What's a healthy ACoS/TACoS target, and how do I actually calculate it?
The short answer
A workable formula is target ACoS = your gross margin % minus the organic profit % you want to keep, so a 40%-margin product might target 15-20% ACoS for a healthy return, while a brand-new launch can justify accepting 30-35% ACoS purely to build ranking and reviews. TACoS (total ad spend as a percentage of total revenue, ads plus organic) is the better long-term health metric since it should trend down as your organic rank improves and ads do less of the heavy lifting. Don't chase a single 'good' ACoS number you read online, Indian CPCs have climbed 40-80% over the past few years, so your own margin math has to drive the target, not a benchmark.
A quick summary to orient you. The real value is below: the resources worth your time, from people who've actually done it, not us.
Here are the resources
Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time. India-specific ones carry a badge.
3 resources2 India-specific3 link-checked
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📄 Article
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Why we picked it
One of the few PPC guides written specifically against Amazon India's CPC and competitive environment rather than US benchmarks that don't translate directly.
Why we picked it
A budget-setting-focused companion to the EcomSarthi guide, useful specifically for founders trying to figure out what minimum ad budget makes sense before launch.
Why we picked it
A more independent third-party review of Perpetua than the vendor's own site, useful to sanity-check the sales pitch before you commit budget to a PPC automation subscription.
