SQP Insight for Ad Manager

Author: Kadence Leung 

Last Update：2026/05/05

Who This Guide Is For

The Core Shift: From Internal Metrics to Market Share

Ad reporting tells you how efficiently you're spending. SQP tells you how much of the market you're winning.

A campaign can have strong ROAS while quietly losing market share if the category is growing faster than your brand. SQP Insight catches this. For every search term, you see your brand's share of impressions, clicks, and purchases against the full Amazon market — not just your own week-over-week trend.

Key Scenarios

Scenarios	How to find these	Action
1. Decide Which Keywords Deserve Higher Bids   Click Share (Brand) > Impression Share (Brand) When shoppers see your listing, they click at an above-average rate. The bottleneck is visibility, not conversion. Increase bids.	1. Open Search Term Analysis 2. Sort by **Click Share % (Brand)** descending 3. Identify rows where Click Share exceeds Impression Share     Tip: Set a minimum Search Query Volume threshold — this filters out niche terms with 100% click share but almost no traffic; and branded terms	Raise bids on these terms in Sponsored Products. Your listing is already winning the click — you just need more exposure.
2. Stop Spending on Keywords That Won't Convert  Impression Share (Brand) > Click Share (Brand) Impressions are running but shoppers aren't clicking. This is a listing problem (main image, title, price), not a bidding problem. More budget won't fix it.	Apply the Excess Impression Sink preset filter Cross-reference with Median Purchase Price (Market) — if competitors are priced significantly lower, that's often the root cause Tip: Set a minimum Search Query Volume threshold — this filters out niche terms with 100% click share but almost no traffic; and branded terms	Reduce bids temporarily. Fix the listing. Reinvest once CTR Delta improves.
3. Prioritize Your Highest-Incrementality Keywords  High Purchase Share % (Brand) Purchase Share is the most direct measure of real market capture. A term where you win 20%+ of all purchases in the market is genuinely high-incrementality.	1. Open Search Term Analysis → sort by Purchase Share % (Brand) descending	Protect these keywords with exact match campaigns. These are your base of real market share — never let them go uncovered.
4.  Find Coverage Gaps Before Competitors Do High Search Query Volume + near-zero Impression Share (Brand) The market searches this term frequently but your brand is invisible — no organic rank, no ad coverage.	1. Open Search Term Analysis → sort by Search Query Volume descending 2. Use the Search Query text filter to scope to your category or core keywords (e.g., filter for terms containing your product type) 3. Filter to rows where Impression Share % (Brand) is near zero or significantly below your average	Create a new campaign with a lower bid to start capturing traffic without disrupting existing performance. Measure Purchase Share after 2–3 weeks before scaling. If none of your current ASINs are a good fit for the term, treat it as a product line signal — high-volume gaps your catalog can't cover are worth flagging for future assortment planning.
5.  Set Realistic Performance Benchmarks A new product with no sales history will enter SQP data with near-zero shares. Use the Market metrics to understand what "normal" looks like in this category before you set expectations.	1. Open Search Term Analysis for your top category terms 2. Note CTR (Market) and CVR (Market) — these are the category averages you'll be measured against 3. Note Median Purchase Price (Market) — if your launch price is significantly above this, expect below-market CVR until reviews build up	Use these numbers to set expectations: "This category converts at X% CVR on average. In weeks 1–4, we'll be well below this — we'll track week-over-week improvement.

Key Metrics for Advertisers

FAQ

Q: My SQP numbers look completely different from my ad reports. Which one is right?

A: Both are right — they measure different things. SQP captures all placements (paid and organic) and uses unique visitor counts. Ad reports only track activity within your active campaigns. Use SQP to understand market share and funnel health; use ad reports for ROAS and budget efficiency. Never compare the same metric across both.

Q: A search term shows high Impression Share but low Click Share. Should I pause it?

A: Don't pause immediately — investigate first. A high Impression Share / low Click Share gap (negative CTR Delta) points to a listing issue, not a targeting issue. Check your main image, title, and price against competitors for that term. Fix the listing before reducing bids, or you'll lose ground while the underlying problem remains unfixed.

Q: SQP shows strong Purchase Share on a term, but my ad ROAS for that keyword is average. Which signal should I use for bid decisions?

A: Trust the SQP Purchase Share for bid priority. ROAS measures the efficiency of your ad spend in isolation. Purchase Share measures how much of the total market demand you're capturing — including organic conversions you'd lose if you cut ad coverage. High Purchase Share on a term is a signal to protect or scale, even if the ad-level ROAS looks average.

Q: I increased bids on a term but my Impression Share in SQP didn't improve. Why?

A: SQP Impression Share reflects both paid and organic placements. If your ads won more auctions but your organic rank dropped in the same period, the two can offset each other. Check your ad auction win rate in Sponsored Products reporting and your organic rank separately to understand which side moved.

Q: SQP Insight shows search terms I've never added to my campaigns. Why are they there?

A: SQP shows the actual search queries shoppers typed — not the bid keywords you set up in your campaigns. Your ASIN may appear organically for terms you never explicitly targeted. These are valuable discoveries: high-volume terms where you're already showing up organically without ad coverage are prime candidates to add to your campaigns.

Q: The Under-Exposed Top Performer filter is empty for my account. Is that a problem?

A: Not necessarily. The filter only flags ASINs or terms that meet both criteria simultaneously — strong conversion across all funnel stages AND low impression share. If your catalog is well-exposed already, or doesn't have strong cross-funnel performance on any under-exposed term, the filter will return no results. This is normal behavior, not an error.

Q: How is SQP Score different from Search Query Volume, and which should I use for bid decisions?

A: Search Query Volume counts how many times a term was searched — it measures market size. SQP Score is Amazon's own relevance ranking for a term within a given week. For bid decisions, prioritize Search Query Volume combined with your Purchase Share: they tell you how large the opportunity is and how much of it you're capturing. Use SQP Score as a secondary signal for understanding Amazon's own view of term importance — but only when viewing a single week, as it's unavailable for multi-week ranges.