Most Amazon sellers open the Search Term Report once, feel overwhelmed by the row count, and never open it again. That is a mistake. This single report is the raw truth of what shoppers actually typed before they clicked your ad — and it is the fastest, cheapest way to lower your ACOS without touching your bids.
At StoreStride we pull this report for every client account at least weekly. This guide explains exactly what the report shows, which columns actually matter, and the two things you should be doing with it every single week: harvesting winning keywords and cutting the ones that waste spend.
What Is the Search Term Report?
The Search Term Report (found in Seller Central under Advertising → Sponsored Products → Reports, or via Campaign Manager’s reporting dashboard) shows the actual customer search queries that triggered your ads to appear — and, critically, which of those queries led to a click, and which of those clicks led to a sale.
This is different from your keyword list. Your keyword list is what you told Amazon to target. The search term is what the shopper actually typed. On broad and phrase match keywords especially, these two things can be wildly different. A broad match keyword like “dog bed” might trigger your ad for searches as varied as “large dog bed washable”, “dog bed for puppies”, or even “cat bed” if Amazon’s matching decides it is relevant.
Rule of thumb: your keyword list tells you what you targeted. The Search Term Report tells you what actually happened. Every PPC decision should be based on the second one, not the first.
The Metrics That Actually Matter
The report exports with a dozen-plus columns. Most sellers get lost trying to action all of them at once. Focus on these:
Impressions & Clicks
Volume tells you how often this search term is happening and how often your ad was compelling enough to click. Low clicks on high impressions usually means a relevance or listing image problem, not a bidding problem.
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
Below your account average CTR on a term with decent impressions signals the term is not a great fit, or your main image/title isn’t answering that specific search intent.
Spend & CPC
What you actually paid for clicks on this exact term. This is what you compare against the sales it generated to judge profitability.
Orders & Conversion Rate
The number that matters most. A search term with clicks but zero orders after a reasonable sample size (10–15+ clicks) is a strong negative keyword candidate.
ACOS & Sales
Term-level ACOS shows you exactly which search queries are efficient and which are quietly dragging your campaign average down.
Match Type
Shows whether the click came via broad, phrase, exact, or auto targeting. This tells you where to add the term as a new exact keyword once it proves itself.
Keyword Harvesting: Turning Data Into New Campaigns
“Harvesting” is the process of identifying search terms that are converting well under broad, phrase, or auto targeting, and promoting them into their own exact match campaign where you control the bid precisely. This is the single highest-leverage habit in Amazon PPC management.
Filter for proven converters
Sort the Search Term Report by orders, descending. Look for search terms with 2+ orders and an ACOS at or below your target — these are validated, not guessed.
Add as exact match in a dedicated campaign
Create (or add to) an exact match campaign built specifically for harvested terms. This isolates the bid so you can push it without affecting your broader discovery campaigns.
Negative-exact the term in the source campaign
Add the harvested term as a negative exact keyword back in the auto or broad campaign it came from. This stops you bidding against yourself and lets the discovery campaign keep finding new terms instead of re-serving one you already own.
Set the bid to compete for top-of-search
Because this term is now proven, it is worth bidding more aggressively for prominent placement than you would for an unproven broad match guess.
Building Your Negative Keyword List
The flip side of harvesting is cutting the terms that are burning spend without returning sales. This is where most of the “free” ACOS reduction sits for accounts that have never had a proper negative keyword review.
Look for search terms with:
- High clicks, zero orders — once past a reasonable sample size (we typically use 10–15 clicks with no sale as the threshold, adjusted for your price point and conversion rate)
- Irrelevant intent — searches for a different product entirely that broad match has pulled in incorrectly
- Wrong audience — e.g. searches including “free”, “DIY”, “how to make”, or a competitor brand name you don’t want to associate with
- Duplicate spend — a term already being won efficiently by an exact match campaign, still leaking spend through a broad or auto campaign
Do not negate too early. A search term with 3 clicks and no order is not evidence of anything — it is noise. Cutting terms before you have a statistically reasonable sample is one of the most common ways new PPC managers accidentally strangle their own discovery campaigns.
How Often to Review It
For most accounts, a weekly review is the right cadence — frequent enough to catch wasted spend early, infrequent enough to gather a meaningful sample of clicks per term. High ad-spend accounts benefit from a mid-week check alongside the full weekly pass. Very low-spend accounts may only accumulate a useful sample every two weeks.
Search Term Report vs Search Query Performance Report
Don’t confuse the Search Term Report with the newer Search Query Performance report found in Brand Analytics (Brand Registered sellers only). They answer different questions:
- Search Term Report shows performance for search terms that triggered your own ads — PPC-specific, available to every seller.
- Search Query Performance report shows total marketplace-wide search volume and your organic + paid share of clicks and purchases for a given query, even where you didn’t advertise. It is a market-share and organic ranking diagnostic, not a bid-optimisation tool.
Use the Search Term Report to manage bids, negatives, and harvesting. Use Search Query Performance to understand where you are losing organic visibility on high-value terms — a signal for listing optimisation, not campaign structure.
Common Mistakes Sellers Make With This Report
- Only checking spend, never checking zero-order terms. A term with no clicks yet high spend is rare — the real leak is usually spread across dozens of low-volume, zero-conversion terms that never individually look alarming.
- Harvesting without negating the source. Adding a proven term as exact match but forgetting to negative it in the original broad/auto campaign means you are now bidding against your own ad for the same search.
- Judging on too small a sample. One click, no sale, does not mean a keyword is bad. Wait for a real sample before acting.
- Ignoring match type when harvesting. A term that converted under auto targeting behaves differently once isolated into its own exact campaign — monitor it again after the move rather than assuming it will perform identically.
- Doing this manually every week forever. This process is mechanical and repetitive — exactly the kind of task that benefits from a consistent system or a managed service rather than an ad hoc spreadsheet exercise squeezed in between everything else.
Tired of digging through spreadsheets every week?
StoreStride runs weekly search term reviews, keyword harvesting, and negative keyword management for every account we manage — so your ACOS keeps falling while you focus on the rest of the business. Get in touch for a free audit of your current campaigns.
Book a Free Call →Common Questions About the Search Term Report
Where do I find the Search Term Report in Seller Central?
Go to Advertising → Sponsored Products → Reports (or Campaign Manager’s Measurement & Reporting section), select “Search Term Report,” pick your date range, and export. You can also pull it at the campaign or ad group level for a more targeted view.
How many clicks before I should judge a search term?
There is no universal number, but 10–15 clicks with zero orders is a reasonable starting threshold for most price points. Higher-priced products with naturally lower conversion rates may need a slightly larger sample before you can be confident the term isn’t simply a slow converter.
Should I harvest terms from Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display too?
Sponsored Display largely targets audiences and products rather than search terms, so harvesting applies mainly to Sponsored Products and, to a lesser extent, Sponsored Brands. Sponsored Brands search term data is still worth reviewing for negative keyword opportunities even if you harvest less aggressively from it.
Does the Search Term Report include organic sales?
No. It only reports on search terms connected to your paid ad clicks. For visibility into organic performance against the same search terms, you need the Search Query Performance report in Brand Analytics.