Glossary of Commerce and AI Terms.

ACoS

Advertising cost of sales: ad spend divided by the sales an advertising report attributes to those ads, shown as a percentage. Lower values mean less spend per unit of attributed sales, and the ratio is N/A when attributed sales are zero. Read the guide →

ASIN

Amazon Standard Identification Number, a 10-character identifier for a product in the Amazon catalog. Several sellers can offer the same ASIN, each under their own SKU.

Attributed sales

Sales that an advertising report credits to ad interactions, such as clicks, when the purchase happens within the attribution window. They can include other products from the same brand and are not additive with seller ordered product sales. Read the guide →

Attribution window

The period after an ad interaction during which a purchase can still be credited to that ad. Windows can differ by ad product and report, so metrics built on different windows are not directly comparable. Read the guide →

Available inventory

Units that can be sold and fulfilled right now. It excludes inbound, reserved and unfulfillable units and is always a count as of a specific time. Read the guide →

Break-even ACoS

The ACoS at which ad spend would use up the entire contribution margin on a sale: contribution margin before ad cost divided by selling price. Above it, attributed sales lose money at the contribution level. Read the guide →

Clicks

The number of times shoppers clicked an ad. Clicks are interactions, not unique people, because one shopper can click several times. Read the guide →

Contribution margin

Selling price minus the costs that scale with each unit sold, such as product cost, marketplace fees, fulfillment and a refund allowance. Measured before advertising, it is the basis for break-even ACoS. Read the guide →

CPC

Cost per click: ad spend divided by clicks over a period. It is an average, since individual clicks cost different amounts, and it is N/A when there are no clicks. Read the guide →

CTR

Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions, as a percentage. It shows how often a displayed ad led to a click and varies with ad type and placement. Read the guide →

CVR

Conversion rate in advertising: attributed orders divided by clicks, as a percentage. Recent values tend to be understated because orders can be attributed days after the click. Read the guide →

Data freshness

How current a figure is, judged by the moment the data describes (its "as of" time) rather than the moment it was displayed. A dashboard opened just now can still show data that is hours or days old. Read the guide →

Days of cover

An estimate of how long available stock would last at the recent sales pace: available units divided by average daily units ordered. It ignores inbound timing, seasonality and promotions, and it is N/A when recent sales are zero. Read the guide →

Human-in-the-loop

A way of working in which a person reviews and approves a recommendation before anything changes. An AI system may propose and explain, but a named person authorizes the action and checks the result. Read the guide →

Impressions

The number of times an ad was displayed. An impression is a view event, not a unique person, and one shopper can generate many impressions. Read the guide →

Inbound inventory

Units in shipments to a fulfillment network that have not been received yet. They are not sellable until received, and arrival dates can shift. Read the guide →

JSON-RPC

A lightweight format for remote procedure calls that encodes requests and responses as JSON. MCP uses JSON-RPC 2.0, in which each request names a method and carries an id, and the matching response returns either a result or an error. Read the guide →

Keyword match type

A setting that controls how closely a shopper search must match a targeted keyword for an ad to be eligible. Common types are broad, phrase and exact, from loosest to strictest.

Least privilege

The security principle of granting only the access a person or tool needs for a task. For AI tools, that means few tools, narrow scopes, small datasets and read-only access by default. Read the guide →

Marketplace

A country- or region-specific Amazon store, such as the US or Germany, with its own catalog, currency, fees and reporting time zone. Figures from different marketplaces should not be added together without an explicit currency rule.

MCP

Model Context Protocol, an open protocol that lets AI applications discover and call tools, and read context, from servers in a standard way. It defines how messages are exchanged, not who is permitted to access or share data. Read the guide →

Negative keyword

A word or phrase added to a campaign or ad group so that ads are not shown for searches containing it. It is used to stop spend on searches that are irrelevant or rarely convert.

OAuth authorization

A standard way for a person to let an application act on their behalf with limited permissions, without sharing a password. The application receives tokens tied to specific scopes, and access can be revoked.

Ordered product sales

Seller-side sales for orders placed in a period: units ordered multiplied by item price. They are recorded at order time, are not net of fees or refunds, and are not the same as ad-attributed sales. Read the guide →

Referral fee

A selling fee charged on each item sold, usually calculated as a percentage of the item price, with rates that vary by category. It is one of the per-unit costs in a contribution margin. Read the guide →

Reserved inventory

Units held back from sale for pending customer orders, transfers between fulfillment centers, or processing. They are not part of available stock, and some return to available later. Read the guide →

ROAS

Return on ad spend: attributed sales divided by ad spend, shown as a multiple such as 4.0×. It is the inverse of ACoS when both use the same definitions, and it measures credited sales, not profit. Read the guide →

Search term

The actual words a shopper typed before an ad was shown. One targeted keyword can match many different search terms, depending on its match type.

Sessions

Visits to a product detail page in a period, from seller traffic reports. A session is a visit, not a unique person, and one session can include several page views, which are counted separately. Read the guide →

Settlement

The process and reports through which a marketplace totals and pays out a seller’s proceeds for a period, after fees, refunds and other adjustments. Settlement dates follow the payout cycle, not the order date. Read the guide →

SKU

Stock keeping unit, the identifier a seller assigns to an item they sell. One ASIN can be linked to several seller SKUs, for example for different conditions or fulfillment methods.

Snapshot

A count taken at a specific moment, such as available units at 06:00 on a given day. Snapshots describe levels, while flows such as receipts and shipments describe movement between them. Read the guide →

Sponsored Brands

An Amazon ad format that features a brand, typically with a logo, a headline and several products, and can lead to a store or product page. Its attributed sales can include products from the same brand beyond those shown in the ad.

Sponsored Display

An Amazon ad format that can reach shoppers on and off Amazon based on products, categories or audiences. Its reporting and attribution differ from search-based formats, so compare its metrics with care.

Sponsored Products

An Amazon ad format that promotes individual product listings, mainly in search results and on product pages, and is charged per click. Targeting can use keywords or products.

Synthetic data

Data generated by a program to resemble the structure of real data without describing any real business, person or account. The KEYXE public demo runs entirely on synthetic data, and its exports say so.

Tool schema

A machine-readable description of what a tool accepts, and optionally what it returns, written as JSON Schema. It lets a client check arguments before a call and lets a server reject anything outside the allowed shape. Read the guide →

Unfulfillable inventory

Units that cannot be sold in their current condition, such as damaged, defective or expired items. They are counted separately from available stock and usually need a removal or disposal decision. Read the guide →

Unit session percentage

Units ordered divided by sessions, as a percentage, calculated from period totals. It is a seller-side conversion measure covering all traffic, so it is not comparable with ad conversion rate. Read the guide →

Units ordered

The number of units in orders placed during a period, from seller reports. One order can contain several units, and stock-outs limit how many can be ordered. Read the guide →

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