Amazon Search Query Performance Report: The Data Your PPC Dashboard Doesn't Show (2026)

Most sellers only ever look at keyword performance through one lens: their own Sponsored Products Search Term Report. That report tells you how a keyword performed for your ads — your impressions, your clicks, your spend, your sales. What it can never tell you is how big the keyword actually is, or how much of it you're missing. For that, you need a report most sellers with Brand Registry have access to and almost never open: the Search Query Performance report.

This report sits inside Brand Analytics and shows the entire search funnel for a keyword across the whole of Amazon — every seller, every ASIN, organic and paid combined. This guide explains what it shows, how it's different from what your ads dashboard already gives you, and how to turn it into concrete PPC and listing decisions.

What Is the Search Query Performance Report?

Search Query Performance (SQP) is a Brand Analytics report that shows, for any search term, the total volume of impressions, clicks, cart adds and purchases across every product Amazon showed for that search — not just yours. It then breaks out your ASIN's share of each of those totals. In other words, it answers a question your ads data can't: out of everyone who searched this term, what share of the clicks and sales did you actually capture, and what share went to competitors?

It replaced the older Search Term Report that used to live in Brand Analytics (a separate, now-retired report with a confusingly similar name to the Sponsored Products Search Term Report, which still exists and is a completely different thing). SQP is the current, more detailed version.

The distinction that trips people up: your Sponsored Products Search Term Report shows performance for your ads only, sourced from Advertising Console. The Brand Analytics Search Query Performance report shows the entire market for a search term — organic and paid, every seller — sourced from Amazon's search and purchase data. They answer different questions and neither replaces the other.

How to Access It

SQP requires Brand Registry. Once enrolled:

LocationSeller Central → Brands → Brand Analytics → Search Query Performance.

Level of detailAvailable at ASIN level or aggregated to brand level, for a chosen search term or as a bulk download across all terms tied to your catalogue.

Time rangeWeekly, monthly or quarterly views, so you can track a term's volume and your share of it over time rather than as a single snapshot.

Minimum thresholdAmazon suppresses rows with very low query volume to protect customer privacy, so ultra-niche long-tail terms may not appear even if you rank for them.

The Metrics That Actually Matter

Each search term in the report breaks down into a full funnel, and every stage after impressions is reported two ways: the total for the whole marketplace, and your ASIN's share of it.

Search Query Volume — total number of customers who searched that exact term during the period. This is real demand data, not a third-party tool's estimate.
Impression Share — the percentage of total impressions for that search term that your ASIN received. Low impression share on a high-volume, relevant term usually points to a visibility problem: weak organic rank, thin PPC coverage, or both.
Click Share — your share of total clicks for the term. If your impression share is healthy but click share lags behind it, your listing's main image, title or price is losing the click against competitors who are being shown.
Cart Add Share — your share of add-to-carts. A gap between click share and cart add share flags a listing page problem: images, bullets, reviews or price once the shopper has actually landed.
Purchase Share — your share of total purchases for the term. This is the number that ultimately matters, and comparing it against your click share shows whether you convert better or worse than the market average once someone lands on your listing versus a competitor's.

Read the funnel, not just the purchase number. A term where you hold 40% purchase share but only 15% impression share is a term you're winning on conversion but losing on visibility — the fix is more PPC coverage and better organic rank, not a listing rewrite. The reverse pattern (strong impressions, weak purchase share) points the other way: the traffic is there, the listing isn't closing it.

Turning SQP Data Into PPC Decisions

Find high-volume terms where your impression share is low

Pull the report for your core category terms and sort by Search Query Volume. Any high-volume term where your impression share sits well below your overall category average is underexposed demand — a strong candidate for a new exact-match campaign or a bid increase on an existing one.

Cross-reference against your Sponsored Products Search Term Report

If a term shows high total market volume in SQP but barely appears in your ads Search Term Report, you're simply not bidding on it, or your match type is too narrow to trigger on it. If it does appear in your ads data with decent spend but low impression share in SQP, your bid is too low to compete for the volume that exists.

Deprioritise terms where you already dominate

Terms where your purchase share is already 50%+ are terms you've largely won. Aggressive bidding here often just pays for sales you'd have earned organically anyway. Trim bids gradually and reallocate that budget to underexposed high-volume terms instead.

Watch share trends over time, not single snapshots

A term where your impression or purchase share is falling month over month, even with stable volume, signals a competitor gaining ground — often before it shows up as a dip in your own sales. Catching this in SQP gives you a head start on adjusting bids or refreshing creative.

Turning SQP Data Into Listing Decisions

Because SQP tracks the full funnel and not just clicks, it's one of the few data sources that can point you directly at whether a listing problem is about getting the click or converting it once you have it:

Impression share healthy, click share weak — test your main image and title against what's ranking above you for that term. Price is also worth checking; a gap here often means you're being outbid on shelf appeal or value perception before the shopper even opens your listing.
Click share healthy, cart add share weak — the shopper is landing on your page and leaving. Review your secondary images, bullet points and price against the term's intent, and check your review count and rating against competitors capturing that term.
Cart add share healthy, purchase share weak — shoppers are adding to cart but not completing. This often points to shipping speed (FBM vs FBA/Prime), stock availability, or price sensitivity at checkout rather than anything on the listing page itself.

SQP vs the Sponsored Products Search Term Report

These two reports get confused constantly because they sound almost identical. Used together, they cover the full picture:

Search Term Report (Advertising Console)Your ads only. Shows what search terms actually triggered your Sponsored Products ads, with your spend, clicks and sales against each. Tells you how your existing campaigns are performing.

Search Query Performance (Brand Analytics)The whole marketplace. Shows total demand for a term and your share of clicks and purchases against every seller who showed up for it. Tells you how big the opportunity is and where you stand against the market, whether or not you're currently advertising against it.

Use the Search Term Report to manage bids and negatives on keywords you're already targeting. Use SQP to find keywords you should be targeting, size the opportunity before you commit budget, and diagnose whether a weak keyword is a visibility problem or a conversion problem.

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Common Mistakes When Using SQP

Chasing every high-volume termNot every high-volume search is relevant to your product. Filter for genuine purchase intent and category fit before allocating budget, or you'll bid up irrelevant traffic.

Ignoring low-volume, high-share termsA term with modest volume where you already hold strong purchase share is often a profitable, low-competition keyword worth protecting with defensive bids, not one to overlook because the headline number is small.

Treating one month as a trendSearch volume swings with seasonality and promotions. Compare at least three periods before concluding a share shift is a real pattern rather than noise.

Only checking your own ASINsPull SQP for close competitor terms too (where volume data is available) to see where they're winning share you aren't — it's often the fastest way to spot a gap in your own targeting.

Never cross-checking against ad spendA term with strong purchase share and low ad spend against it might mean you're winning it organically and can hold back budget elsewhere — check before assuming more spend is always the answer.

Downloading it once and forgetting itSQP is only useful as an ongoing habit. A single pull tells you where you stand today; monthly tracking tells you whether your PPC and listing changes are actually moving the needle.

Common Questions About Search Query Performance

Do I need Brand Registry to see this report?

Yes. Search Query Performance lives inside Brand Analytics, which is only available to Brand Registered sellers.

Why don't some of my keywords show up in the report?

Amazon suppresses rows with very low search volume to protect customer search privacy. Ultra-specific long-tail terms with only a handful of monthly searches often won't appear even if you rank well for them.

Can I see data for a competitor's ASIN specifically?

No. SQP shows your own ASIN's share against market totals for a search term, not a named breakdown of which competitor holds the rest of the share. You can infer competitive pressure from the size of the gap, but not which specific seller is capturing it.

How often should I review this report?

Monthly is a reasonable baseline for most catalogues, tightened to weekly around key trading periods (Prime Day, Black Friday, Christmas) when share shifts happen fast and you want to catch them before they show up as a sales dip.

Does SQP replace third-party keyword research tools?

Not entirely. Third-party tools are usually better for discovering keyword variations and estimating search volume for terms you haven't ranked for at all. SQP's strength is telling you, with Amazon's own first-party data, exactly how you're performing on terms where you already have some visibility.