Amazon Competitor Analysis: 7-Step Guide for Sellers

Marcus spent a full weekend on it. A spreadsheet of 38 bamboo cutting board listings, each with price, review count, star rating, BSR and main image notes. Color-coded. Sorted three ways.

Then he closed the file and changed nothing.

Eight weeks later, a brand with 600 reviews to his 2,100 owned the top of search for "bamboo cutting board set." It had been running product targeting ads on his detail page and a Sponsored Brands video on his main keyword the whole time. Marcus's spreadsheet had that brand in row 23, marked "small, ignore."

That is how most Amazon competitor analysis goes. Sellers collect a lot of data and make no decisions with it. This guide fixes that. You'll learn how to find the competitors who actually take your sales, reverse-engineer their keywords, ads, pricing and reviews, and turn every finding into a concrete PPC or listing move.

Why Most Amazon Competitor Analysis Goes Nowhere

Competitor research fails for one reason: it has no output. A list of rivals is not a strategy. A good analysis ends with a short list of actions, and each action fits into one of four buckets:

• Bid: keywords and ASINs worth paying for because a competitor is weak there
• Defend: your own brand terms and detail pages that rivals are advertising on
• Fix: gaps in your listing that competitors cover better
• Avoid: queries where the top sellers are so entrenched that your ad spend won't move anything

If a finding doesn't land in one of those buckets, it's trivia. Keep that filter in mind for each step below.

Step 1: Identify Your Real Competitors

The competitors you think you have are usually the category giants. The ones actually taking your sales are the listings that show up next to you on the searches that pay your bills.

Start with your top 10 converting search terms from the last 60 days. Pull them from your search term report, sorted by orders. Then find out who wins those queries.

Use Brand Analytics Top Search Terms

If you're brand registered, Amazon Brand Analytics gives you the most reliable answer for free. The Top Search Terms report lists the three ASINs that got the most clicks for any query, with each one's click share and conversion share. Run your 10 terms through it and note every ASIN that appears more than once.

Then check the Search Query Performance report for the same terms. It shows your brand's share of impressions, clicks, cart adds and purchases. If a competitor has 18% of clicks on a query where you have 4%, you've found a real rival. For a full walkthrough of both reports, see our Amazon Brand Analytics guide.

Sort Competitors Into Three Tiers

Not every rival deserves the same attention. Group them like this:

Most sellers end up with 5-8 direct competitors, 2-3 dominant ones, and a rotating list of vulnerable ones. That's a manageable set to track.

Step 2: Reverse-Engineer Their Keywords

Once you know who you're up against, find out which searches bring them traffic that you're missing.

Run a reverse ASIN lookup. Tools like Helium 10 Cerebro, Jungle Scout and SellerSprite take a competitor's ASIN and return the keywords it ranks for, organically and in sponsored slots, with estimated search volume. Put three direct competitors in at once and filter for terms where they rank on page one and you don't rank at all. That gap list is your first set of keyword candidates.

Read their titles and bullets. Sellers put their best-converting terms in the first 80 characters of the title. If three competitors all say "with juice groove" and you don't, that's a search term shoppers use and a feature they expect.

Check your own auto campaign data. Your search term report already contains competitor intelligence. In auto and product targeting campaigns, the "customer search term" column shows ASINs whenever your ad ran on another product's page. Filter those rows and sort by conversion rate. The ASINs where your ad converts well are competitors whose shoppers prefer your offer.

Before you add any gap keyword, check relevance. A competitor ranking for "cutting board oil" doesn't mean you should bid on it if you don't sell oil. Our Amazon PPC keyword research guide covers how to score candidates before they cost you money.

Step 3: Map Their Advertising Footprint

Amazon doesn't tell you what competitors spend on ads. You can still see where they advertise, and that is often more useful.

Do manual SERP checks. Open a private browser window, set a delivery zip code in your main market, and search your top 20 keywords. Record who holds the first two sponsored slots, who runs the Sponsored Brands banner at the top, and who has a video ad in the results. Repeat at three different times of day over a week. A brand that shows up in the same slot every time is paying for it consistently, which usually means the keyword is profitable for them.

Check your own detail pages. Scroll down your listings and note which brands appear in the "Products related to this item" carousel. Those are advertisers targeting your ASIN. If the same competitor is on all of your top five pages, they've built a campaign aimed at your customers.

Read your impression share. The search term impression share report in the Amazon Ads console shows your share of impressions on each search term compared to all advertisers. A drop from 22% to 9% in two weeks, with no change on your side, means someone raised bids or launched on that term.

Priya, who sells a digital kitchen scale, found this the useful way. Her search term report showed one competitor ASIN with 41 clicks and 7 orders, a 17% conversion rate against her 9% account average. That listing had a 3.8-star rating and a stack of reviews complaining about battery life. She built a manual product targeting campaign on that ASIN plus six similar scales rated below 4.0 stars. Within a month the campaign ran at 19% ACoS, her best in the account.

Step 4: Track Price, BSR and Promotions Over Time

A single snapshot of a competitor's price tells you almost nothing. The pattern over 90 days tells you a lot.

Keepa charts price history, BSR history, offer counts and past deals for any ASIN. Look for three things:

1. Promotion cadence. Does the rival run a coupon every first week of the month? A Lightning Deal before each holiday? Those windows are when your conversion rate will dip.
2. Stockouts. Gaps in their price line or a BSR that jumps from 2,000 to 40,000 usually mean they ran out of stock. That's your moment to push bids on the shared keywords.
3. Sales trend. BSR is a rough proxy for sales velocity. The "bought in past month" badge in search results gives another. A competitor whose BSR has improved every month for a quarter is growing, and probably spending more on ads.

Tomás sells dog harnesses. He noticed his conversion rate dropped from 14% to 9% for about a week every month and his bid rules kept raising bids to chase the lost sales. Keepa showed a direct competitor running a 20% coupon at exactly those times. He stopped fighting those weeks. He lowered bids during the coupon window and shifted that budget to the other three weeks, when his offer was the better deal. His monthly ACoS fell from 34% to 27% on the same sales.

Price research should inform your pricing, not dictate it. Matching every competitor cut is a race to zero margin. Our Amazon repricing strategy guide shows how to set a floor price from your fee stack so you know when to walk away.

Step 5: Mine Their Reviews for Weaknesses

Competitor reviews are free customer research. Their 1 to 3 star reviews tell you exactly what shoppers wanted and didn't get.

Pull the critical reviews from your 3-5 direct competitors and tag each complaint into a bucket. For a cutting board, the buckets might look like this:

• Quality: cracks after washing, warps, splinters
• Expectation gap: smaller than it looked, thinner than expected
• Missing feature: no juice groove, no non-slip feet, no hanging hole
• Packaging: arrived scratched, strong chemical smell

Count the tags. If 30% of a rival's negative reviews say "smaller than expected," you have three moves. Show exact dimensions next to a common object in your images. Put the size in your title. And target that rival's ASIN with ads, because their unhappy shoppers are looking for exactly what you sell.

Watch for positive patterns too. If competitors' 5-star reviews keep praising a feature you also have but never mention, move it into your first bullet.

Step 6: Audit Their Listing Against Yours

Now put your listing side by side with your direct competitors using a simple scorecard. Score each item 1-5, where 5 means best in the group.

Any row where you score 2 or lower against a direct competitor is a conversion problem. Fix those before you raise bids. Ads send traffic to your listing, and a weaker listing converts less of it, which means higher ACoS on every click. Our Amazon listing optimization guide walks through each fix.

Step 7: Turn Your Amazon Competitor Analysis Into PPC Moves

This is where research becomes profit. Take everything from steps 1-6 and assign it to the four buckets from the start.

Bid: Conquest Campaigns on Vulnerable ASINs

Build a Sponsored Products product targeting campaign aimed at vulnerable competitors: lower ratings, higher prices, recent stockouts. These pages are full of shoppers who are close to buying but not fully sold. Our guide to Amazon ASIN targeting covers the setup.

Check the math before you scale. Say you sell at $32.99 and keep $10.56 per unit before ad spend. Your break-even ACoS is 32%.

• Competitor ASIN target: $0.95 CPC, 12% conversion rate. Cost per order is $7.92. ACoS is 24%. Profitable.
• Generic broad keyword: $1.60 CPC, 10% conversion rate. Cost per order is $16.00. ACoS is 48.5%. You lose money on every sale.

Conquest targets are often cheaper than generic keywords because fewer advertisers bid on specific product pages. That's the gap to exploit.

Defend: Protect Your Brand and Detail Pages

If Step 3 showed rivals advertising on your pages, run a defensive campaign. Target your own ASINs with product targeting so your other products fill the carousel, and bid on your brand name as an exact match keyword. These campaigns usually run at very low ACoS. They cost little and keep shoppers who were already coming to you.

Fix: Close the Listing Gaps First

Anything that scored 2 or lower in Step 6 goes to the top of your to-do list. A better main image or a clearer size chart lowers ACoS on every campaign you run.

Avoid: Stay Out of Unwinnable Auctions

If the top three clicked ASINs on a query hold 60%+ of clicks combined and each has 10x your reviews, that query is a bad place for a small budget. You'll pay top-of-search prices and convert below their rate. Put that money into long-tail terms and competitor ASINs where you have an edge.

How Often to Repeat Your Competitor Research

Competitor analysis is not a one-time project. Rivals change prices, launch variations and move budget every month. A simple rhythm keeps it light:

• Weekly (15 minutes): check search term impression share and Search Query Performance for your top 10 terms. Flag big moves.
• Monthly (1 hour): run reverse ASIN lookups on direct competitors, review Keepa charts for price and stock changes, update your conquest ASIN list.
• Quarterly (half a day): redo the full listing scorecard and review mining, and re-tier your competitors before big events like Prime Day and Q4.

Common Amazon Competitor Analysis Mistakes

1. Tracking too many competitors. Forty rivals is a spreadsheet. Eight is a strategy. Focus on the listings that actually share your money keywords.
2. Copying the category leader. A brand with 30,000 reviews can afford bids and prices you can't. Study what they do, then pick the fights they're ignoring.
3. Bidding on competitor brand names without checking conversion. Shoppers who search a specific brand usually want that brand. Brand-name keywords often get clicks and few orders. ASIN targeting on weaker listings tends to convert far better.
4. Using a competitor's trademark in your listing or ad copy. Targeting a rival's ASIN is allowed. Putting their brand name in your title, bullets or Sponsored Brands headline is not, and can get your listing or ad suppressed.
5. Never acting on the data. If your analysis didn't change a bid, a target or a listing element, it didn't happen.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Amazon competitor analysis?

Amazon competitor analysis is the process of identifying the listings that compete with you for the same search queries, then studying their keywords, advertising, pricing, reviews and listing content. The goal is to find where they're weak so you can win sales with better bids, targeting and listing improvements.

What are the best tools for Amazon competitor research?

Start with the free ones: Amazon Brand Analytics (Top Search Terms and Search Query Performance), your own search term report and the search term impression share report. Add Keepa for price and BSR history, and a reverse ASIN tool such as Helium 10 Cerebro, Jungle Scout or SellerSprite for competitor keywords.

Can I see how much a competitor spends on Amazon ads?

No. Amazon doesn't share any advertiser's spend. You can estimate how aggressive a competitor is by how consistently they hold sponsored slots on your keywords, how often they appear on your detail pages, and changes in your own impression share.

Is it allowed to target competitor ASINs and brand names on Amazon?

Yes. Sponsored Products lets you target competitor ASINs and bid on keywords that include competitor brand names. You can't use another company's trademark in your own ad creative, product title or listing copy.

How do I find competitors' keywords on Amazon?

Run their ASINs through a reverse ASIN lookup tool, read their titles and bullets for repeated terms, and use Brand Analytics Top Search Terms to see which queries send them clicks. Your auto campaigns also reveal competitor ASINs where your ads convert.

The Bottom Line

The point of Amazon competitor analysis is not to know everything about your rivals. It's to make better decisions than they do. Find the 5-8 listings that share your money keywords. Learn where they rank, where they advertise, when they discount and what their customers complain about. Then act: conquest the weak ones, defend your own pages, fix your listing gaps, and skip the auctions you can't win.

Marcus eventually did. He built a defensive campaign on his own ASINs, targeted the rival's pages with his higher-rated boards, and took back top of search in six weeks. Same spreadsheet. This time, with decisions.