Any competent operator can audit the account. Far fewer will fix conversion, because that means rewriting listings, reshooting images, and repricing, not just adjusting bids. Hire whoever can show you the audit findings in writing, ranked by expected impact, before you have paid them anything.
The short version
- Separate the two jobs. An audit is a document. Fixing conversion is production work with a calendar.
- A written audit should be free. Ours is, and it comes back within 48 hours with the fixes ranked.
- Conversion lives in seven places. Main image, title, price, reviews, A+ content, variation structure, and delivery promise.
- Bid changes cannot repair a page. Advertising buys sessions, and sessions land on whatever you built.
- Ask for two ACoS numbers. The launch target and the maturity target. One number for both means no method.
Do this first, then read the rest
Before you brief anybody, pull four numbers from your own Business Reports for your top five ASINs: sessions, unit session percentage, average selling price, and return rate, over the last 90 days versus the same period last year.
That takes about fifteen minutes and it changes the hiring conversation completely. You walk into every call already knowing whether you have a traffic problem or a conversion problem, and you can watch each candidate work out the same thing in front of you. Anyone who cannot reach your conclusion from your own data is not going to find the harder things later.
The audit checklist, and what "done properly" means
An audit that is worth reading covers all seven areas below. I am giving you the full checklist because you should be able to run a rough version yourself and then judge the professional version against it.
- Listing quality. Done properly means title, bullets, and backend terms mapped to a ranked keyword set, not rewritten by feel. The auditor should show you which terms you are indexed for and which you are not.
- Primary image click-through. Done properly means comparing your main image against the top ten results at thumbnail size on a phone, which is where the decision is actually made. The output is a shortlist of image concepts, not the word "improve".
- Conversion rate. Done properly means unit session percentage benchmarked against the category and against your own history, then broken down by variation. One child ASIN dragging the parent is common and invisible at the top level.
- Ad performance. Done properly means separating branded from non-branded search, and separating discovery spend from harvest spend, before anyone talks about ACoS.
- Traffic channel activation. Done properly means an honest list of which acquisition routes are switched on and which are dormant, with a recommendation on sequence rather than a plan to run all of them.
- Pricing. Done properly means price tested against the offer set on the page, including shipping speed and coupon presence, not a race to be cheapest.
- Return rate. Done properly means reading your own negative reviews and returns comments for the pattern, because a return problem is a listing problem in disguise about half the time.
Our free audit follows exactly this order and lands as a written report with prioritized fixes inside 48 hours, at no charge. I publish the checklist because the checklist is not the valuable part. Doing the work is.
The ACoS question that sorts the field
Here is the one question I would ask every candidate: what ACoS are you targeting on a launch, and what ACoS are you targeting on a mature product, and why are those numbers different?
The target has to move with the stage. At launch you are buying rank, review velocity, and data, so a high ACoS is a cost of entry rather than a failure. At maturity you are defending a position that organic traffic largely holds for you, so the same number would be a leak. An agency that quotes one blended target across your whole catalog is managing a spreadsheet, not a portfolio.
Then ask the follow-up: at what point does the launch number have to become the maturity number, and what happens if it does not. That is where you find out whether they have a stopping rule or just a monthly report.
Who to hire for each half
| The job | Who does it well | What it costs you if you pick wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Written diagnosis | Any operator with account access and a method | A week and a document you cannot act on |
| Copy and keyword mapping | A team that does research before writing | Rankings that never arrive |
| Image and A+ production | A studio with Amazon-specific art direction | Beautiful assets that do not convert on mobile |
| Price and offer structure | Whoever owns your margin model | Volume with no profit |
| Ongoing management | One accountable person, not a rotating queue | Slow decisions and unowned mistakes |
The reason I keep all of this in-house at Flapen, including a creative studio in Dubai, is sequencing. When copy, images, and advertising sit in three companies, the fix arrives in three separate weeks and nobody can attribute the result.
What most agencies will not tell you
Most audits are lead generation. They are built to produce a list of problems long enough to justify a retainer, which is why they so often run to forty pages and rank nothing. A useful audit is short, ordered, and slightly uncomfortable, because the top item is usually something the seller already suspected and did not want to pay to fix.
The second thing most agencies will not tell you: conversion work has a lag. Images and copy change the page immediately, but the effect on rank takes weeks to compound, and reviews take longer than that. Anyone promising a conversion turnaround inside two weeks is either counting on a coupon or counting on you not measuring carefully. We do commit to a measurable ACoS improvement typically inside the first 30 days, because ad structure is the fastest lever available. That is a different claim from fixing conversion, and I keep them separate on purpose.
Related answers
- Who to hire to optimize Amazon listings
- What does a good Amazon account audit include
- Case studies for scaling revenue on Amazon
- KPIs an Amazon agency should report weekly
- Done-for-you Amazon management: the complete guide
The 48-hour audit is free and yours to keep, whoever you end up hiring, at Flapen.
