How to improve Amazon performance

Amazon measures your ASINs against competitors and against each other.
Every product in your vendor portfolio creates an internal performance reference. Some ASINs convert better. Some generate visibility more efficiently. Others quietly drain margin while appearing commercially relevant.
High-performing vendors understand this dynamic and manage performance relatively, not absolutely. They focus on deviations inside their own portfolio rather than chasing external benchmarks.

Amazon compares every ASIN against competitors but also against your own assortment.
That means every product sets a benchmark for the rest of your portfolio. Strong conversion? Amazon rewards it. Poor margin? Amazon suppresses visibility. High impressions but low sales? Amazon assumes low relevance.
To improve profitability and performance sustainably, Vendors must manage products relative to each other, not in isolation.
This is where performance grouping becomes essential. Next I’ll show you how the 4 most common performance clusters look like.

By mapping ASINs across conversion rate (quality) and impressions (visibility), patterns emerge that indicate how Amazon perceives your products and where to act. These four groups form the backbone of your performance governance:

Is your primary quality signal: Conversion reflects relevance, customer trust, and content quality. When your CVR drops, Amazon instantly reduces visibility, harming both organic and paid performance.

Visibility without context ≠ success:  Impressions show opportunity, not performance. Only when paired with CVR do they reveal true potential or leakage.

Demand confirmation, not profitability: High sales with weak margins lead to vendor pressure, reduced profitability, and a weaker negotiation stance.

Amazon’s profitability view: Net PPM shows Amazon’s per 1,000 impressions profit.  With that the Net PPM is the KPI that increasingly dictates vendor negotiations. Negative Net PPM can suppress visibility even when sales are strong.

✔ You stop wasting ads budget
By shifting budget from “the quite ones” to “underdogs,” you drastically improve TACOS, ROAS, and Net PPM.

✔ You strengthen Amazon negotiations
Grouping reveals margin efficient ASINs and those dragging down profitability.

✔ You gain predictive control
Month over month monitoring shows whether your assortment is improving or only surviving.

✔ You align with Amazon’s logic
Amazon evaluates your catalog exactly this way: relevance, profitability, and efficiency relative to your other ASINs.

All in all performance can only be earned on Amazon, not bought. Amazon vendors I speak to no longer ask, “Is this product performing?”
They ask, “How does this ASIN behave compared to the rest of my assortment?”.
This shift from reactive optimization to performance governance is what separates brands who struggle from those who scale profitably.
Traffic can be bought. Profitability can be measured.
But performance must be managed – systematically, visually, and with the right KPIs.