What Is ACOS in Amazon Ads? Definition, Formula & Examples

1. What Does ACOS Stand For?

ACOS stands for Advertising Cost of Sale. It is the single most important metric in Amazon PPC advertising because it tells you exactly how much of your revenue is consumed by ad costs.

If your ACOS is 20%, you are spending 20 cents in advertising for every dollar of sales. The remaining 80 cents must cover your product cost, Amazon fees, and profit margin.

2. The ACOS Formula

ACOS = (Total Ad Spend ÷ Total Ad Revenue) × 100

Example calculation: You run a Sponsored Products campaign that costs $150. It generates $750 in attributed sales. Your ACOS = ($150 ÷ $750) × 100 = 20%. Amazon calculates this automatically in your campaign manager dashboard.

3. How to Find ACOS in Seller Central

Log into Seller Central and navigate to Campaign Manager. ACOS is displayed as a column at the campaign, ad group, and keyword level. You can also download search term reports that include ACOS for each keyword, helping you identify which search terms are profitable and which are wasting spend.

4. Why ACOS Matters

ACOS matters because it connects your advertising spend directly to profitability. A campaign with high sales but 50% ACOS may be less profitable than a campaign with moderate sales but 10% ACOS. Understanding ACOS helps you make smarter decisions about bids, budgets, and which products to promote.

5. How to Improve Your ACOS

Improving ACOS comes down to two levers: increase revenue from the same ad spend (improve conversion rate) or reduce wasted spend (better keyword targeting). Adding product video to your listing is one of the fastest ways to improve conversion — listings with video see 15-25% higher conversion rates. VEONIB generates professional product videos from any URL in under 60 seconds.

For more strategies, see How to Reduce ACOS on Amazon Ads and Amazon Advertising Benchmarks.

6. Frequently Asked Questions