How to Read the Amazon Search Term Report (Without Drowning in It)

The Search Term Report is the most valuable file Amazon gives advertisers — and the most ignored. It shows the actual words shoppers typed before clicking your ad, not the keywords you bid on. The difference between those two things is where your money leaks.

This guide covers where to get the report, what each column really means, and a 15-minute reading routine that surfaces the decisions that matter.

Search terms vs. keywords — the distinction everything hinges on

You bid on keywords. Shoppers type search terms. Amazon's matching connects them — loosely.

Bid on the broad keyword water bottle and your ad might show for "insulated water bottle 1 litre" (great), "water bottle for hamster cage" (probably not great), and "free water bottle" (money on fire). Your keyword dashboard shows one aggregate ACOS for water bottle. Only the Search Term Report shows which real searches are behind that number.

Where to download it

1. Seller Central → Advertising → Campaign Manager
2. Left menu → Measurement & Reporting → Sponsored Ads Reports
3. Create report → Report type: Search Term (Sponsored Products)
4. Time unit: Summary; period: last 14 days for bid decisions, up to 65 days for a first full audit
5. Download as .xlsx

For UAE, KSA, and UK marketplaces the path is identical — figures come in AED, SAR, or GBP.

The columns that matter (and the ones that don't)

The report has 20+ columns. Seven do almost all the work:

CTR and CPC are useful secondary reads. Most of the rest is noise for a small seller's workflow.

One structural note: every row is scoped to a campaign + ad group. The same search term can appear five times across five ad groups with different results — that's not a bug, and it matters when you negate (you negate in the ad group where it's wasting money, not everywhere).

The 15-minute reading routine

Pass 1 — Find the bleeders (5 min)

Sort by Spend, descending. Filter Orders = 0. Every term here with roughly 10+ clicks is a negation candidate: add it as a negative exact in the ad group where it's spending. Fewer than ~10 clicks? Leave it — not enough data to judge yet.

Pass 2 — Find the hidden winners (5 min)

Filter Orders ≥ 2, then look for search terms that are performing well inside broad, phrase, or auto targeting. These are harvest candidates: add each as an exact match keyword (in a manual campaign) so you can bid on it deliberately instead of letting Amazon decide when to show it. Then negate it in the source campaign so the two don't compete against each other.

Pass 3 — Sanity-check the big spenders (5 min)

Look at your top 10 terms by spend that do have orders. For each, ask: is the ACOS above or below this product's break-even? (If you don't know your break-even ACOS, calculate it first.) Above break-even and trending worse → bid down. Well below break-even with strong conversion → this term can likely take a higher bid and more volume.

That's the whole discipline: negate the losers, harvest the winners, adjust the proven spenders. Repeat every two weeks.

Three mistakes that undo everything

Reacting to too little data. Two clicks and no sale means nothing. Set click thresholds (8–10 clicks minimum) before acting on a term.

Negating with broad negatives. A careless negative phrase can block dozens of good searches. Default to negative exact for specific junk terms; use negative phrase only for words that are wrong in every context (e.g., a brand you don't sell).

Keeping no record. The report tells you what happened, but not what you did about it last cycle. If you don't track your changes, you can never answer "did that bid cut work?" — and you'll re-litigate the same keywords every cycle.

FAQ

How far back should the report go?

14 days for routine bid decisions; 30–65 days when auditing a product for the first time or checking seasonal terms.

Why don't I see search terms for some of my spend?

Amazon only reports terms above a minimum activity threshold, and some ad types report differently. The large majority of Sponsored Products spend is covered.

Do I need the Bulk file too?

For reading, no. For acting, yes — the Bulk file carries your current bids and is how you upload changes back to Amazon at scale. The two files together are the full loop: the step-by-step guide covers it.

This entire routine — negations, harvests, bid calls, each with the reason shown — is what BidSpring automates from the two reports you already download. Flat $19/month, no Amazon account connection, you approve every change. Start a free 14-day trial.