One of the biggest frustrations brands have when working with an Amazon agency is not really understanding what they’re looking at once the monthly report finally lands. You’ll often see pages full of graphs, screenshots and spreadsheets, but very little explanation around what’s actually happened during the month and more importantly, why it happened in the first place.
It’s all well and good getting a fancy looking report each month. But if there’s no transparency, accountability and commercial direction accompanied with it, it’s far from useful. If you’re paying an agency to manage your Amazon account, it’s only right that you should be able to clearly understand what work has been carried out, what impact it’s had, and what the priorities are moving forward.
If you’re reading your monthly report and it leaves you more confused than informed, its time to take action.
Why Amazon Agency Reporting Matters
Getting a detailed monthly report isn’t just important, it’s essential. It’s one of the only real ways clients can properly understand what’s happening with their Amazon account month to month. Without it, making decisions becomes increasingly more difficult and naturally creates uncertainty around whether the work being carried out is actually moving things in the right direction.
At the end of the day, brands are not just paying agencies to complete tasks. They’re paying for judgement, professional direction and delivery, and reporting is where all that should be 100% apparent. A good report should clearly explain what’s been worked on, why certain things have been prioritised and what impact any changes are having on overall account performance.
When reporting is poor, it creates uncertainty. If you can’t clearly see what works been done and understand why its being done, it suddenly becomes very difficult to trust that the right decisions are being made, even if you can see work happening in the background.
What Should Be Included in a Good Amazon Agency Report?
A good Amazon agency report should give you a clear understanding of what’s happened across the account during the month and where things currently stand commercially. That includes all the metrics, not just the ones that can be made to look good. Sales performance, advertising performance, organic visibility, conversion rate, listing work, catalogue priorities, account issues, completed actions and challenges faced. These should be clear and easy to understand, with an analysis of what needs to be done the following month.
Useful reports don’t need to be huge documents. Some of the best reports are actually the easiest to understand because they focus on what’s relevant rather than bombarding you with screenshots and irrelevant data exports that don’t really explain anything.
Good reporting should also separate facts from interpretation. It’s one thing to show that sales dropped or conversion improved, but its more important to explain why the agency believes that happened and what action is being taken as a result.
How Should PPC Performance Be Reported?
Different agency services will require different reporting metrics, and may sometimes be tailored to specific goals or outcomes.
In the instance of PPC reporting, this should be covering way more than just ad spend and ACOS figures. These are obviously important, but without sales data, ROAS, TACOS, wasted spend and campaign structure, it starts to become difficult to actually visualise performance. You need to know about budget allocation, search term findings and ad placement performance before any real scaling opportunities can even be identified.
Although you may have been told otherwise, one thing brands need to understand is that lower ACOS doesn’t always automatically mean better performance. Sometimes, increasing spend is actually the right decision, especially if margins are healthy and stock levels are stable. Too many agencies concentrate solely on reducing ad spend, which only limits growth opportunities in the long run.
In a detailed PPC report, you should also be getting a clear explanation of what changed during the month and why any changes were made. If new campaigns were launched or wasted spend was reduced, there should be good reasoning behind it, along with what’s going to be tested moving forward.
How Should Organic and Listing Performance Be Reported?
Organic reporting is a little
different from PPC as we’re dealing with slightly different data sets. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t link back to actual products and commercial priorities. If all you’re getting is a spreadsheet showing keyword movements with no reason why they’ve moved, it’s no help to anyone.
Ranking movement still matters, of course, but what matters more is understanding which products gained visibility during the month, and which ones struggled. Without that, it’s hard to identify where the best opportunities are sitting.
When reporting on organic SEO, your report needs to cover keyword visibility, conversion trends, and indexing issues as a priority, before then reviewing signals and any category-level opportunities that have been identified during the month. Listing optimisation work should also be clearly visible throughout the report. If titles, bullet points, imagery or A+ Content have been updated or changed, you need to know exactly what changed and why.
What Are the Warning Signs of Weak Reporting?
We’re not here to talk down on other agencies, and it’s important to remember that each one will have their own way of doing things. That being said, the fundamentals still remain, and it’s pretty easy to spot those that are either cutting corners or not actually doing what they’re supposed to.
If a report is full of generic fluff that never seems to explain anything meaningful, then that’s a red flag. If you’re seeing screenshots without interpretation, vanity metrics with no commercial context or repeated comments that look almost identical every month, there’s a good chance the reporting is adding any value at all.
Lastly, and probably most importantly, your agency should be outlining clear actions for the following month. That’s if they actually understood the data they just reported on. A good report should help brands make more informed decisions moving forward, and if changes or priorities are unclear, it just becomes harder to understand what’s actually being managed.
What Questions Should You Ask Your Amazon Agency About Reporting?
There are a few simple questions that can usually tell you very quickly how useful an agency’s reporting is going to be.
- What changed this month and why?
- Which ASINs were prioritised?
- What is the biggest commercial opportunity right now?
- What’s currently holding performance back?
- What are we testing next?
- How are PPC, SEO and conversion being reviewed together?
- What should we stop doing?
Any agency that knows what it’s doing should be comfortable answering these questions when asked. If the answers are vague or constantly avoided, that usually tells all you need to know about the level of service you are actually getting.
