Amazon Brand Analytics: Using Search Catalog Performance to Drive Product Decisions

The Search Catalog Performance report, accessible through Brand Analytics in Seller Central, provides a unified view of how your products perform across the entire Amazon search funnel: impressions, clicks, cart adds, and purchases. Unlike the legacy Amazon Search Terms report which only showed search frequency rank and click share for the top 3 ASINs, the Search Catalog Performance report shows your brand's actual metrics at each funnel stage for every search term that triggered an impression of your product. This report was expanded in January 2025 to include 90-day rolling data and weekly granularity, making it the most comprehensive organic search performance tool available to brand-registered sellers.

The report contains six core metrics per search term and ASIN combination: impressions (how many times your product appeared in search results), clicks (how many times shoppers clicked through to your listing), cart adds (how many shoppers added your product to cart after viewing it), purchases (completed transactions), click-through rate (clicks divided by impressions), and purchase rate (purchases divided by clicks). Each metric is shown as both an absolute number and a brand share percentage, allowing you to benchmark your performance against the total search volume for that term. A brand with 5 percent click share on a search term generating 100,000 monthly searches receives approximately 5,000 clicks from that term alone.

The strategic value of this report lies in identifying search terms where your funnel has specific bottlenecks. A search term with high impressions but low click-through rate indicates a listing presentation problem: your title, main image, price, or review count are not compelling enough compared to competitors appearing for that term. A search term with high click-through rate but low purchase rate indicates a listing content problem: shoppers are interested enough to click but not convinced enough to buy after reading your detail page. A search term with high cart-add rate but low purchase rate indicates a pricing or trust problem: shoppers want the product but hesitate at checkout, possibly due to price comparison or shipping time concerns.

To access the report, navigate to Seller Central, click Brands in the left menu, then Brand Analytics, then Search Catalog Performance. You must be enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry to access Brand Analytics. The report defaults to a weekly view for the current ASIN but can be filtered by date range (weekly or monthly), search term, ASIN, or brand. Export the data as a CSV file for deeper analysis in a spreadsheet. Taiwan brands should establish a weekly cadence of reviewing this report, focusing on the top 50 search terms by impression volume and flagging any terms where click share or purchase share declined by more than 2 percentage points week-over-week.

The most actionable use of the Search Catalog Performance report is identifying search terms where you have high impressions but low click share relative to competitors. These are terms where Amazon's algorithm considers your product relevant (giving you impressions) but shoppers are choosing competitor listings instead of yours. Pull the top 100 search terms by impression count, sort by click-through rate ascending, and examine the bottom quartile. For each of these underperforming terms, search for the term on Amazon and compare your listing's main image, title, price, review count, and rating against the top 3 results. Specific changes to match or exceed competitor presentation on these terms can generate immediate click share gains.

Search terms where you have zero impressions but competitors in your category are ranking represent the largest growth opportunity. To find these gaps, cross-reference the Search Catalog Performance report with the Brand Analytics Top Search Terms report. The Top Search Terms report shows the top 3 clicked ASINs for every popular search term on Amazon, regardless of whether your product appears. If a search term relevant to your product shows competitor ASINs but not yours, your listing is either not indexed for that term or not ranking high enough to earn impressions. Address this by adding the search term to your product's backend search terms field and creating a Sponsored Products campaign targeting that exact term to force initial visibility.

Conversion share analysis reveals which search terms generate the most revenue for your brand. Sort the report by purchase count descending to identify your top 20 revenue-generating search terms. These are your brand's most valuable keywords and should receive the highest PPC bid priority, the most aggressive organic ranking efforts, and ongoing monitoring for competitive encroachment. If a competitor's click share on one of your top 20 terms increases by more than 3 percentage points in a single week, investigate immediately. They may have launched a promotion, updated their listing, or started an aggressive advertising campaign targeting your best-performing terms.

Long-tail search term opportunities are often overlooked in Brand Analytics analysis. Search terms with fewer than 5,000 monthly impressions rarely appear in competitive analyses but collectively can represent 40 to 60 percent of total category search volume. Filter the Search Catalog Performance report for terms with 1,000 to 5,000 impressions and a purchase rate above 15 percent. These are high-intent, low-competition terms where a single listing optimization or small PPC investment can capture dominant share. Create a tracking spreadsheet of these terms and monitor their performance monthly, expanding your presence on any term that grows above 5,000 monthly impressions.

When the data shows high impressions but low click-through rate (below 1.5 percent), focus on the elements visible in search results: main image, title, price, review count, and Prime badge. The main image is the single largest driver of click-through rate, accounting for an estimated 60 to 70 percent of the click decision in search results. Audit your main image against the top 3 competitors for each underperforming search term. Common main image improvements include increasing the product size within the image frame to at least 85 percent fill, adding visible packaging or product features that differentiate from competitors, and ensuring the image is at least 2000 x 2000 pixels for zoom functionality.

When the data shows good click-through rate but low purchase rate (below 8 percent for most categories), the problem is on your product detail page. Shoppers are interested enough to click but not convinced enough to buy. Audit your listing content systematically: are your bullet points addressing the specific search terms that drive traffic? Do your A+ Content modules answer common objections visible in competitor negative reviews? Is your pricing competitive within a 10 percent range of the top 3 listings for each high-traffic term? Purchase rate optimization requires understanding why shoppers leave your page without buying, which you can supplement with Brand Analytics Customer Loyalty Analytics for repeat purchase behavior data.

When cart-add rates are healthy but purchase rates lag, the issue is typically price sensitivity or shipping concerns. Shoppers who add to cart but do not complete purchase are either comparison shopping (adding multiple competing products to cart and buying only one) or waiting for a price drop. Implement a Subscribe and Save offer to capture price-sensitive buyers with a 5 to 15 percent discount on recurring purchases. Run a 7-day coupon (10 to 20 percent off) targeted at search terms with high cart-add but low purchase rates, then measure whether the conversion gap closes during the promotion period. If it does, your regular price point may need adjustment.

Build a systematic optimization workflow around the Search Catalog Performance report. Every Monday, export the previous week's data. Compare click share, click-through rate, and purchase rate for your top 50 terms against the prior week. Flag any term where any metric declined by more than 2 percentage points. Investigate flagged terms by Wednesday, implementing listing changes or PPC adjustments by Friday. This weekly cadence ensures you catch and respond to competitive moves within 5 to 7 days rather than discovering problems during monthly business reviews when the damage has already accumulated over weeks.

The Search Catalog Performance report directly informs PPC campaign structure by identifying which search terms deliver organic impressions and which require paid support. Terms where your organic click share exceeds 15 percent are candidates for reduced PPC spending because you already have strong organic visibility. Redirect that PPC budget to terms where organic impressions are low but the report shows high purchase rates when shoppers do find your product. This reallocation strategy typically improves total advertising cost of sales (TACoS) by 15 to 25 percent within 60 days because you are spending on terms that need the boost rather than reinforcing terms where you already dominate.

Create three distinct PPC campaign segments based on Brand Analytics data. The first segment targets your top 20 revenue-generating search terms with aggressive bids set at 120 to 150 percent of suggested bid to defend market share. The second segment targets terms with high impressions but low click share, using moderate bids at 80 to 100 percent of suggested bid to gain incremental visibility while you optimize listing content. The third segment targets long-tail terms with high purchase rates but low total volume, using exact match campaigns at 60 to 80 percent of suggested bid to capture high-intent shoppers at low cost.

Sponsored Brands campaigns benefit from Brand Analytics insights by revealing which search terms drive category-level shopping behavior. If the Search Catalog Performance report shows that shoppers searching for a broad category term (such as "collagen supplement") click on multiple brands before purchasing, a Sponsored Brands headline ad on that term can capture the initial click and direct traffic to your Brand Store, where you control the entire shopping experience. Budget 20 to 30 percent of your total PPC spend on Sponsored Brands for your top 10 broad category terms, and measure the Store visit-to-purchase rate through the Brand Store Insights dashboard.

Track the interaction between organic and paid performance over time using a combined dashboard. Export Search Catalog Performance data (organic metrics) and PPC campaign reports (paid metrics) weekly, merging them on the search term field. Calculate total share of voice (organic click share plus sponsored click share) for each term. Your goal is to achieve at least 30 percent total share of voice on your top 20 terms, with at least half coming from organic to maintain profitability. When organic click share increases on a term, gradually reduce PPC bids for that term and reallocate budget to terms where organic performance is still developing.