> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Active Ads on Out-of-Stock SKUs, Amazon Ads > Spend on ASINs that can't convert. Pause immediately or reroute to in-stock siblings. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ad Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) > Spend on ASINs that can't convert. Pause immediately or reroute to in-stock siblings. ## At a glance > Count of ASINs that have **active ad spend AND zero available inventory** (across all FBA / FBM warehouses). The shopper clicks your ad, lands on the product page, and sees "Currently unavailable", **you paid for the click and they bounce**. The single fastest-moving fix on the dashboard, every dollar here is recovered the moment you pause. | | | | -------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **The formula** | `COUNT(ASINs)` where `(active_ad_spend > 0 in last 24h) AND (total_available_inventory = 0)`. Inventory is summed across FBA Available + FBA Inbound (treated as recoverable) + FBM On-Hand. | | **Reports API endpoint** | Two: ad spend from Amazon Advertising `POST /reporting/reports` (per-ASIN spend); inventory from Amazon Selling Partner `GET_FBA_INVENTORY_PLANNING_DATA` and `GET_MERCHANT_LISTINGS_ALL_DATA`. **Both connectors must be present** for this card to render. | | **What "out-of-stock" means** | Total available inventory = 0 across all fulfilment paths. An ASIN with FBA inbound but zero on-hand is still in this card (the shopper cannot buy today, even if stock arrives in 5 days). | | **ACOS vs ROAS framing** | Will register as **infinite ACOS / zero ROAS** because the spend is recorded but no conversion is possible. | | **Attribution model** | N/A, the click cannot lead to a sale. | | **Brand vs non-brand keyword scope** | Both. Branded ads on OOS ASINs are especially painful (you bid to defend your brand and send the shopper away empty-handed). | | **Sponsored Products vs Brands vs Display vs DSP** | All four can advertise OOS ASINs. Auto Targeting is the most common offender, auto-campaigns don't pause OOS ASINs automatically. | | **Currency** | Account currency only (the lost-spend figure shown alongside the count). | | **Amazon-only attribution gap** | Not relevant; this card is about lost Amazon clicks specifically. | | **Time window** | `T` (today). The inventory state is checked daily; an ASIN that ran out this morning shows up tonight. | | **Alert trigger** | `>0 ASINs`. Drives `sentiment_key: zero_conversion_spend`. Any non-zero count fires the alert. | | **Roles** | owner, marketing, operations | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your Amazon Ads data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading. ## Worked example A US home-goods seller, daily check on 12 Apr 26. Two ASINs are flagged. | ASIN | FBA on-hand | FBA inbound | Days OOS | Ad spend (last 24h) | Lifetime ad spend while OOS | Action | | ---------------------------------------------------- | ----------- | ---------------- | -------- | ------------------- | --------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | | **B0DXY5678** ("Memory Foam Mattress Topper, Queen") | 0 | 0 | 4 days | \$156 | \~\$580 | Pause ASIN-level ads. Auto-campaign needs ASIN exclusion. | | **B0FFF3456** ("Bamboo Pillow Set, 2-pack") | 0 | 240 (ETA 18 Apr) | 1 day | \$68 | \$68 | Pause for 6 days, resume on stock arrival. | | **Total wasted spend (24h)** | - | - | - | **\$224** | **\$648** | - | What's interesting: 1. \*\*$224 of wasted spend in a single day** = ~$6,720/month if not paused. The 30-second fix recovers all of it. 2. **B0DXY5678 is the chronic-bleed pattern**. 4 days OOS with no inbound, and an auto-campaign is still serving. Amazon's auto-bidder doesn't proactively pause OOS ASINs. The lifetime spend while OOS is \$580; that's pure waste. 3. **B0FFF3456 is the temporary-OOS pattern**. Stock arrives 18 Apr (6 days). Best practice: pause until stock arrives, OR keep ads running at low spend to maintain rank (some sellers accept 5-10% wasted-spend cost as the price of preserving search rank during short OOS gaps). **For OOS > 7 days, always pause**; for shorter, judgement call. 4. **The cross-card pattern**: an ASIN at zero inventory will also lose Buy Box (so it lights up [Active Ads on No-Buy-Box ASINs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/active-ads-on-no-buy-box-asins) too). The two cards together usually cover all structural waste. 5. **Auto-campaigns are the chronic offender.** Amazon's Auto Targeting doesn't honour ASIN-level OOS by default, it keeps serving ads. Manual Sponsored Products campaigns can be set to "pause on OOS" via API automations; auto-campaigns require ASIN-level exclusions. Quick sanity tests: * Count = 0: clean. The goal state. * Count 1-3 isolated ASINs with stock-on-the-way: short pause, schedule resume. * Count >5 ASINs: structural inventory failure or supply-chain disruption. Cross-check with [Amazon SP Inventory Health](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amzn_sp_inventory_health). * Same ASINs reappearing weekly: chronic stock-out cycle, fix the supply chain, not the ads. * Count rising during seasonal demand (e.g. pre-Christmas): supply chain didn't keep up; immediate restock priority. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with OOS Advertised | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | [Active Ads on No-Buy-Box ASINs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/active-ads-on-no-buy-box-asins) | OOS ASINs typically also lose the Buy Box. Often light up together. | | [Amazon Ads Zero-Conversion Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/zero-conversion-spend) | A campaign with OOS ASINs will appear here as zero-converting. | | [Amazon Ads Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/wasted-spend) | The keyword-level twin of structural waste. | | [Amazon Ads ROAS by Campaign](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/roas-by-campaign) | Campaigns containing OOS ASINs show as ROAS-anomalous; this is the explanation. | | [Amazon Selling Partner Inventory Health](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amzn_sp_inventory_health) | The full inventory dashboard, this card is a focused subset. | | [Amazon Selling Partner Days of Stock](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amzn_sp_days_of_stock) | Leading indicator: when DoS drops below 7, expect this card to fire within the week. | | [Amazon Ads Conversion Drop](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/conversion-drop-alert) | Sudden ROAS / conversion drops often correlate with this card going non-zero. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Amazon Ads Console + Seller Central:** [Amazon Ads Console > Campaign Manager](https://advertising.amazon.com/cm) does NOT natively flag OOS. Amazon Ads and inventory data live in different consoles. [Seller Central > Inventory > FBA Inventory](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/inventory), the "Available" column shows on-hand stock. Filter to ASINs with Available = 0 and cross-check against your active ad campaigns. [Seller Central > Reports > Inventory and Sales > FBA Inventory](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/reports/inventory), the canonical FBA stock report. [Amazon Ads Console > Recommendations](https://advertising.amazon.com/recommendations), sometimes flags "out-of-stock, advertising paused" suggestions, but unreliably. **Why our number may legitimately differ from a manual cross-check:** | Reason | Direction of divergence | Why it happens | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | | **Timezone**. Both Amazon Advertising and Seller Central use **PT (Pacific)**. | None. | Amazon's reporting backend is in Seattle. | | **Inventory snapshot lag**. FBA Inventory reports run on a 4-6 hour batch; live state may be slightly fresher in Seller Central. | Card is up to 4-6h stale on inventory state. | Selling Partner inventory API is the bottleneck. | | **Report-generation latency** (1-3 hours). | Today's count is provisional for \~24h. | Both reports batch-build hourly. | | **API rate limits**. Selling Partner Inventory API is heavily rate-limited; large catalogues may have stale partial data. | Stale by up to 1 refresh cycle (\~4h) in extreme cases. | Inventory API throttling. | | **Multi-warehouse aggregation**. The card sums across all FBA warehouses; Seller Central UI shows per-warehouse. An ASIN with stock only in West-Coast FBA may still be considered "in stock" globally. | None, both views aggregate. | Aggregation rule is consistent. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`amazon_sp.amzn_sp_inventory_health`](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amzn_sp_inventory_health) | The OOS ASIN list intersects with the SP inventory-health card's "out of stock" list. Should be a subset (only the *advertised* OOS ASINs are here). | Non-advertised OOS ASINs are in the SP card but not this one. | | [`amazon_sp.amzn_sp_days_of_stock`](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amzn_sp_days_of_stock) | Days-of-stock \< 1 = OOS imminent. Should be the leading indicator. | The DoS card uses 30-day velocity; sudden demand spikes can cause OOS without the DoS warning firing first. | | [`google_ads.gads_zero_conversion_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/google-ads/zero-conversion-spend) | No relationship; different ecosystem. | N/A. | | [`shopify.total_revenue`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/total-revenue) | A merchant who sells the same SKU on Shopify and Amazon may have it OOS on Amazon but in stock on Shopify. The DTC site doesn't help; the Amazon ad still wastes. | Stock pools may be separated by channel. |
Edge cases and rare reconciliation issues * **Inbound stock**: an ASIN with on-hand = 0 but inbound stock arriving in 1-2 days is in this card today, but auto-clears tomorrow when stock arrives. Some sellers prefer to keep ads running at low bid during short inbound windows to preserve search rank; the card surfaces the choice but doesn't decide. * **FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant)**: FBM stock is checked too. An ASIN with 0 FBA but 50 FBM is not OOS in this card. * **Variation parents**: child ASINs are checked individually; a parent listing with one OOS variant and one in-stock variant has only the OOS variant in this card. * **Multi-marketplace**: stock pools differ by marketplace. The card is per-account. * **Vendor Central**: Vendor accounts have a different inventory model (Amazon owns the stock). The card structure is for Seller Central; Vendor accounts surface "lost buy box" rather than "out of stock" in similar cases.
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Why does this card require both Amazon Ads and Selling Partner connectors?** Inventory state lives in Seller Central; ad spend lives in Amazon Advertising. Joining them is the whole point. If only one is connected, this card shows "data incomplete". **Why doesn't Amazon Ads automatically pause OOS ASINs?** Amazon Advertising and Seller Central are operated by different product teams; the integration is partial. Amazon offers an "Inventory-aware bidding" feature that lowers bids on low-inventory ASINs but doesn't pause OOS outright. **The structural waste is by design. Amazon takes your money on every click.** **Should I pause for a 1-day gap or wait it out?** Judgement call. Pausing kills your search rank momentarily; rebuilding rank takes 1-3 days. **Rule of thumb**: pause for OOS > 3 days, run-low-bid for OOS 1-3 days, ignore OOS \< 24h (likely a snapshot lag). **My ASIN shows 0 inventory but I know I have stock, why?** Three causes: (a) **Inbound shipment in transit** but not yet received at FBA; the card considers this OOS until the warehouse acknowledges receipt. (b) **Stock allocated to pending orders** is sometimes excluded from "available". (c) **Inventory snapshot lag**. Selling Partner Inventory API can be 4-6h stale. If you just received stock, give it 6 hours to clear. **Can I auto-pause OOS ads?** Yes, via Amazon's Sponsored Products API or third-party tools. The pattern: webhook on inventory-zero → API call to pause campaign keyword targeting that ASIN. Vortex IQ can fire the alert; the auto-pause itself is a separate automation. Worth setting up if this card fires more than once a month. **My count is rising during Q4 / Prime Day, is this normal?** Yes, demand spikes outpace inventory. The fix is supply-chain (more inbound) not ad-side. **Don't react to high-demand-OOS by raising ad budgets**; you'll just waste more. **Multi-warehouse aggregation, what counts as "available"?** This card sums on-hand inventory across all FBA fulfilment centres globally for the marketplace. An ASIN with stock in only one warehouse is still in-stock. An ASIN with 0 across all warehouses is OOS. **FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant), does that count?** Yes. The card sums FBA + FBM. If you have 0 FBA but 50 FBM, the ASIN is in stock and not in this card. **My count is zero every day, is that healthy?** Yes, ideal state. Common for sellers with strong inventory operations or for FBM-only sellers (who can adjust stock-on-hand more quickly). **Why is the alert threshold "$>0$ ASINs" rather than a dollar amount?** Because every dollar in this card is recoverable in 30 seconds (pause). There's no business reason to tolerate ANY non-zero count. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Active Ads on Out-of-Stock SKUs* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Amazon Ads and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.