How to Connect Amazon Ads to Looker Studio
Building a complete picture of your marketing performance requires bringing all your data into one place, but connecting Amazon Ads to Looker Studio isn't as simple as clicking a single button. While Google doesn’t offer a direct, native connector, you can still create powerful, automated dashboards that track your ad spend, sales, and ACoS. This tutorial will walk you through the most effective methods to get your Amazon Ads data flowing directly into Looker Studio.
Why Connect Amazon Ads to Looker Studio?
Your Amazon advertising data is incredibly valuable, but it's even more powerful when you can see it next to your other marketing and sales metrics. Reporting directly within the Amazon Ads console is fine for a quick glance, but it keeps your data in a silo.
By pulling this data into Looker Studio, you can:
Create a Central Marketing Dashboard: Combine Amazon Ads data with metrics from Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Shopify, and your CRM. Get a true, unified view of your entire marketing funnel in a single dashboard.
Customize Your Visualizations: Go beyond Amazon's standard reports. Build custom charts, scorecards, and time-series analyses that highlight the KPIs that matter most to your business, like ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale) trends or ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) by campaign type.
Automate & Share Reports Easily: Stop manually downloading CSV files every week. Once connected, your Looker Studio dashboard can refresh automatically. You can then easily share real-time reports with team members or clients with a simple link, avoiding the hassle of emailing static spreadsheets.
The core challenge is that Amazon and Google are direct competitors, so there's no official, free connector to bridge the gap between their platforms. Fortunately, there are a couple of solid workarounds to make it happen.
Method 1: Use a Third-Party Connector (The Recommended Approach)
Using a third-party data connector is the fastest, most reliable, and most popular way to pipe your Amazon Ads data into Looker Studio. These platforms act as a bridge, securely pulling data from Amazon's API and making it available as a data source inside Looker Studio. Popular options include services like Supermetrics, Power My Analytics, and Funnel.io.
While these are paid services, the time saved by automating the reporting process almost always outweighs the monthly cost. The setup is generally straightforward and follows a similar pattern regardless of which connector you choose.
Step 1: Select and Sign Up for a Connector
First, you’ll need to choose a data connector service. When evaluating options, consider factors like pricing, the number of other data sources you might want to connect (like Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, etc.), how many accounts you need to link, and user reviews on reliability and support.
Step 2: Authenticate Your Amazon Ads Account
Once you’ve created an account with your chosen connector platform, you'll need to authorize it to access your Amazon Advertising data.
Navigate to the "Data Sources" or "Integrations" area of the platform.
Find and select Amazon Ads from the list of available sources.
You’ll be prompted to sign in with your Amazon Ads credentials. Follow the on-screen instructions to grant the connector secure, read-only access to your ad account data. You might need to select the specific Amazon profiles or marketplaces (e.g., North America, Europe) you want to pull data from.
Step 3: Add the Connector as a Data Source in Looker Studio
Now, head over to Looker Studio to complete the connection.
Open a new or existing Looker Studio report and click Add data.
In the data source search bar, type the name of the connector service you signed up for (e.g., "Supermetrics," "Power My Analytics"). These are known as "Partner Connectors."
Select the connector and authorize your Looker Studio account to use it. You may need to log into your connector account again to authenticate the final link.
This tells Looker Studio to "talk" to your connector service.
Step 4: Configure Your Amazon Ads Data Source
This is where you tell the connector exactly what data you want to pull from Amazon Ads. The interface will be provided by the third-party connector, but the options will be similar across platforms.
Select Account/Profile: Choose the specific Amazon Ads account or profile you connected in Step 2.
Choose Report Type: Decide on the data you want to analyze. For sponsored products, a common choice is the "Sponsored Products Campaign" report. You might also see options for Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, or different aggregation levels (by keyword, ad group, or search term).
Pro-Tip: Start with a campaign-level report, as it gives you a great overview without getting too granular right away.
Select Metrics and Dimensions: This is the most important part. Dimensions are the attributes you report on (e.g., Campaign Name, Date, Ad Group Name). Metrics are the numbers you measure (e.g., Spend, Impressions, Clicks, Orders, Sales, ACoS). Select all the fields you think you'll need for your dashboard.
Once configured, click "Connect" or "Add" in the top right corner. Your data is now successfully linked!
Method 2: Use Google Sheets as a Middleman (The Manual Way)
If you have a tight budget or want to test the waters before paying for a connector, you can do this process manually by using Google Sheets. The workflow is simple: export a report from Amazon Ads, upload it to a Google Sheet, and then use Looker Studio's native Google Sheets connector.
The significant downside is that this process is not automated. You will have to repeat these steps every time you want to refresh your data.
Step 1: Export Your Report from Amazon Ads
First, you need to get the data out of Amazon.
Log into your Amazon Ads console.
Navigate to the "Measurement & Reporting" tab and click on Reports.
Click "Create report."
Choose your report type (e.g., Sponsored Products, Campaign), set your desired date range, and click "Run report."
Once generated, download the report as a CSV file.
Step 2: Import the Data into Google Sheets
Next, get your CSV file into a new Google Sheet.
Open a new, blank Google Sheet.
Go to File > Import > Upload and select the CSV file you just downloaded from Amazon Ads.
In the import options, choose "Replace spreadsheet" and let Google Sheets automatically detect the separator. Click "Import data."
Step 3: Clean and Format Your Data
This is a critical step. Looker Studio needs clean, well-structured data to build accurate visualizations.
Check Headers: Make sure the first row contains clean, simple headers (e.g., "Campaign," "Spend," "Clicks"). Remove any extra summary rows that Amazon might have included at the top or bottom of the report.
Verify Data Types: Ensure dates are in a consistent date format (e.g., YYYY-MM-DD), currency values don't have currency symbols attached (e.g., 150.75, not $150.75), and percentages are formatted as decimals (e.g., 0.25 for 25%). Looker Studio does a good job of guessing field types, but clean data makes it much more reliable.
Step 4: Connect the Google Sheet to Looker Studio
With your data prepped, it's time to connect it to Looker Studio.
In your Looker Studio report, click Add data.
Under "Google Connectors," select Google Sheets.
Find and select the Google Sheet you just created. Choose the specific worksheet (tab) containing your data.
Make sure "Use first row as headers" and "Include hidden and filtered cells" are checked.
Click Add.
Looker Studio will now analyze your spreadsheet and create a data source, automatically identifying which columns are dimensions (blue) and which are metrics (green). You can adjust any that it got wrong before adding the source to your report.
Best Practices for Your Amazon Ads Dashboard
Once your data is connected, the real fun begins. Here are a few tips to build an effective and insightful dashboard.
Start with High-Level KPIs
Don't overwhelm yourself or your audience. Place the most important metrics at the top using scorecards. This gives viewers an "at-a-glance" summary of performance. Good starting metrics include:
Total Spend
Total Sales
Advertising Cost of Sale (ACoS)
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
Total Impressions & Clicks
Use Trend Lines to Show Performance Over Time
Use line charts to track key metrics over your selected date range. This helps you quickly spot trends, seasonality, or the impact of recent campaign changes. A chart showing the trend of Spend vs. Sales is a great starting point.
Add Tables for Granular Details
Below your high-level charts, use tables to break down performance by campaign, ad group, or keyword. This is where you can identify your top-performing and worst-performing activities. Include a "heat map" on your ACoS column to quickly draw attention to high-cost campaigns.
Make Your Dashboard Interactive
Always add filter controls to your dashboard, especially a Date range control. This allows users to easily toggle between viewing data for a week, a month, a quarter, or a custom period without you having to create separate reports.
Final Thoughts
Whether you choose the efficiency of a paid connector or the hands-on approach with Google Sheets, connecting Amazon Ads to Looker Studio unlocks a more holistic view of your marketing performance. Centralizing your advertising data allows you to move beyond basic reporting and start building comprehensive insights that drive better, more informed business decisions.
Connecting data sources one by one is a huge step up from manual CSV exports, but even managing multiple connectors and blending data in Looker can be a chore. This is where AI-powered analytics tools begin to shine. With Graphed, we automate this entire process for you. You can connect your Amazon Ads, Shopify, Google Analytics, and Facebook Ads accounts in seconds. Instead of wrestling with data source configurations, just ask in plain English: "Create a dashboard showing my Amazon campaign performance and ROAS for last quarter," and our AI data analyst builds a live, interactive dashboard for you instantly.