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GlossaryAdvertisingMetrics

TACoS

Also known as: Total Advertising Cost of Sale, Total Advertising Cost of Sales

Total Advertising Cost of Sale — ad spend as a percentage of TOTAL revenue, not just ad-attributed revenue. The metric that actually matters.

TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sale) measures advertising spend as a percentage of TOTAL revenue, not just ad-attributed revenue. The formula is TACoS = Ad Spend / Total Revenue × 100. Where ACoS only counts the revenue Amazon attributes to your ads, TACoS includes the organic revenue your ads helped generate too.

Why it matters more than ACoS: a campaign with rising ACoS but falling TACoS is GOOD — it means your ad-attributed efficiency is dropping but your organic ranking is improving fast enough that total business performance is still ahead. A campaign with falling ACoS but rising TACoS is BAD — your ad-attributed numbers look great but you're actually subsidizing more revenue than you're generating.

Healthy TACoS varies wildly by stage: brand new product launches commonly run 25-40% TACoS for 2-3 months, mature catalogs settle in the 5-15% range, dominant brands can drop below 5%. SellerVault is the only Amazon repricing software that factors TACoS pressure into pricing decisions — when a SKU is carrying high TACoS, the repricer protects margin harder instead of cratering price to win the Buy Box. See the Complete Amazon Repricing Guide for the full TACoS-aware repricing playbook.

Worked example

You spent $1,000 on PPC last month. Amazon attributed $4,000 in sales to those ads. Your total revenue last month was $20,000. ACoS = 1000 / 4000 = 25%. TACoS = 1000 / 20000 = 5%. The 5% TACoS is the meaningful number for business health.

See it in action

TACoS-aware Amazon repricing

Pillar guide

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