Amazon advertising glossary

The words operators search every morning, defined in one line.

ACOS, TACOS, IPI, ODR, peak storage. Each term is the extractable answer an AI or a founder can lift. Linked to the playbook when there is more to do this week.

ACOS: Advertising Cost of Sales: ad spend ÷ ad-attributed sales. Campaign efficiency only. Playbook →
TACOS: Total Advertising Cost of Sales: ad spend ÷ all sales. Shows paid-traffic dependence. Playbook →
Break-even ACOS: Contribution after COGS and Amazon fees, as a percent of price. The bid ceiling on a SKU. Playbook →
ROAS: Return on ad spend. If ACOS is 25%, ROAS is 4x. Inverse of ACOS, same data. Playbook →
IPI: Inventory Performance Index, 0–1000. Below ~400 typically restricts FBA storage. Confirm in Seller Central. Playbook →
ODR: Order Defect Rate. Amazon’s target is under 1%. Treat 0.5% as an internal alert. Playbook →
Account Health: Daily go/no-go for selling: ODR, late shipment, cancellations, tracking, policy warnings. Playbook →
Search-term harvest: Weekly loop: promote converting queries to exact, negate the rest. Default: 10+ clicks, 0 orders. Playbook →
Peak storage: Elevated FBA monthly storage in Q4 (Oct–Dec). Separate from the peak fulfillment surcharge window. Playbook →
Peak fulfillment fee: Holiday per-unit fulfillment surcharge. For 2026 Amazon posted Oct 15, 2026 – Jan 14, 2027. Playbook →
FBA Fee Preview: Seller Central tool that shows fulfillment + size-tier cost per ASIN. Input for break-even ACOS. Playbook →
Max CPC: Highest cost-per-click a SKU can pay: price × conversion rate × break-even ACOS. Open →
Brand defense: Exact bids on your brand terms plus product-targeting your own ASINs so rivals cannot sit on the listing. Playbook →
Organic halo: Paid converting clicks can lift organic rank on that keyword. TACOS should fall if the halo is real. Playbook →
Stranded inventory: FBA units not tied to an active listing. They cost storage and cannot sell. Fix before you buy more traffic. Playbook →
AWD: Amazon Warehousing and Distribution. Upstream storage that can replenish FBA. Confirm current rate-card treatment in Seller Central. Playbook →
Alexa for Shopping: Amazon’s shopping assistant (Rufus folded in). Reads title, bullets, A+, Q&A, reviews — not just keywords.
Sponsored Products: On-search ads. The core of most accounts. Brands and Display come after SP converts. Workstream →
Month-to-month retainer: How this desk is hired. No 12-month PDF. If wasted spend is not moving, you leave. Playbook →
Contribution floor: The minimum leftover $ after COGS and Amazon fees before ads. Bids cannot outrun it. Playbook →
FBA shipment discrepancy: Shipped qty vs Amazon-received qty on a Closed inbound. File inside the live Seller Central window (commonly 15–60 days from delivery). Playbook →
PQV / SHORT: Vendor Central shortage: Amazon’s FC received fewer units than the invoice. Deducted as SHORT; may reverse to -SCR if a receipt matches. Playbook →
Amazon DSP: CPM programmatic: display, video, audio, Streaming TV on Amazon audiences. Not Sponsored Display. Gate: Sponsored Products already converting. Playbook →
Sponsored Display: Mostly CPC remarketing and product targeting, endemic, listing-built creative. The cheaper proof before a DSP flight. Playbook →
AMC: Amazon Marketing Cloud. Privacy-safe clean room for overlap, new-to-brand, and custom audiences across Ads events. Workstream →
Helium 10 / Cerebro: Research seat: reverse-ASIN and seed-keyword expansion (Magnet folded into Cerebro in 2026). Suggests; search-term reports prove. Stack →
Jungle Scout (JS): Research seat: Keyword Scout and product database. Cross-check vs Helium 10. Not the same product as Jungle Scout Cobalt. Stack →
Jungle Scout Cobalt: Enterprise ads + market intelligence (Seller, Vendor, Ads). Supervised automation after campaigns are split. Not standard JS. Stack →
Xnurta: Sponsored ads, DSP, and AMC execution layer. AI Actions run inside contribution rails. Not unsupervised bidding. Stack →
Teikametrics Flywheel: Profit-aware Amazon PPC automation. Goals per campaign type after brand / generic / competitor are split. Stack →
Sellerboard: 3P P&L after COGS, fees, ads, and reimbursements. Sets the bid ceiling. Flags claims; filing stays in Seller Central. Stack →
Claude: Long-context analysis of Amazon exports. Drafts harvest tables and the weekly letter. Does not bid. Stack →
Codex: Scripts that clean Ads Console exports and join Sellerboard P&L to search terms. Not a spend API. Stack →
Kimi: Second long-context pass on the same CSV so one model is not the only reader of a 40,000-row export. Stack →
Cursor: Workspace where reporting scripts and indexed playbooks live. Repeatable analysis — not an Amazon ads login. Stack →

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