Units and revenue — the goal most operators are actually pursuing.

Most Amazon PPC plans, at the kitchen-table level, are some version of "sell more units" or "grow revenue." Those two goals look identical from a distance and behave differently in the auction. This episode pulls them apart.

Units vs revenue — when they diverge

Selling more units and growing revenue agree when ASP is stable. They disagree when:

• You are running coupons or PEDs (lowers ASP, raises units).
• You have a variant family with mixed ASPs (units up, revenue mix-shifted).
• You are early in a launch (units low, revenue noisy).
• You are growing share at the top of the catalogue (revenue up disproportionately to units).

Always pick one as the primary goal. The other becomes a guard-rail, not a target.

The CPC derivation for unit goals

If you have a daily unit target (e.g. "100 units/day, 50 % organic, 50 % from PPC"):

target PPC orders = 50
clicks needed = target PPC orders / CVR
daily PPC budget = clicks × aCPC

At 9 % CVR and €0.55 aCPC, 50 PPC orders needs ~556 clicks and a daily budget of ~€306. The bid is then whatever clears enough impression share at €0.55 aCPC to fill 556 clicks.

The CPC derivation for revenue goals

For a monthly revenue target:

PPC revenue target = monthly revenue × PPC share
PPC orders needed = PPC revenue / ASP
PPC budget = PPC orders × (aCPC / CVR)

Same maths with ASP as the bridge. The interesting decision is the "PPC share" parameter: how much of revenue you intend to come from paid versus organic. Mature ASINs target 15–25 %; launch ASINs target 60–80 %; brand-defence ASINs target whatever number defends the brand keyword.

Why these goals are easy to mis-budget

Unit and revenue goals interact with conversion rate, which interacts with the listing, which interacts with promotions. A 1-point CVR drop (from 9 % to 8 %) is invisible day-to-day but turns a 50-unit/day plan into a 44-unit/day reality. Without forecasting that explicitly, the team will respond by raising bids — which raises CPC, which compounds the miss.