Your keywords are what you bid on. Search terms are what shoppers actually typed. They are rarely the same, and the difference is where both the waste and the winners are hiding. The search term report is where you find them.
What the report shows
For each ad click, Amazon records the customer’s search, which of your keywords or targets matched it, and what happened next. The columns that matter:
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Customer search term | What the shopper typed — or an ASIN, if they clicked your ad on another book’s page |
| Targeting · Match type | Which of your keywords or targets caught the search, and how |
| Impressions · Clicks | How often you were shown, and how often chosen |
| Spend · Sales · Orders | What it cost and what it earned |
| ACOS | Spend ÷ sales × 100, to compare with your break-even |
Download it from Reports in the Amazon Ads console: choose Sponsored Products, report type Search term, and the date range you want. Older search term data may not stay available in the console, so download it regularly if you want a longer history.
Promote the searches that sell
A search that keeps turning into orders deserves its own keyword, with its own bid, where you can control it. Our rule is to promote a search after its first order. In our study of 2,846 keywords created this way, searches promoted after one, two or three orders performed the same, and the search’s ACOS before promotion predicted almost nothing about the keyword’s ACOS afterwards:
- Add it to a manual campaign as an exact-match keyword. Bid from your royalty, not from the cost per click it happened to get.
- Add the same words as a negative exact keyword in the campaign it came from.
Step two is the one people skip. Without it, the automatic campaign and your new exact keyword both enter the same auction for the same search. You end up bidding against yourself, and the search stays with whichever campaign happens to win, not with the one you meant to control it.
orders ≥ 1
Then: exact match in a manual campaign, and negative exact where it came from. Judge the new keyword after 10–15 clicks, against your break-even ACOS.
Searches that look like B0…
Some search terms look like B0XXXXXXXX. These are not searches. They are product pages — another book’s page — where a shopper clicked your ad. You cannot turn an ASIN into an exact-match keyword. If one sells, promote it with product targeting in a manual campaign, which bids on that book’s page directly.
Negative keywords: stop paying for searches that never sell
Negative keywords tell Amazon not to show your ad for a search. There are two kinds for keywords, and no negative broad:
| Negative type | Blocks | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Negative exact | Only that exact search | A single search that has proven it will not sell |
| Negative phrase | Any search containing the phrase | A word that always means the wrong reader: “free”, “audiobook”, “summary” |
The danger is negating too early. A search with 15 clicks and no orders has not proved anything; at a 5% conversion rate, that happens by chance nearly half the time. Wait until it has had about three divided by your conversion rate in clicks — around 60 at 5% — before calling it a loser. Why 60.
A worked example
One month of a search term report for a $4.99 eBook (break-even ACOS about 70%):
| Search term | Clicks | Spend | Orders | Sales | ACOS | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cozy mystery with cats | 41 | $16.40 | 4 | $19.96 | 82% | Promote — 4 orders; its ACOS so far predicts little |
| culinary cozy mystery | 38 | $12.54 | 5 | $24.95 | 50% | Promote to exact |
| free mystery books | 22 | $7.70 | 0 | $0 | — | Negative phrase “free” — wrong reader, not bad luck |
| B0XXXXXXXX | 19 | $5.70 | 2 | $9.98 | 57% | Promote as product target |
| mystery books | 12 | $6.60 | 0 | $0 | — | Wait — too few clicks |
A routine that keeps it tidy
- Every two weeks: download the report for the last 30 days, promote the winners, and negate the proven losers.
- Ignore the last three days of any report. Their sales are still being credited, so they always look worse than they will be.
- Once a month: check that no keyword runs in several campaigns for the same book. Every duplicate is you bidding against yourself.
Common questions
What is a search term report on Amazon?
A report in the Amazon Ads console listing the actual searches shoppers typed before clicking your Sponsored Products ads, with the impressions, clicks, spend and sales each one produced.
How do I find the search term report in Amazon Ads?
In the Amazon Ads console, open Reports, create a Sponsored Products report and choose the Search term report type, with the date range you want.
What is the difference between negative exact and negative phrase?
Negative exact blocks only that exact search. Negative phrase blocks every search containing the phrase, so a negative phrase of “free” stops your ad showing for “free mystery books”, “free kindle books” and so on.
Why does my search term report show ASINs?
An ASIN in the search term column means the click came from that product’s page, not from a search. To keep bidding there on purpose, add the ASIN as a product target in a manual campaign.
How often should I check the search term report?
Every two weeks is enough for most books. Look at the last 30 days, and ignore the most recent three days, whose sales are still being credited.
- Keywords are what you bid on; search terms are what shoppers typed. The report shows the gap.
- Promote a search after its first order: exact match in a manual campaign. Its ACOS so far predicts little.
- Always negate the promoted search in the campaign it came from, or you bid against yourself.
- B0… search terms are product pages; promote them with product targeting, not keywords.
- Negate only after about 60 clicks at 5% conversion — earlier than that, “no sales” is mostly luck.