Amazon Sellers' Guide To Search Query Performance

For most Amazon sellers, optimizing a listing feels like a guessing game. You know you could be selling more, but you're not sure what to fix or why.

The truth is, every sale on Amazon is the result of two successful hurdles:

1. winning the click on the search results page (Click-Through Rate),

2. and then winning the purchase on your product page (Conversion Rate).

Most sellers fail at one of these stages without ever knowing which one it is. What if you could use Amazon's own powerful, first-party data to pinpoint the exact point of failure for your most important keywords?

This guide will walk you through the step-by-step process of using the Search Query Performance report—Amazon's best-kept secret—to scientifically diagnose and fix your listing for higher traffic, better conversion, and more sales.

Part 1: Acquiring Your Data

There are 2 way you can prepare necessary data and get them from Seller Central. Either manually downloading and cleaning them or automatically syncing them with Amazon Data Connector for Google Sheets. We'll the manual way, but you can speed up things and use the Connector instead to keep this data always up to date in your customer spreadsheet.

Step 1: Navigate to Brand Analytics

• Action: In your Amazon Seller Central account, click the main "hamburger menu" (☰) in the top-left corner. Navigate down to the "Brands" tab and click on "Brand Analytics."

Step 2: Access Search Query Performance

• Action: Once inside Brand Analytics, click on "Search Analytics." From there, select "Search Query Performance."

• Why it's important: You are now accessing the specific tool that provides market-level data. It reveals how all shoppers behave for specific search terms, allowing you to benchmark your product's performance against the entire market for any given keyword.

Step 3: Select Your Product and Timeframe

• Action:

  1. Go to the "ASIN View" tab.

  2. From the dropdown, choose your highest-selling product (ASIN).

  3. Switch to the "Monthly View" and select the most recently completed calendar month (e.g., since it's July 16th today, you would select "June").

  4. Click the "Apply" button.

• Why it's important:

  • Highest-Selling Product: Starting with your top seller ensures you have the most statistically significant data (more impressions, clicks, and sales). Improvements here will have the biggest impact on your overall revenue.

  • Completed Month: Using a full, completed month gives you a clean and comparable dataset, avoiding the noise and skewed data from an incomplete period.

Step 4: Download the Data

• Action: Click the "Generate Download" button. A download manager will appear. Once the file is ready, click "Download."

• Why it's important: This exports the raw data from Amazon's interface. To make it truly useful, you need to manipulate it, which is best done in a spreadsheet program.

Step 5: Import Data into a Spreadsheet

• Action: Open a new Google Sheet or Excel file. Use the "Import" function (File > Import) to upload the data file you just downloaded.

• Why it's important: This is a crucial step. The spreadsheet environment allows you to add your own formulas to calculate the key metrics that Amazon doesn't provide directly, which is the foundation of this entire analysis.

Part 2: Processing and Diagnosing

Step 6: Calculate Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Action: In your spreadsheet, create new columns to calculate these four essential rates for each keyword:

  1. Market Click-Through Rate (CTR): Formula: Total Clicks / Total Impressions

  2. Your Brand's CTR: Formula: Brand Count of Clicks / Brand Count of Impressions

  3. Market Conversion Rate (CR): Formula: Total Purchases / Total Clicks

  4. Your Brand's CR: Formula: Brand Count of Purchases / Brand Count of Clicks

• What this data means:

  • Market CTR & CR: These are your benchmarks. They represent the average performance of all products for that specific search term.

  • Your Brand's CTR & CR: This is your actual performance. The magic happens when you compare your numbers to the market average.

Step 7: Analyze and Formulate a Hypothesis

• Action: Focus on your top ~20 keywords by search volume. For each one, compare your brand's rates to the market's to diagnose the problem.

• How to diagnose:

  • If YOUR CTR is lower than the Market CTR: You have a Click-Through Problem. Shoppers see your product on the search page but are clicking on competitors more often. The issue is your first impression: your main image, title, price, or review star rating. The main image is the most common culprit.

    • Hypothesis Example: "For the keyword 'jar opener', my CTR is 7% while the market is 16%. My hypothesis is that my main image doesn't clearly show the product in use, while competitors' images do."

  • If YOUR CR is lower than the Market CR: You have a Conversion Problem. You successfully earned the click, but your product detail page failed to convince the shopper to buy. The issue is with your listing content: secondary images, A+ Content, bullet points, video, or negative reviews.Your page isn't answering the question the shopper had in mind when they searched.

    • Hypothesis Example: "For the keyword 'jar opener for seniors', my CR is 12% while the market is 30%. My hypothesis is that my listing content doesn't have images or text that specifically highlights ease of use for people with weak hands."

Part 3: Experimentation and Improvement

Step 8: Develop and Execute Experiments

• Action: Based on your diagnosis, create and test a new asset.

  • For a CTR problem: Ideate and create variations of your main image. For example: add a hand, show a different angle, use a rendered image, add an infographic element, or show the product in action.

  • For a CR problem: Ideate and create variations of your A+ Content or secondary images. For example: add a comparison chart, add lifestyle images showing the use case, or create an image that addresses a common negative review.

• Execution: Use Amazon's "Manage Your Experiments" tool to run an A/B split test on your new asset.

• Why it's important: Don't guess. A/B testing is the only way to scientifically prove that your change actually improves performance. It removes emotion and opinion and replaces them with data.

Step 9: Monitor Your Results

• Action: Let the experiment run until Amazon declares a winner (when it reaches statistical significance). Once a winner is chosen, apply it. Then, after a few weeks, pull this same report again.

• Why it's important: This closes the feedback loop. You can now check the Search Query Performance data for the keywords you targeted and see if your CTR or CR has improved, confirming that your data-driven change had the intended effect.

Final Thoughts

The most successful Amazon sellers operate like scientists, not gamblers. By embracing this data-driven process, you move away from making hopeful guesses and toward making strategic, informed decisions. This framework isn't a one-time fix; it's a continuous improvement loop that allows you to systematically strengthen your listing against the competition, one keyword at a time. The data is waiting for you in your Seller Central account. It's time to put it to work.