amazon advertising bi-weekly — 3 ways to report on amazon advertising API data

sam hager, president dash / AMAZON
​​https://www.dashapplications.com/about-us.html#team

In our last article, we described the data that’s available in the Amazon Advertising API to give you a sense for what to expect when you first connect. The obvious next question is, “Now that I have the data, what do I do with it?”
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As an agency that manages multiple brands or a brand that operates on the Amazon platform, you are painfully aware of the ongoing requirements to inform and direct your clients or stakeholders through the Amazon abyss. We collectively refer to this process as ‘reporting’ as a means to communicate the state of a brand’s Amazon presence and performance. Agencies and brand owners know that reporting can be both a best friend and a worst enemy. Below we explain limitations on ‘Operations’ data, advantages of Amazon Advertising API data for reporting, and three ways to report on Amazon Advertising API data designed to avoid common issues. We are not endorsing any one tool in particular that we mention by name, and you should do proper due diligence of each solution to ensure that it will work for your agency’s or brand’s use case.

At Dash, we are exploring each of the below reporting options with our partners. If you have any interest in getting Amazon Advertising and Operations reporting going for your agency or brand, let us know and we can help you figure out the correct solution for your needs.

​Where can I get my Amazon Operational data?

In order to report on Amazon Advertising Data comprehensively, you’ll need to connect the insights to what’s happening operationally for the brand. We will speak about the concept of ‘operational marketing’ in a later blog post but if you’ve worked with Amazon before, you know that the ‘Operations’ data reported in the Amazon Seller Central or Vendor Central interfaces is only accessible via manual downloads. By ‘Operations’ data, I mean the performance data that Amazon so graciously divulges for us. This includes data points like Sales, Sessions, Conversion Rates, and Buy Box rates, with Seller Central having a more complete data set while Vendor Central provides just a fraction of the mentioned information. There is no API for this Operations data, which lives under ‘Business Reports’ in Seller Central and ‘Amazon Retail Analytics’ in Vendor Central. This leaves agencies and brands with the single option of pulling and storing the Operations data reports manually. We are currently addressing this issue with our partners and have a solution in the works; for now, just know that the manual nature of the data presents a challenge for you as you look to provide consistent reporting and manually manage an ever-growing data set.

​Why Amazon Advertising API Data is better for reporting than manually exported data

Before we dive into the 3 reporting options, I want to frame why using Amazon Advertising API is a superior choice for reporting purposes when compared to manually downloading and storing the data yourself. We’ve covered much of the advantages of API data relative to manual data in our previous articles that talked about why you need the Amazon Advertising API data in the first place, and what is actually in the API data set compared to the manual reports. For reporting, the main advantages of using Amazon Advertising API data are:

• Continuous data access that does not require a team member to spend time pulling, preparing, formatting, and storing the data.
• Makes the management of multiple brands easy and scalable. Manually downloaded reports require manipulation and preparation if you manage multiple brands. In particular, you’ll need to add a client identification field to every single data set. With API data, all you have to do is implement filtering in your reporting solution to easily cycle through each of your managed accounts with data ready at your fingertips.
• Ongoing updates of data ensure that your reporting is accurately reflecting results as Amazon constantly restates its own data set. If you’re using a manually downloaded data set, it’s likely that Amazon has restated the numbers since your last pull and your reporting numbers are misstated.
• Direct connection of the data to your reporting solution. You will never have to update your reporting solution to reflect the latest data. A simple refresh of the data connection is all that’s required when using an Amazon Advertising API data warehousing solution as opposed to uploading the data, pointing each visual to the correct data for each client, and ensuring that your data is showing correctly and accurately.
• Lastly, you don’t have to worry about pulling data for specific time periods. The Amazon Advertising API data pulls on a daily-grain level, ensuring that you can view the data in any time frame you’d like (i.e. day over day, week over week, month over month, etc.). Imagine having to manually pull a fresh data set to obtain yesterday’s data. You would need to do this every single day just to have the correct numbers for pacing, budgeting, and reporting purposes…yikes.

Amazon Advertising API Data Reporting Using Excel

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the old stalwart Microsoft Excel as an option for reporting to your clients. Although the visuals aren’t as refined as some of the other options, Excel is a powerful tool that can accomplish a tremendous amount of tasks, including reporting. If you have team members that are well-versed in Excel and you’re just getting started reporting to clients or internally, Excel may be your best option.

In order to use Excel for reporting on Amazon Advertising API data, you’ll most commonly need to connect to the database that is storing the data directly from Excel. This can be done a number of ways depending on the database that you’re using. At Dash, have helped our partners connect directly to our advertising data warehouse using an Excel MySQL connector as one example of how to connect Excel to a database.
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To reiterate, the above allows you to view up to date data in Excel that you can manipulate for Amazon Advertising. In order to complete the picture for your clients, you will also need to connect the reporting and visuals to Operations data that will be manually downloaded and stored in either a) another database or b) directly in the Excel reporting template you’re working from.

Amazon Advertising API Data Reporting using Visualization Tools

As you may have surmised, Excel has inherent limitations for ongoing reporting. In particular, you will have to create unique documents for each client and the reports and data will have to be updated for each individual client. This can be time consuming and represent friction to scaling your business in many ways.

If you’ve moved past Excel and have more technical proficiency in your organization, a class of reporting tools you might consider pure reporting visualization solutions will be options for you to assess. This includes tools such as Google Data Studio, Databox, or Klipfolio among many others. The main function of this set of providers is to visualize data from multiple sources. You will still have the Operations data limitation and may have to connect to an Excel workbook or Access database where the Operations data is housed. The advantage of reporting visualization solutions is that you can be up and running quickly, with an open connection to the Amazon Advertising API data that will be refreshed automatically. Additionally, these tools typically come with pre-built dashboards and visuals that you can leverage to present aesthetic reports to clients or your team.
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Be careful with this type of reporting solution as some providers will not allow you to connect to data sources for which they haven’t already built connectors. If you can’t host the data directly in the solution like in Excel or Google Data Studio, make sure you’re able to connect to your sources via API calls or direct database connections using login credentials for access.

​Amazon Advertising API Data Reporting using BI Tools

If you’re a large agency or brand with in-house data analytics capabilities, you’ll be able to leverage business intelligence tools for reporting and analytics that may be beyond the reach of those organizations without technical personnel. The world of ‘analytics’ platforms is wide and varied, often resulting in solutions for all that serve the purposes of few. For that reason, Dash is building its own Analytics platform to specifically address the analysis of Amazon Advertising API data in a way that informs the conversation of ‘what changed and what drove performance?’. With that said, this class of more technical ‘business intelligence’ solutions can be used for reporting purposes with the added bonus of having analytics capabilities to inform your conversations with clients and stakeholders.

We have seen the successful use of platforms like Tableau, Microsoft’s Power BI, and Looker in delivering front-facing reporting. The advantages of these types of solutions build on Option #2 advantages while also offering more powerful data combination, structuring, and analytics capabilities.
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A word of caution on these tools, they can require high-level resources to maintain and master. The technical proficiency required to successfully leverage BI tools can be costly to train for or acquire. Typically, these solutions are reserved for larger organizations with greater resources, or those orgs that are heavy on data and technically oriented.

​Takeaways

• In order to see the full picture of Amazon Advertising API Data, you should supplement it with Operations data despite manual download and storage requirements.
• Don’t bite off more than you can chew in reporting. Know that ongoing maintenance and support will be required for reporting and should be considered when selecting a reporting tool.
• Do your research. Understand the limitations of potential reporting solutions prior to going all in on a solution. In particular, make sure you can actually get to the data you want to report on.
  

​If you’d like to learn more about reporting Amazon results to your clients or stakeholders, drop us a line. Dash has reporting solutions in place that are built to help you get the most out of your Amazon Advertising API data and Amazon Operations data.

sam hager | president dash / AMAZON
an amazon advertising expert, sam is on the forefront of ecommerce evolution and leads thought for agencies and brands looking to crack the digital commerce code. ​

sam.hager@dashapplications.com