Amazon Ads has no native Looker Studio connector. For a Shopify brand that also sells on Amazon, that creates a real reporting problem: the Amazon side of the business lives in two separate consoles (advertising and sales), neither of which talks to your Shopify data.

This guide covers how to get Amazon Ads data into Looker Studio, why Amazon uses different metrics than every other ad platform, and how to report Amazon alongside Shopify without blurring the two.

Two APIs, not one

The first thing to understand: on Amazon, advertising data and sales data are separate.

  • Amazon Ads API — campaign performance: spend, impressions, clicks, and ad-attributed sales for Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display.
  • Seller Central / Vendor Central data (via the Selling Partner API for sellers) — your actual total sales on Amazon, organic included.

You need both to answer the question that matters — is advertising growing the business or just buying sales that would have happened anyway? A connector covering only the Ads API gives you half the picture.

Connection methods

Third-party connectors

Windsor.ai, Supermetrics, Porter Metrics, Dataslayer and similar offer Amazon Ads connectors, and some also cover Seller Central sales data — usually as a separate source with separate pricing. Check both before subscribing, along with support for the ad types you actually run (Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display aren’t always covered as thoroughly as Sponsored Products).

Manual export

Amazon’s advertising console and Seller Central both allow report downloads for Google Sheets. Workable for monthly reporting, with the usual fragility — and the added chore of exporting from two separate places.

API into BigQuery

The robust route, and the only one that makes it easy to join Amazon ad data, Amazon sales data, and your Shopify orders in one model. This follows the multi-source architecture in our Looker Studio dashboard guide.

Why Amazon uses ACOS instead of ROAS

Amazon’s native metric is ACOS (advertising cost of sales): ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales. It’s simply the inverse of ROAS — an ACOS of 25% equals a ROAS of 4.

The more useful metric is TACOS (total advertising cost of sales): ad spend divided by total sales, organic included. It answers the question ACOS can’t:

  • ACOS falling, TACOS falling — ads are efficient and organic sales are growing. Healthy.
  • ACOS stable, TACOS rising — you’re spending more to maintain the same total sales. Ads may be cannibalizing organic.
  • ACOS rising, TACOS falling — ads are less efficient on their own, but organic sales are growing faster. Often a sign ads are building ranking and visibility.

On Amazon, advertising improves your organic ranking, so ads and organic sales are tightly linked. TACOS is how you see that relationship; ACOS alone hides it.

The attribution window

Amazon attributes sales to ads within its own window, which differs by ad type and account type (seller vs vendor). Like Google Ads, attributed sales can keep updating for several days after the click — so the most recent days in any report are incomplete. Exclude the last few days from trend analysis, or flag them clearly on the dashboard.

Amazon also only attributes sales that happen on Amazon. An Amazon ad that makes someone search for your brand and buy on your Shopify store counts for nothing in Amazon’s reporting — one more version of the cross-platform gap we describe in our attribution guide.

Reporting Amazon alongside Shopify

The key rule: same dashboard, separate channels, never merged.

Amazon revenue and Shopify revenue look alike but aren’t comparable:

  • Different margins — Amazon takes referral fees and, if you use FBA, fulfillment fees. A $50 sale on Amazon and a $50 sale on Shopify leave very different amounts in your account.
  • Different customer ownership — on Shopify, the customer is yours (email, retargeting, repeat purchase). On Amazon, the customer belongs to Amazon.
  • Different attribution — as above.

A useful structure: a top-level view showing total revenue across both channels, then separate pages for each, with net margin rather than gross revenue as the headline comparison. Getting Shopify data in is covered in our guide on connecting Shopify to Looker Studio.

Structuring the Amazon page

Header: ad spend, ad-attributed sales, total Amazon sales, ACOS, TACOS — with TACOS given the most visual weight.

By ad type: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, since they serve different purposes (direct sales, brand discovery, retargeting).

By product (ASIN): which products carry the advertising performance, and which drain budget.

TACOS over time: the trend line that tells you whether advertising is building the business or just renting sales.

FAQ

Is there a native Amazon Ads connector for Looker Studio? No. Amazon doesn’t offer a native Looker Studio connector. You need a third-party connector, a manual export into Google Sheets, or the Amazon Ads API into BigQuery. Note that Amazon Ads data and Amazon sales data come from two separate APIs.

What’s the difference between ACOS and TACOS? ACOS (advertising cost of sales) is ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales — the inverse of ROAS. TACOS (total ACOS) is ad spend divided by total sales, including organic. TACOS tells you whether advertising is growing the business overall or just buying sales that would have happened anyway.

Should Amazon revenue appear in the same dashboard as Shopify? On the same dashboard, yes — as a separate channel, never merged into Shopify revenue. The two have different margins (Amazon takes referral and fulfillment fees), different attribution, and different customer ownership. Merging them hides the difference that matters most.

Want a dashboard that reports Amazon and Shopify side by side, on net margin instead of raw revenue? Check out our Shopify Dashboards offer or book a free 30-minute call.