Overview
The PPC Dashboard is sellerboard’s dedicated interface for analyzing, monitoring, and optimizing the profitability of your Amazon advertising. Unlike a standard Amazon Ads report, sellerboard overlays your actual product economics – cost of goods, Amazon fees, refunds, and indirect expenses – directly onto your advertising data. This lets you see not just what you’re spending on ads, but whether those ads are generating real profit.
From this dashboard you can:
- Analyze PPC performance at every level of the campaign hierarchy: Smart Portfolios, Portfolios, Campaigns, Ad Groups, Keywords, and Search Terms
- Track spend, sales, clicks, conversions, ACOS, profit, and margin together in one view
- View sellerboard-calculated bid recommendations based on break-even analysis
- Manually edit statuses and bids directly from the table
- Accept system-generated bid recommendations with one click
- Export all data to CSV
- Set up fully automated bid management via Smart Portfolios (covered separately: see PPC Automation & Smart Portfolios)
Getting to the PPC Dashboard
In the left navigation menu, expand PPC and click Dashboard. The page loads with the chart at the top, the summary panel on the right, and the data table below.
Note: sellerboard pulls data from Amazon Advertising. The dashboard may take a couple of minutes to refresh after new data becomes available from Amazon; this synchronization only needs to happen once in a while.
Page Layout
The dashboard is divided into three main areas:
1. Filter Bar – Runs across the top of the content area. Controls which data is shown across both the chart and the table.
2. Chart + Summary Panel – The upper half of the page. The chart visualizes selected metrics over your chosen time range. The summary panel to the right of the chart shows the period totals as a profit-and-loss breakdown.
3. Data Table – The lower half of the page, below the chart. Shows granular data per Smart Portfolio, Portfolio, Campaign, Ad Group, Keyword, or Search Term, depending on the active tab.
Filter Bar
The filter bar sits at the very top of the dashboard and applies to all data on the page – both the chart and the table below. Press the blue Filter button to apply your selections.
Search
The leftmost input is a free-text search field. Type any name to filter the table to rows whose name contains your search text.
Campaign Filter
The second input (“All campaigns”) is a searchable dropdown that lets you narrow the entire dashboard to one specific campaign. This is useful when you want to deep-dive into a single campaign’s keywords or ad groups.
Date Range Selector
The calendar icon button displays the currently selected time range (e.g., “Last 30 days, by day”). Clicking it opens a dropdown with the following preset options:
- Last 12 months, by month – shows each calendar month as a single data point on the chart
- Last 3 months, by week – shows each week as a data point
- Last 30 days, by day – the default; shows each day individually
- Custom range – opens a date picker where you can choose an exact From/To date. When using a custom range you also select the Periodicity: By day, By week, or By month
The selected range determines both the chart period and the data shown in the table and summary panel.
Campaign Status Filter
The “All campaign statuses” dropdown filters the table by the current campaign status in Amazon:
- All campaign statuses – shows everything, including ended or archived campaigns
- Only active campaigns – hides paused and ended campaigns
- Only active and paused campaigns – excludes only fully ended/archived campaigns
More Filters
Clicking More filters expands an additional filter panel with the following controls:
Search by keyword – A text field to filter rows by keyword name within the table.
All portfolios – A dropdown to restrict results to a single Amazon portfolio (e.g., “Black Boxes”, “Gift Box”). Portfolios listed here are the Amazon Advertising portfolios from your account.
All marketplaces – If you sell on multiple Amazon marketplaces (e.g., Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.mx, Amazon.com.br), use this filter to isolate one marketplace.
All keywords – Filters the keyword and ad-group views by performance:
- All keywords – no filter
- Show bad performing keywords only
- Show well performing keywords only
All automation statuses – Filters by the sellerboard automation status assigned to a keyword or ad group:
- All automation statuses
- On
- Off
- Test
All campaign types – Restricts results to one campaign type:
- Sponsored Products (SP)
- Sponsored Brands (SB)
- Sponsored Brands Video (SBV)
- Sponsored Display (SD)
- RAS (Responsive Ad Strategy)
Numeric range filters – You can set Min/Max ranges for any of the following metrics to show only rows that fall within your specified bounds:
- Sales ($)
- ACOS (%)
- Spend ($)
- Clicks (count)
- Profit ($)
- Orders (count)
Use Clear all filters to reset all More filters fields at once, or Cancel to close the panel without applying changes.
The Chart
Overview
The chart is a combination bar-and-line chart that plots your advertising performance over the selected date range. The left Y-axis uses dollar amounts and the right Y-axis uses percentages. Hovering over any bar or data point shows a tooltip with the exact values for that date.
Clicking on a specific date’s bar in the chart also updates the summary panel on the right to show the metrics for that individual day, rather than the full period.
Chart Legend
The legend above the chart shows each active data series with its color indicator. You can click any legend item to toggle that individual series on or off without going back into Configuration.
Configuration Panel
Clicking the Configuration button (gear icon, top-left of the chart area) opens the chart configuration panel. This determines which metrics are plotted as series on the chart.
The configuration panel has two tabs:
Main – Shows a curated subset of the most commonly used PPC metrics.
All – Shows every available metric. You can independently check or uncheck any combination:
- Ad spend – Your total advertising cost for the period (bar, left axis)
- Clicks – Total clicks across all keywords
- Conversion – Order-to-click conversion rate
- Orders – Number of PPC-attributed orders
- Average CPC – Average cost per click
- PPC Sales – Revenue attributed to PPC clicks
- ACOS – Advertising Cost of Sale, as a percentage (line, right axis)
- Target ACOS 30 days – A 30-day rolling ACOS target line for reference
- Profit – Estimated profit from PPC-attributed sales (bar, left axis)
The default view shows Ad spend, ACOS, and Profit. Selecting “All” checks all metrics simultaneously.
Period Selector Buttons (Chart Summary Toggle)
To the right of the chart, two buttons let you switch the summary panel between two contexts:
- Specific date button (e.g., “15 December 2029”) – When you click a bar in the chart, this button is highlighted and the summary panel shows the data for that single day only. This button also shows the most recently selected day.
- Last 30 days (or whatever your selected period is) – Clicking this resets the summary panel to show totals across the entire selected period.
Summary Panel (Right of Chart)
The summary panel is a profit-and-loss breakdown for the selected period (or selected day). It shows what happened financially as a direct result of the PPC-attributed sales. The metrics are:
PPC sales – Total revenue from orders attributed to your advertising.
Orders – The number of orders made after clicking on product advertising. Sales of all SKUs are tracked within a configurable attribution window (days) after clicking on advertising. Clicking the expand arrow (›) next to Orders shows the sub-breakdown.
Promo – Estimated promotions applied to PPC orders, based on the average promotions per order in the previous month.
Ad spend – Total advertising spend for the selected period.
Refunds – Estimated refund costs, based on the average refund costs per order in the previous month.
Amazon fees – Estimated Amazon fees based on the average Amazon fees per order in the previous month. This line can be expanded (▾) to show the sub-components:
- FBA Fee – Fulfillment by Amazon fees
- Referral fee – Amazon’s category referral percentage
- Other amazon fees – Any remaining fees
COGS – Cost of goods for the PPC-attributed units sold.
Expenses – Any indirect or variable expenses allocated to this period.
Profit (estimated) – The estimated net profit from PPC sales, after deducting all costs above.
Average CPC – Average cost per click. Calculated as: Ad spend ÷ number of clicks.
ACOS (highlighted row) – The ratio of the amount spent on advertising to the amount of sales. Calculated as: Ad spend ÷ PPC sales × 100%.
Values shown with a negative sign (e.g., −$39.41) represent costs being deducted from your revenue. The “estimated” label on several rows indicates that sellerboard uses historical averages from the previous month to estimate these costs per PPC order.
Data Table
The lower half of the dashboard contains the data table, which displays all your PPC data broken down into rows. The table supports horizontal scrolling – it contains significantly more columns than fit on screen at once. Scroll right within the table to see the full set of metrics and action columns.
Hierarchy Tabs
Six tabs above the table switch the level of aggregation:
Smart portfolios – Rows represent sellerboard Smart Portfolios (automated portfolio structures managed by sellerboard’s algorithm). Each row shows the performance of an entire smart portfolio and includes additional budget-management columns (Daily budget, Budget utilization). The Smart Portfolios tab is the entry point for automated PPC management. Smart portfolios are detailed on a separate help page: PPC Automation & Smart Portfolios.
Portfolios – Rows represent Amazon Advertising portfolios. Each row includes a Products column and a Retailers column in addition to all standard performance metrics.
Campaigns – Rows represent individual Amazon ad campaigns. Each campaign shows its campaign type (SP, SB, SBV, SD) with a flag/marketplace icon, the campaign name, and all performance metrics. The Campaigns tab activates the Accept recommendations toolbar button for bulk bid acceptance.
Ad groups – The default tab. Rows represent ad groups within campaigns. Each row can be expanded with the › arrow to reveal the keywords inside that ad group. Ad groups display the full set of columns including bid recommendation data. This tab shows the Edit toolbar button.
Keywords – Rows represent individual keywords across all ad groups. Each keyword row is tagged with “(keyword)” to distinguish it from search terms. Expanding a keyword row drills deeper if sub-rows are available.
Search terms – Rows represent the actual search queries that triggered your ads. Each row is tagged with “(search term)”. This tab is read-only – it shows no edit, accept-recommendations, or checkbox controls, since search terms cannot be directly modified.
Color-coded tab labels: If a tab label appears in orange/red, it means there are pending bid recommendations waiting to be reviewed or accepted for that level.
Date Context
The date shown above the tab list (e.g., “15 December 2029”) reflects which day the summary panel is currently showing. Clicking on a different bar in the chart updates both the summary panel and this date label.
Table Toolbar
At the top-right of the table (above the column headers) are several action icons:
Edit – Available on the Campaigns, Ad groups, and Keywords tabs. Clicking Edit makes the Name column and Status column of all rows editable inline, so you can rename items or change their status without leaving sellerboard. After making changes, use the Save button (bottom-right of the page) to push changes to Amazon.
Accept recommendations – Available on the Campaigns tab. This button applies all sellerboard bid recommendations to the selected campaigns in bulk. Recommendations are sellerboard’s calculated optimal bids based on your break-even analysis and profit goals.
Download (↓ icon) – Exports the currently visible table data to a CSV file. The export respects all active filters and the current tab (e.g., exporting on the Keywords tab downloads keyword-level data).
Columns (grid icon) – Opens the column visibility panel. This panel has two sections:
- Vertical lines – A toggle checkbox that adds or removes vertical grid lines on the chart.
- Columns – A list of checkboxes for each available table column. Check or uncheck columns to customize what appears in the table. Column choices are remembered per session.
Table Columns
The table contains a large number of columns. Not all are visible by default on screen simultaneously – scroll right to see them all. Below is the complete set, with descriptions drawn from the built-in tooltips:
Name – The name of the smart portfolio, portfolio, campaign, ad group, keyword, or search term (depending on the active tab). Names are editable when Edit mode is active.
Products – The product(s) associated with this row (shown on Portfolio and Campaign tabs).
Retailers – The Amazon marketplace(s) where this entity runs. Typically shown as a country flag.
Status – The current status of the entity in Amazon (e.g., Active, Paused, Ended, Enabled for smart portfolios). A dropdown appears when Edit mode is active, allowing you to change the status.
Cost per order – The ratio of the amount spent on advertising to the number of PPC orders. Calculated as: Ad spend ÷ PPC orders.
Ad spend – Total advertising spend for this row within the selected period.
Clicks – Total number of clicks generated by this entity.
Conversion – The ratio of orders to clicks on product advertising. Calculated as: orders ÷ clicks × 100%.
Orders – The number of orders attributed to advertising clicks for this row.
Units – Number of units sold through PPC-attributed orders.
CPC – Cost per click (average).
PPC sales – Total revenue attributed to PPC clicks for this row.
Impressions – Number of times ads were shown. Note: impressions are only displayed for keywords with registered advertising costs.
Same SKU / All SKU’s – The ratio of the amount of sales of the products advertised in the campaign to the amount of sales of all sold goods after clicking on advertising. This shows whether customers who clicked your ad bought the specific advertised product (Same SKU) or a different product from your catalog (All SKUs).
ACOS – The actual Advertising Cost of Sale for this row. Values highlighted in red/orange indicate the ACOS exceeds the break-even threshold. This column supports heatmap coloring (configurable in the Columns panel) which color-codes cells from green (efficient) to red (over break-even) for quick visual identification of problem areas.
Profit – Estimated net profit from PPC-attributed sales for this row.
Margin – Profit as a percentage of PPC sales.
Break even ACOS – The ACOS at which profit for this row would be exactly zero. Calculated as: (Profit estimated + Ad spend) ÷ PPC sales × 100%. This is the maximum ACOS you can sustain without losing money.
Break Even Bid – The click cost that would bring profit as close to zero as possible. Calculated as: Break even ACOS ÷ ACOS × CPC. Caution: this is a theoretical value – setting a bid this low could reduce impressions significantly.
Current bid – The keyword bid as received from Amazon. This reflects the actual live bid currently set in your Amazon account.
Bid recommendation – The recommended or accepted bid calculated by sellerboard according to your campaign settings and profit targets. This is the bid sellerboard suggests you should set to achieve your ACOS or profit goal.
Bid recommendation strategy – The automation strategy assigned to this keyword or ad group, if any (e.g., the sellerboard automation mode in use).
Info / More – A final column that provides additional details or a link to expanded information for items that have richer context available.
Daily budget (Smart portfolios tab only) – The daily budget configured for the smart portfolio.
Budget utilization (Smart portfolios tab only) – The percentage of the daily budget that was consumed, indicating how efficiently budget is being used.
Keyword recommendation (Smart portfolios tab only) – Keyword-level recommendations generated by the smart portfolio automation.
Row Expansion
Rows in the Ad groups, Campaigns, Portfolios, and Smart portfolios tabs have an expand arrow (›) at the left. Clicking it reveals the child rows one level down in the hierarchy. For example:
- Expanding an Ad group row reveals the individual keywords within that ad group.
- Expanding a Campaign row reveals its ad groups.
- Expanding a Portfolio row reveals its campaigns.
When a row is expanded, the parent row’s aggregated values represent the combined total of all child rows.
Row Editing
On tabs that support editing (Campaigns, Ad groups, Keywords), you can modify items directly in the table in two ways:
Inline editing via the › expand arrow: Clicking the expand arrow on an Ad group row also activates an editable name field and a Status dropdown for that row.
Edit mode via the toolbar: Clicking the Edit button in the toolbar makes all visible rows editable at once. You can update names and statuses across multiple rows before saving.
After making changes, click the Save button at the bottom-right of the page to push all pending changes to Amazon.
Bid Recommendations & Break-Even Analysis
One of sellerboard’s core PPC features is its profitability-based bid guidance. For every keyword and ad group with sufficient data, sellerboard calculates:
- Break even ACOS – the maximum ACOS at which you still make money, based on your actual product costs
- Break Even Bid – the theoretical bid that corresponds to break-even profitability
- Bid recommendation – the specific bid sellerboard recommends, derived from your configured optimization goal (target ACOS or profit margin)
These values allow you to make data-driven bid adjustments rather than optimizing purely on ACOS from Amazon’s perspective.
On the Campaigns tab, the Accept recommendations button applies all current recommendations in bulk to the selected campaigns.
Bulk Actions via Checkboxes
On the Campaigns, Ad groups, and Keywords tabs, each row has a checkbox at the far left. Selecting one or more rows activates the toolbar with the relevant bulk actions (such as editing the selected items or accepting recommendations for the selection).
Sorting
Clicking any column header sorts the table by that column. An arrow (↓) next to a column header indicates the current sort column and direction. Clicking the header again reverses the sort order.
Heatmap Coloring
The ACOS column applies heatmap coloring by default to make performance analysis faster at a glance. Cells are color-coded from green (low ACOS, efficient spend) to red/orange (high ACOS, above break-even) based on each row’s relative ACOS value. The heatmap coloring can be toggled via the Columns panel (the grid icon toolbar button), which contains a “Heatmap on/off” toggle alongside individual column checkboxes.
Smart Portfolios
The Smart portfolios tab and the Create smart portfolio button (bottom-left of the page) are the entry points for sellerboard’s fully automated PPC management system. Smart Portfolios handle keyword discovery, bid optimization, and budget scaling automatically.
A full walkthrough of Smart Portfolios – including how to create one, configure discovery settings, set optimization goals, and use the scaling features – is covered in a separate article: PPC Automation & Smart Portfolios →
Exporting Data
Click the download icon (↓) in the table toolbar to export the currently filtered and active tab’s data as a CSV file. The export will reflect whichever filters, date range, and tab grouping are currently active.
Tips for Effective Use
To get the most out of the PPC Dashboard, start by setting the date range that matches the analysis window you care about (typically “Last 30 days, by day” for operational review or “Last 3 months, by week” for trend analysis). Use the Campaigns tab to get a top-level view of which campaigns are profitable, then drill into Ad groups and expand rows to identify which keywords are dragging down or lifting your ACOS. The Break even ACOS column immediately tells you whether a keyword is currently spending beyond what your margins can sustain. Use the Bid recommendation column alongside Current bid to see how far your actual bids are from sellerboard’s suggested targets, and use Accept recommendations or manual editing to bring those bids in line.