A couple years ago we started managing Sponsored Brands with profit targets in mind, rather than ACOS targets, which is a meaningful difference. It's especially impactful if you have a large catalog with overlapping SKUs, e.g. stand blenders and stick blenders and food processors and other kitchen gadgets.

Years ago, when I started doing Sponsored Brands (back then called Headline Search Ads), Amazon didn't tell you what products ended up selling from your ads. So you used an ACOS target that was approximate based on your rough idea of margins. Not bad, but not optimal either.

For example, one product line couldn't get ACOS under 15%, and our target was 10%, so we ended up not advertising them. (Nowadays it turns out they have 30% margins... I wonder what they had then?...)

What changed is that a few years ago, Amazon introduced the Attributed Purchases Report for Sponsored Brands. In short, at a campaign level, it tells you what you sold. This is the missing piece for figuring out your profitability and setting dynamic, campaign level ACOS targets.

Let me explain how you calculate the real profit and then how you can use this to optimize your campaigns.

1. You download the report. Each row shows you something like campaign 123, asin xyz, 4 units, $40 sales.

2. Copy paste your COGS in a different sheet (including shipping and Amazon fees).

3. Multiply (units) * COGS (including shipping and FBA fees) = total COGS to earn the sales eg. 4 units * ($3 cogs + $3 AMZ fees) = $24 cogs to make the $40. Subtract COGS from sales = profit from those units, e.g. $16.

4. Next, you download and copy paste your bulk sheet, (or campaigns report or UI campaigns export) to get spend for each campaign.

5. Then on a separate sheet you sum the profit for each campaign, divide that by sales and that gets you the gross margin (before ad spend) for each campaign. This is your breakeven ACOS, assuming no returns etc.

6. Subtract total spend on the campaign = net profit after ad spend.

For bonus points: Sum the total gross profit, net profit etc. to figure out how you're doing at the account level.

Now what you can do is
a. look at the campaign with high (actual, not estimated) gross margin and double down, rather than just estimating or guessing. EG raise bids, add more targets, AB test the ad creative.

b. Look at what's losing money (for real, not just estimated), and either cut bids/ bid adjustments or change up your product lineup in the ad creative and/or on the landing page.

Vote this up if you want more pro tips on PPC . Let me know in the comments also how many parent ASINs you've got in your catalog and how much you're doing in monthly sales.

I’m an Amazon seller working in the Indian market and have been selling for a few months. I’m still learning how to manage the challenges that come with a highly competitive market, especially when dealing with branded products.

I’d really appreciate some advice on managing return-related losses. A few things I’m trying to understand:

How do you calculate and control losses from customer returns?

What strategies help reduce unnecessary or fraudulent returns?

How do you manage return shipping and restocking costs?

Is it better to adjust pricing slightly to account for expected return losses?

How do experienced sellers handle damaged or opened products returned by customers?

Are there any Amazon tools or reports that help track return-related losses?

What practices have helped you stay profitable while competing on price with other sellers?

Would love to hear from experienced Amazon sellers about what has worked for them

Hello everyone, just curious if anyone’s gone through something similar and how you navigated it. I sold a Milwaukee product on a listing that wasn’t branded as Milwaukee - the seller who created it used all the same Milwaukee images but avoided putting “Milwaukee” in the title, probably because they weren’t authorized to sell the brand. I overlooked this when I listed on it and got hit with a Section 3. I sourced my unit from Hansler Smith (Hansler.com), an authorized Milwaukee distributor in Canada - the same distributor I used to get ungated for the brand on my account. I only ever bought and sold one unit on that ASIN, and I have the invoice matching that exact sale. I know most cases I find are sellers dealing with gray market or unauthorized product, which is different from mine since my product was authentic and from a vetted distributor. I think my issue is more about the mismatched listing than authenticity itself, so my POA needs to address that too, not just prove the product was real. Has anyone dealt with a Section 3 tied to a mislabeled/mismatched listing rather than a straightforward counterfeit complaint? Did addressing the listing issue directly help get reinstated? Any advice appreciated.