The listing launch checklist. Nothing gets missed.

These take real wall-clock time. A trademark application takes months without IP Accelerator, and even with it, Brand Registry takes days. Start these the day you decide on a product, not the day inventory is ready to ship.

1. Trademark filed or registered. Brand Registry requires either a registered trademark from a supported office (USPTO, EUIPO, IPO UK, and others) or an in-progress trademark filed through Amazon's IP Accelerator program. Organic USPTO registration takes 8 to 12 months. IP Accelerator gets you Brand Registry access in days for a flat law-firm fee. If you don't have one in flight, this is item zero.
2. Brand Registry enrolled. Free. Approval typically lands within a few business days of a clean application. This is the master unlock for A+ Content, Brand Story, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Brand Analytics, Search Query Performance, Manage Your Experiments, Brand Tailored Promotions, and Vine. Nearly half the items below are gated on this.
3. GTIN strategy decided. Either purchase real GTINs from GS1 directly (not resold UPCs from third parties; Amazon validates against the GS1 database and will suppress mismatches), or apply for a GTIN exemption for your brand in your category. Exemption is free, granted per brand per category, and works fine for private label.
4. Browse node and category chosen deliberately. The category drives referral fee, eligibility for Subscribe & Save, eligibility for some FBA fee programs, which compliance certifications you need, and the competitors you rank against. Look at where your top three competitors sit, and match. Misclassifying yourself into a less-competitive node is short-term clever and long-term expensive.
5. Keyword research complete. Goal: 200+ raw terms collected, 20 to 30 prioritised. Sources: Brand Analytics (Top Search Terms, Brand Registered only), competitor reverse-ASIN via Data Dive (use coupon SFTBSFTBSFTB), Amazon's auto-complete, and the "Frequently bought together" carousel on competitor pages. Score each by search volume × commercial intent × your relevance.
6. Top-five competitor teardown documented. Screenshot the top five organic results for your hero keyword. Capture, for each: main image style, image carousel sequence, video presence, number of A+ modules, price, review count and average rating, presence of Brand Story, and whether they look Brand Registered. You are calibrating, not copying. Save the file. You will reference it in items 9 to 14.
7. Pricing decided with three numbers documented. Floor (break-even after FBA fees, COGS, returns reserve, and a 10% PPC tax), ceiling (the highest credible competitor price you can match), launch price (typically a small margin above floor, leaving room for a coupon to make it look discounted from a higher list price). Write all three down. Revisit at day 30.
8. Inventory plan and FBA shipment created. Calculate roughly 45 days of cover at your target launch velocity. Round up. Send to FBA early enough that it lands before the listing flips live. Never launch with empty pages. A page with no purchasable offer is treated like any other suppressed listing by relevance, and you'll burn the new-product boost on a hidden ASIN.

Of these seven, the main image is responsible for more of your eventual conversion rate than the other six combined. Spend on it accordingly.

9. Main image meets Amazon's spec exactly. Pure white background (RGB 255, 255, 255). Product fills 85% or more of the frame. Minimum 1600 pixels on the long side; Amazon's zoom and mobile experience prefer 2000 pixels or larger. No props, no text, no logos, no watermarks, no models holding the product. Save uncompressed JPEG. Tip: if you have two or three candidate hero images, poll them against a real shopper panel via PickFu before uploading. A 50-vote poll costs less than running a single day of Sponsored Brands and tells you which image will convert before you risk any real traffic.
10. Six or seven secondary images stacked in the right order. A sequence that works in most categories: (1) hero infographic with the three things people search for, (2) lifestyle in context, (3) scale or dimensions, (4) comparison versus the category average, (5) close-up detail, (6) what's in the box. The last slot is best used for a "trust" frame (certifications, made-in, packaging quality) where it applies.
11. Product video uploaded, or scheduled within 30 days. The video slot in the image carousel is one of the highest-leverage conversion improvements available. 30 to 60 seconds, designed to be understood with sound off. If you can only do one piece of video in launch quarter, do this one. If shooting one isn't viable, AlgoFuse generates Amazon-spec product video (and main-image variants and A+ Content modules) from a handful of source photos — fastest path from "no video" to "video live."
12. Title written mobile-first, indexed for desktop. Most categories cap at 200 characters; many are stricter (Apparel 125, Electronics around 150, Pet Supplies as low as 80). Check the Style Guide for your specific category before writing. The first 60 to 80 characters are what a mobile shopper sees. Lead with brand, primary keyword, and the single most important descriptor. Separate phrases with single hyphens (space hyphen space). No commas, no all-caps words, no em dashes.
13. Five bullets, each opening with a benefit. First 80 characters of each bullet are what shows on mobile before expansion. Lead with the benefit, follow with the feature. Most categories enforce around 200 characters per bullet. Verify your category's Style Guide before writing. Use one of the five bullets to pre-empt the most common return reason in your category. That single bullet pays for itself.
14. A+ Content live. Standard A+ is free for all Brand Registered sellers. Premium A+ is now also free for Brand Registered sellers in the US and UK with no prerequisite (Amazon removed the old "5 approved modules in last 12 months" gate in May 2026 for those markets; other markets may still have qualifying criteria). Recommended module sequence: Brand Story module first (so it appears in the cross-listing carousel too), then a comparison chart, then feature-by-feature modules. Avoid the temptation to put 12 modules in. Three to five well-built ones beat a wall of decoration.
15. Backend search terms filled deliberately. Amazon's documented cap is 250 bytes; the practical safe target is 249 bytes (some sellers report that going one byte over silently de-indexes the entire field). Do not repeat words already in your title or bullets. Those are already indexed; you are wasting characters. Do not include competitor brand names (against Amazon TOS, can suppress your listing). Do include common misspellings, synonyms, plural or singular variants you didn't use elsewhere, and Spanish-language equivalents if your category warrants it.

The new-product algorithmic boost lasts roughly a month. Burning that month by being out of stock, unindexed, or running ads to a page that converts at 4% when it should be at 12% is the single biggest unforced error in this whole playbook.

16. Inventory shows "in stock" at FBA, not just "inbound". Verify in Manage Inventory before you flip the listing live or turn on any ad spend. "Reserved" and "inbound" don't count. Amazon treats those pages as out-of-stock for relevance purposes.
17. Buy Box (Featured Offer) owned. On a new private-label ASIN you should own it by default. If you don't, the usual culprits are: pricing flagged as "uncompetitive" by Amazon, a missing required attribute, or a suppression issue you didn't see during listing creation.
18. Listing fully indexed. Search Amazon for your ASIN, then for your brand name, then for the exact phrase from your title. All three should surface the listing within minutes. If they don't, the listing has a suppression issue. Most commonly: an image violation, a missing required attribute, or category gating.
19. Vine enrolled. brand registry required Day one of inventory landing, not day fourteen. Vine pricing is tiered per parent ASIN and Amazon adjusts the tiers periodically. Check the current fee schedule in Seller Central before enrolling. Reviews start landing 14 to 30 days after enrollment. Start at a conservative tier and expand only if early reviews are positive (Vine reviews are the real ones, but they're also harsh).
20. Request a Review automated for every order. The "Request a Review" button on the Order Details page is the only proactive review solicitation Amazon allows since 2020. One click sends Amazon's templated request. Either do it manually from each order or use a tool that calls the underlying Seller Central endpoint. Never email customers directly to ask for reviews. Never offer anything in exchange. Both are TOS violations that nuke accounts.
21. FBA New Selection benefits claimed if eligible. Amazon's FBA New Selection program offers launch-period perks (free monthly storage on a capped quantity, free removals, free liquidations, and a rebate on qualifying sales) for new parent ASINs. The exact benefits and qualifying criteria change periodically. Verify what's on offer the week you enroll. Free, opt-in, no downside.
22. Launch coupon set up. 5 to 15% range typically. Coupons drive the orange "Save X%" badge in search results, which improves click-through. Run for the first 7 to 14 days, not longer (Amazon de-prioritises listings with always-on coupons in some surfaces). Note: Vine units ship at the coupon-discounted price, so don't run a 30% launch coupon during a Vine enrollment unless you're prepared for that economics.
23. List price set above launch price. Amazon's strikethrough comparison ("Was $X, now $Y") requires a credible recent regular-price history. If your list price equals your launch price, the strikethrough doesn't appear and the coupon badge loses some of its visual punch. Set list price about 20 to 30% above launch, give it a legitimate price history, then introduce the coupon.

The match-type ladder runs inside-out: launch with the highest-intent surfaces (product targeting and exact keywords from your research), then expand outward over the week. Auto comes last as a discovery sweep, not the engine.

24. Day 1 — Sponsored Products product-targeting campaign live. Target competitor ASINs from the teardown in item 6 plus your own category's top sellers. Product targeting is the highest-intent SP surface: the shopper is already on a comparable product page. Start with 10 to 20 target ASINs, bids near Amazon's suggested. One ad group per "competitor bucket" if you want clean reporting.
25. Day 1 — Sponsored Products exact-match keyword campaign live. Your hand-picked 5 to 10 hero keywords from item 5, exact match only. Bid at or slightly above suggested. One ad group per keyword. These are the terms you know convert; spend the launch dollars where the intent is sharpest.
26. Day 3 — Sponsored Products phrase-match keyword campaign live. Same hero keywords (plus close variants), this time phrase match. Lower bids than exact. Phrase catches the long-tail traffic that exact misses ("best wireless ear cleaner" picks up "best wireless ear cleaner for dogs"). Negative-exact your hero keywords here to force traffic into the exact campaign at the right bid.
27. Day 5 — Sponsored Products broad-match keyword campaign live. Broader keyword set, including secondary terms you weren't sure about. Bids lower again. This is your true keyword-research engine, picking up phrasings you didn't think to test. Negative-phrase the hero keywords here so they stay in the exact campaign.
28. Day 7 — Sponsored Products auto campaign live. Conservative bids, all four targeting groups enabled (close match, loose match, substitutes, complements) in separate ad groups for clean reporting. Auto runs last because by now your harvest pipeline (item 31) is ready to receive its output. Auto by itself, with no exact / phrase / broad upstream, is the most common launch PPC mistake.
29. Sponsored Brands campaign live. brand registry required At minimum a single video creative pointing to your product. Sponsored Brands video has the highest click-through rate of any Amazon ad format in most categories. Even a simple 15-second clip outperforms a polished image creative. The product collection (headline banner) is the second-priority creative once video is running.
30. Placement modifiers set conservatively. Top of search +15% to +25% to start. Product pages 0%. Rest of search 0%. Revisit after seven days based on what's converting. The default of zero modifiers gives top-of-search too little weight on a launching product where every impression there matters more than usual.

The data starts being meaningful around day ten. Before that, every "trend" is noise. Don't let yourself be paid to react to noise.

31. Search-term harvest run weekly. Pull the Sponsored Products search-term report from your auto, broad, and phrase campaigns. Promote converting search terms (orders > 0 at acceptable ACoS) into your exact-match campaign. Repeat weekly. Within four weeks, your exact campaign should be 3 to 5× the size it was at launch. That growth is the system working.
32. Non-converting search terms negated. Apply negative exact for any search term with 10+ clicks and zero orders. Apply negative phrase for irrelevant brand or category overlaps (e.g., "for kids" if you sell adult). Push these as account-level negatives if they're definitely wrong in any context, or campaign-level negatives if it's a research-mode auto.
33. Bid optimisation pass weekly. For converting keywords with ACoS below target: hold or raise 10%. For converting keywords at or near target ACoS: hold. For keywords with high spend and zero orders: reduce 25 to 50%, or pause if they've been given two full purchase-cycle's worth of clicks. Move slowly. Daily bid changes give the algorithm whiplash. If running this manually weekly isn't realistic, Scale Insights automates the bid pass plus search-term harvesting against rules you set.
34. Stock-out forecast updated weekly. Take last seven days' sell-through, project forward, check against the ETA of your next FBA shipment. A stock-out in week three erases the new-product boost and is the single most expensive unforced error in this whole list. Place the next purchase order earlier than you think you need to.
35. Brand Analytics Search Query Performance reviewed. brand registry required SQP (free, Brand Registered) shows your ASIN's click share and conversion share on every search query your product appeared in. Click share without conversion share = listing or pricing problem. Conversion share without click share = visibility or thumbnail problem. Most other "rank tracker" tools are downstream of this data.
36. Pricing nudge tested at week three. If conversion is strong and inventory is moving faster than plan, test a 5 to 10% price increase on one SKU. Hold for seven days. Compare units per session before and after. If CVR drops by less than the price increase, keep it. If it drops by more, revert. Once you graduate past manual tests, Profasee runs dynamic pricing continuously by demand and competitor signal — the natural automation layer above this manual nudge.
37. Launch coupon paused. End the launch coupon by day 14 to 21. Always-on coupons are de-prioritised in some Amazon surfaces, and they distort your unit economics in ways that hide problems. Bring coupons back tactically (for Prime Day, BFCM ramp, or a specific velocity push), not as a permanent crutch.
38. Manage Your Experiments enrolled. brand registry required Manage Your Experiments (free, Brand Registered) becomes usable once Amazon's system has enough traffic to power statistical significance, usually a few hundred sessions per day on the target ASIN. Set up the first test now even if it can't start running yet. Start with the main image. Image tests have the highest impact on CVR in most categories.

The launch is over. The listing is operating. From here on, every move is about compounding what works and pruning what doesn't. The boring phase. Also the profitable phase.

39. Main image A/B test complete and verdict shipped. Amazon recommends running each Manage Your Experiments test for the full duration it suggests (typically multiple weeks) so the system has enough sessions for a confident verdict. Don't end early. When the verdict lands, ship the winning image as the permanent main, then queue the next test.
40. Title, bullets, or A+ A/B test queued next. Manage Your Experiments supports tests on title, main image, bullets, description, A+ Content, and Brand Story. Multi-attribute experiments (test two or more elements simultaneously) and ML-suggested variants are also live in 2026. Run one variable at a time as a default so verdicts are clean. Image first, then A+, then title. Bullets usually last.
41. Variation strategy executed. If you have 2+ sibling SKUs (different size, colour, scent, count), parent them together by day 60 at the latest. Reviews aggregate to the parent, conversion improves across the family, and the launch boost compounds rather than diluting. Don't launch each variant as a standalone ASIN unless your category structure forces it.
42. Subscribe & Save enrolled if eligible. Available in consumable categories (food, supplements, household, beauty, baby, pet, some personal-care). Amazon funds a base 5% discount on first subscription orders. Brands can optionally fund an additional tier (typically up to 10%) for repeat shipments or for cart sizes of 5+ items. Subscribers are your highest LTV customers and a stability buffer against weekly rank wobble.
43. Brand Tailored Promotions live. brand registry required Brand Tailored Promotions (free, Brand Registered) lets you offer percentage-off discounts to pre-built customer segments: brand followers, repeat customers, recent customers, high-spend customers, cart abandoners, lapsed customers, and potential new customers. Advanced segments (views remarketing, one-time customers, complementary product remarketing) round out the catalogue. Start with cart abandoners and recent customers; those carry the highest conversion intent. Refresh the promo monthly so the segments stay fresh.
44. Sponsored Brands video creative refreshed. brand registry required Swap the launch creative for one informed by 60 days of search-term and conversion data. A new creative re-triggers the algorithm's relevance scoring and gives you a fresh CTR baseline. Repeat every quarter.
45. Sponsored Display remarketing audiences live. brand registry required Two audiences worth running: "views remarketing" (people who viewed your detail page but didn't buy in the last 7 to 30 days) and "purchase remarketing" (cross-sell to past buyers of your other ASINs). Cheaper CPCs than top-of-funnel, much higher conversion. Both require Brand Registry.
46. Brand Story module updated with the new product. Add the newly launched product to your Brand Story carousel so it cross-promotes across your full A+ catalogue. Easy 30-minute task with permanent compounding value: every time a customer lands on any of your A+ listings, they see the new product in the carousel.
47. 30/60/90 day P&L pulled. Net contribution per unit after all FBA fees, returns, PPC spend, coupons, Vine fees, Subscribe & Save brand-funded discount, and Brand Tailored Promotions discounts. Sellerboard is the de-facto P&L tool here — it pulls all of those line items automatically. If contribution is still negative at day 90, the product is failing the survival test. Investigate price, ad efficiency, return rate, or quietly find a replacement candidate.
48. Restock cadence locked. Based on days 30 to 60 velocity (the most reliable signal; not week one, which is artificially inflated by launch tactics), supplier lead time, and FBA inbound time. Pad with safety stock at the level your category's demand variance warrants. Set a calendar reminder for the reorder trigger date, not a "vibes" check.