Sponsored Product Purchase Products Report Export vs API Output

[tspicer]

Hello,

Using the new SP v3 Reporting API, we have observed variations between the output from the API and the report exported from Reporting. For example, the spPurchasedProduct API report type compared to the reporting UI export (i.e., Sponsored Product - Purchase Product - Daily).

If a report is exported from reporting, say for March 30th, 2023, and a request is made to the API for spPurchasedProduct, with the same date (DAILY), it will yield some overlap in records, but there will be rows not found in the API output and rows from the API not in the export.

Typically, the report export, while not perfect, is usually a reasonable cross-reference to the output from the API, all other things being equal.

In reviewing the docs, I had not seen anything that may explain variations between the two. Any clarification can help us better document these observations for our customers.

[elizafarley]

Hi @tspicer, thanks for this feedback. Small differences between the advertising console reports and the API can sometimes occur. We are planning to develop more robust content around differences between UI and API reporting for V3 (similar to this documentation for V2). I'll let you know here when this is available.

For now, if you are seeing significant differences between the advertising console and API reports, I'd suggest opening a JIRA ticket so the support team can investigate whether or not this is bug.

[tspicer]

@elizafarley .
Thanks for the response. We will open a JIRA ticket as the delta between the two is 20-30% in pure row counts.

[tspicer]

@elizafarley I have a related question. In what situations will a Sponsored Brands report, say campaigns, not be returned for an advertiser? By not returned, I mean the API returns no report for a request.

For example, let's say we have a US advertiser that had active campaigns from 01/25/23 to 3/31/23. In that period there were impressions, clicks, and costs, but all SB campaigns are now paused.

A few observations...

• The Amazon Ads UI will generate an SB campaigns report export for this advertiser.
• The API will return reports for SD (v2 API) and SP (v3 API) for this advertiser
• The v3 API will return an SB purchase products report for this advertiser.

We have attempted to re-request prior dates for this US advertiser, but reports are never returned. Other advertisers do not have this issue with SB.

It was unclear if there are some rules related to having the API generate output if all SB campaigns are paused in v2 or if there is some other combination of factors that may cause this. We reviewed the docs and can not find any clues as to why this is occurring for this advertiser.

[elizafarley]

To clarify, is SB report generation failing for this advertiser or are you getting a blank report (empty json array)?

[tspicer]

Hi @elizafarley we are getting a blank report (empty json array). We get the blank report, regardless of the day we request.

[elizafarley]

@tspicer Does your report request include "creativeType": "all"? If you leave this out, campaigns created using SB version 4 (including any campaigns created after September 2022 using the advertising console) may not be included in the report, resulting in an empty report.

[tspicer]

This is great information @elizafarley . We will check with the customer. Don't forget to add your answer to the FAQs at some point!

[tspicer]

@elizafarley , I'm not sure if creativeType will exist in the in the new v3 reporting API, but I would suggest recommending the default be set to all. At the moment, the docs give the direction that If you are running both video and non-video Sponsored Brands campaigns, make sure to create two report requests: one for video and one for non-video.

Based on your suggestion, with v2, all should be used unless someone someone wants a video only report.

[elizafarley]

@tspicer Yes, I agree this FAQ is confusing given the behavior for SB campaigns created using version 4. I'll get that updated. The best practice is definitely to use "creativeType": "all" as the default. The team is working to streamline this in version 3 reporting, so I'll pass your feedback on.

[tspicer]

@elizafarley , one comment on using "creativeType": "all" is that this is really an attribute of a video report. This attribute reflects a video report that includes non-video campaigns. Why? The results of using "creativeType": "all" does not support metrics found in non-video reports. For example, units sold are not available "creativeType": "all". If certain metrics like units sold are important, then using "creativeType": "all" will exclude those from the outputs.

Reading "creativeType": "all" implies it is a base report attribute, meaning a request with all for any report type will include a superset of data. Anything other than all acts as a filter of that superset according to the defined dimension (ie video). That is not the case.

The request logic in v2 is more complicated than it needs to be, with unpredicatable or counter intuitive outcomes based what I described.

[elizafarley]

@tspicer thanks for that feedback. This complexity has resolved from the introduction of the Sponsored Brands version 4 campaign management API, which allows a single Sponsored Brands campaign to have both video and non-video creatives. Since in version 4 there is no distinction between video and non-video at the campaign level, only the metrics that work for video are available when using "creativeType": "all".

This is something that the team is mindful of in the design of version 3 reporting for Sponsored Brands.