IndustryThe Smart Way to Optimize Your Amazon Sales Strategy

The Smart Way to Optimize Your Amazon Sales Strategy

Here's how to get the on-page creative elements (images, content, and reviews) on your page right to help your conversion rates and improve organic rankings on Amazon, and then up the ante by driving a lot of targeted traffic to generate sales.

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The giant in online retail, Amazon is a great source for generating profits, whether as a supplement to other channels or as your main sales channel. But with intense competition and multiple sellers, it takes some creativity to stand out and grow sales.

Additionally, high conversion rates on Amazon have a direct correlation to ranking organically in Amazon searches, so paying attention to providing a positive customer experience is very important.

Luckily, you can definitely apply certain strategies on Amazon. Here are tips to help set you up on the right path to success.

On-Page Optimizations

Getting the on-page creative elements right on your page can help with your conversion rates and also help you rank higher in organic results on Amazon. Pay attention to three main elements here: images, content, and reviews.

Images

Have at least four to five high quality photos in order to enhance the customer experience. Adding in videos as well can really help your product stand out from the competition. Oxo does this very well:

OXO Amazon Photos

Amazon’s guidelines for images include:

  • They have to be on a plain white background without any text or watermarks.
  • The product should take up at least 80 percent of the image.
  • No drawings or illustrations are accepted.
  • Recommended size is 1,000 x 1,000 pixels so that products can be viewed in detail.

Content

The content here includes the title, bullet points and product description. Before you start writing any content, check what the character limits for that product category are, since they can vary a fair bit. Then start by writing a descriptive title with a keyword or two within it.

For example, T-Fal does a good job of describing their non-stick pan and its benefits, such as dishwasher safe, but they also put in keyword terms such as Fry Pan and Saute Pan:

T-Fal Amazon Content

Note: The title should never contain any offer-related information such as pricing or promotions.

Then, the next most important content area is the descriptive bullet points next to the image. Keep them succinct, but ensure you include the top product features and reinforce its benefits. It’s a short space to convince people to buy, so ensure you leverage your most important purchase triggers.

A good tip is to try building upon elements from your best-performing paid search ads that you know get a good click-through rate. Numi does a great job here:

Numi Bullet Points

Then make your product descriptions count! Try to use as much of the space allowed to tell a real story about your brand, your product and what sets you apart from the competition. Once again, you can reinforce the purchase triggers in slightly greater detail since you’ll have a little more space to work with. If you have the option, include photographs as well.

Here is Numi’s description:

Numi Description

As with all your content, try testing different variations to find the one that converts best.

Reviews

Amazon has pretty much trained online shoppers to read reviews prior to making a purchase. The more positive reviews you get, both for the product and as a seller, the better your chances of making a sale.

On a humorous note, reviews have even been turned into viral content as in the case of the BIC Pen designed for women:

BIC Pen Customer Review

Amazon reports that only 10 to 20 percent of buyers leave feedback after their purchases. Since we can’t compel buyers to leave feedback, here are some tips to increase your chances of success:

  • If you sell via other channels as well, reach out to your existing base of satisfied customers and ask them to leave some product feedback.
  • You can also do an outreach campaign via your social media channels to request product feedback.
  • Amazon also allows you to provide product for free if you ask for an unbiased review. They don’t allow offering any incentives for a positive review so be careful how you phrase this.
  • Request feedback via your seller account from buyers on Amazon, who can leave not only product feedback but also seller feedback.

Reduce your chances of receiving negative reviews by understanding the most common causes for buyers to complain:

  • Product out of stock
  • Product not as described
  • Late shipments
  • Incorrect item shipped
  • Complicated return process

Given how customer-centric Amazon is, shoppers have been conditioned to expect fast shipments and products that meet the quality guidelines. Any deviations from these high standards can cost you more than just negative feedback; processing a return or reshipment does cost some money too.

Too many negative seller reviews can even have your account suspended, so be careful to always put the customer first, just as Amazon does. The better reviews will really pay off in your sales.

Driving Traffic and Sales

Now that your product listing page is well set up it’s time to up the ante and drive a lot of targeted traffic to generate sales.

Sponsored Products on Amazon

One great way to drive traffic back to your product listing page is the Sponsored Products on Amazon PPC ad option, which are ads on Amazon that drive traffic back to product listing pages on Amazon itself. These ads show up alongside the search results for the keywords you choose and provide additional visibility for your products.

Amazon Sponsored Products Running Shoes

Not all product categories are eligible (e.g., books is a closed category) and only products that win the buy box are eligible to have their ads show up. However, those that are eligible enjoy a high ROAS, especially on short and mid-tail keywords.

It’s extremely easy to get started. There are no ads to write; all you do is select your keywords and your products and set the bids. With careful selection of keywords and targeting, the chances of a sale are extremely high since buyers on Amazon tend to have a higher intent to purchase, leading to less wasted clicks than with other PPC programs.

There’s another added benefit too. The additional sales generated from this improve the page’s sales rank, which in turn improves its rankings in the organic listings.

Mobile Media Buying

Learn Spanish Amazon

This one’s a little out of the box.

If your own website isn’t mobile friendly or converting mobile visitors very well, you could consider sending them to Amazon instead. Since mobile inventory is still relatively inexpensive and Amazon makes purchasing from a mobile device incredibly simple and painless, it’s worth testing a small mobile-only media buy to send traffic and see if you can generate incremental profits.

Clearly there are some potential risks such as not having proper attribution data since we can’t place a pixel on Amazon’s site or Amazon displaying other sellers under new and used on your listing. But if you can see overall order volume go up for your product as a result of these buys and if the costs back out after factoring in the selling costs in addition to the media, then you have a winner on your hands.

Overall the above strategies will even help the organic listings on Amazon, since they are heavily influenced by sales.

Additional Resources

Looking for some additional reading and resources? Amazon provides good seller training in their webinars.

If you’re new to Amazon and looking to set up a product listing page, Amazon offers a handy resource guide, complete with a handy checklist.

Amazon Getting Started Checklist

Have you tried other strategies that have been successful on Amazon? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Resources

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