OTTO Ads glossary

This glossary explains 20 terms you keep running into when advertising on OTTO, from Sponsored Product Ads through ROAS and ACoS to the change request of the API. It is written for OTTO merchants and agencies who run campaigns in OTTO Partner Connect or through the API. Whatever OTTO itself defines comes with a source and retrieval date at the term; everything else is a general definition.

Glossary · Updated: November 6, 2026

ACoS

ACoS stands for advertising cost of sales: ad costs divided by ad revenue, expressed as a percentage. It is the inverse of ROAS.

Example: 100 euros of ad costs on 400 euros of revenue give an ACoS of 25 percent and a ROAS of 4. The metric is best known from Amazon. The KPI list of OTTO's reporting API contains ROAS, not ACoS; if you compare both marketplaces, convert. The advantage of ACoS: you can put it right next to your margin. If it is above your margin before ad costs, you lose money on these sales.

Attribution

Attribution determines which sales are credited to an ad.

In its reporting documentation OTTO describes three levels: product-level attribution counts only the purchase of the advertised item that was clicked or viewed. Campaign-level attribution also counts purchases of other items in the same campaign, brand-level attribution also purchases of other items of the same brand. Revenue and ROAS in the API are based on product-level attribution; revenue with brand-level attribution is only available in the product figures, campaign-level attribution currently not at all. If numbers differ between two reports, first check which attribution each one counts.

Automatic campaign

In an automatic campaign OTTO decides on which searches and pages your items appear. It works from your product information; you do not maintain keywords.

Ads are shown contextually on search result pages, product listings and product detail pages. In the API the type is called AUTOMATIC, and every advertised item needs its own bid there. OTTO also names collecting new keyword ideas for use in a manual campaign as one purpose. You exclude unwanted searches here with negative keywords, because only automatic campaigns allow them.

Sources: advertising.otto.de/sponsored-product-ads and api.otto.market (Sponsored Product Ads), retrieved November 6, 2026

Brand defense campaign

A brand defense campaign, also called brand protection campaign, is a keyword campaign on your own brand name and its common spellings.

It is meant to keep other sellers' ads from appearing ahead of your products when people search for your brand. People who search for a brand usually want to buy already, so such campaigns often reach a high ROAS. That is exactly why the campaign gets its own budget and its own target, separate from the campaigns that are supposed to find new customers. Otherwise its ROAS flatters the overall picture and hides how the other campaigns perform.

Change request

In OTTO's API for Sponsored Product Ads, a change request is the job behind every change.

Every write request, such as a new campaign, a new bid or an exclusion, is not executed immediately but accepted and processed in the background. Its status is PENDING first, then ACCEPTED or REJECTED; when it is REJECTED, OTTO states the reason and the previous state remains. Only one change request per campaign may be pending; until it is resolved, OTTO can reject a further change with a conflict.

In Marginly, an applied recommendation only counts as done once OTTO has confirmed the change. Recommendations in Marginly

CPC (cost per click)

CPC stands for cost per click, the price you pay for a click on your ad.

On OTTO, Sponsored Product Ads only cost money when someone clicks. When you create a campaign you choose the products and your CPC bid, the maximum amount per click; the actual click price comes out of the auction and, according to OTTO, depends on the competition in the product group. According to OTTO, the minimum CPC is currently 20 cents. In reports the CPC is an average: costs divided by clicks. The API handles bids in cents.

Sources: advertising.otto.de/sponsored-product-ads, api.otto.market (Sponsored Product Ads), and api.otto.market (Sponsored Product Ads Reporting), retrieved November 6, 2026

Daily budget

The daily budget is the maximum amount a campaign should spend in one day.

When you create a campaign on OTTO, you set the period, the budget interval, the budget distribution and the total budget. Besides the daily budget (DAILY), the API also knows weekly, monthly and lifetime budgets (WEEKLY, MONTHLY, LIFETIME). A daily budget that runs out by noon costs visibility in the afternoon and evening. So check regularly whether the budget lasts until the evening. For a campaign with a good ROAS, more budget is then usually the better lever than a lower bid.

Sources: advertising.otto.de/sponsored-product-ads and api.otto.market (Sponsored Product Ads), retrieved November 6, 2026

Intelligentes Bieten (intelligent bidding)

Intelligentes Bieten (intelligent bidding) is the automatic bid optimization OTTO offers for Sponsored Product Ads campaigns.

According to OTTO, it adjusts CPC bids automatically and based on data, continuously evaluates item performance and spends the budget where the chances of success are highest. OTTO promises more visibility, more efficient use of budget and a higher ROAS. The principle resembles the Smart Bidding many know from Google Ads. ROAS measures revenue, not profit, so check the result regularly against your margin after returns.

Source: advertising.otto.de/sponsored-product-ads, retrieved November 6, 2026

Keyword harvesting

Keyword harvesting means collecting search terms that produced orders and promoting them to keywords of their own in a manual campaign, usually with match type EXACT and their own bid.

OTTO describes exactly this path as one purpose of automatic targeting: collecting new keyword ideas and then using them in a manual campaign. So that the automatic and the manual campaign do not bid on the same search, exclude promoted terms in the automatic campaign as negative keywords. A fixed rule keeps the harvest clean, for example: at least one order and a ROAS above your target.

Source: advertising.otto.de/sponsored-product-ads, retrieved November 6, 2026

Keyword targeting

With keyword targeting you choose the search terms (keywords) for which your ad should appear. OTTO shows these ads specifically on search result pages.

In the API such a campaign is called manual (MANUAL). Each keyword gets a match type, from exact (EXACT) through phrase (PHRASE) to broad (BROAD). A bid per keyword can override the campaign's default bid. Negative keywords are not possible in manual campaigns; there you steer through the choice of keywords and their bids. OTTO recommends combining a keyword targeting campaign with an automatic campaign.

Sources: advertising.otto.de/sponsored-product-ads and api.otto.market (Sponsored Product Ads), retrieved November 6, 2026

Margin after returns

Margin after returns is what remains of your sales once returns, cost of goods, marketplace commission, shipping and ad costs are deducted, in euros or as a percentage of revenue.

For advertising decisions it says more than ROAS: ROAS rates revenue, margin after returns shows whether money is left over. Calculate it per item. An item with a high return rate can lose money despite a good ROAS, while an item with a high margin can live with a lower ROAS. Your target ROAS follows from it: it has to be high enough that the desired margin remains after all deductions.

General definition, not a statement by OTTO

Negative keywords

Negative keywords exclude searches for which your ad should not appear, such as unsuitable terms or searches with many clicks and no order.

On OTTO they exist only in automatic campaigns; for manual campaigns the API rejects them. On its advertising page OTTO names the match types exact and phrase for them. A negative keyword needs no bid and, in the API, is attached to the individual advertised item. Only exclude once enough clicks have come in, otherwise you block good searches too.

Marginly only suggests exclusions above a click threshold it calculates from your conversion rate. Exclusions in Marginly

Sources: advertising.otto.de/sponsored-product-ads and api.otto.market (Sponsored Product Ads), retrieved November 6, 2026

OTTO Partner Connect

OTTO Partner Connect, OPC for short, is OTTO's partner portal where you run your marketplace business.

There you manage products, see orders, shipped products and returns, payouts and sales, and answer customer inquiries. Under services you book additional services and advertising, including Sponsored Product Ads, which you also set up there. For the API, sellers with their own IT create their own app under API access and choose its permissions.

Sources: otto.market (OTTO Partner Connect), advertising.otto.de/sponsored-product-ads, and api.otto.market (integration for sellers), retrieved November 6, 2026

OTTO SPA API

The OTTO SPA API is the programming interface for Sponsored Product Ads on api.otto.market.

It has two parts: with one you create and change campaigns, advertised items and keywords; with the other you retrieve metrics and reports, for at most the last 90 days and without the current day. Sellers with their own IT create their own app for it in OTTO Partner Connect under API access; the permission is called advertising-services. Changes run as change requests and are processed asynchronously. The API states bids in cents.

Sources: api.otto.market (Sponsored Product Ads), api.otto.market (Sponsored Product Ads Reporting), and api.otto.market (integration for sellers), retrieved November 6, 2026

Pacing (Budgetverteilung)

Pacing controls how fast a campaign spends its budget.

On its German advertising page OTTO lists the setting as Budgetverteilung (budget distribution) when you create a campaign; in the API the field is called pacing and has two values: ASAP spends the budget as fast as possible, EVEN distributes it evenly over the period. ASAP fits when every impression counts, for example in a short promotion, but it can use up the budget early in the day. EVEN stretches delivery and keeps the ad visible for longer. Always check pacing together with the daily budget; the two only work together.

Retail media on OTTO

Retail media is advertising on the spaces of a retailer or marketplace, targeted with its data about customers and purchases.

OTTO markets its spaces under the name OTTO Advertising and promotes data on, among other things, buying behavior and brand preferences. On otto.de this includes Sponsored Product Ads, Sponsored Display Ads, newsletters and deals; outside otto.de, Sponsored Display Ads, digital out of home and connected TV; plus parcel inserts. Marketplace partners book Sponsored Product Ads directly in OTTO Partner Connect; they promote individual products where customers search.

Return rate

The return rate is the share of sold items that are sent back, measured by units or by revenue.

It matters for advertising because a ROAS that ignores returns overstates a campaign's success. Example: a ROAS of 5 at a return rate of 40 percent, measured by revenue, is effectively a ROAS of 3. The rate differs widely between product ranges, so calculate it per item, not per account. On OTTO you find returns in OTTO Partner Connect in the orders section (Aufträge), together with orders and shipped products.

Source: otto.market (OTTO Partner Connect), retrieved November 6, 2026

ROAS

ROAS stands for return on ad spend: ad revenue divided by ad costs.

Example: 400 euros of revenue from 100 euros of ad costs give a ROAS of 4; every advertising euro brought 4 euros of revenue. In its reporting API, OTTO calculates ROAS as revenue with product-level attribution divided by costs: only the purchase of the advertised item itself counts. Cost of goods and commission are not part of ROAS. A high ROAS can therefore mean a loss if the margin is thin or many orders come back. Which ROAS is enough follows from your margin, not from an industry figure.

Source: api.otto.market (Sponsored Product Ads Reporting), retrieved November 6, 2026

Search term report

The search term report shows which real customer searches triggered your ads, with impressions, clicks, costs and revenue per search.

On OTTO, the reporting API delivers it as the keyword report: each keyword comes with the actual search (SEARCHTERM) and the match type. Through the API it is currently available only for keywords from manual campaigns. The report is the basis for two weekly tasks: promoting searches with orders to their own keyword, and excluding expensive searches without orders in automatic campaigns or lowering their bid.

Marginly reviews the search terms of your manual campaigns every Monday across all campaigns. Search terms in Marginly

Sources: api.otto.market (Sponsored Product Ads Reporting) and api.otto.market (integration for sellers), retrieved November 6, 2026

Turn the terms into a routine

Marginly pulls campaigns, search terms and metrics through the official OTTO API, reviews the search terms every Monday and suggests every morning what is worth doing, with the reasoning.

Join the waitlist See the features

OTTO Ads glossary

ACoS

Attribution

Automatic campaign

Brand defense campaign

Change request

CPC (cost per click)

Daily budget

Intelligentes Bieten (intelligent bidding)

Keyword harvesting

Keyword targeting

Margin after returns

Negative keywords

OTTO Partner Connect

OTTO SPA API

Pacing (Budgetverteilung)

Retail media on OTTO

Return rate

ROAS

Search term report

Sponsored Product Ads (SPA)

Turn the terms into a routine