What should you check on an Amazon listing before spending on ads?

Check whether the listing can convert before you pay to send traffic to it. A suppressed listing, a lost Buy Box or a 3.6-star rating will make every click cost more and sell less, and no bid strategy fixes that. We run the same 12 checks on every account before a single ad goes live.

Why do listings come before ads?

Sponsored Products only sends shoppers to a page. If that page is missing attributes, sits behind a reseller on the Buy Box or is about to run out of stock, Amazon’s own algorithm shows it less and your ad spend fills the gap. Fixing the page first lowers your cost per sale on every campaign that follows.

What are the 12 checks?

1. Title: brand, product, key spec and size, in the order buyers search.
2. Main image: product on pure white, filling most of the frame.
3. Secondary images: scale, in-use, dimensions and what’s in the box.
4. Bullet points: one buying question answered per bullet.
5. Backend search terms: no repeats of words already in the title.
6. Category and browse node: the one your competitors rank in.
7. Required attributes: every field Seller Central flags as missing.
8. Variations: sizes and colors grouped under one parent.
9. Price against resellers and your own store.
10. Buy Box share over the last 30 days.
11. Review rating and the most recent negative reviews.
12. Stock cover: weeks of inventory at current sales speed.

Each check gets a pass, fix or fail. A listing with any fail stays out of ad campaigns until it’s fixed.

What should you fix first?

Anything that stops the listing showing at all: suppression, missing required attributes and stock-outs. Then the Buy Box, because without it your ads may promote a reseller’s offer. Content improvements come third. Ads come last, once the page can convert.

How long does a listing fix take?

Suppressed listings usually come back within a day of fixing the flagged attribute or image. Content rewrites and new images take one to two weeks. Buy Box problems caused by resellers take longer and often need Brand Registry tools.

Want this check run on your catalog? It’s part of our free growth audit, and our marketplace management team fixes what it finds.