Here you can find definitions and useful links for (almost) all terms and abbreviations around Amazon PPC know-how & the BidX tool.
A for ACOS B for BidX C for Campaign D for Dashboard E for Exact I for Impression
K for Keyword M for Match Type N for negative Keyword P for PPC R for ROAS
S for SPA T for TACOS V for vCPM
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Ad Groups |
One or more ad groups can be included in a campaign. They are the third level of the PPC structure. There are several types of ad groups: Auto ad groups are organized by Amazon. PAT ad groups contain targets (ASINs or categories). Other ad groups can each contain keywords with one of the Match Types broad, phrase or exact. Every ad group can contain product ads, through which products are linked to it. Ad groups can be given a default bid, which is the starting bid for every keyword or target in it. |
| Advertising Cost of Sales (ACOS) | An important KPI, which is calculated by dividing the advertising costs by the paid sales. The ACOS is the inverse of the ROAS and indicates the profitability of advertising. It is expressed in percentage. |
| Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) | A unique 10-digit code, consisting of numbers and letters, which is assigned by Amazon to a single product. It will also appear in the Amazon URL of the product. |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) |
A subsidiary of Amazon, which provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. |
| Best Sellers Rank (BSR) |
Once a product sells the first time, it is awarded a Best Sellers Rank by Amazon. This rank is mainly based on historical sales and the current sales rate of the product. The rank is assigned per category for the product, so products can also have multiple Best Sellers Ranks. The best Best Sellers Rank is #1. In BidX there is also the option to schedule campaigns towards the Best Sellers Rank of a product. |
| Bid |
Is placed on keywords or targets to achieve a play out of your ad. They’re the key part of the PPC advertising and organized in a second price auction. The higher the bid than that of the competition, the better the position on the search result page or product detail page. |
| BidX Blog Articles | |
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Boost Function |
Is a BidX Pro function, which can be used to increase or decrease the budget of campaigns temporarily. It can be activated and customized in the Discover tab on campaign-level. Learn more about the function in our Knowledge Base. |
| Broad [Match Type] |
Keywords with the Match Type "Broad" play out your ad for search terms which contain your keyword in any order and with additional words at any position. Even in plural forms, abbreviations or acronyms of your keyword are included, your ad may be displayed to the user. "Broad" is the least specific Match Type. |
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Bulk Operations |
The Bulk Operations function is a Pro function. This function is found in the "Product Management" tab of our tool. With this function customers can export and import data through an Excel file to accelerate editing huge numbers of values, e.g. tags, names or campaign status. Follow this link to our Knowledge Base for more details. |
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Campaign |
Several campaigns can be combined in one portfolio, therefore campaigns are the second level of the PPC structure. Campaigns can contain one or more ad groups. They are divided into auto and manual campaigns. Auto campaigns can only contain auto ad groups, while manual campaigns can contain PAT ad groups, as well as ad groups containing keywords with one of the three Match Types Broad, Phrase or Exact. Campaigns in Amazon PPC can be created for Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display Ads and Sponsored Product Ads. Campaigns can be given a daily budget which is the maximum that will be spent in a day. |
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Child ASIN |
Is an ASIN belonging to a parent ASIN. A child ASIN product is a specific version or variation of a product, like a t-shirt in a certain color. Different from parent ASINs, child ASINs can be advertised. |
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Clean-Up Function |
Is a BidX Pro feature. This function can be enabled in Product Management. If it is enabled, keywords with a match type that do not correspond to the other keywords of the ad group they are in will be assigned to the campaign that corresponds to their match type if it exists. Learn more about the function in our Knowledge Base. |
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Click-Through Rate |
A KPI, which shows how often an ad is clicked when displayed. Therefore clicks are divided by impressions. It is expressed in percentage. |
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Conversion Rate (CVR) |
A KPI which shows the percentage of clicks on an ad that also generated a sale. Therefore it is calculated by dividing the number of orders by the number of clicks. |
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Cost Per Click (CPC) |
An important KPI. It calculates the average cost per click at different levels (marketplace, campaign, etc.). The cost of a click comes through your bids and the bids of the competitors because of the second price auction system. The average value is calculated by dividing the total costs of the clicks by total clicks. The value is then given in the respective currency. |
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Cost Per Mille (CPM) |
CPM advertising is a cost-per-thousand-impressions system. Different from PPC advertising, the bid placed on CPM campaigns is paid per thousand impressions (per mille) and not per click. It does not matter if the user clicked or if the ad was visible to the user, unlike for the vCPM. This kind of advertising system is most often used for display advertising. While the BidX tool doesn’t work with any CPM campaigns, other advertising options like DSP use this system. CPM campaigns do not target keywords but audiences. |
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Dashboard |
The Dashboard is the starting page of our BidX tool. Here our customers can display all of their data in different chart and table formats with various filters. This side is completely customizable. It also has an export function with the possibility to add branded corporate colors and a custom logo. Furthermore our customers can create multiple dashboards and switch between them, if they want e.g. different dashboards for different products. More details about the dashboard can be found here in our Knowledge Base. |
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Discover |
Discover is the place in our BidX tool, where customers can find all of the statistics about their campaigns, keywords, dynamic bidding (expand view needs to be activated) and much more. Here our customers can deep dive and/or edit a lot of data e.g. campaign, ad groups, keywords, boosts and much more. Also, exports and imports in the .xml file format for editing Boost values are possible. You can find a more in-depth overview here in our Knowledge Base. |
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Economic Clicks |
The BidX automation will only perform bid adjustments when the keyword has a statistically significant amount of clicks. This amount depends on various factors like the CVR and the certainty to generate a sale. Learn more about economic clicks and try out our economic clicks calculator in this article. |
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Exact [Match Type] |
Keywords with the Match Type "Exact" play out your ad only for search terms which match exactly with your keyword and very close variations like the plural, abbreviations, a suffix at the end of the word etc. |
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Impressions |
Are a KPI which measure the number of times Amazon shows users your ad, regardless of whether they clicked on it or not. |
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Key Performance |
Key figures containing information about PPC advertising (products, marketplaces, keywords, etc.) and its performance. Examples include: ACOS, ROAS, CTR, etc. |
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Keyword |
Users enter search terms into the search bar on Amazon. In order to achieve an impression for a search term, it is included in a PPC ad group and bids are placed on it. In these ad groups they are then called keywords or targets. Keywords are divided into different Match Types (Broad, Phrase and Exact). The BidX tool performs both bid adjustments and keyword management. |
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Keyword Management |
The Keyword Management is, besides the bid management, the most important step to optimize the advertisement campaigns. For this explanation we use our recommended structure of one auto campaign and 3 manual campaigns: one PAT, one Broad and one Exact. When a search term converts (generates a sale) or a certain amount of economic clicks is reached (follow this link to a calculator and more in-depth explanation about economic clicks: Blog), this search term is created as a keyword in the other campaigns of the structure and and their corresponding negative keyword in the original campaign to prevent double playouts. So, in the given example structure, a converted search term from the Auto campaign would be set as keyword in the Broad and Exact campaign. At the same time, the keyword would be set as negative Phrase (because there is no negative Broad match type) in the Auto and negative Exact in the Broad campaign. When the keyword management is triggered for a Broad keyword, the search term will be created as a positive keyword in the Exact campaign and set as negative Exact keyword in the Broad campaign. The same happens for ASINs that the Auto campaign harvests: if an ASIN converts, it will be moved to the PAT campaign and set as negative in the Auto campaign. A more detailed overview could be find in our Knowledge Base. |
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Knowledge Base |
Contains articles about everything you need to know about the BidX tool and Amazon PPC advertising. It is available in English and German. |
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Match Type |
There are 3 different Match Types for keywords: Broad, Phrase and Exact. Manual ad groups can contain keywords with these Match Types. Match Types allow you control over what customer search term will match to the keywords in your campaigns. While Exact keywords can only achieve a play out of your ad when the search term corresponds exactly to the keyword, Broad and Phrase keywords achieve impressions for search terms with a different word order or additional words. |
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Negative Keyword |
Negative keywords are the inverse of keywords. Their possible match types are: negative Phrase, negative Exact and negative ASIN (PAT campaigns). A negative keyword prevents the playout of this ad for a suitable search term. This is also used in the keyword management to prevent double playouts in different ad groups. |
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Parent ASIN |
Is an abstract ASIN, grouping several child ASINs. Since this ASIN doesn’t belong to a product, but is a group of variations of a product, it can not be advertised, while child ASINs can be. |
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Pay-Per-Click (PPC) |
Amazon PPC advertising works as a pay-per-click system. This means you can create ad groups where bids are placed on keywords and targets in order to be displayed as high as possible on the search results page. The costs are generated when the user clicks on the ad. The cost of a click is calculated from your own bid and those of the competitors because of the second price auction system. You can run PPC ads on Amazon as Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display Ads and Sponsored Product Ads. |
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Phrase [Match Type] |
Keywords with the Match Type "Phrase" play out your ad for search terms which contain the keyword in its exact order and also when additional words are added at the beginning or end. For example: your keyword is "gardening gloves women". For the search term "black gardening gloves women flexible", the ad will be played since the exact word order is still the same with additional words. For "women gardening gloves", no ad will be played because the word order is changed. |
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Portfolio |
Portfolios are the first level in the PPC structure. Portfolios can contain one or more campaigns. In the Amazon advertising console, portfolios can be given a budget which will be distributed to the campaigns in the portfolio. In BidX, portfolios don’t have any usage except for the sake of a better overview. |
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Product Attribute Targeting (PAT) |
The targets of PAT campaigns contain ASINs or item categories instead of keywords as targets. When a targeted ASIN is played out through advertising, these campaigns are triggered. The products of the PAT campaign could then be shown in the search results or on the product page of the targeted ASIN. |
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Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) |
An important KPI which is calculated by dividing the paid sales by the advertising costs. The ROAS is the inverse of the ACOS and shows the returning advertising income per unit spend for advertising. |
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Return on Investment (ROI) |
A KPI which shows how profitable investments are. Other than the ROAS, it also includes other expenses in addition to the advertising expenses and all income. It is calculated by dividing revenue minus expenses by expenses. It is expressed in percentage. |
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Schedule Function |
Is a BidX function. It can be used to boost the budget of campaigns or products, or to (de-) activate them for a certain period of time. The user can use the BidX preset time-table or set individual periods. Learn more about the function in our Knowledge Base. |
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Second Price Auction |
Bids on keywords in Amazon PPC advertising are placed in a second price auction. This means that instead of the price of the bid being paid per click, it is always the second highest bid +1 cent. So if $1 and $1.50 are bid on a keyword, the higher bidder pays $1.01 per click. |
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Seller Central |
The Amazon Seller Central is the web interface where Amazon sellers can manage advertising and sales of their products and campaigns. By connecting it to different interfaces like BidX, a lot of these actions can also be performed there. For some data, an additional API is required like the Selling Partner API. |
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Sponsored Brands (SB) |
Formerly known as HSA, Sponsored Brands are paid PPC ads shown at the top of the search results page. They can contain a custom brand logo, headline and multiple products. Bid management and keyword management for Sponsored Brand campaigns can be managed with BidX. |
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Sponsored Display Ads (SDA) |
Are paid PPC ads in the form of displays which can be placed on the Amazon homepage, search results pages, product detail pages or even on external websites. Different from the other sponsored ad systems, here you can’t bid on keywords, but only on targets including categories of target audiences or products ASINs. You can target your display ads to audiences who have searched for keywords relevant to your product, who have clicked the product detail page of one of your products, who have already purchased one, or you can target product detail pages of competitors products. |
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Sponsored Product Ads (SPA) |
Are paid PPC ads for individual products. The ads are shown among other products which make it to the search results page through organic ranking. They are recognizable by the "sponsored ⓘ" sign. Campaigns for Sponsored Product Ads can be created and managed with BidX. |
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Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) |
Is a unique code which can contain numbers and letters. It’s used to track a product for inventory and sales purposes. Different from ASINs, multiple SKUs can be assigned to a product. |
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Total Advertising Cost of Sales (TACOS) |
The Total ACOS is an important Amazon KPI which is essentially calculated like the ACOS, with one big difference: it also takes organic sales into account. The advertising costs get divided by the paid sales + organic sales. |
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Viewable Cost per Mille (vCPM) |
Just like CPM, vCPM advertising is a cost-per-thousand-impressions system. Different from PPC advertising, the bid placed on vCPM campaigns is paid per thousand impressions (per mille) and not per click. The function is exactly the same as with CPM, with the difference that only impressions which were visible to the targeted user get included. Find more information in the CPM article. |