Search term reports

The Search Term Report (STR) is the raw data feed that powers campaign optimization. It tells you what shoppers actually typed, which of your campaigns served the impression, and whether that impression led to a click, a sale, or wasted spend. Uploading STR CSVs into RankASIN feeds the campaign performance panels, the keyword harvesting workflow, and the negative keyword recommendations.

Where to download

In Seller Central, navigate to Advertising → Campaign Manager → Reports → Search Term Report. Select a 7-day or 14-day date range and download the CSV.

A 7-day window catches recent performance and reflects current bid and placement conditions. A 14-day window smooths out day-of-week variance but may include data from before a recent bid change. Most sellers download weekly on a fixed day — same cadence, consistent data.

Key columns

The STR CSV contains many columns. These are the ones that matter for optimization:

The Customer Search Term column is distinct from the Targeting column. Targeting is what you set up; the customer search term is what the shopper actually searched. For exact match campaigns, these are usually identical. For broad, phrase, and auto campaigns, they often differ — that's the whole point of discovery campaigns.

Uploading to RankASIN

Navigate to the Advertising workspace and upload the CSV file. RankASIN processes the file as follows:

1. Header normalization — Amazon's CSV column names are mapped to internal field names via the ads report header map. This handles format variations across different Seller Central download dates.
2. ID unwrapping — Amazon wraps campaign and ad group IDs in =""..."" format in their CSVs. RankASIN strips these automatically during import.
3. Row storage — Each row is stored as a search_term_row with all original fields preserved.
4. Campaign matching — The campaign-performance-matcher joins each row's campaign_name against the campaign names in your campaign blueprint items. Matched rows roll up spend, sales, impressions, clicks, and orders to the campaign level.

Keep campaign names in sync. If the campaign name in Seller Central doesn't match the name in your RankASIN blueprint, the performance data won't link. The workspace shows which blueprint campaigns matched to STR data and which are unmatched — use this to spot naming mismatches.

What the data feeds

Uploaded STR data powers three workflows:

• The keyword harvesting loop — Filter for customer search terms with purchases below your target ACoS. These are proven converters ready to graduate into dedicated exact-match campaigns.

• Negative keyword management — Filter for customer search terms with clicks but zero purchases. These are budget wasters that should be added as negative keywords in the source campaign.

• Workspace insights — The Advertising workspace auto-surfaces five categories of recommendations from your STR data:

  • Graduate — terms converting in auto/broad that deserve their own exact-match campaigns
  • Negate — terms burning budget with no conversions
  • Scale — campaigns with strong ACoS and headroom to increase budget
  • Optimize — campaigns underperforming their target ACoS
  • Protect — branded terms appearing in non-brand campaigns, indicating competitor conquest

Upload cadence

Upload a fresh STR every week, aligned with your keyword harvesting and negative pruning routines. Consistent weekly uploads keep your performance panels current and give the insight engine enough data to make meaningful recommendations.