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How to Read Your Amazon Search Term Report (And Why It Matters)
PPC Tools Team
7 min read
3/26/2026
The Search Term Report is one of the most valuable tools in your Amazon advertising account. It shows you the exact search queries that shoppers typed before clicking your ad, along with whether those clicks turned into sales. By reviewing this report regularly, you can find profitable keywords to target more aggressively, eliminate wasteful terms that cost money without converting, and continuously improve your PPC performance.
Your Search Term Report is probably the most valuable data source in your entire Amazon advertising account, and a surprising number of sellers never look at it. If you're running PPC campaigns and not reviewing this report, you're almost certainly wasting money on irrelevant clicks and missing opportunities to scale what's already working.
What the Search Term Report Actually Is
When a shopper types something into the Amazon search bar and clicks on your ad, Amazon records that exact search query. The Search Term Report collects all of these queries and shows you exactly which ones triggered your ads, how much you spent on them, and whether they resulted in sales.
This is different from your keywords. Your keywords are what you're targeting. Your search terms are what shoppers actually typed. For example, you might be targeting the keyword "stainless steel water bottle" on broad match, but your ad could show up for searches like "metal water bottle for gym," "insulated bottle 32oz," or "steel flask for hiking." The Search Term Report shows you all of these actual searches.
Where to Find It
In Seller Central, go to Campaign Manager, then click on Measurement and Reporting. Select Sponsored Products from the report type, then choose Search Term as the report. Set your date range (at least two weeks of data is ideal) and generate the report.
You'll get a spreadsheet with columns including customer search term, impressions, clicks, spend, sales, orders, and ACOS for each search term.
What to Look For
There are three categories of search terms you'll find in this report.
The first is winners. These are search terms with good ACOS and multiple sales. They're converting at a profitable rate, and you want more of them. These are candidates to move into a manual campaign with exact match so you can bid on them directly and control your spend.
💡 Pro Tip: Tired of downloading and sorting through spreadsheets? Our dashboard pulls your search term data automatically and highlights the winners and wasters for you.
The second is wasters. These are search terms with spend but no sales, or with an ACOS way above your target. They're eating your budget without delivering results. Maybe they're irrelevant to your product, or maybe shoppers are clicking but not buying. Either way, these should be added as negative keywords to stop your ad from showing for them.
The third is unknowns. These have a small number of clicks and no sales yet, but they're not obviously irrelevant. They just don't have enough data to judge. Leave these alone for now and check back in a week or two once more data has accumulated.
How to Read the Numbers
When you're looking at a search term, the most important numbers are clicks, spend, and sales.
If a search term has 15 or more clicks and zero sales, it's probably time to negative it. The product just isn't what people searching for that term are looking for, or something about your listing isn't converting for that audience.
If a search term has a handful of sales but an ACOS above your target, look at the conversion rate. If it's converting but just at a high cost, you might be able to fix it by lowering your bid rather than killing the term entirely.
If a search term is converting below your target ACOS, that's your winner. Consider increasing your bid to get more impressions and more sales from that term.
Common Mistakes When Using This Report
The biggest mistake is reacting too quickly to small amounts of data. If a keyword has three clicks and no sales, that doesn't mean much yet. You need a statistically meaningful number of clicks before you can draw conclusions. A general rule of thumb is to wait for at least 10 to 15 clicks before making a decision on a search term.
Another mistake is only looking at this report once and never coming back. New search terms appear constantly as Amazon tests your ads against different queries. Make this a regular part of your routine, ideally weekly or biweekly.
Finally, don't just add negatives. Make sure you're also harvesting the winners. The whole point of reviewing this data is to shift your budget away from what doesn't work and toward what does.
Putting It Into Practice
💡 Pro Tip: Let our system do the heavy lifting. We automatically identify high-performing search terms and flag wasted spend so you can take action in seconds.
A simple weekly workflow looks like this:
- Pull your search term report for the last two to four weeks
- Sort by spend from highest to lowest
- Look at the top spending search terms with no sales and add them as negative exact match keywords
- Look at the search terms with the best ACOS and make sure you're targeting them in a manual campaign
- Adjust bids on terms that are close to your target but not quite there
This process takes about 30 minutes per product per week if you're doing it manually. If you'd rather not deal with it, ppctools.net automates the entire search term mining process, identifying winners and wasters from your reports and surfacing recommendations with one click application. But either way, understanding what your search term report is telling you is fundamental to running profitable Amazon ads.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I find the Search Term Report on Amazon?
In Seller Central, go to Campaign Manager, click on Measurement and Reporting, select Sponsored Products as the report type, and choose Search Term as the report. Set your date range to at least two weeks and generate the report.
How often should I check my Search Term Report?
Weekly or biweekly is ideal. Checking more frequently usually means you don't have enough new data to act on. Checking less frequently means you might waste budget on poor performing terms for too long.
How many clicks before I should negative a search term?
A general rule of thumb is 10 to 15 clicks with no sales. At that point, it's statistically unlikely that the term will start converting. However, if the term is clearly irrelevant to your product, you can negative it sooner.
What is the difference between keywords and search terms?
Keywords are what you target in your campaigns. Search terms are what shoppers actually type into the Amazon search bar. Your keyword "water bottle" might trigger your ad for the search term "insulated water bottle for hiking." The Search Term Report reveals these actual customer searches so you can optimize accordingly.
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