Before changing anything in an advertising account, it is worth knowing how well it is currently being run — not by impression, but with a number.

This is a scoring exercise. Eight reports, each marked out of ten, giving a total out of eighty. It takes an afternoon, it is repeatable, and it tells you exactly which parts of the account have a process behind them and which do not.

[Watch the walkthrough](https://kb.trackiq.com/kb-assets/kbvideo-ppc-score-explainer-c2ada867.mp4)

*Prefer to watch? Ninety-nine seconds on the eight reports, the benchmarks worth scoring against, and what the total actually tells you.*

## **What the score is actually measuring**

Each report answers one question: *is somebody doing this job regularly?*

That is the whole trick. You are not scoring the account's ACoS, which depends heavily on your category and margin. You are scoring whether the routine maintenance is happening — because a large backlog of obvious, uncorrected problems is the reliable signal of an account nobody is working.

**A high score means few corrections are outstanding.** A low score means the report found a lot to fix, which means nobody has been looking.

## **The eight reports**

| # | Report | What a bad result looks like |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Bleeders** | many targets with 20+ clicks and no sales, last 65 days |
| 2 | **Bleeders 2.0** | many targets, terms or campaigns at extreme ACoS, last 30 days |
| 3 | **Lifetime bleeders** | targets still enabled that have never converted, over the account's life |
| 4 | **Placement optimisation** | placement bids that do not match placement performance |
| 5 | **Search term harvesting** | many converting search terms never promoted to keywords |
| 6 | **Ad type mix** | Sponsored Products below 80% of spend |
| 7 | **Placement mix** | Top of Search below 60% of Sponsored Products spend |
| 8 | **Main keyword coverage** | barely spending on the keywords that define your niche |

Reports 1–3 are covered in [**The Bleeder Reports**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/the-bleeder-reports). Reports 4, 6 and 7 are covered in [**Ad Type and Placement Mix**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/ad-type-and-placement-mix). Report 5 is [**Harvest Winning Search Terms**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/harvest-winning-search-terms).

## **How to score each one**

Mark each report from **1 to 10**, where 10 means "this report found essentially nothing to fix" and 1 means "this report found a great deal".

Two of the eight have hard numeric thresholds, so score those against the benchmark rather than by judgement:

**Ad type mix.** Sponsored Products should be **85–90%** of sponsored spend. **80% is the floor.** Below 80 scores poorly, and the reason is rank: SP is the ad type most directly tied to keyword-level organic position, so under-weighting it means buying sales without buying rank.

**Placement mix.** Top of Search should take **60% or more** of Sponsored Products spend. Below 60 scores poorly, for the same reason — Top of Search is where the velocity that moves rank actually happens.

For the other six, the judgement is proportional: a handful of outstanding corrections on a large account is a good score; hundreds is not.

![Campaigns, spend and efficiency in one table](/kb-assets/shot-adv-campaigns-view-77ace2.png)

## **Reading the total**

**50 or above, out of 80.** The account has a working process. The right move is targeted: take the two or three reports that scored lowest and build a routine around those specifically. Do not rebuild what is already working.

**Below 50.** The account is not being maintained in any systematic way. Individual fixes will not hold, because the same problems will regenerate within weeks. What is needed is a repeating schedule covering all eight, not a one-off cleanup.

**Any single report at 6 or below** deserves attention regardless of the total. A strong total can hide one badly neglected area — most often lifetime bleeders, which nobody thinks to look for because the campaigns concerned are old and quiet.

## **Doing it in TrackIQ**

The original version of this exercise involves exporting bulk files and rebuilding each report by hand in a spreadsheet. That is roughly a day's work per pass, which is why most accounts do it once and never again.

Most of the eight are already screens:

**Bleeders and lifetime bleeders** — **Amazon Ads → Search Terms** and **Targets**, sorted by spend with orders at zero, over whatever date range you choose. The date range holds, so "last 65 days" and "lifetime" are two clicks apart rather than two exports apart.

![Search terms, with spend and orders side by side](/kb-assets/shot-adv-terms-view-2cadd4.png)

**Placement performance and bids** — **Amazon Ads → Placements**, which puts Top of Search, Rest of Search and Product Pages beside their multipliers.

**Ad type mix** — **Amazon Ads → Campaigns**, grouped by ad type, which gives the SP share of spend directly.

**Search term harvesting** — **Amazon Ads → Search Terms**, filtered to converting terms.

The point is not that the tool does the thinking. It is that the eight questions become an afternoon rather than a project, which is the difference between scoring the account once and scoring it every quarter.

## **What to do next**

Fix the lowest scores first, in this order of likely payback:

**Bleeders, if they scored low.** This is money already being spent on traffic that has never converted, and stopping it is immediate. See [**Cut Wasted Ad Spend in an Afternoon**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/cut-wasted-ad-spend).

**Harvesting, if it scored low.** Converting search terms sitting unpromoted are sales you are already paying for but not compounding.

**Mix, if it scored low.** Rebalancing toward SP and Top of Search changes what your existing budget buys without needing more of it.

Then re-score in a quarter. The number moving is the evidence that the routine is real.

## **Related**

- [**The Bleeder Reports**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/the-bleeder-reports) — the first three reports, in detail.
- [**Ad Type and Placement Mix**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/ad-type-and-placement-mix) — the benchmarks, and why they are what they are.
- [**Profit Campaigns and Ranking Campaigns**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/profit-campaigns-and-ranking-campaigns) — score profit campaigns; ranking campaigns are judged differently.
- [**The Nine-Report PPC Routine**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/the-nine-report-ppc-routine) — the same reports, on a repeating schedule.
- [**Restructure Your Campaigns Before You Optimise**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/restructure-your-campaigns) — fixing the structure the score exposes.
- [**Setting Target TACoS per Product**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/setting-target-tacos-per-product) — the profit target the score is ultimately serving.
- [**Acting on Your PPC Score**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/acting-on-your-ppc-score) — what to do with the score once you have it.