Guide

Amazon Ads search term report columns, explained

The search term report has more than 20 columns. A handful of them decide almost everything for a book in Kindle Unlimited, and two of the most famous ones mislead.

By Michael Cortez, PPC strategist · Updated November 9, 2026

The search term report is the one Amazon Ads report that shows what shoppers actually typed. Here is every column you'll see, in the order Amazon usually lists them, with what it means for an author.

Column	What it means	For KU authors
Start Date / End Date (or Date)	The days the row covers. Summary reports give one range, daily reports one row per day.	Pick a range ending two weeks back so page reads have arrived.
Portfolio name	The portfolio the campaign sits in, if you use portfolios.	Handy for grouping by book or series.
Currency	The marketplace currency for every money column.	Analyze one marketplace at a time.
Campaign Name / Ad Group Name	Where the ad ran.	Negatives and bids are set here, so keep names readable.
Retailer / Country	The store the ad ran in.	Only matters if you run several marketplaces.
Targeting	Your keyword, product target or auto targeting group that matched the search.	This is what you bid on. Bid changes happen here.
Match Type	Broad, phrase or exact for keywords. Blank or a dash for auto and product targets.	Exact matches the search tightly; broad finds new searches.
Customer Search Term	What the shopper actually typed, or an ASIN when the ad showed on a product page.	The column that matters most: negatives and new keywords come from here.
Impressions	How often the ad was shown.	Low impressions usually means bids are too low for that search.
Clicks	Clicks on the ad.	You pay per click. Every judgement starts with clicks.
Click-Thru Rate (CTR)	Clicks divided by impressions.	A cover and title check more than a keyword check.
Cost Per Click (CPC)	Average price paid per click.	Usually below your bid: you pay just enough to beat the next ad.
Spend	Total cost of the clicks.	The money side of every decision.
7 or 14 Day Total Sales	Sales of your books within 7 or 14 days of a click.	Counts sales only. Kindle Unlimited borrows don't appear here.
ACOS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales)	Spend divided by sales.	Misleading for KU books: it ignores page reads and later books.
ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend)	Sales divided by spend. The inverse of ACoS.	Same blind spot as ACoS.
7 or 14 Day Total Orders / Units	Orders and units attributed to the click.	Orders are a cleaner signal than sales for low-priced books.
Conversion Rate	Orders divided by clicks.	Leaves out KU readers, so it understates good terms.
Advertised SKU Units / Sales	Sales of the exact book in the ad.	Useful to see how much of a series sale is book 1.
Other SKU Units / Sales	Sales of your other books after the click (the halo).	The start of read-through, visible in the report.
Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) Read	Kindle Unlimited pages read that Amazon attributes to the click.	The most important column for KU authors. Not every account shows it.
Estimated KENP Royalties	Amazon's estimate of what those pages pay.	Uses an estimated rate. The real rate is published monthly.

The four columns that decide almost everything

Customer Search Term: where negatives and new keywords come from.
Clicks and Spend: what you paid for the chance at a reader.
Orders: buyers.
KENP read: borrowers. Ignore this column and you'll cut search terms that are bringing Kindle Unlimited readers.

Why ACoS and ROAS mislead for KU books

Both are built only from the sales column. A Kindle Unlimited reader who borrows book 1 and reads the whole series shows up in neither, even though they may be worth more than a buyer. That's why a search term at 300% ACoS can be one of your most profitable. The break-even ACoS calculator shows what your real break-even is once page reads and read-through count.

Analyzer result: Amazon's ACoS of 240% next to a true ACoS of 61% across the series — The same report judged two ways: Amazon's ACoS and true ACoS across the series (sample data).

Let the analyzer read it for you

The free Kindle Author Ads Analyzer reads every one of these columns by meaning, whatever order or attribution window your report uses, including translated headers from the German, French, Spanish and Italian consoles. It combines clicks, orders and page reads into one judgement per search term.

Run your own report through the Kindle Author Ads Analyzer

Free, runs in your browser, no signup. See which terms to negate, which bids to move and which keywords pay across the series.

Analyze my report

Questions

Why don't I see the KENP columns?

Amazon shows Kindle Edition Normalized Pages columns on many book accounts but not all. Without them, enter how many KU readers you get per order (from your KDP dashboard) and the analyzer estimates page reads.

Should I use the 7 day or 14 day columns?

Either works. Author accounts usually report 14 day attribution. Use the same window every time so reports compare fairly.

Why do the numbers change if I download the same dates again?

Sales and page reads keep arriving for up to two weeks after a click, so recent days fill in later. That's why a report should end two weeks ago.

Which column decides whether to negate a search term?

Customer Search Term, with Clicks, Orders and KENP read together. A term with plenty of clicks, no orders and no page reads is a negative candidate. A term with no orders but page reads is working.