How to Choose an Amazon Agency in the USA

What the US market changes about the work

In smaller marketplaces an agency can produce growth mostly by doing competent things nobody else is doing. In the US that opportunity rarely exists. Most viable categories already have several well-funded operators who understand advertising, hold inventory properly and defend their listings. Growth comes from being better on specifics, and simply being present is not enough. For a scored shortlist, see our comparison of Amazon agencies in the USA.

That changes the emphasis in three ways. Advertising becomes a margin question more than a volume question, because cost per click in competitive US categories will absorb whatever budget you give it. Conversion rate work counts for more, because a one point improvement in conversion on US traffic volumes is worth more than most bid adjustments. Defence also becomes a workstream of its own: unauthorised sellers, listing hijacking, review manipulation by competitors and variation abuse all happen more often at US scale.

The operational load is heavier too. There is sales tax nexus across states, higher return volumes, more frequent FBA fee changes that affect margin, and a bigger catalogue with more things that can go wrong. An agency that is strong on advertising and thin on operations will look good for a quarter, then start losing you money quietly through missed reimbursements and stranded inventory.

US FBA also asks more of inventory planning than most marketplaces. Stock is placed across a network of regional fulfilment centres, so the way a shipment is split, and what you pay for that split, affects both cost and delivery speed in different parts of the country. Ask any agency you are considering who on its team builds shipment plans and how it decides between the inbound placement options Amazon offers. If the answer is that you handle logistics and they handle ads, you need someone else covering that gap.

The four workstreams and how to tell they are actually staffed

Every agency will claim advertising, content, operations and strategy. To test the claim, ask for the artefacts each workstream produces.

For advertising, ask to see a placement report and a search term report they have acted on, with the decisions annotated. Anyone managing spend seriously works from these every week. For content, ask how they decide what to change on a listing and how they measure whether it worked. A good answer refers to search query performance and conversion rate by ASIN, rather than a rewrite that simply felt better.

For operations, ask for their case log or reimbursement summary. This is the clearest tell in the whole process. Teams that run operations properly have a filing rhythm, know their recovery rate and can tell you which kinds of claim they pursue. Teams that do not will describe operations as something they "help with."

For strategy, ask what they would stop doing in your account. A team with judgement will name something. A team selling hours will only propose additions.

A shortlist process that works

Most US brands talk to too many agencies and compare them on the wrong things. A tighter process takes three to four weeks and gives you a decision you can defend.

1. Write a one-page brief before any calls: your categories, monthly revenue range, current ad spend, what is working, what is not, and what you want the agency to own. Agencies that read it will ask better questions, and it shows you which ones did not.
2. Shortlist three or four agencies with experience in your category or a close neighbour, not just "Amazon experience."
3. Run the same discovery call with each, using the same questions in the same order, and score the answers as you go.
4. Give the two strongest agencies read-only access to a limited set of reports, or share exports, and ask each for a short written view of the first 90 days. Judge it on specificity about your account.
5. Take references for the final two, then compare the contracts line by line before you choose.

Do not ask for a full free audit as part of a pitch. Good agencies will give you a sharp first view, but a complete audit is real work, and an agency that does it free for every prospect is paying for it somewhere else.

Diligence that filters properly

Reference calls are worth more than case studies, and the useful question is what happened when something went wrong, not whether the client was happy. Ask a reference about the worst month of the engagement and how the agency handled it.

On case studies, press on the baseline. A claim of two hundred percent growth means little without the starting revenue, whether the category was growing, whether the brand launched new products in the period and how much extra ad spend went in. Reputable teams will give you that context. If the answer stays vague, treat the number as marketing.

Check whether the people in the pitch are the people on the account. This is the most common failure in US agency engagements: senior people sell, junior people deliver, and nobody tells you. It is a reasonable way for an agency to work, but you should know how it is set up and meet the actual operator before signing.

Finally, read the contract for three things: the notice period, who owns the advertising data and creative assets when you leave, and whether an exclusivity clause stops you hiring a specialist elsewhere. Long lock-ins with short notice windows are the clause people regret most. Our guide to agency contract clauses goes through each one.

Pricing models in the US market

The US uses the same three models as everywhere else, plus one that appears more often at larger spend levels: a hybrid of a reduced retainer and a performance component tied to an agreed metric.

Hybrid arrangements are the most interesting and the easiest to get wrong. The performance metric has to be something the agency actually controls and that you actually want. Tying a bonus to revenue growth rewards the agency for your seasonality. Tying it to total advertising cost of sales at a held or growing revenue level gets closer to what you care about, which is profitable growth.

Whatever the structure, get the scope boundary in writing. The disputes that end US agency engagements are almost never about the fee. They are about whether creative production, catalogue migration, a new marketplace launch or a suspension appeal was inside or outside the agreed scope.

Ask how the fee changes as you grow. A percentage-of-spend fee that made sense at a modest budget can become expensive once spend scales, while the work involved grows far more slowly. Agree in advance the point at which the fee is reviewed, or ask for tiers that step the percentage down as spend rises.

What the first 90 days should look like

A well-run US engagement has a recognisable shape, even though the details depend on your account. In the first few weeks you should see user access set up under your own account, an audit of advertising, listings, inventory and account health, and a written list of priorities with reasons. By the end of the first month the obvious waste should be gone: search terms spending without converting, duplicate keywords, broken variations and stranded inventory. Months two and three are when structured testing starts, on listings and on campaign structure, with results reported against the baseline taken at the start.

If after 90 days you cannot point to a list of specific changes and what each one did, the engagement is drifting. Raise it in writing then, rather than at renewal. Our guide to agency onboarding describes the first weeks in more detail.

US-specific questions to ask

• How do you plan US FBA shipments, and who decides between inbound placement options?
• Who on your team handles account health, and how quickly do you respond to a policy notification on a weekend?
• How do you plan for Prime Day and Q4, including inventory cut-off dates and budget pacing?
• What is your process for unauthorised sellers and hijacked listings, and does it use Brand Registry tools?
• Who advises on sales tax, and where does your responsibility stop? (Most agencies should refer you to a tax specialist rather than advise directly.)
• Which time zone does my account manager work in, and what overlap will we have with my team?

Signals worth walking away from

Guaranteed rank or guaranteed revenue is the first. Nobody controls the Amazon search algorithm or your competitors' budgets. A guarantee is either meaningless or paid for by tactics you would not approve if they were described plainly.

Be wary of vagueness about who holds the account credentials and with what permissions. The correct arrangement is that you own the Seller Central account and grant scoped user permissions. Any structure in which the agency owns or co-owns the account is a risk you do not need.

Watch for reporting that only shows advertising cost of sales. It is the easiest metric to flatter by cutting spend on discovery campaigns, which improves the number while the business shrinks. Insist on total advertising cost of sales alongside it, plus units and contribution margin.

If the whole pitch never mentions operations, compliance or account health, either they do not do it or they have not thought about it, and both will cost you later. In a US account of any real size, operations is where a meaningful share of the value sits.

Frequently Asked Questions