Amazon's Search Query Performance report contains some of the most valuable data available to brand owners, but most sellers barely scratch the surface. This guide shows you how to use Claude with a dedicated analytical skill to turn a raw SQP export into a full funnel diagnostic, competitive intelligence brief, and keyword strategy in a single session. Discover a deep dive on Amazon marketing strategy for DTCs.
What the Amazon Search Query Performance report is
The Search Query Performance (SQP) report is available to brand-registered sellers through Amazon Brand Analytics in Seller Central. It tracks how shoppers find your products through organic and paid search, covering every stage of the purchase funnel: impressions, clicks, add-to-cart events, and purchases — all segmented by individual search query.
That means for every keyword that generated any activity on your listings, you can see exactly where shoppers engaged and where they dropped off. That is an extraordinarily rich dataset. The problem is that the raw CSV is dense, technical, and full of metrics that look straightforward but are easy to misinterpret if you do not understand their specific definitions and limitations.
Most sellers open the export, look at the top queries by impression volume, and move on. What they miss is the funnel efficiency story buried inside, the queries where your click-through rate is strong but conversions collapse, the keywords where competitors are capturing a disproportionate share of purchases despite similar impression counts, and the branded terms where you are quietly losing ground.
With the right analytical framework applied through Claude Cowork, you can surface all of that in a structured, actionable format, without building custom spreadsheet models or hiring an analyst.
A note on the report export
Amazon shows 21 of 33 available columns by default. Before exporting, open the column settings in the report view and enable all available columns. Missing columns, particularly Price Median and Shipping Speed, llimit what the skill can diagnose. It is much easier to check this before running the analysis than to re-export afterward.
What the SQP Deep Analysis skill does
Without a structured framework, asking an AI to analyze an SQP export will produce a generic summary of the numbers, useful for orientation, but not actionable enough to drive decisions. The SQP Deep Analysis skill is an analytical framework that tells Claude exactly how to work through your data, what derived metrics to calculate, and how to structure the output.
The skill runs five analytical layers plus a final output layer:
Branded vs unbranded segmentation
Every query is classified as branded, competitor, or unbranded. Claude then produces a brand health assessment, flagging over-reliance on existing brand awareness, competitor bidding on your brand terms, and erosion of unbranded visibility.
ICAP funnel diagnostic
For each top unbranded query, Claude walks the impression-to-click-to-cart-to-purchase funnel, calculates CTR Index, CVR Index, and Funnel Efficiency, then assigns a diagnosis category and priority level.
Share gap analysis
Compares your brand's share at each funnel stage against the market average, identifying where you are outperforming and where competitors are capturing disproportionate purchase share despite comparable visibility.
Keyword strategy bucketing
Every keyword is sorted into one of four action buckets, Defend, Growth, Kill, or Monitor, each with specific PPC and SEO action items.
Strategic summary report
A client-ready output with an executive overview, performance scorecard, and prioritized top-five action list, written for non-technical readers, not just analysts.
The skill also keeps Claude calibrated to the known quirks of SQP data: the 24-hour attribution window, the structural reason why SQP purchase totals will never match your Seller Central sales report, and the per-ASIN ceiling on impression share. These guardrails prevent the most common misinterpretations teams make when reading this data without context.
Understanding the four keyword strategy buckets
Step-by-step setup and analysis walkthrough
Phase 01: Prep Your Directory and Export the Data
First, create a designated home for your data on your computer—for example, a folder titled "Search Query Hub" tucked inside your main Amazon brand directory. Navigate to Seller Central > Brand Analytics and locate the Search Query Performance section. Choose your specific ASIN or the full brand view, select your date range, and export the file as a CSV. Save this directly into your newly created folder.
Pro Tip: Don't settle for the default view. Open the column selector and enable all 33 columns. Amazon hides about 12 of these by default, and while the analysis skill can work with less, having the full dataset (including Price Median and Shipping Speed) provides a much sharper diagnostic.
Phase 02: Grant Claude Cowork Scoped Access
Open Claude Cowork and point it specifically toward your SQP folder. We recommend folder-level access—it’s the "Goldilocks" of permissions: enough to let Claude do its job, but not so much that it's browsing your entire hard drive. Go to Cowork’s file access settings, click Add Folder, and select your directory to confirm.
Phase 03: Activate the Deep Analysis Engine
Download the dedicated skill file and follow the standard installation prompts within Claude. This is a "one-and-done" step. Once installed, Claude becomes context-aware; it will automatically recognize the structure of an SQP export and trigger the specialized analytical framework without you needing to explain the math every single time.
Phase 04: Run the analysis
To begin your evaluation, start a fresh session in Claude Cowork and provide a starting instruction like this:
"I've uploaded the Amazon Search Query Performance file to the SQP Reports directory. The brand is [BRAND NAME]. Conduct a comprehensive SQP audit. My primary rivals include [COMPETITOR 1] and [COMPETITOR 2]."
Once you send this, the AI will scan the folder for your data, confirm the information is accurate, and process each phase of the investigation. For most standard files containing up to a few thousand search terms, the system typically completes the full workflow within a few minutes.
Pro Tip: If you are short on time, you can request a high-level "snapshot" first. Ask for an overview of brand health and the ten most critical funnel bottlenecks to get immediate insights before requesting the exhaustive deep-dive.
Phase 05: Review and act on the output
The output is organized into modular segments, allowing you to follow the intended sequence or jump straight to the most urgent tasks.
- Strategic Summary: Start here if you have a team meeting coming up or just need a prioritized "to-do" list.
- ICAP Funnel Diagnostic: Use this when you need to troubleshoot exactly where shoppers are dropping off for specific keywords.
- Share Gap Analysis: This section maps out competitive threats and identifies "low-hanging fruit" growth opportunities.
- Keyword Strategy Buckets: These categories are designed to be imported directly into your PPC management routine for immediate implementation.
Every recommendation provided is anchored in hard metrics and designed for execution within a seven-day window. This ensures you receive a concrete tactical playbook rather than vague, directional advice that requires more meetings to decipher.
Going further: cross-channel tracking with Admetrics
The SQP report gives you a detailed view of what happens inside Amazon's search environment, but it does not show you how your Amazon performance connects to your broader paid media ecosystem. If you are running Meta, Google, TikTok, or other paid channels alongside your Amazon advertising, understanding the cross-channel contribution to Amazon sales is a meaningful gap in most brand reporting stacks.
Admetrics is a marketing analytics platform that addresses this directly. Its Amazon integration pulls in your Amazon Advertising data alongside your other paid channels, giving you a unified view of spend, attributed revenue, and ROAS across the full media mix. This makes it possible to understand, for example, how Meta prospecting spend contributes to branded search volume on Amazon, or how Google Shopping activity correlates with Amazon conversion rate shifts on high-intent category terms.
For teams running the SQP analysis described in this guide, Admetrics adds a layer of context that the SQP report alone cannot provide: it connects the on-Amazon keyword-level funnel story to the off-Amazon spend decisions that are driving traffic in the first place. Used together, the two tools give brand and media teams a more complete picture of where budget is actually driving profitable growth, and where Amazon search performance is being influenced by channels that do not show up in Brand Analytics at all. Start your free trial today.
Key Amazon advertising and analytics terms explained
Search Query Performance (SQP) report An Amazon Brand Analytics report available to brand-registered sellers that shows how shoppers engage with their products through search queries, covering impressions, clicks, add-to-cart events, and purchases at the individual keyword level.
Brand Analytics A suite of data tools inside Amazon Seller Central available to brand-registered sellers. It includes the SQP report, search frequency rank data, demographic insights, and market basket analysis, among others.
ICAP funnel The four-stage purchase funnel measured by the SQP report: Impressions (how often your product appeared in search results), Clicks (how often a shopper clicked through), Add-to-Cart (how often shoppers added your product to their cart), and Purchases (completed transactions). Each stage can be analyzed independently to identify where drop-off is occurring.
CTR (click-through rate) The percentage of shoppers who saw your product in search results and clicked through to the listing. Calculated as clicks divided by impressions. A low CTR typically signals a problem with your main image, title, price, or review count relative to competing results.
CVR (conversion rate) The percentage of shoppers who clicked your listing and completed a purchase. Calculated as purchases divided by clicks. A low CVR typically points to issues with the product detail page: pricing, images, bullet points, reviews, or a mismatch between the search intent and the product itself.
Impression share The percentage of total search impressions for a given query that your brand captured, compared to the total impressions available across all brands. A meaningful signal of visibility relative to competitors for that term.
Purchase share The percentage of total purchases generated by a search query that your brand captured. When your purchase share is significantly lower than your impression share, it indicates that competitors are converting at a higher rate, a key signal for the Share Gap Analysis.
ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) Amazon's unique identifier for each product listed on the platform. Each variant or SKU typically has its own ASIN. The SQP report can be run at the brand level or filtered to individual ASINs.
PPC (pay-per-click) advertising Amazon's sponsored advertising system, which includes Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display ads. Advertisers bid on keywords and pay only when a shopper clicks. The SQP report informs PPC keyword strategy by revealing which search terms are driving organic and paid engagement.
ROAS (return on ad spend) Revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising. A ROAS of 4x means $4 in revenue was attributed for every $1 spent. A core efficiency metric for evaluating both Amazon PPC and cross-channel media investment.
Attribution window The time period within which a purchase is attributed to a specific ad click or search interaction. The SQP report uses a 24-hour attribution window, meaning only purchases that occur within 24 hours of the search interaction are counted. This is shorter than the default Amazon PPC attribution window, which is why SQP purchase totals will always be lower than Seller Central sales totals for the same period.
Branded vs unbranded queries Branded queries include your brand name in the search term (e.g., "BrandName protein powder"). Unbranded queries are category-level searches with no brand reference (e.g., "whey protein powder"). Unbranded performance is generally a stronger signal of organic discoverability and market share growth.
Conclusion
The Search Query Performance report is a goldmine, but without a structured way to dig through it, it’s just another CSV sitting in your downloads folder.
By leveraging Claude Cowork and a dedicated analytical framework, you effectively move from "guessing" to "knowing." You stop wondering why a specific ASIN is stalling and start seeing the exact friction points in the ICAP funnel. More importantly, when you anchor these search-level insights with Admetrics’ cross-channel tracking, you finally close the loop between your off-Amazon spend and your on-Amazon results.
The takeaway is simple: Stop acting like a data entry clerk and start acting like a strategist. Automate the diagnostic, identify your share gaps, and use your newfound bandwidth to build the creative and PPC campaigns that your competitors aren't even dreaming of yet. Your market share is waiting,go claim it.
Frequently asked questions
Who can access the Search Query Performance report?
The SQP report is available to brand-registered sellers and vendors on Amazon. You need an active Brand Registry enrollment to access Brand Analytics in Seller Central, which is where the report lives.
Why does my SQP purchase total not match my Seller Central sales figures?
This is by design and is one of the most common sources of confusion with SQP data. The report uses a 24-hour attribution window, meaning only purchases that happen within 24 hours of the search interaction are counted. Amazon's standard sales reports use different attribution logic. The two figures will never match exactly, and that discrepancy is not an error.
What date range should I use when exporting the SQP report?
For a strategic analysis, a rolling 30-day or 60-day window gives enough volume to identify meaningful patterns without being distorted by a single promotional event. For a weekly operational review, a 7-day or 14-day window is more responsive. Avoid very short windows (under 7 days) for strategic decisions — low-volume queries will produce noisy metrics.
What is the difference between the brand-level and ASIN-level SQP views?
The brand-level view aggregates all queries and performance data across your entire catalog. The ASIN-level view filters results to a single product. Brand-level is better for strategic and competitive analysis. ASIN-level is more useful when diagnosing conversion problems on a specific product or building out a targeted keyword list for a single listing.
Do I need to be technical to use Claude Cowork for this analysis?
No. The setup requires following a few configuration steps (creating a folder, granting file access, installing the skill), but the analysis itself runs from a plain-language prompt. You do not need to write formulas, build pivot tables, or understand the underlying data structure. The skill handles the analytical framework; you read and act on the output.
How often should I run this analysis?
For actively managed brands with ongoing PPC campaigns, a monthly cadence is a reasonable baseline — aligned with your campaign review cycle. If you have recently made significant changes to bids, listings, or pricing, running the analysis two to three weeks after those changes gives enough time for the data to reflect their impact.
Can I use this analysis to improve my organic Amazon SEO, not just PPC?
Yes, and this is one of the most underused applications of SQP data. The keyword strategy buckets and funnel diagnostic surfaces high-intent queries where your organic ranking could be improved through listing optimization — updating titles, bullet points, and backend search terms to better match the language shoppers are actually using. The share gap analysis is particularly useful here, as it shows which queries are generating impressions but failing to convert, which often points to listing content mismatches.
What is a Share Gap, and why does it matter?
A share gap exists when your brand's purchase share for a query is significantly lower than your impression share for the same query. It means you are getting seen but not chosen — competitors are converting at a higher rate despite similar visibility. Share gaps represent high-priority optimization opportunities because the traffic is already there; the problem is on-page, not off-page.
How does the ICAP funnel differ from a standard sales funnel?
The ICAP funnel is Amazon-specific and measured entirely within the search experience. It captures what happens from the moment a shopper types a query to the point of purchase, using Amazon's own engagement data. A standard marketing funnel typically spans awareness through retention across multiple channels and touchpoints. ICAP gives you a granular, keyword-level view of conversion efficiency inside Amazon's search environment specifically.
Can this analysis help with new product launches?
Significantly. For a new ASIN, the SQP report reveals which search terms are already generating impressions and clicks, even when purchase volume is still low. This informs early keyword targeting decisions and helps you prioritize which queries to bid on aggressively and which to monitor. The brand health segmentation is also useful at launch for understanding how much of your early traffic is coming from branded versus unbranded searches — a useful indicator of whether your off-Amazon marketing is driving Amazon search intent.
