As an advertiser or agency, it is not uncommon to compare the Advertising Console and Advertising API data for accuracy purposes. However, it is important to note that the available reports between the Advertising Console and Advertising API are not always a direct match. We covered an approach to validating and testing here so you may want to start here: https://docs.openbridge.com/en/articles/5415541-how-to-test-amazon-advertising-reporting-data
The rest of this document goes into more detail on variations between the console reporting interface and the API data feeds. For example, some reports and metrics may exist in the Advertising Console that may not exist in the Advertising API and vice versa.
Amazon API and Console Variations
The following console report types are not available using the Amazon Ads API:
Sponsored Products Performance Over Time
Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands Search Term Impression Share
Sponsored Products Budget
For more information on variations, see the Amazon docs here: https://advertising.amazon.com/API/docs/en-us/concepts/reporting/advertising-console
Console And Advertising API Data Quality
All advertising campaign data will periodically undergo traffic validation to ensure the quality of reporting data and attribution metrics are correct. This will affect the data presented in the Advertising Console and output via Advertising API.
Amazon states that small data discrepancies may occur between the console and API. The differences can arise after traffic validation between the Advertising Console and Advertising API. However, a data discrepancy larger than 5% between the Advertising Console and Advertising API may indicate a data issue that Amazon would need to investigate. Please submit a ticket to our support engineering team to investigate these issues case-by-case for further review in collaboration with the Amazon team.
Data Timing and Availability For Console and Advertising API
Reporting metrics may take up to 72 hours to propagate in the Advertising API download reports. Currently, real-time or same-day report date data is not available through the Advertising API report service. You may want it, but Amazon does not supply it!
Metric Propagation Across Console and Advertising API
Data availability via API does not indicate data accuracy for the console or the API. While data will be available within 12 hours of the same day, Amazon recommends that reports be retrieved after 72 hours from the Advertising API. This latency ensures data parity against the advertising console metrics data (e.g., if you are comparing the data metrics from both the API and ad console reporting sources ).
See our timing doc here: https://docs.openbridge.com/en/articles/4208366-amazon-advertising-attribution-definitions-and-timing
Console Calculated Metrics vs. Advertising API Core Data
There are calculated metrics used in the console interface that are not available in the Advertising API. The metrics are percent calculations, such as ROAS and others. However, ROAS can be calculated from the returned Advertising API data. For example, ROAS can be calculated from the Advertising API by using attributedSales14d divided by sales.
Advertising API Delivers "Settled" Daily Data
The Advertising API only provides data at a daily level, which means we can only request a single day of data in an API report request. A request for 60 days' worth of campaign requires at least 60 API requests, per a report, per advertiser profile. The Advertising Console report provides a summary and daily breakdown. Comparison of report data between both report sources should be performed on a day grain level.
Console Reports Not Available Via The Advertising API
Currently, the following reports are not yet available via the API:
Sponsored Products Performance Over Time: Provides a total of clicks, cost per click (CPC), Spend. The Advertising API report provides this same data by aggregating the total metrics for a report date.
Sponsored Products & Brands Search Term Impression Share: Provides a ranking of search terms across campaigns.
Sponsored Products Budget Report: The Budget Report in the Advertising Console shows how your campaign performance may be impacted when your campaigns are out of budget.
Sponsored Brands Category Benchmark: The category benchmark report (CBR) for Sponsored Brands shows your advertising performance with the median (50th percentile) lower performing quartile (Bottom 25%) and top-performing quartile (Top 25%) values achieved by your peers (by retail performance).
Traffic Validation For Console and Advertising API
Amazon will only charge you for valid clicks. As a result, traffic validation is critical for accuracy for billing and analysis. Amazon identifies invalid clicks that are illegitimate, accidental, or machine-generated. Amazon will remove invalid clicks from your click metrics, so you will not be charged for them.
Amazon uses click-validation software to determine if a click is invalid. This software reviews all clicks received on ads, and each click is analyzed to identify patterns of invalid clicks. Reasons clicks may be invalidated include:
Unusual click patterns
Clicks identified as being machine-generated
Duplicated clicks
Most invalid clicks are removed within a day. Some traffic validation can take up to three days to show up in the sales metrics in Campaign Manager and API. As a result, metrics from the most recent three days might fluctuate from time to time. If Amazon identifies invalid clicks after the initial reporting, your click and spend data will be restated in Campaign Manager and future API reports.
As stated previously, it can take Amazon a few days to reconcile data across systems due to auditing processes such as Traffic Validation.