In this article, we highlight considerations on the timing and quality of Amazon Advertising data. Specifically, when data is available and how it can change over time. Understanding these variations will ensure you are factoring this into your insights efforts.

Sales, ACOS, and other data take can take up to 48 hours to populate within Amazon systems. This means a call to the API today for Sales data may return an empty result. In addition to data availability, the most recent data may be incomplete. For example, Amazon says that spend and purchases for the most recent dates are only estimates. Why? Amazon is validating and reconciling click traffic.

Amazon says certain data may be updated three days after the click occurs (see traffic validation). As a result, the data for the most recent few days is in flux.

For example, let's say you are looking at sales data on June 2 for June 1. Amazon reported 10 sales on the 1st. However, you look at sales for June 1 again on June 5. Amazon is now reporting 13 sales for June 1. There were 3 new sales attributed to June 1 between June 2 and Jun 5. This is expected.

Ad types, like lock screen Ads, can have detailed page views, impressions, clicks, and sales data that take up to 14 days to appear. As a result, you may notice an increase in your spend up to 14 days after a campaign is paused, terminated, or has ended.

Another example of change over time is payment failures and orders that are canceled within 72 hours will be removed from sales totals.

As a result, expect data to shift until Amazon closes out all attribution windows. Data will be more accurate 3-5 days from the current date. It will be most accurate after all attribution windows are closed.

For Openbridge Amazon Advertising API calls, it can take up to 24 hours for your initial sales data, and data in general, to appear in your target destination. Also, as we stated earlier, the data from the API may be delayed until it settles and reconciles within Amazon. Once that data is settled, we collect it on your behalf.

Each day, Openbridge will collect data on a rolling 60-day window. The collection window looks back 1, 3, 7, 14, 30, and 59 days in the past. For example, on July 1 we will collect data for June 30th, 28th, 25th, 18th, and so forth. The lookback timing aligns with observed time periods where Amazon will settle data in its systems. Each day, we execute this rolling lookback window to follow Amazon's attribution and sync patterns. This also ensures we are not over saturating the Amazon API and hitting API limits. There are a large number of reports, over 20, and Amazon limits the volume of requests. Amazon also can take a while to actually deliver a report after a request, sometimes close to an hour.

If you noticed the odd 59-day request, this acts as a final reconciliation call to catch any final updates to Amazon's systems prior to hitting the 60 day API history limit. There are times where Amazon may need to back update data and using this final clean-up call ensures you have accurate data (according to Amazon). For example, Amazon may release a notice that data needs a resync which our approach automatically cares for.

Over time, our approach will ensure you get the most complete and accurate picture of Amazon Advertising data possible.

Amazon performs performance benchmark restatements every 1, 7, and 28 days for the Amazon Attribution service. They do this to ensure reporting is updated with the most recent conversion events.

Like the process outlined above for Amazon Advertising, our connector will request data on a rolling basis that aligns with these windows. This means every day we will request the prior 1, 3, 8, and 30 days for reporting data. The 30-day mark will reflect the close of the reporting window. As such, you should always use the close date to reflect the most up-to-date or "final" report data.

According to Amazon, the most recent 48 hours of Amazon Attribution reporting should be considered partial or incomplete.

Why does data change over time? It has to do with attribution. You only want to pay for performance, so Amazon must reconcile if a sale occurred and if it can be attributed to an ad.

For example, when a shopper clicks your ad and later purchase one of the products you advertised, Amazon will attribute the sale to your ad campaign. The time period for measuring purchases after a click is called an attribution window. If a shopper clicks an Ad but does not return to your product for X period of time, the sale may (or may not) fall within the attribution window. If the purchase occurred within the window, it would be included in your sales data, and you are charged for this.

For Amazon sellers and vendors, Sponsored Products sales data consists of the product sales resulting from ad clicks within seven days. For Amazon vendors, sales data includes the product sales resulting from ad clicks within 14 days.

You can view sales attributed to a campaign for a given time frame by downloading a Campaign Performance report. Sales data includes sales of the advertised products as well as sales of the other products in your inventory. For example, if a click on your ad for a blue shirt generates a sale for one of your red shirts, this is included in total sales.

Sponsored Brands sales data consists of sales resulting from ad clicks within 14 days. This includes sales of the advertised products as well as sales of other products within your brand that resulted from clicks on your ads, regardless of whether they were sold by you or by others.

Unlike Sponsored Products campaigns, Sponsored Brands will be shown to shoppers regardless of who presents the featured offer, helping you gain more impressions with shoppers on Amazon to promote your brand.

Sponsored Display sales data consists of sales resulting from ad clicks within 14 days. This includes sales of the advertised product as well as sales of other products within your brand that resulted from clicks on your ads, regardless of whether they were sold by you or by others. Sales data for "Views" campaigns don't include products within your brand sold by third-party sellers.