The commercial starting point
An account average hides the decisions you need to make
A US seller can show a healthy blended advertising ratio while individual variations consume margin or run out of stock. I separate the account into commercially useful groups: established products, launches, branded demand, non-branded discovery and inventory-constrained SKUs. Each group needs its own reason to receive budget. The starting point is a dated account export alongside current product economics, not a screenshot of one favorable day.
For Amazon.com work, I align the reporting currency, attribution window and period before comparing campaigns with business sales. We review fees, discounts, returns and the product cost assumptions your team uses. This creates a practical decision boundary for campaign changes. Your finance or commercial owner approves the cost model, while campaign ownership and review cadence remain explicit.