Welcome to Cross-Retail IQ, a premium platform module that is part of Similarweb's Retail Intelligence suite.
Cross-Retail IQ gives you a unified, product-level view of how shoppers browse, search, and engage with brands across hundreds of digital retailers, all in one place.
With Cross-Retail IQ, you can:
- Benchmark your brand's performance across retailers
- Understand where you're winning or losing share within a category
- Identify fast-growing retailers and competitive threats
- Analyze SKU-level performance
- Uncover high-impact keyword opportunities through on-site search
- Optimize retail media and organic visibility using real shopper behavior data
- Detect emerging trends before competitors do
Cross-Retail IQ combines behavioral traffic insights with digital shelf data, giving you a consistent comparison view across retailers.
How Retail Intelligence data is built
Unlike any other solution in the market, Retail Intelligence - combining both Amazon IQ and Cross-Retail IQ - draws on four data sources combined to give you a consistent, comparable view of shopper behavior across retailers
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Shopper behavior data (clickstream)
Aggregated, anonymized data from a large panel of real shoppers, showing how people browse, search, and engage with products across all supported retailers. This is the core layer behind product page views, on-site search clicks, and share metrics. -
Product data (web indexing)
Automated collection of publicly available product information across retailers, including product titles, categories, brand names, and pricing. This is what powers the digital shelf signals and category classification. -
Retailer and brand data (direct measurement)
Data shared directly by retailers (via Google Analytics) or brands (via Amazon Vendor or Seller Central accounts), used to validate and calibrate the behavioral models. -
Transaction data (data partnerships)
Large-scale anonymized purchase data covering millions of Amazon transactions, used for sales estimation and conversion modeling.
How products are classified
Products are classified using an AI model trained to assign every product page view to the correct brand, subcategory, and category. Classification starts at the individual product level and builds upward through subcategory to top-level category.
Classification level |
Accuracy |
| Top-level category (for example, Electronics) | 97% |
| Subcategory (for example, Televisions) | 95% or above |
| Sub-subcategory (for example, OLED TVs) | 90% or above |
| Brand attribution | 90% or above |
What this means in practice: the vast majority of products in your category are correctly classified. Occasional misclassified products can appear in the Top SKUs view. If you spot a product that clearly does not belong in your category, flag it to your account manager so it can be reviewed.
Data scope: what Cross-Retail IQ measures
Cross-Retail IQ is based on Desktop and Mobile Web traffic only. Visits and purchases made through a retailer's mobile app are not included in any Cross-Retail IQ metric.
Amazon IQ covers Desktop, Mobile Web, and the Amazon app. If you need full Amazon coverage including app traffic, switch to Amazon IQ using the module selector in the platform.
This distinction matters when comparing figures between the two modules: Cross-Retail IQ and Amazon IQ are not directly comparable on a like-for-like basis.
Who is Cross-Retail IQ for?
Cross-Retail IQ is a retail analytics platform designed for both brands and retailers. While the use cases differ, both gain powerful cross-retailer competitive intelligence from a single platform.
For brands
If you're a CPG or consumer goods brand selling across multiple retailers, Cross-Retail IQ gives you one source of truth for how your brand performs across the entire digital retail landscape, replacing fragmented data from separate sources with a consistent, comparable view.
Use Cross-Retail IQ to:
- Benchmark your brand's share across retailers and against competitors
- Discover which of your SKUs are winning and which are losing ground
- Find keyword gaps where competitors are capturing search demand you're missing
- Prioritize retail media investment based on real shopper behavior
- Understand how private labels and emerging brands are affecting your category
For retailers
If you're a retailer or marketplace, Cross-Retail IQ helps you benchmark your category performance against competing retail destinations, understand which brands and products are trending, and identify assortment gaps.
Use Cross-Retail IQ to:
- Compare category size and growth across competing marketplaces
- Identify trending brands and SKUs at competitor sites that you don't yet carry
- Understand on-site search demand in your key categories
- Use category and competitive data to strengthen negotiations with brand partners
Getting access
To get started with Cross-Retail IQ, reach out to your Similarweb account manager.
They will configure the platform with the specific categories, retailers, and SKUs relevant to your business. Because Cross-Retail IQ is organized around predefined category and retailer lists, working with your account manager ensures you're set up with the right scope from day one, so you're not missing coverage that matters to you.
Once access is confirmed, your account manager will walk you through the platform and help you reach your first category insights quickly.
This is the link to the platform: https://shopper.similarweb.com/cross-retail/analysis
Navigating the platform
This section explains how the filters and module selector work. Understanding these mechanics will help you get accurate, consistent results across all views.
Step 1: Select your market, category, and brand
When you open Cross-Retail IQ, start with three selections at the top of the page:
- Market (geography): choose the country or region you want to analyze. Markets are predefined. If you need a market not currently available, contact your account manager.
- Category: choose your product category from the predefined list. If you need a category that isn't available, your account manager can configure it.
- My brand: select your brand from the Define my brand dropdown. This tells the platform which brand to treat as yours for share calculations, benchmarking, and the Opportunities Matrix.
How retailers are populated: once you choose a market and category, the platform automatically includes all retailers that have any product page views in that category. You don't need to add retailers manually. You can narrow the selection using the Filters button, described below.
Step 2: Use filters to refine your view
The Filters button on the right side of the page opens a filter panel where you can narrow your analysis.
From the filter panel, you can:
- Select specific retailers: if you only want to see data for Amazon, Walmart, and Target, select those three and deselect the rest.
- Select specific competitor brands: if you want to focus on a defined set of competitors rather than the full category, select them here.
Important: filters apply to the entire report, not just the view you're currently looking at. If you apply a retailer filter, it will affect the Brand Performance view, the Retailers view, and the OSS keyword table all at once. This is especially relevant for OSS, covered in more detail in the On-Site Search section below.
Note: an updated filter bar is in development. This section will be updated once that change ships.
Step 3: Selecting retailers and brands within sub-views
Two views inside Cross-Retail IQ have their own in-table controls for narrowing data, separate from the main report filters:
Retailer Performance view - You can click on individual retailers within the view to focus your comparison on a specific set. This does not change the main report filter, so other views remain unaffected.
Competitive Keywords view - You can select which brands to show in the keyword benchmarking heatmap by using the brand selector within that view. Again, this is separate from the main report filter.
If you find that filtering the keyword table by retailer also changes the rest of your report, that is expected behavior. To scope keyword data to a single retailer without affecting other views, contact your account manager about your category and retailer setup.
Switching between Cross-Retail IQ and Amazon IQ
The module selector at the top of the page lets you switch between:
| Module | What it covers |
| Cross-Retail IQ | All supported retailers on Desktop and Mobile Web. Use this for multi-retailer benchmarking and competitive landscape analysis. |
| Amazon IQ | Amazon only, covering Desktop, Mobile Web, and the Amazon app. Use this for deep Amazon-specific analysis including sales data, keyword rankings, and app traffic. |
Main platform metrics
These metrics appear across both modules in Cross-Retail IQ. Full definitions for every metric are available in the Retail Intelligence Metrics guide.
Key terms to know:
- Category - A predefined group of related products, for example Laptops or Face Skin Care.
- Product Page Views - The number of visits to product detail pages within the selected category and retailers. Use this to measure shopper interest and overall engagement.
- YoY Change / Growth - Year-over-year percentage change, used for trend analysis.
- Brand Share - Your share of total category views or clicks.
- Total Category Views - The total number of product views across all brands in the category. Represents overall category demand.
- Total Retailer Views - Total category traffic per retailer.
- Total Clicks - The total number of on-site search clicks within the selected category and time frame.
See full metrics definitions here →
Brand and Category performance
This view gives you a product detail page (PDP) level view of how your brand and competitors perform across retailers. Use it to track share, benchmark against competitors, and identify where your biggest growth opportunities are.
This view helps you answer questions like:
- How is my brand performing across retailers?
- Which retailers matter most for my category?
- Where am I gaining or losing share?
- Which SKUs are driving traffic?
- Where are my biggest growth opportunities?
Key metrics and graphs
Top SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit) - A unique product listing. Each size, color, or variation of a product is treated as its own SKU.
My Brand View Share - Your share of total product page views within the selected category. Use this to track brand momentum, monitor competitive shifts, and identify seasonal spikes or declines.
My Brand Click Share - Your share of clicks driven by on-site search within the category. Shows your search visibility, effectiveness of retail media and SEO, and keyword capture performance.
Top Retailers in Category - Shows how category traffic is distributed across retailers. Use this to prioritize retail partners, identify fast-growing retail channels, and spot retailer-level risks or opportunities.
Retailer Comparison - Compare brand performance across individual retailers. For each retailer you'll see brand view share, competitive split, total retailer category views, and YoY performance changes. Helps you understand where you're strongest, who is outperforming you, and which retailers are growing quickly.
Total Retailer Views - The total number of product page views generated within the selected category on a specific retailer during the chosen time frame. Represents the overall size of the category opportunity for that retailer.
My Brand's Share Per Retailer - Trend view showing your brand's weekly share performance across selected retailers. Use this to understand share trends over time and see when competitors gain ground.
My Brand Opportunities Matrix - Prioritize retailers based on your brand's presence and category demand. Shows where you're strong, where you're underperforming, and where the biggest growth opportunities are. Use it to identify where to defend your share or invest more, and where to deprioritize.
Retailer Landscape - Shows category size alongside year-over-year growth for each retailer, helping you see where the market is growing or slowing. Use it to prioritize high-growth retailers for investment and identify channels to focus on.
Competitive Brands Landscape - Compares total brand views with year-over-year growth to show how your brand stacks up against key competitors. Quickly identify leaders, emerging challengers, and established players who are slowing down.
Top Performing SKUs - SKU-level view of performance across retailers, highlighting the most viewed products. Use it to identify top products, spot declining SKUs early, benchmark competitor performance, and inform assortment or launch decisions.
How to select retailers and brands within this view
You can focus the Retailer Comparison and other charts in this view on specific retailers or brands without changing the main report filters:
- To compare a specific set of retailers, click on the retailer names in the Retailer Comparison table to select or deselect them. Only the selected retailers will appear in the chart.
- To change which competitor brands appear in the Competitive Brands Landscape, use the brand selector within that chart. This does not affect the keyword views or other sections of the report.
On-Site Search (OSS) optimization
This view reveals what shoppers are actually searching and clicking inside retail sites, and which brands win that demand. It connects on-site search behavior directly to brand visibility, giving you a mid-funnel view of how shoppers discover products before landing on a product page.
What is on-site search? On-site search (OSS) refers to shoppers using the search bar on a retailer's own website, for example typing 'coffee pods' into Walmart.com. Cross-Retail IQ tracks the clicks generated by these searches and shows you which brands and keywords capture that demand.
This view helps you answer questions like:
- What are shoppers searching for?
- Which keywords drive clicks?
- Where am I winning or losing click share?
- Which competitor keywords should I target?
- Which keywords are growing fastest?
Key metrics and graphs
Keyword Opportunity Matrix — Visualizes total clicks against YoY click growth to help you quickly spot the best keyword opportunities. Use it to identify terms to capture early, declining high-volume terms to defend, and low-priority keywords to deprioritize.
Competitor Keyword Benchmarking - Compares keyword performance across brands, showing click totals and YoY growth. Use this to identify competitor-owned keywords and find branded vs. non-branded gaps.
Total Category Clicks - The total number of on-site search clicks generated by all brands for a specific keyword within the selected category and time frame. Represents overall demand for that keyword.
My Brand Share - Your brand's percentage of total category clicks for a specific keyword.
My Brand Clicks - The total number of on-site search clicks driven to your brand's products for a specific keyword within the selected category and time frame.
Top Brand - The brand that captures the highest number of clicks for a specific keyword within the selected category and time frame.
Top Brand Share - The percentage of total clicks captured by the leading brand for that keyword. Indicates how competitive the keyword is and how dominant the top brand is.
Filtering OSS data by retailer
You can scope the keyword table to show data for a specific retailer. However, this works differently from filtering the chart views:
To filter the keyword table by retailer, use the Filters button at the top of the report and select your target retailer from the retailer list. This will scope all keyword data to that retailer.
Important limitation: applying a retailer filter at the report level will also filter the Brand Performance view and all other sections of the report, not just the keyword table. It is not currently possible to filter the keyword table by retailer without affecting the rest of the report.
If you need to compare keyword data across multiple retailers simultaneously without filtering other views, use the Competitive Keywords view and select retailers within the chart itself.
Exporting data
Cross-Retail IQ lets you export data from three areas. All exports reflect your current filter selection.
Charts and quadrants
Brand, category, and retailer data aggregated across all four chart views. One file covers all chart data for your current selection.
Top Performing SKUs table
Up to 1,000 SKUs. If you've filtered the table by brand or retailer, the export returns up to 1,000 results from that filtered set. To export data for a specific retailer, apply the table filter before downloading.
Top Keywords table
Up to 2,000 keywords. To scope a keyword export to a specific retailer, apply the retailer filter at the report level before exporting.
Important note: the individual product and keyword trend sparklines visible next to each row in the tables are only available in the platform interface. They are not included in any export.
Best practices
These guidelines will help you get consistent, accurate results in Cross-Retail IQ.
Analyzing across retailers
- Always analyze at least 3 to 5 retailers for context. A metric that looks strong at one retailer may look very different across the broader competitive set.
- When comparing your retailer selections across different reports or time periods, always use the same retailer set. Adding or removing a retailer changes every share figure in the report.
Using date ranges and YoY correctly
- Cross-Retail IQ data is organized by retail weeks, which run Sunday to Saturday. When you select a date range, the platform adjusts your dates to the nearest retail week boundaries. Your actual data window may be slightly wider than the dates you entered. Always check the date range shown in the platform after applying your selection.
- Use YoY comparison to show real changes in momentum. The default time frame is weekly, going back 52 weeks, but you can focus on the last 4 or 8 weeks for a shorter trend view.
YoY for keywords and SKUs works differently from brand or category YoY:
A keyword or SKU with no YoY figure simply did not exist in the prior-year period. This is expected, not a data gap. Treat it as a new entrant.
YoY change in the keyword and SKU tables is calculated based on your filtered results, not the full category. If you change a filter, the YoY figures will change.
SKU-level YoY only includes products present in both the current and prior-year periods. Products launched within the past year will not have a YoY figure.
Getting the most from the Opportunities Matrix
- Use the My Brand Opportunities Matrix before making budget or investment decisions. Retailers in the top-right quadrant, high category demand with low brand presence, represent your highest-priority expansion targets.
- Combine the Opportunities Matrix with the Retailers Landscape to understand not just where you're underrepresented today, but whether the retailer is growing or shrinking.
Combining SKU and keyword insights
- Combine SKU insights with keyword insights for full-funnel analysis. A SKU with high views but low click share may indicate a keyword gap. A keyword with rising category clicks but low brand share is a capture opportunity.
- Use Top Performing SKUs to spot declining products early, before they affect overall brand share.
Keeping data fresh
- Cross-Retail IQ data updates every week, with a 9-day lag. For the most current view, check the date range shown at the top of the report.
- Revisit regularly. Weekly updates mean that share shifts, new competitor SKUs, and emerging keyword trends can appear quickly.
Starter pack
- Read the complete Cross-Retail IQ metrics guide
- Check out our Ecommerce Intelligence Blog for regular retail insights
- See the type of insights Cross Retail IQ data and actions you can take in our webinar - From Search to Shop: How ChatGPT and Rufus Are Rewriting Ecommerce
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