Holistic Planning on Amazon: Why View Attribution, False Sales, and ROAS-Fixation Mislead Brands

BLOG: Retail

3 Min Read | January, 2026 | BY Benjamin Weyrich

The Hidden Disconnect: How Siloed Amazon Teams Miss Growth Without Holistic Planning

Many large Amazon vendors still work in divided structures. Key Account Management evaluates Amazon Retail KPIs, while Marketing optimizes Sponsored Ads performance. Both teams operate with different data sets, different attribution logic, and different success metrics. This often results in Sponsored Ads performance being reviewed in isolation, leaving brands surprised when marketing metrics look strong but overall revenue stagnates or declines. A siloed approach makes it extremely difficult to understand what truly drives business performance.

The Three Core Reasons Vendors Misinterpret Amazon Performance

View Attribution in Sponsored Display Creates “False Sales”

Many vendors don’t know that some Sponsored Display campaign formats use view attribution. SD view attribution can attribute up to ten times more sales than click-based attribution and counts conversions even if an ad was only "seen" for half a second. This inflates performance, leading brands to treat SD as their top-performing channel when many of these "sales" would have occurred organically.

The consequence is significant: budgets shift toward the wrong formats, producing little to no incremental growth and sometimes even reducing total revenue.

Over-Reliance on ROAS and ACOS Leads to Wrong Decisions

ROAS can look excellent when advertising branded keywords. The customers convert well but it doesn't generate incremental revenue. Media ROAS rises, but total revenue remains flat or decreases. Teams end up optimizing for a marketing metric instead of business outcomes, reinforcing decisions that do not actually grow the business.

Profitability Blind Spots: Net PPM Is Missing from the Analysis

Performance is often evaluated based on Amazon’s sales price rather than what reaches the vendor’s P&L. Sponsored Ads revenue reflects Amazon's net revenue, not vendor COGS. Returns, discounts, and promotions distort sales further. Without net PPM, teams cannot accurately assess:

Contribution margins
True media profitability
Whether a campaign is adding or destroying value

Why These Errors Cost Brands Millions

When brands increase investment in Sponsored Ads and DSP due to blind trust in the Amazon ROAS/ACOS metric, they quickly run into revenue cannibalization and profitability problems.

At the same time, Sponsored Ads and DSP can drive significant incremental and profitable revenue when:

Product profitability is measured instead of Amazon ROAS/ACOS
View attribution of Sponsored Display campaigns is challenged
Media contribution and revenue cannibalization are constantly measured

The disconnect deepens because Marketing and Key Account teams analyze different metrics from different data sources. Marketing sees strong ROAS, while Key Account sees flat revenue. Both perspectives are technically valid, but neither reflects the full picture. This misalignment results in siloed decision-making and strategies that weaken overall performance.

Ultimately, brands spend more but achieve less.

Holistic Planning Is No Longer Optional

Amazon is too complex for siloed reporting or metric-by-metric decision-making. Brands that rely solely on ROAS, trust view-attributed sales, or overlook profitability metrics risk:

Wasting a large share of their media budget
Losing visibility on incremental impact
Missing critical revenue opportunities
Making poor cross-functional decisions

Holistic, integrated Amazon planning is now a competitive requirement.

CATAPULT’s Holistic Planning module brings retail and media data together in one unified view, revealing what truly drives incremental sales. It shows how budget shifts affect both Media ROAS and Total ROAS, enabling smarter and more profitable decisions. With product-level attribution and integrated profitability insights, brands finally gain one data truth that supports sustainable, profitable growth on Amazon.

About the author

Benjamin Weyrich

He is the Founder and Managing Director of CATAPULT. With around ten years of experience in ecommerce and business intelligence, he focuses on strategic consulting for global brands aiming to strengthen their market position both on and beyond Amazon. Through his deep expertise, he helps companies make data-driven decisions and scale their growth across digital channels.