If you’ve ever received a report on an Amazon Demand Side Platform (DSP) buy, you’ve likely been inundated with information overload. My most recent export report has 48 columns loaded with acronyms and nebulous definitions.

Let’s go down the list of targeting and performance data and define specifically what it all means so we can all make better decisions. As more information becomes available, we will update this blog accordingly.

At the bottom, you’ll find some helpful ways to process these reports to drive sales.

Amazon DSP Performance Metrics Glossary (in order they appear on an Amazon DSP report)

Total Cost

Advertiser spend.

Total Cost (reconciled)

Advertiser spend when removing non-billable traffic like ad fraud.

Impressions

How many times your display ad was served.

Viewable Impressions

How many times your ad was served and viewable (IAB viewability definition).

evCPM

Estimated cost per 1,000 viewable impressions.

Click-Throughs

How many times users clicked on the ad.

Branded Searches

How many searches for your branded term occurred on Amazon after the person viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad.

DPV

Detail page view. How many times a person viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad and then visited your advertised ASIN’s product page.

PRPV

Product review page view: How many times a person viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad and then visited your advertised ASIN’s product review page.

ATL

Added to list. How many times a person viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad and then added the advertised ASIN to a list like a wishlist or wedding registry.

ATC

Added to cart. How many times a person viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad and then added the advertised ASIN to their cart in Amazon.

Purchases

How many transactions of the advertised ASIN occurred after a user viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad.

New-to-brand purchase

How many transactions of the advertised ASIN occurred after a user viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad AND the user had not purchased previously.

Percent of new-to-brand

New-to-brand purchases divided by Purchases

Units sold

Number of units that were sold of the advertised ASIN during their purchase. In other words, a count of how many of the same promoted ASIN were purchased during the one transaction.

Sales

Dollar value of the purchases after a user had viewed or clicked on your Amazon DSP ad.

ROAS

Sales divided by Total Cost.

ROAS (reconciled)

Sales divided by Total Cost (Reconciled).

eRPM

Sales per 1,000 impressions.

New-to-brand units sold

Units sold from purchases that had not purchased the advertised ASIN previously.

New-to-brand product sales

Sales from purchases that had not purchased the advertised ASIN previously.

New-to-brand ROAS

New-to-brand product sales divided by Total cost.

New-to-brand RPM

New-to-brand product sales per 1,000 impressions.

Quick aside on the word total. Total in Amazon DSP reporting speak includes sales of both your advertised ASIN AND all other sales within your brand. For example, let’s say you’re EA and you are advertising the latest Madden game. If a user views or clicks your ad, buys Madden AND NBA Live in the same cart, your campaign will show 1 Purchase, 1 Unit, 1 Total Purchase, and 2 Total Units Sold.

Total DPV

Detail page view. How many times a person viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad and then visited your advertised ASIN’s product page or any other ASIN product detail page in your brand’s catalog.

Total PRPV

Product review page view: How many times a person viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad and then visited your advertised ASIN’s product review page or any other ASIN product review page in your brand’s catalog.

Total ATL

Added to list. How many times a person viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad and then added  the advertised ASIN or any other ASIN product detail page in your brand’s catalog. to a list like a wishlist or wedding registry.

Total ATC

Added to cart. How many times a person viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad and then added the advertised ASIN or any other ASIN product detail page in your brand’s catalog to their cart in Amazon.

Total Purchases

How many transactions of the advertised ASIN or any other ASIN product detail page in your brand’s catalog occurred after a user viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad.

Total new-to-brand purchases

How many transactions of the advertised ASIN or any other ASIN product detail page in your brand’s catalog occurred after a user viewed or clicked your Amazon DSP ad AND the user had not purchased previously.

Total percent of purchase new-to-brand

Total new-to-brand purchases divided by Total purchases.

Total units sold

Amount of units that were sold of the advertised ASIN or any other ASIN product detail page in your brand’s catalog during their purchase. In other words, a count of how many of the same promoted ASIN were purchased during the one transaction.

Total sales

Dollar value of the Total purchases after a user had viewed or clicked on your Amazon DSP ad.

Total ROAS

Total sales divided by Total cost.

Total ROAS (reconciled)

Total sales divided by Total cost (reconciled).

Total eRPM

Total Sales per 1,000 impressions.

Total new-to-brand units sold

Total units sold from purchases that had not purchased the advertised ASIN or any other ASIN product detail page in your brand’s catalog previously.

Total new-to-brand product sales

Sales from purchases that had not purchased the advertised ASIN previously or any other ASIN product detail page in your brand’s catalog previously.

Total new-to-brand ROAS

Total new-to-brand product sales divided by Total cost.

Total new-to-brand eRPM

Total new-to-brand product sales per 1,000 impressions

Using this information to drive more sales

Now that you have this glossary at your fingertips, let’s see how it can be used to get at the heart of driving more sales.

Start with the principles – I want to create a few different formulas to see what parts of my buy are driving sales and which ones aren’t. I’m going to take Amazon’s raw data and translate it into some more meaningful formulas such as:

This first set helps us decide how effective each target group is at driving meaningful value:

Total spend divided by your total Amazon units sold (from Vendor Central or Seller Central): If this % is not decreasing when compared against your total sales, you may must be reaching people who were already going to buy. ALWAYS start here.

Purchases divided by impressions: What is the rate of purchase for each impression I serve?

Cost per Purchase: Are we making money on each target group.

Total Sales per 1,000 impressions minus Total Cost per 1,000 impressions: Are our total revenues on this campaign or line item outweighing the costs to buy the media? I’d also suggest pulling our the % cut you give Amazon on the sales side for this formula so you can see your own profitability.

Drilling a level down helps identify why our core metrics are succeeding or failing:

DPV divided by impressions: What is the rate of product page views for each impression I serve? I.E. How well are my ads driving people to go to learn more?

Cost per DPV: What is or should be a suitable cost per DPV?

ATC divided by impressions: What is the rate of add to carts for each impression I serve? I.E. How likely are my target audiences to start committing to purchases?

Cost per ATC: What is or should be a suitable cost per ATC?

Units per Purchase & Total units per Purchase: Are we buying in such a way that shoppers are buying more from our brand?

And going one more level down can help us know where to invest our time:

ATC divided by DPV: Are we driving a ton of product views only to have people not be interested in buying? If this is low, look at your pricing vs. other channels, see if your product page content is compelling enough (imagery, bullets, A+ content, etc.) and do a check of your reviews.

Purchases divided by ATC: If this low, why would someone add to cart and not complete the transaction? Is there a competitor advertising on your product page that put doubt in the shopper’s mind?

Total new-to-brand purchases divided by Total purchases: Are campaigns doing well, but not driving new eyeballs? Maybe it’s time to do more prospecting and less retargeting.

Cost per Clicks throughs: If response rates to media are solid and your Cost per purchase is just too high, perhaps you need to be paying less for the media itself to make this work.

Check out these metrics versus different ways you can split your line times. For example, look at retargeting versus non-retargeting. Check out owned and operated sited (O&O) versus Amazon’s 3^rd party sites (3P).