SQP and AMC explain different parts of search performance
Search Query Performance (SQP) reports impressions, clicks, cart adds, and purchases for requested ASINs by search query. AMC supplies the sponsored-ad side, including search terms from ad traffic. Reading them together can expose questions about funnel performance that a paid report alone cannot answer. They are not interchangeable measurements of the same population.
This collection currently develops two connected methods: joining the SQP search funnel with AMC and keeping paid metrics distinct in a unified keyword view. It does not claim to cover all Amazon market intelligence or competitor demand.
Can you subtract paid purchases to calculate organic purchases?
No. SQP does not provide a sponsored-versus-organic split, and its purchases do not have the same definition as ad-attributed purchases. Subtracting one from the other creates a number without a defensible measurement basis. Keep ad spend and ad-attributed sales in paid columns; keep the SQP funnel in its own columns.
The unified keyword guide explains this boundary and why the Sponsored Products search term report is narrower than AMC ad traffic: the former covers clicked activity, while AMC can include sponsored impressions that nobody clicked.
How do you join the two sources without multiplying totals?
Aggregate each source to one row per query and reporting week before joining. SQP totals can repeat across ASIN rows, and paid rows can repeat across campaigns and keywords. Joining those raw rows multiplies values instead of reconciling them.
Match the AMC time window to the SQP reporting week. The common key is query text plus the reporting period, not a shopper ID: SQP has no shopper-level rows for this join. The search-funnel guide describes running the join in your own lake or using an uploaded advertiser dataset in AMC.
What should the combined view lead to?
Use it to identify a question worth investigating: a funnel drop, a paid term with weak outcomes, or a mismatch between the source periods. Keep the source definitions beside the observation before recommending a bid or listing change. Amazon Ads reporting covers report selection and paid decision inputs; AMC measurement covers wider outcome interpretation. For AMC access and fundamentals, start with the AMC introduction.