Thanks to its competitive prices and fast delivery, Amazon has fast become a dominating force in retail and is now the go-to place to buy for millions of shoppers. As a result, brands big and small have signed up to Amazon to showcase and sell their products to an ever-growing Amazon audience.
But with popularity comes competition. More brands are selling more products on Amazon than ever before. And everyone is vying for attention from the same customers. So, how do you get your products to stand out and sell? The answer is straightforward: you need a well thought out strategy.
You cannot hope to succeed simply by listing your products on the platform, or indeed relying only on Amazon as your chosen channel. Here’s our top three tips for creating a profitable Amazon marketing strategy that works.
Carry Our Thorough Keyword Research
Like with all online marketing activities, your strategy should start with in-depth keyword research. Discovering the most desirable search terms will allow more potential customers to find your product listings.
When planning your keyword strategy, focus on long-tail keywords that are specific to your product. This helps filter and narrow down the search process, targeting a more relevant audience. However, be cautious about narrowing your audience too much. While precise and relevant long-tail keywords attract higher-quality visitors who are more likely to convert, being too specific can cause your ads to miss out on vital impressions and not appear in search results. It’s important to strike a balance and find the right level of specificity when creating your keyword lists.
Using negative keywords in your ads is also a crucial step, allowing brands to avoid targeting irrelevant audiences. By preventing your ad from being shown to irrelevant audiences, negative keywords help Amazon match your ad more accurately with potential buyers. Not using negative keywords can result in minimal click-through rates, conversions, and less prominent ad and product placement.
Optimise your Product Listings
With just a small window of opportunity to attract the attention of potential customers, your product listings should be optimised so that they are easily discoverable, relevant to the search terms they are optimised for and attractive to the user to encourage them to buy. The way in which you optimise your titles, product images and product descriptions is the difference between selling and not selling.
Tell a story with A+ rich media, using video in your product thumbnails to inform customers how a product is used, and high-quality imagery to showcase any unique product features and answer potential questions. Some users never make it to the product description, so using your images to show your product at its best is really important.
For copy, above the fold bullet points should highlight key features and benefits, bringing your product to life for customers so that they are reassured they’ve found exactly what they were looking for. Below the fold copy can go into more detail, showcasing your brand as well as your product, while also working to target any relevant keywords for better Amazon SEO.
The more well-optimised your listings, the higher you will rank – leading to maximum sales potential.
Invest in Amazon Advertising
As well as a solid Amazon SEO strategy, sellers should run Amazon PPC alongside their organic efforts to capture clicks and sales that they may otherwise miss if they don’t get rank well organically. There are many different advertising options available on Amazon, including…
Amazon Sponsored Product Ads: These ads highlight specific products, giving them prominent placement in search results for relevant search terms. When customers click on these ads, they are directed to the product’s Amazon sales page, where they can learn more and make a purchase. Sponsored Product Ads occupy prime real estate on the search results page, making them an ideal option for building your brand and getting eyeballs on ads.
Sponsored Brand Ads: This ad type displays your brand logo, a customisable headline, and a selection of your products on the search result page when customers enter relevant search queries. Sponsored Brand Ads are great for increasing brand awareness.
Amazon Sponsored Display Ads: Unlike keyword-driven ads, Sponsored Display Ads allow you to target specific customers or products using display advertisements. These ads often feature eye-catching images and crisp headlines to grab customers’ attention and direct them to your product description page.
Aid Your Brand Growth
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to find success on Amazon. Different strategies need to be implemented, working together to ensure your brand reaches as many eyes as possible. You need a solid strategy, one that will deliver against your specific business needs. An established brand in an over-saturated category will have a very different strategy to a newcomer in a more niche category.
Incentivising new customers to leave reviews will improve your organic ranking on listings. Personalised thank you notes, or first-class customer service are simple ways to encourage positive feedback. An alchemy of algorithmic work through advertising and first-class service generates greater visibility across the platform and also ensures loyalty from customers.
Utilise the Popularity of Established Brands
On Amazon, customers are more likely to search for products rather than brands, likely because they are after the best deals and don’t therefore have brand loyalty. With that in mind, SME brands shouldn’t worry about being overshadowed by household names that sell on Amazon. In fact, they should use it to their advantage.
While competitively-priced products with unique functionalities can certainly win over iconic brands, the bottleneck online has always been visibility. But Amazon’s ASIN Targeting allows sellers to place advertisements directly onto competitor product pages, filtering out the risk of showcasing products on an irrelevant listing. It also helps to start a relationship with a customer already interested in the category and help sway their loyalty to you.
Use all of the Advertising Features
Amazon is awash with simple yet understated advertising tricks – and it’s not just exclusive to one platform. Products can travel far and wide with its offsite retargeting ads, which displays products a user has searched for on third-party platforms for up to 28 days. A distracted shopper browsing online can soon finds themselves back at the listing when persuaded by a targeted ad.
However, an SME’s personality is the best form of advertising. Amazon Stores allow sellers to engage with shoppers just like bricks and mortar stores by showcasing hallmark holiday ranges, discounted offerings, and new product launches.
Businesses can simultaneously curate landing pages with its A+ add-on; integrating banners, text boxes, and enhanced imagery that mirrors a traditional website.
SMEs also have the opportunity to build bespoke Amazon profiles – something that really matters to consumers. Those with curated storefronts and landing pages tell a brand story while also reassuring shoppers wary of counterfeits. No matter how competitive your prices and how fast your delivery, consumers need to feel like your brand is trustworthy and that their order will arrive as they expect.
Use the Right Tools
Fast-growing SMEs operating on Amazon need to track precise metrics: monitoring which products gain the most impressions, how long a customer stays on a landing page, and which ones convert into sales.
But an insight-led strategy on Amazon will only have benefits if activity is optimised 24/7 and you understand the data that you are being presented with.
Those willing to invest in platforms that digest and make sense of the data will succeed in an acute targeting of their key audience while simultaneously attracting new visitors. It’s also invaluable in making informed decisions on where a budget is best allocated. Without this data to guide you on where your budget is best spent, you could be wasting budget on keywords or placements that don’t fit your target profile.
A monster platform like Amazon is both an obvious and scary place to launch, but SMEs are best positioned to grow here. Advertising on Amazon takes away the difficulties and cost of investing in a bricks and mortar store. Those once scratching their heads on how to rival the bigger players are given a clear funnel on how to increase their listing positions and the number of pages their products land on.
However, your strategy should also not simply rely on Amazon as your only advertising channel as many SMEs are now investing in social media advertising to drive brand and product awareness and drive traffic through to their Amazon listings or website. Brands can avoid the expensive overheads of traditional bricks & mortar stores, without worrying about being devoured by the marketplace and their products never reaching page 1 of the search results.
There are many more tips and tricks when it comes to Amazon. For more in-depth advice, get in touch with an Amazon agency expert.
