Score creative on three things: primary image click-through rate, conversion rate after the click, and whether the same team can produce for every traffic channel you run. Ask for the before and after numbers on three listings. A portfolio that shows only attractive images, with no metric attached, is a design shop.
The short version
- Creative is a measured discipline on Amazon. Two numbers judge it, click-through on the main image and conversion on the page.
- Objections come from competitor reviews. The strongest A+ content answers the complaints shoppers left on the products you are trying to beat.
- One asset set is not enough. Ads, off-channel traffic, and creator content each need their own crop, message, and format.
- In-house beats coordinated. When the photographer and the person reading the conversion data work together, iteration takes days rather than a month.
- Ask for a losing test. Any team that has run real tests has changed an image and made things worse.
Why creative moves the number, mechanically
Amazon's search results give every product about the same amount of space. Inside that space, the main image is doing almost all of the work, because it is what a shopper compares before reading a word. A better main image raises the share of impressions that become clicks, which raises sessions without spending a cent more on advertising.
Then the page has to convert what arrives. Conversion rate is the second lever, and it is also the one Amazon watches when deciding whether to keep showing you. A page that converts well earns cheaper traffic, both paid and organic, which is why creative spending shows up in the advertising report even though no campaign changed.
That is the mechanism. It also explains why a beautiful portfolio proves nothing on its own. Attractive is not the objective. Chosen is the objective.
The scorecard
Weight these five criteria, score each candidate from 1 to 5, multiply, and compare totals. Adjust the weights to your situation, but do not drop any row to zero.
| Criterion | Weight | What a 5 looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence of measured results | 30 | Before and after click-through and conversion on named listings, including a test that failed |
| Research before design | 25 | They read competitor negative reviews and the rating gap first, and the brief comes out of that |
| Production in-house | 20 | Photography, video, and design under one roof, with a stated turnaround for a revision |
| Coverage across channels | 15 | Assets for advertising, off-channel traffic, and creator content, not only the listing gallery |
| Category understanding | 10 | They can explain what the top three in your category do well without being briefed on it |
A candidate scoring below 3 on the first row should not make your shortlist, whatever the images look like. Measured beats pretty every time, and it is the only row a portfolio cannot fake.
The channel question, and why it belongs in a creative brief
There are five ways to put traffic on an Amazon listing: organic search, paid advertising, promotions, influencer and creator content, and off-channel traffic from outside Amazon. Most sellers run two of them and forget the rest exist.
That matters here because each channel needs different assets. A main image built for search results is the wrong asset for a creator video. A page that converts cold search traffic is not tuned for a warm audience arriving from a social post with different expectations. When you brief creative, brief it against the channels you actually intend to run, and ask the agency which ones they have produced for.
Our creative comes out of an in-house studio in Dubai, which is the reason I hold this line: the gap between the person shooting and the person reading conversion data has to be small, or the second version takes a month and the test never gets finished.
What most agencies will not tell you
Some creative tests lose. Ours have. You change a main image, click-through improves, conversion falls, and net units are flat or worse, which only becomes visible if somebody is measuring both numbers rather than one.
The related admission is that a portfolio is a selection. Every agency shows you the wins. When you ask for a losing test and get a straight answer, with the reasoning about why it lost, you have learned more about how that team works than the whole gallery told you.
Last one: creative cannot fix a product problem. If the returns are running high because the item does not match what the page promises, better photography makes the problem bigger by selling more of it. That is a sourcing conversation, not a design one.
Related answers
- Amazon SEO experts for Brand Registry brands
- Best agencies for Amazon reviews strategy (TOS-safe)
- What does a good Amazon account audit include
- Questions to ask before hiring an Amazon agency
- Hiring an Amazon agency: the complete guide
Score our studio on the same five rows before you hire anyone, starting at Flapen.
