Whether simply selling your products on Amazon or incorporating the many benefits of Amazon advertising, you’re greeted with a whole host of Amazon terms. Learn how to navigate the inner workings of Amazon more easily and effectively with this handy guide to all the acronyms, phrases, and terms you’ll need to know.
Amazon Glossary of Terms: General Sales
Seller Central (SC)
The platform used for selling on Amazon as an individual or smaller business. Allows third-party (3P) sellers to manage inventory, shipments, orders, view sales reports, and run advertising campaigns.
Vendor Central (VC)
An invite-only platform where Amazon purchases the product directly from the manufacturer or distributor and sells to consumers themselves. Vendor Central allows Vendors, or 1P sellers, to view shipments, manage purchase orders, set up promotions and marketing initiatives, and view business reports.
Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA)
This is when Amazon fulfills orders for 3P sellers and allows them to have their products be eligible for Amazon Prime. Sellers ship inventory to Amazon Warehouses, where Amazon handles the pick and pack, delivery, and customer service for the order on the behalf of the seller.
Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM)
This is the standard fulfillment method for 3P sellers who don’t use FBA. Qualified sellers can enlist in Seller Fulfilled Prime (see below) which allows them to retain the Prime badge. Sellers who are FBM are responsible for shipping every order on time and handling all customer service inquiries.
Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP)
Eligible sellers who use FBM are invited to participate in SFP in order to still offer Prime shipping benefits to Amazon customers. In order to be eligible, you must have stellar shipping and handling metrics, be able to deliver within two days to every zip code in the continental US, and respond to all customer inquiries within 24 hours, even on holidays and weekends.
ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number)
The 10-character alphanumeric identifier for each product on Amazon. Usually starting with B0, this can be found in the URL of the product you are looking at. In the example below, the product is an Elvis t-shirt; the ASIN can be found highlighted in the address bar at the top (B07CQ4T764). That is the product code on Amazon. Each variation has its own ASIN. For example, the same Elvis design in blue, size small, will have a different ASIN than the same Elvis shirt in black, size medium.
Brand Registry
A program offered by Amazon for sellers and vendors who manufacture their own brand of products. Brand Registry gives the Seller a greater control of listings and access to more powerful tools like Enhanced Brand Content and Stores. It also helps protect trademarks with proprietary text, image search, and predictive automation.
Buy Box
The product listing page that a shopper will see. Numerous sellers can sell the same product, but only one can win the Buy Box. If a shopper clicks to buy or add to basket and you are winning the Buy Box, then it will be your item that is sold, not another Seller’s.
Lightning Deals
Limited-run deals that offer a minimum 20% discount on the lowest retail price of the item in the last 30 days. These deals are featured in the Today’s Deals section of Amazon.com and typically run for 4–6 hours or until the deal is out of stock.
Verified Review
A review is considered Verified by Amazon when Amazon is able to confirm the product was purchased at full price on Amazon.com and has not been refunded. This tag is used in an effort to thwart review hacking and make Amazon reviews more legitimate. Amazon will always display verified reviews above non-verified reviews on the product page.
Amazon Glossary of Terms: Advertising
Ad Impressions
How many times your ad has been shown to potential customers.
Ad Orders
The number of orders made by shoppers who clicked on your product's sponsored ad within 14 days.
Ad Sales
The total product sales generated within 14 days of clicking on your product's sponsored ad.
Ad Spend
The total click charges for an Amazon-sponsored campaign (in the selected time period).
Ad Status
The current status of your ad group. The status may be running, paused, ended, archived, scheduled, incomplete, out of a budget, or payment failure.
Advertising Cost of Sale (ACoS)
This figure is used to measure the success of advertising campaigns and shows the percentage of ad spend versus revenue from advertising. In other words, the formula to calculate this amount is AD SPEND/TOTAL SALES.
Advertising Console (formerly AMS [Amazon Marketing Services])
This is Amazon’s Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising platform for Vendors, allowing the creation of Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display. Additionally, this platform is where Amazon Vendors can create Brand Stores.
Amazon Advertising (formerly AMG [Amazon Media Group])
Amazon Advertising is the parent company of Amazon’s advertising units, so to speak.
Bid+
For manually targeted Amazon advertising campaigns, the Bid+ button allows you to raise bids in a campaign up to 50% more than your default bid when ads are eligible to show at the top of search results.
Broad Keyword
The keyword + any other word in any order. For example, the keyword Superman T-Shirt could be Superman T-Shirt for Men or Superman Clark Kent T-Shirt.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
The percent of shoppers who see your ad and click on it. This is calculated by dividing total clicks by total impressions.
Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
An advertising metric that refers to the actual price you pay each time a customer clicks on your ad. This is calculated by dividing total ad spend by total clicks.
Conquesting
Bidding on someone else’s branding (brand name, product name, etc.) and appearing ahead of the actual brand.
Daily Budget
The amount you are willing to spend on a campaign in one day.
Exact Match Keyword
Exactly that term. So Superman T-Shirt can only be Superman T-Shirt.
Enhanced Brand Content
EBC enables Brand Registered sellers to modify the product description field of their branded ASINs to incorporate new creative including a unique brand story, enhanced images, and text placements.
Sponsored Brand Ads (formerly Headline Search Ads [HSAs])
These ads most commonly appear above the search results, but can also be targeted to show at the bottom or side of the SERP. These ads are available in both Seller Central and AMS.
Insertion Order
Insertion order is a commitment to spend a certain amount of money on a particular advertising campaign. I/Os are usually only used by Amazon Managed display advertising campaigns and typically carry a $35k minimum.
Negative Keyword
A type of keyword that prevents your ad from being triggered by a certain word or phrase. Your ads aren’t shown to anyone who is searching for that phrase.
OEM Products (Other Equipment Manufacturer)
A company that produces parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. For example, if Acme Manufacturing Co. makes power cords that are used on IBM computers, Acme is an OEM.
Private Label or White Label Products
This is when you create and brand your own product, usually buying directly from the manufacturer in China.
Phrase Match Keyword
Any keyword in that exact phrase order + any other word. So the keyword Superman T-Shirt can have a word before or after it, but not in between it.
Product Display Ads (PDAs)
Product Display Ads are available to Vendors only, through AMS, and allow you to target other products by ASIN instead of a keyword. These ads typically show on the detail page of the targeted product, under the buy box, but can appear in many places on/off Amazon.
Remarketing (Pixel-based, Product, Brand Halo, Similar Product)
- Pixel-based: Retargets shoppers who visit your brand’s site by adding specific pixels (code) to the site using a developer or through CMS tools. You can target different segments (purchase, page visits (brand page, product, category page), reoccurring site visits, video plays, FB, IG, etc.
- Product: Retargets shoppers who view your promoted products but did not convert.
- Brand Halo: Retargets shoppers who viewed other products of your brand.
- Similar Product: Reaches shoppers browsing products similar to yours.
Search Term Isolation
A complex bidding strategy in which the highest performing/selling search terms are isolated into an exact match campaign so that bids can be better controlled. Those same keywords are then added as negative keywords in the original campaign.
Sponsored Ad
A pay-per-click advertising solution that enables you to promote the products you sell with keyword-targeted ads (manual or automatic) that appear in highly visible placements on Amazon.com.
Want to make the most of your Amazon advertising? Learn more.
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