Decoding Amazon COSMO: Turning The Amazon Science Report Into Actionable Strategy

There is still a surprising amount of content circulating online about A9, A10 and legacy keyword-stuffing tactics, despite COSMO playing a defining role in how products gain visibility across Amazon. At Market Rocket, we reviewed Amazon’s own Science COSMO research and translated it into a clear optimisation model that shows brands exactly which inputs influence performance. The intention was not to reinterpret the report but to remove the ambiguity and surface the actions that genuinely matter.

The COSMO model checks how well customer needs, search signals, content, pricing, and buying habits all work together throughout the customer journey. Breaking down the model reveals that traditional density-based approaches are no longer useful. The algorithm prioritises what customers actually do: how they search, which paths they take, what they compare, how long they stay on a listing, and what ultimately earns their conversion.

What The COSMO Framework Highlights As Optimisable

The model identifies a set of fields and behaviours that brands can directly influence:

• Browse-node accuracy that reflects natural customer browsing behaviour

• Full attribute population across benefits, features, formats, materials and use-cases

• Discoverability fields aligned with genuine customer language rather than artificially expanded phrasing

• Structured title architecture shaped by the most influential, high-intent terms

• Backend search terms used to reinforce discoverability without duplicating visible fields

• Clear and stable pricing signals that support contribution margin and prevent volatility

• A coherent image hierarchy that strengthens comprehension and reduces hesitation

• Detail-page structure that improves dwell time and decision quality

• Aligned traffic inputs across advertising campaigns to maintain clean intent signals

These fields directly influence how COSMO interprets relevance, whether a brand sells via Seller Central or supplies Amazon directly.

Behavioural Outcomes Matter More Than Text Length

A core theme in the research is that rankings are shaped by behavioural outcomes rather than copy volume. Glance views, comparison interactions, return-to-search behaviours, and add-to-basket signals all grow stronger when a listing reflects what the customer expects to see. Listings designed around clarity and alignment consistently outperform those focused purely on keyword quantity.

Traffic Quality Reinforces Algorithm Stability

Visibility also depends heavily on how clean and consistent the traffic signals are. Advertising structures built around unified intent give COSMO the continuity it needs to reinforce placement. Campaign structures that are scattered or too widely spread create confusion, making it harder for the model to recognise how relevant a product is compared to its competitors.

How We Apply COSMO At Market Rocket

Market Rocket uses this optimisation model to align metadata, content, creative, pricing, and advertising architectures. By grounding decision-making in the fields and behaviours that COSMO values most strongly, brands achieve more stable visibility and improved efficiency across their catalogues, even in competitive categories. The COSMO model checks how well customer needs, search signals, content, pricing, and buying habits all work together throughout the customer journey.

Want to see your Amazon performance skyrocket? Book a call with our team or email us at amazon@marketrocket.co.uk to take your brand to the next level.