth quarter of the year from October to December. For most businesses, this quarter is the most important due to the holidays within this period.

QA – Quality Assurance

A process or method of preventing mistakes and defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when delivering products or services to customers. Quality Assurance for Amazon sellers play an important role in the supply chain for it ensures that your goods are pre-inspected before shipment.

QB – QuickBooks

An online tool which helps Amazon sellers manage their accounting.

R

RA – Retail Arbitrage

See OA.

Replen – Replenishable Product

An item that a seller is able to replenish from a supplier and sell continuously.  This term is normally used in relation to sourcing products.

Rep OOS – Replenishable Out of Stock

Clicks on a detail page where retail items are not available in percentage of all clicks. The percentage of sales that were missed out due to the item being out of stock.

RoAS – Return on Ad Spend

An indication of the amount spent on PPC ads in relation to the revenue generated from ads. RoAS a factor that is used to determine the effectiveness of an ad campaign.

ROI – Return on Investment

A performance metric used to determine success of an investment relative to the costs. The loss or gain an investment generates relative to the amount of money invested.

RRP – Recommended Retail Price

See MSRP.

S

SB – Sponsored Brands

Formerly known as Headline Search Ads. Ads that appear both in the search results, product pages (via product attributed targeting), and other places such as the checkout page. These ads normally show up as long rectangular banners in both horizontal and vertical formats. For more detailed on SB, check this post on Amazon Sponsored Brands Tutorial.

SBA – Small Business Administration

Established in 1953, SBA is an autonomous US government agency which aims to promote the economy in general by providing assistance to small businesses.

SBC – Simple Bin Count

The total number of items in a bin after items are stowed. If the number is different than what it should be, the pod is referred to Cycle Count, where they scan every item in the bind and surrounding bins.

SC – Seller Central

The online interface certain Amazon marketplace sellers use to manage their Amazon Pro or Individual seller accounts. The web platform used by Amazon marketplace sellers.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

The process of maximizing or optimizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring the website appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. Optimizing online content such that a search engine will likely show your website as a top result for searches based on certain keywords. For a better understanding of SEO, check this post on Boosting Your Amazon SEO.

SFP – Seller Fulfilled Prime

A program for Amazon Prime sellers which allows them to ship from their own warehouses and control their own fulfillment. By displaying the Prime badge, you are committing to fulfill orders with two-day delivery at no additional charge for Prime customers.

SIOC – Ships in Own Container

An Amazon container packaging option where the product can be shipped in its own box and no over boxing is required in the fulfillment center to ship to a customer.

SKU – Stock Keeping Unit

An alphanumeric code used to identify items in a seller’s inventory. These are machine-readable codes used to identify a specific product and vary from company to company, for inventory purposes.

SLA – Service Level Agreement

An agreement between two parties detailing how a service can be accomplished. SLA is usually referred to the time frame a service needs to be delivered, but also includes the quality of the service.

SLAM – Scan, Label, Apply, Manifest

Refers to the step at which a shipment is weighed, the shipping method is calculated, and a shipping label applied.

SnS – Subscribe and Save

Amazon’s service that allows customers to periodically auto-order delivery on certain products at a discounted price. Bundling more of these products increases the discount level.

SP – Sponsored Products

Keyword-targeted ads that promote an individual product and are on a cost-per-click basis. For more insights, read this blog post on Amazon PPC Optimization for Sponsored Products.

SP00 – Shipping Package #

Sometimes referred to as SPOO (two letter O’s, instead of two number 0’s). A barcode label applied to a box after an item has been packed. After packing and before auto-SLAM, the sp00 contains all order details for a particular shipment.

SPN – Service Provider Network

Launched in 2014 with the goal of enabling sellers to launch, manage and grow their business on Amazon.in. SPN is a network of over 300 professional service providers who are trained and certified by Amazon.

SPOO – Shipping Package #

See SP00.

SRP – Suggested Retail Price.

See MSRP.

SS – Seller Support

The customer service for sellers in different Amazon marketplaces.

T

T&C – Terms and Conditions

See TOS.

TACOS – Total Advertising Cost of Sale

See ACoS.

TIA – Thanks in Advance

You will most likely see this term used in Amazon selling group pages requesting for information.

TOS – Terms of Service

Also known as Terms of Use (TOU) or Terms and Conditions (T&C). Refers to the legal agreements between a service provider and a person who wants to use that service. The person must agree to abide by the terms of service in order to use the service or services offered. For Amazon service, TOC is found here.

TOT – Time Off Task

A fulfillment center term used to determine the amount of time needed to complete a certain task.

TOU – Terms of Use

See TOS.

U

UPC – Universal Product Code

A 12-digit unique code identifying a specific product. It also has a unique sequence of black bars that are then detected by machines for easier processing. This type of barcode is often used in the United States and Canada. The UPC is purchased from GS1, an organization assigned to identify different retail products around the globe. For a better understanding of different barcodes, see post on Different Amazon FBA Barcodes.

UPH – Units Per Hour

The number of units produced or sold per hour, depending on the context of use.

UX – User Experience

See CX.

V

VA – Virtual Assistant

Someone who provides administrative help while working remotely. VAs can be contract workers and can provide assistance in bookkeeping, data entry, research, and much more.

VAT – Value Added Tax

A consumption tax placed on a product whenever value is added at each stage of the supply chain, from production to the point of sale. Known in some countries as Goods and Service Tax. As of 2018, 166 of the 193 countries with full UN membership employ a VAT.

VC – Vendor Central

An invite-only platform for businesses that want to sell their products to Amazon itself. When you sell to Amazon in this capacity, you are their supplier. Amazon sends you a purchase order listing of what they want to buy.

The web interface used by manufacturers and distributors. If you sell via Vendor Central, you’re a first-party seller. You’re acting as a supplier.

VIR – Volume Incentive Rebate

See GIR.

VIS – Video in Search

Offers advertisers a content-rich medium in which to make a direct connection with Amazon customers through videos in mobile search results.

VLT – Vendor Lead Time

The amount of time a vendor takes for an order to be picked, packed, and received by Amazon.

VM – Vendor Manager

The owner of a category or categories at Amazon for Wholesale programs, responsible for managing full category scope, including P&L performance and end-to-end vendor management, which requires development of new strategic vendor relationships, driving negotiations, managing growth levers and ensuring paramount operational and logistical performance.

VNHO – Virtual New Hire Orientation

An onboarding program for new hires done online. We’ve seen more VNHOs when companies started shifting to sourcing services and employees (see VA) who could accomplish work remotely at lower rates.  The use of VNHO has also increased significantly due to measures of social distancing because of COVID-19.

VPC – Vendor Powered Coupons

Amazon coupons that are available to both Amazon vendors and sellers. The offers appear on the Product Detail Page in the form of a digital coupon. Offers include percentage off, dollars off, BOGOs, free shipping, social media promo codes, or giveaways.  For Amazon marketplace sellers, the account must be a Professional Seller Account, in good standing, and must have at least a 3.5 Seller Feedback Rating. Discounts are funded by the vendor/seller.

VPN – Virtual Private Network

Provides privacy, anonymity and security to users by creating a private network connection across a public network connection. VPNs can be used in combination with proxy servers, and overlay networks.

W

WOS – Weeks of Supply

A metric showing how long the current inventory will last based on the current demand. An inventory measure calculated by dividing current inventory by average sales. WOS helps to educate a planner to think of inventory in terms of forecasting. For Wholesale merchants, the Amazon Replenishment Team will determine WOS. For Marketplace sellers, they are responsible for managing their own inventory.

WS – Wholesale

The process of selling products in large quantities and at lower prices to others who then resell them either in brick and mortar stores or online, on sites like Amazon and eBay. Refers to sourcing products direct from the manufacturer or from a distributor.

Y

YMMV – Your Mileage May Vary

A chat lingo that you may often see in Amazon-related Facebook groups which means that the post may not apply to everyone. It can also mean that a user’s product experience may be different from another’s.

YTD – Year to Date

From the beginning of the year until this time of the year. Referring to the period in a year with respect to the year as a whole. Often seen when sharing sales or a certain metric since the beginning of the year. 

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