> ## 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. # Zero-Conversion Spend, Amazon Ads > Zero-Conversion Spend for Amazon Ads stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. 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) ## At a glance > Spend on **whole campaigns that produced zero ad-attributed sales** over the 30-day window AND have been live for at least 7 days (so they had a fair shot). The campaign-level analogue of [Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/wasted-spend), pause candidates rather than negative-keyword candidates. Industry rule: any active campaign at zero attributed sales for >14 days is a pause/rebuild candidate. | | | | -------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **The formula** | `SUM(cost)` where `attributedSales14d = 0` AND `campaign_age >= 7 days`, grouped by campaign. The 7-day floor avoids flagging just-launched campaigns that haven't had time to convert. | | **Reports API endpoint** | `POST /reporting/reports` with `reportTypeId=spCampaigns` (Sponsored Products), `sbCampaigns` (Sponsored Brands), `sdCampaigns` (Sponsored Display). DSP campaigns pulled from the DSP Reports API. | | **What "zero-conversion" means** | Zero ad-attributed sales over the 14-day click window for the entire campaign. A campaign with even one $20 sale on $5,000 spend is NOT in this card (that's "low ROAS", a separate concept). | | **ACOS vs ROAS framing** | Zero-conversion campaigns have ACOS = ∞ and ROAS = 0. Total budget burn with zero return. | | **Attribution model** | Last-click within Amazon ecosystem, 14-day click window. A campaign that drove a sale outside this window is marked zero-conversion here. | | **Brand vs non-brand keyword scope** | Branded campaigns at zero conversion are almost always a Buy Box / OOS issue, not a true campaign-design problem. Non-branded zero-conversion is usually wrong-audience, wrong-keyword, or wrong-creative. | | **Sponsored Products vs Brands vs Display vs DSP** | All four are tracked. SP zero-conversion is the strongest pause signal. SB and SD zero-conversion may be intentional awareness; review per-campaign. DSP zero-conversion in a 14-day window is rarely surprising; DSP's ROAS plays out over weeks. | | **Currency** | Account currency only. | | **Amazon-only attribution gap** | A zero-conversion campaign may have driven DTC sales Amazon never sees. For multi-channel sellers, treat the figure as a **ceiling** on actual waste. | | **Time window** | `30D` with a 7-day campaign-age floor. | | **Alert trigger** | `>$0 on any campaign >7D old`. Currency-aware. | | **Roles** | owner, marketing, finance | ## 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, same account as the ROAS / ACOS examples. The 30-day window covers 14 Mar 26 to 12 Apr 26. | Campaign | Type | Age | Spend | Attributed sales | Likely cause | | ----------------------------------------- | ----------- | --- | ----------- | ---------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **SP, "Cooling Pillow Test, Audience B"** | SP manual | 18d | \$480 | \$0 | Wrong audience target. Pause. | | **SB, "Mattress Pad Awareness"** | SB | 12d | \$620 | \$0 | New SB launch with weak creative. Could be intentional awareness, but 12 days at zero is too long. Rebuild creative or pause. | | **SD, "Lookalike, Cart-Abandoners"** | SD audience | 9d | \$310 | \$0 | Audience too narrow; not enough scale. Broaden or pause. | | **SP, "Vintage Decor Cross-Sell"** | SP manual | 22d | \$410 | \$0 | Inventory mismatch with the cross-sell ASIN. Pause. | | **Total zero-conversion spend** | - | - | **\$1,820** | **\$0** | - | What a paid-acquisition lead does with this: 1. \*\*The $1,820 is fully recoverable** by pausing four campaigns. **15-minute win.** Note this is *separate from* the $2,140 in [Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/wasted-spend), the wasted-spend figure includes search-term-level losses inside otherwise-converting campaigns; this card is whole-campaign-level losses. 2. **The 7-day age floor is doing real work.** Two SP test campaigns launched in the last 5 days are NOT in this card (they have $200-$300 of zero-conv spend each, but they may convert in days 6-14). Pausing too early kills launches before learning is complete. 3. **SB campaigns at zero for 12+ days need creative rebuild, not a pause.** SB is mid-funnel; the lever is the banner creative, not the keyword target. Open Amazon Ads Console, swap the lifestyle image, and give it another 7 days before pausing. 4. **SD lookalike audiences with \<1,000 reachable shoppers usually fail.** Check the audience size in Amazon Ads Console; if it's a small lookalike pool, broaden the seed audience. 5. **A campaign with \$0 sales for 14+ days is essentially never recoverable in its current form.** Pause and rebuild, keep the keyword research, dump the structure. Quick sanity tests: * Total > 5% of account spend = sweep needed. Pause anything 14+ days at zero. * Single campaign > \$300 zero-conv = highest-priority pause. * A new campaign (5-10 days old) at zero = *not* in this card; give it more time. * Zero-conv rising while overall ROAS holds = test campaigns proliferating; tighten test discipline. * Zero-conv falling while spend rising = team is actively pruning; healthy. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Zero-Conversion Spend | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Amazon Ads Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/wasted-spend) | The keyword-level twin. Wasted = bad search terms inside otherwise-converting campaigns; Zero-Conv = whole-campaign failures. | | [Amazon Ads Worst Performing Campaigns](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/worst-performing-campaigns) | The fuller campaign-level review (includes low-ROAS, not just zero). | | [Amazon Ads Underspending Campaigns](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/underspending-campaigns) | The other "audit" view, campaigns that aren't getting enough budget. | | [Amazon Ads ROAS by Campaign](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/roas-by-campaign) | Where to redeploy paused-campaign budget. | | [Active Ads on No-Buy-Box ASINs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/active-ads-on-no-buy-box-asins) | If a branded campaign is in zero-conv, this is usually the cause. | | [Active Ads on Out-of-Stock SKUs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/active-ads-on-out-of-stock-skus) | Same. Branded zero-conv = OOS or Buy Box issue \~80% of the time. | | [Amazon Ads Conversion Drop](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/conversion-drop-alert) | A sudden rise in zero-conv may correlate with a global conversion drop. | | [Google Ads Zero Conversion Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/google-ads/zero-conversion-spend) | Cross-platform parallel. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Amazon Ads Console:** [Amazon Ads Console > Campaign Manager](https://advertising.amazon.com/cm), sort by 14-day Sales ascending, filter status "Active", and look at any campaigns with \$0 sales. Add a Cost > 0 filter to drop the never-impressed campaigns. The total at the foot should match this card to within \~1-2%. [Amazon Ads Console > Reports > Campaign Performance](https://advertising.amazon.com/reports), same data, alternative view. [Amazon Ads Console > Recommendations](https://advertising.amazon.com/recommendations). Amazon's "underperforming campaigns" suggestions overlap heavily with this card. **Why our number may legitimately differ from Amazon Ads Console:** | Reason | Direction of divergence | Why it happens | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Timezone**. Both use **PT (Pacific)**. | None. | Amazon's reporting backend is in Seattle. | | **Report-generation latency** (1-3 hours). A sale attributed in the last hour may still be missing here, falsely keeping a campaign in zero-conv. | This card may show \~2-5% **more** zero-conv spend than the live Console view; corrects within 4 hours. | Amazon batches report builds. | | **ACOS calculation timing**. The 14-day click window means a campaign at zero today may attribute a sale tomorrow. | This card may *over-state* zero-conv on the most recent days. | Conversions land late. | | **Campaign-age filter**. This card excludes campaigns younger than 7 days; the Console doesn't filter. | This card shows **less** zero-conv than the Console's raw view (which includes new launches). | Intentional: don't pause a campaign before it has had a chance to convert. | | **Attribution window choice**. Comparing against a Console report set to 7d will show different figures. | This card shows **less** zero-conv than a Console 7d view. | Wider window captures more late conversions. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | | [`amazon_sp.amzn_sp_total_sales`](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amzn_sp_total_sales) | A zero-conv campaign may have driven organic sales Amazon Ads doesn't credit back. | Amazon's attribution model is intentionally simple. | | [`google_ads.gads_zero_conversion_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/google-ads/zero-conversion-spend) | No relationship; separate ecosystems. | Independent budgets, independent reviews. | | [`shopify.total_revenue`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/total-revenue) | A zero-conv campaign may have driven DTC sales Amazon doesn't see. | The Amazon-only attribution gap. |
Edge cases and rare reconciliation issues * **Auto Targeting**: If an Auto Targeting campaign is in zero-conv, the typical fix is to tighten match types or split into manual campaigns rather than pausing outright. * **DSP minimum-spend agreements**: A DSP campaign in zero-conv may be subject to minimum-spend commitments; pausing is governed by the DSP service agreement, not just the dashboard. * **Brand registry effects**: SB campaigns require Brand Registry; without it, the SB line is empty. * **Refunds**: A campaign that drove a sale and then a refund still has attributed sales > 0 (gross), so does NOT appear here.
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **ACOS / ROAS framing for zero-conversion?** ACOS = ∞ and ROAS = 0 for any campaign in this card. Total budget burn for zero return. **How is this different from Wasted Spend?** [Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/wasted-spend) is keyword/search-term level losses inside potentially profitable campaigns; this card is whole-campaign losses. A campaign at zero attributed sales is in **both** cards (the campaign-level zero in this one, and the within-campaign keywords in Wasted Spend). A single bad search term inside a healthy campaign is only in Wasted Spend. **Why the 7-day campaign-age floor?** New campaigns need time to learn. Amazon's auto-bidding and audience-matching takes 7-14 days to settle into a steady state. Flagging a 3-day-old campaign as "zero-conversion" would be premature. The 7-day floor is a compromise; some practitioners argue 14 days is more appropriate. **A new SB launch is in zero-conversion at day 8, should I pause?** Probably not. SB is awareness; it can take 2-3 weeks to build measurable conversion lift. Rebuild creative if you have not already; give it another week. **Pause SB only after 21+ days at zero.** **A branded campaign is in zero-conversion, what does that mean?** Almost always a Buy Box or stock issue, not a campaign-design problem. People searching the brand name were going to buy, so zero conversions means they couldn't buy. Check [Active Ads on No-Buy-Box ASINs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/active-ads-on-no-buy-box-asins) and [Active Ads on Out-of-Stock SKUs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/active-ads-on-out-of-stock-skus) before touching the campaign. **Why doesn't my pausing the campaign immediately remove it from this card?** The card shows the 30-day window. A campaign you paused yesterday will still appear here for 29 more days (its historical zero-conv spend remains). The card is a 30-day audit, not a real-time list of active offenders. **My team launches lots of test campaigns; this card is always full, normal?** Yes for test-heavy accounts. The trade-off: aggressive testing produces zero-conv campaigns; aggressive pruning means killing ideas before they had a fair shot. The 7-day floor mitigates this. If your test culture is "launch and forget", that's a process issue, not a card problem. **Multi-marketplace, can I see global zero-conv?** Not in a single card. One card per Amazon Advertising account. **Auto Targeting at zero-conv, what's the fix?** Tighten match types ("close match" only), or split into manual campaigns with explicit keyword targeting. Pure auto with no constraints is a common cause of zero-conv on Amazon. **Today my zero-conv jumped 50%, why?** Likely candidates: (a) Several test campaigns crossed the 7-day age floor today, getting added to this card. (b) A whole sub-account experienced a Buy Box loss. (c) A pricing or listing change caused a category of ASINs to go below buy-box threshold. **Cross-check with [Conversion Drop](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/conversion-drop-alert) and [Active Ads on No-Buy-Box ASINs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/active-ads-on-no-buy-box-asins) before reacting.** *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Zero-Conversion Spend* 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.