Every insight that you can gather regarding Amazon shoppers’ behaviour represents an opportunity to refine and improve your campaign performance.
Before early 2022, gaining an understanding about how shoppers search and discover your products was a much more complex task. Thankfully, that changed with the launch of the ultra-powerful Amazon Search Query Performance dashboard.
This sophisticated, highly useful analytics tool, it’s an indispensable weapon for Amazon brands and sellers. It enables you to dig deeper than ever before into behavioural and performance data. It’s hard to overstate what a game changer this is, and how much of a difference this data can make in the building of tightly honed, performance-driven campaigns. Let’s take a look.
What is Amazon Search Query Performance?
In a nutshell, the Search Query Performance Dashboard is an analytics tool. It tracks the performance of search terms across the sales funnel. Happily, this data covers both organic search performance and sponsored ads, so you can gain a big picture overview in one place, without having to splice together multiple different reports and data sets.
In terms of brand analytics, Amazon Search Query Performance is extensive. It tracks a range of data points. These include the following metrics:
- Search query volume
- Total impressions
- Brand share
- Clicks
- Average price
- Cart Ads
- Purchases
Another huge plus in favour of the Search Query Performance Dashboard, over and above search funnel data, is that it allows for competitor comparison to be performed. This gives an added layer of context to your own raw performance data so you can better benchmark how you’re performing and understand where you sit in the pack.
The dashboard offers a choice of views, so you can analyse sales funnel data in a way that is most useful to your campaign and objectives:
- Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) View: This view displays the performance of top search queries at the ASIN level.
- Brand View: This view shows search query performance for all your brand’s products.
It’s important to note that Search Query Performance data relates specifically to search results pages. It doesn’t factor in data from other sources, such as Top Rated or any shopper activity taking place on product information pages.
Eligibility
Access to Search Query Performance isn’t open to all. Currently, this dashboard is restricted to those sellers who are registered brands. To access the dashboard, you must be a designated person responsible for selling the brand’s products on Amazon.
You’ll also need to be signed into the primary Seller Central account for the brand you wish to access Search Query Performance data for, and have Brand Analytics access enabled by the brand owner.
If you aren’t already a recognised brand seller, you’ll first need to apply to join the Amazon Brand Registry. This can be a lengthy process, requiring you to provide information such as your registered trademark to Amazon for review.
Brand Registry members can access the Search Query Performance dashboard by logging into Amazon Seller Central, clicking on the ‘Brands’ tab and then selecting ‘Brand Analytics’.
Using the Search Query Performance Dashboard
Using the Search Query Performance Dashboard is your gateway to understanding how Amazon shoppers discover your products.
According to Amazon’s Avi Ravi, “These dashboards give brands insights on catalogue performance and how customers find your products in Amazon search results.
“The search catalogue performance dashboard and search query performance dashboard can help you better understand your sales funnel at the brand and product level by identifying conversion issues or drop-off points where you may be losing customer attention. This data can help you make business decisions quickly and optimise your product listings or marketing campaigns as necessary.”
When you first log in, you’ll be automatically presented with the brand view. If you want to access the ASIN view, just click the tab to the top left of the screen. You can move between these two views as needed.
As you’d expect from a well-designed analytics tool, you can customise how your data is presented. Clicking on ‘Customised Columns’ gives you the option to add and remove report metrics so you can tailor the information displayed to better suit your area of interest.
The search query data covers the entirety of the Search Funnel, from impressions and clicks to cart adds and purchases.
Available Metrics
The search query performance report is exhaustive and offers up an abundance of metrics to analyse and digest. You can track those metrics back for a period of up to two years, and for the top 1000 search queries related to your brand or ASINs.
Search Query Score
If you’ve been running Amazon advertising campaigns for a while, you’ll need an introduction to keywords. However, search query is a slightly different prospect – though it does intersect often with your ad campaign keywords. Simply put, a search query is the phrase that the Amazon user enters in the search bar on the marketplace.
The Search Query Score metric organises search terms in performance order, from the top performer to the worst. This is an invaluable metric for advertisers, as it can help you to identify top performing keywords to add to your campaign to grow conversions and sales.
Search Query Volume
There’s no doubt that search queries overlap heavily with your own keyword lists, but for performance data purposes, the search query volume metric is simply the number of times a particular search term was entered into the search bar by Amazon’s shoppers in your specified time period.
Again, search volume is a helpful piece of search data as it tells you what buyers are most frequently entering into Amazon. You can use this insight to aid in your keyword strategy, create more relevant ad copy, enhance product descriptions, and refine your bidding strategy.
Impressions
When a shopper inputs a search query, a results page is triggered. The number of products displayed on that results page is classified as the number of impressions.
In addition to telling you the total number of products displayed on the search page for the specific search query, search analytics will also tell you how many of those impressions (results for that search query) are for your brand, and what percentage of those results overall are for your brand (your brand share of those impressions).
The impressions metric is available across the analytics dashboard, whether you’re looking at the brand view or the ASIN view.
- Total Count: The number of products appearing for the search query.
- Brand Count: Total number of impressions from the brand’s total inventory for this search query.
- Brand Share: Percentage share of impressions for the brand, versus the overall number of products displayed.
- ASIN Count: The total number of ASIN impressions for the given query.
- ASIN Share: Percentage share of impressions for the ASIN.
Clicks
Clicks track an important element of search behaviour and the shopping journey. It tells you how many times a shopper clicks on a product in the search results after entering a search query. The clicks data will tell you how many times the shopper clicks on product results in total, how many of those clicks are to your products and what your share of total clicks is.
The performance data also goes a little deeper to add more context into motivators behind those clicks. For example, you can correlate clicks with shipping speed to understand how many times clicks were directed at products with a same-day, one day or two-day shipping option.
- Total Count: The number of products clicked in the search results for that query.
- Brand Count: Total number of clicks on brand’s own products for the given search query.
- Brand Share: Percentage share of clicks won by the brand.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): The total number of clicks divided by the number of products served overall on the results page for the given search query.
- ASIN Count: The total number of clicks per ASIN.
- ASIN Share: Percentage share of overall search result clicks for the ASIN.
- Same-Day Shipping: Number of times the ASIN is clicked where search results include same-day shipping option.
- One-Day Shipping: The number of clicks received where one-day shipping is available.
- Two-Day Shipping: The number of clicks on products with a two-day shipping option in the search results.
Cart Adds
Add to cart data is also comprehensively covered. As the name suggests, this metric tells you how many times a shopper clicked to add to cart after conducting a product search. Add to carts data points closely mirror clicks data. That means you can see add to cart activity in line with shipping speed (same day, one day and two day shipping options) along with your own brand share and brand count.
- Total Count: The number of products added to cart from a particular search query.
- Brand Count: The overall number of the brand’s products that were added to cart after a particular search query.
- Brand Share: The percentage of the brand’s products added to cart for a search term, relative to the overall number of products added to cart.
- Cart Add Rate: The total number of cart adds for the search query’s volume.
- ASIN Count: The number of times an individual product was added to cart for the given search term.
- ASIN Share: The individual’s products percentage share of cart adds.
- Same-Day Shipping: Number of times the product was added to cart where search results include same-day shipping option.
- One-Day Shipping: The number of adds received where one-day shipping is available.
- Two-Day Shipping: The number of adds to cart made with a two-day shipping option.
Purchases
For those serious about truly understanding shopper behaviour, Amazon differentiates between add to cart and completed purchases directly on the Search Performance Query analytics dashboard. Again, this data can be further broken down across the funnel. Metrics include total purchases made for the search query, the number of purchases from the brand’s inventory for a particular query, and brand share of total purchases made for that search query.
If you’re analysing performance on an ASIN level, you can see the number of purchases for the selected ASIN, along with that ASIN’s share of total purchases.
- Total Count: The overall number of purchases made for this search query.
- Purchase Rate: The total number of purchases made relative to search volume.
- Brand Count: Total number of purchases for the brand from this search query.
- Brand Share: Percentage of all purchases achieved by the brand for this search query.
- ASIN Count: The number of purchases for the specific product for the given search query.
- ASIN Share: Percentage share of overall purchases for the specific product for the given search query.
- Same-Day Shipping: Number of times the product was purchased where search results include same-day shipping option.
- One-Day Shipping: The number of purchases made where one-day shipping is available.
- Two-Day Shipping: The number of purchases made with a two-day shipping option.
Data Timeframes
Your analytics dashboard gives you the option to define your required data range. You can go back a maximum of two years. Setting such a lengthy window will give you an overall idea of search behaviour. However, for more meaningful data and a much clearer picture of current trends and behaviours, it’s often advisable to look at a shorter, more recent timeframe such as seven days or 30 days.
Advantages of Using SQP
Data directly translates to knowledge for Amazon advertisers and sellers. The vast array of data that SQP gives access to across the search funnel means it’s a pool of insight and when leveraged correctly, can seriously boost your campaign optimisation and performance.
Identify Top Keywords
Amazon Search Performance data is built around search behaviour. It is designed to tell you which actions are associated with search queries and helps you to track outcomes including clicks, adds to cart and purchases. This conversion and performance data can be used to pinpoint the best performing keywords – those that lead to more clicks and more purchases – to base your ad campaigns on.
Funnel Optimisation
Your SQP data can also be used for funnel optimisation. The analytics dashboard provides useful brand and product level insight so you can see where your funnel is working well and where potential sales are slipping through the gaps. A low click through rate suggests that shoppers aren’t compelled to click through to see more about a product. With that knowledge, you could take steps to create a more attractive product title or summary.
A low add to cart rate means that your product descriptions aren’t compelling. Using that knowledge, and the search query volumes data, you can work on the product detail page to make it more compelling and better reflect the best performing search queries.
Share of Voice
Share of voice tells you how often your brand or products are appearing in search results. A low share of voice suggests a low level of visibility. That’s a direct sign that you need to work to improve your rankings by taking steps such as focusing on A+ content creation, listing optimisation, growing your review profile and better understanding the A9 algorithm.
Competitor Search Terms
Knowing your competition is crucial to maximising your own sales performance on Amazon. You can use your SQP dashboard to see who your top competitors are and benchmark your own performance against them, so you can see where improvements are needed to move ahead.
Extracting SQP Data
Amazon doesn’t currently allow for search performance data to be exported so you’ll need to work within the Amazon analytics dashboard for now.
Identifying Keyword Cannibalisation
It’s almost inevitable that you’ll have some overlap of keywords as an Amazon advertiser. When you have multiple campaigns on the go, keyword cannibalisation could see you bidding on the same keywords for the same products across a number of different ad groups.
When you have hundreds of products and dozens upon dozens of ad groups, many of which are using the same keywords, you’ll almost certainly take a performance hit. A secondary issue is that your data won’t be as clean and as useful as you would like, which can make data-driven decision making difficult.
Search Query Performance data makes it easier to see where commonalities exist between search queries and returned products. From there, you can work to ensure that competing products aren’t working against each other by considering other, relevant keywords.
Getting Started
Amazon’s Search Query Performance is a powerful analytical tool offering an enormous amount of insight into the search funnel and shopper behaviour. Knowing how to derive meaning from the data and translate that insight into meaningful action can be hugely challenging. If you’d like support in using SQP data to optimise your Amazon performance, get in touch with our team today.
