Tag: Amazon

The Keys to Success With Amazon Advertising

Do you want to be more successful with Amazon advertising?

With millions of active customers, Amazon is the perfect place to grow your business. However, it’s not as simple as putting up products and waiting for sales to come in.

Sometimes, you may need the help of ads. Let’s take a look at how best to use them.

What Is Amazon Advertising?

Amazon advertising is paid advertising that runs on a pay-per-click model. Through them, you can feature your product listing at the top of Amazon’s search results for chosen keywords.

Rather than paying upfront for your advertising, pay-per-click ads mean you only pay when someone clicks to view your product.

PPC is very efficient because you only have to pay when you know you’ve reached your target audience. It’s still up to you to get the conversion and sell your product, but Amazon advertising gives you the opportunity to do this.

Ultimately, Amazon is a search engine and, as with most search engines, your click-through rate drops considerably if you’re not in the top few results. Building this presence organically takes time though, so having an Amazon advertising strategy is a great way to gain exposure quickly.

Over 2.5 million products are sold on Amazon only in the U.S., so it’s easy to get lost in a sea of product results pages. By mastering the Amazon ads manager, you ensure this won’t happen to your business.

Benefits of Amazon Advertising

People lead busy lives. One of the reasons Amazon has become so popular is that it’s convenient.

  • It gives people instant access to a huge array of products.
  • It makes checkout incredibly simple.
  • It offers fast delivery so people get their hands on their purchases quickly.
  • People don’t have to leave their houses to buy products.

Amazon respects the fact that people’s time is valuable, and that’s one of the reasons it’s been so successful. It’s also a key reason why Amazon ads are so beneficial for businesses.

People don’t have the time to search through pages two, three, and four of Amazon’s results. They expect to find the best results at the top of page one, and, if your product isn’t there, then your sales are going to suffer.

This is further complicated by the fact that it’s hard to distinguish your brand from the competition on Amazon. When you sell products on your own e-commerce store, you’re in complete control of your branding, however, when you sell on Amazon, you’ve got to work within its regulation.

Limited control over how you build your brand means you’re incredibly reliant on turning up at the top of the search results.

The proof is in the return on investment.

Creating an Amazon ad can bring you instant results, and businesses like Empire Case, a mobile phone and tablet accessories seller, regularly see an ROI of 200+ percent.

Amazon Advertising Examples

I’ve talked about some of the benefits of Amazon ads, but how do they apply to real-world scenarios? As you’ll see from these examples, getting your Amazon advertising strategy right can have a huge impact.

Alexandra Workwear Increased Sales by 300+ percent

Alexandra Workwear, a manufacturer of work uniforms, grew their chef workwear sales by 372 percent year on year using Amazon advertising, achieving a 500 percent return on advertising spend (ROAS).

It followed a simple strategy that brought in impressive results. They:

  1. Set up a “sponsored product campaign” on Amazon’s ad console.
  2. Used the campaign-builder to identify new keywords.
  3. Executed an aggressive bidding strategy to increase search impressions by 80 percent.
  4. Created A+ content for each product.
  5. Optimized product images and copy on the product page.
  6. Ran sponsored display ads to complement the sponsored product campaign.
  7. Expanded their reach and made more sales.

This case study reinforces the idea that appearing at the very top of the search results is extremely important, but it also shows how essential it is to optimize your product pages.

There’s no point in increasing your Amazon ads budget if your product pages aren’t persuasive enough to make sales.

You’ve got to make use of all the organic tools you have available to you. That means offering top-quality images, writing great copy, and utilizing elements like fantastic content.

Lenovo Increased Brand Awareness by 19 Points

These Amazon advertising strategies don’t just work for smaller brands; they’re also effective for large, global businesses like Lenovo computers.

To promote its premium Yoga laptop, Lenovo used a 15-second Amazon video that saw impressive results.

According to the Brand Lift study, this ad campaign coincided with a 19-point lift in brand awareness, a 5-point increase in perception as a premium brand, and a 9-point increase in purchase intention.

On the scale of a business like Lenovo, those are huge numbers, so how did it achieve them? They:

  1. Used Amazon’s ad manager to identify relevant audiences.
  2. Targeted specific groups (such as lifestyle tech enthusiasts, people in-market for laptops, and audiences with high purchase propensity.)
  3. Reached six million people.

The key takeaway from this is targeting.

Don’t assume that you already know exactly who your audience is and what they want. Go the extra mile to make sure your Amazon ads are reaching exactly the right people.

Amazon Advertising Costs

Ready to start using Amazon advertising?

First, you need to set your budget. What should you expect to spend?

This is a tricky question to answer because it varies greatly depending on your industry.

The average Amazon ads CPC in the U.S. is $1.20 per click, however, this is very much a guideline. A CPC algorithm sells each impression to the highest bidder (other factors do enter into the equation, but the value of the bid plays a big part), so the more competition there is, the more you’re likely to pay.

A bar graph showing the average CPC of Amazon advertising over an 18 month period.

However, the element that will ultimately decide your Amazon advertising costs is your conversion rate.

If you’re spending $1 for every click and converting 1 percent of those clicks, then you spend $100 to sell one product. On the other hand, you might pay $2 per click, but if your conversion rate is 5 percent, then $100 of ad spend is going to get you five sales.

The trick is to find keywords where buyer intent is highest. These might be more competitive, but, if they result in much higher conversion rates, then it’s going to offer you a better return in the long run.

Amazon Advertising Strategies: 9 Tips to Drive Sales

Let’s take a look at some of the Amazon advertising strategies you should follow to help you drive more sales.

1. Outline Your Goals

One of the first steps in any form of marketing is to clearly outline your goals.

What do you want to achieve with your Amazon advertising?

This isn’t just how many sales you want to make, or what ROAS you’d like to achieve. It starts with questions like:

  • Do you want to drive brand awareness (as Lenovo did)?
  • Do you want to increase traffic for your product?
  • Do you want to have better conversions and increase sales?

Many people will focus on sales with Amazon, but its advertising options are much more diverse than this.

Remember, people who write down their goals are around 50 percent more likely to achieve them, so this is an important step.

2. Choose the Right Amazon Advertising Campaign

One of the first things you will have to decide with your Amazon advertising is which campaign type you want to run.

An image of the different types of Amazon ads.
Choose the best type of Amazon ad based on your goals.

When you go into your Amazon Ads Manager, you’ll be presented with different campaign types:

  • Sponsored Products: Feature your products at the top of search results.
  • Sponsored Brands: Feature your brand in shopping results.
  • Sponsored Display Ads: Display ads across relevant Amazon pages.
  • Stores: Feature your brand story and portfolio of products.
  • Audio Ads: Play on the free tier of Amazon Music.
  • Video Ads: Play on connected TVs and publisher channels and networks.

The format you choose will largely be dictated by your goals.

For example, if you’re looking to drive brand awareness, then you might choose a store, audio, or video ads campaign. However, if you’re looking to be more sales-focused, then sponsored products, brands, or display ads might be the best option.

One of the great things about Amazon advertising is that they make it very easy to set up and run your campaign, no matter what format you choose.

3. Set a Budget

As with any investment, you should have a clear understanding of what you want to spend on your Amazon ads before you begin.

The last thing you want to do is go over budget and hurt your bottom line. Amazon advertising should be increasing your profit margin, not shrinking it.

The Amazon ad manager can make suggestions for you and tell you if it thinks you need to up your budget, but ultimately, this is something you have to decide.

Amazon certainly isn’t the only ad platform you should consider (Google and the social media networks are also very valuable), so you’ve got to find the balance that works for you.

Set a budget that you’re comfortable with and then give it time to see how it performs. Once you’ve got data to work with, then you can make a more informed decision about raising or lowering your budget.

Digital ad spend is worth over $560 billion, so it’s clearly an important marketing tool. In order for it to work for you, your Amazon advertising strategy has got to work within your monetary constraints.

4. Choose the Right Products to Promote

You want your Amazon advertising to have maximum impact, so you’ve got to choose the right products to promote.

Not only are there millions of products on Amazon and heaps of competition, but you may have products that sell cheaper than the cost you’d spend per click. Therefore, some products of yours will outperform others.

Start to figure out which ones are the best fit for your Amazon ads. Thankfully, the answers are going to be in your analytics.

  1. First, go to your Amazon Seller Central dashboard.
  2. Second, identify how much traffic each of your products is already receiving.
  3. Assess which has the highest conversion rate.
  4. Look at the cost of the keywords you’d want to use.
  5. Work out your ideal profit margin.

This information is going to be crucial in helping decide which products you should start promoting.

You want to choose ones with good conversion rates that aren’t over-saturated with traffic (and therefore costly), as this is where the greatest potential lies.

5. Choose the Right Visual Assets

One of the drawbacks of e-commerce is that shoppers can’t see the products in person before buying them.

You have to overcome this by giving them the next best thing—high-quality images.

If customers can inspect your products in a similar way to how they would in a real-life store, then it’s going to result in more sales.

360-degree rotating images are a great tool for this, and they’ve been shown to increase e-commerce conversion rates by as much as 27 percent. Humans are visual creatures, and we need good images to understand the finer details of products.

6. Write Clear, Engaging Copy

You’ll often see two extremes when it comes to copy on Amazon product pages: those who neglect it, and those who stuff keywords everywhere to try and gain an SEO benefit.

Your copy has a direct impact on your conversion rate though, so it’s an important part of your Amazon advertising strategy.

Yes, you want to include the right keywords, but you’ve also got to be concise and informative.

  1. Tell the story of your business.
  2. Show the benefits of your products (and not just the features).
  3. Build your brand identity.
An image of AstroAI fridges, used as an example of writing engaging copy.
Writing clear and engaging copy helps drive sales.

This is also an area where you can constantly optimize.

Run some A/B tests to find out what works, and make sure your copy is helping you to get the most out of your Amazon ads.

7. Target the Right Audience

As we saw in the Lenovo case study, identifying the right target audience is a vital part of Amazon advertising.

It’s tempting to try and sell your product to everyone. However, you’ve got to focus your resources to maximize your sales. No spraying and praying.

The only way to do this is if your Amazon ads are showing to the right people.

You might find a big new audience that almost seems like the right fit and get a ton of traffic to your page, but it’s not worth it. Clicks without sales eat into your budget, and that’s what happens if your targeting isn’t quite right.

8. Add Negative Keywords

Talking of things that eat into your budget, here’s another: negative keywords.

Amazon’s algorithms are pretty smart. They’re able to understand how keywords are related and which ones might be applicable to your product. The thing is, they don’t get it right all the time.

You’ll find that if you use an automatic campaign, you’ll get some clicks for keywords that just aren’t relevant to your product. When you notice these, it’s important that you add them to your negative keywords list so you don’t show up for that query in the future.

For example, you might be advertising for keywords related to tennis, and Amazon decides that Pickleball and tennis are closely related. If you get clicks for Pickleball related queries, then you’d want to add them to your negative keywords.

Otherwise, you could be losing money.

9. Test + Optimize Your Ads

Selling products online is all about optimization.

If you’re not learning from the data you collect, then it’s difficult to move forward. What data allows you to do is run split tests. This is where you change an element of your Amazon advertising strategy and see how it performs compared to the control version.

By individually testing different elements of your Amazon ads and product pages, you can isolate which tactics work and which don’t.

Frequently Asked Questions About Amazon Advertising

What is the difference between self-service and managed amazon ads?

Self-service Amazon ads put sellers in control of their campaigns, whereas managed Amazon ads are controlled for you. Typically, managed Amazon advertising requires a minimum budget of $50,000.

Can I schedule ads in Amazon advertising?

Yes! Amazon ads can be scheduled. All you have to do is log into your Amazon ads console and select the campaign you want to edit. You’ll see a drop-down table titled more. The first tab in the drop-down is ad scheduling which allows you to choose when your ad is shown.

What are the different types of Amazon ads?

There are six types of Amazon ads: sponsored products, sponsored brands, display ads, stores, audio ads, and video ads. Each has its own benefits, so it’s worth exploring them more to find out which ones best fit your brand.

What are the benefits of Amazon Advertising?

With Amazon advertising, you can reach a huge audience with high purchase intent. Its tools also allow you to be extremely targeted with your ads, ensuring you reach the people who are most likely to benefit your brand.

Conclusion: The Keys to Amazon Advertising Success

There are some great benefits to Amazon advertising, and, to make the most of your money, the key is choosing the best strategy and slowly fine-tuning your approach through trial and error.

Amazon offers some great tools to help you target the correct audience and manage your budget, however, you’ve got to go a step further than this.

If you’re going to invest money in advertising, then your product pages have to be fully optimized, and you need to learn from your analytics.

Through A/B testing and incremental changes, you can perfect the art of Amazon advertising and make a big difference to your business.

Are you using Amazon ads? If not, when are you going to start?

How to Use Amazon Posts to Promote Your Products

If you’re serious about digital marketing, you’ve likely spent thousands of dollars on testing, experimenting, and workshopping only to find that you simply aren’t reaching your target audience.

That’s where Amazon Posts comes in.

Amazon is doing more than just integrating social with online retail. Their Posts initiative reimagines what social media marketing could be, and it might just be the answer to some e-commerce sellers’ problems.

What Are Amazon Posts?

amazon posts home page

Amazon Posts is Amazon’s social media initiative designed to help shoppers find new products and engage with their favorite brands.

Essentially, this is Amazon’s version of Instagram. Posts allow brands to create and promote product-related content, directly linking to specific product listings. All your posts will appear on your brand’s feed.

Your content is visible to shoppers on product detail pages, related product feeds, and category-based feeds. Amazon is presenting brands and businesses with an opportunity to market directly to their audience, within Amazon itself.

As a business owner or marketer looking to expand their social media marketing (SMM) strategy, Amazon Posts offer a unique approach to content. Instead of creating content on the latest social media site and linking to an Amazon account, brands can engage with users already on the Amazon platform, driving sales and engagement.

Access to shoppers that are already engaging with Amazon is part of what makes Amazon Posts such an interesting marketing tool. That access can reduce friction, one of the most frustrating hurdles for marketers to overcome.

Why You Should Use Amazon Posts to Promote Your Products

Platforms like Amazon and social media release new features constantly. So, what are the benefits of investing in this new feature? Let’s look at why Amazon Posts matters for e-commerce brands.

Reach a Wider Audience

Amazon is the most popular buying app in the United States, reaching more than 150 million buyers every month. Amazon Posts helps your brand connect (and convert!) those buyers. Plus, unlike ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, Posts let you reach more buyers for free.

A wider reach for free? It’s hard to argue with that.

Reduce Buyer Friction

When we discuss friction in marketing and sales, we’re typically referencing potential sticking points and objections customers encounter in their journey from a potential sale to conversion.

That friction can become a tricky issue because just about every decision a customer makes can lead them to friction.

From a marketing standpoint, your job has two layers. The first layer involves removing as much friction from the customer journey as humanly possible. However, your business can’t remove every single friction point. Eventually, the customer is going to encounter a “yes/no” situation.

That’s why the second layer of marketing involves creating marketing experiences and content compelling enough to keep shoppers moving past the friction points you can’t eliminate.

Every form of marketing has its friction points, but Amazon Posts aims to address two of the biggest issues in marketing.

When your brand promotes its content on Amazon, you don’t have to ask shoppers to follow you to another site. They’re already where they need to be! Plus, with Amazon’s streamlined, high-level approach to the shopper experience, your brand can leverage its expertise and create compelling customer journeys.

Competitive Product Visibility

The term ‘competitor analysis’ is referenced frequently in digital marketing, and with good reason.

Your brand is probably not the only option for product X or service Y. Whether your brand has 10 competitors or 50, your brand’s priority is standing out and connecting with potential shoppers.

Savvy brands and business owners analyze the advertising channels their competitors use. How are they writing their copy? How often are they producing content? Where are their ads appearing? What keywords are on their landing page? These are the questions that drive critical analysis.

Brands ask themselves these questions for one simple reason. When you understand how your competitors think, operate, and promote themselves, hijacking their audience becomes much easier.

amazon posts - related posts feature

Promoting your content through Amazon Posts means your products can land on ‘related product’ feeds so you can directly advertise to your competitor’s audience when the shopper is primed to make a purchase!

With access to over 150M monthly users, your brand can’t afford to sit on the sidelines and let your competitors dominate the Amazon Posts space.

Who Should Use Amazon Posts to Promote Their Products?

Clearly, there are quite a few perks to using Amazon Posts, but that still leaves us with one question. How can you know if Amazon Posts is a good fit for your brand?

You wouldn’t promote exercise equipment on LinkedIn or professional SaaS business solutions on Snapchat. Every audience has a unique social media experience, and understanding how your shoppers see the world is part of building an effective marketing strategy.

Fashion brands are in a fantastic position with this platform. Promoting high-quality images of your products right next to your competitors? It’s a dream come true for most fashion brands.

Still, there are plenty of other brands that can leverage the Amazon Posts space. If your brand has tons of relevant social media content, you’ll be able to repurpose that and promote it directly to Amazon shoppers.

However, there are a few things that your brand should keep in mind before diving into the Amazon Posts ecosystem.

Your brand must actively sell products on Amazon to qualify for this initiative. Fortunately, Amazon Posts is a free platform, which means you can legitimately compete with larger brands.

If your brand has taken the time to create high-quality images, this is a perfect way to not only maximize their value but explore a unique form of consumer marketing.

How to Create Amazon Posts

Now that you’ve decided to get started, it’s time to start creating posts. This process is relatively straightforward. Start by visiting the official Amazon Posts website and signing in using your advertising console or Seller Central credentials.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll create a profile by verifying your brand name, uploading an image of your brand’s logo, and just like that, you can start creating posts on Amazon.

Each Post has five key elements: a brand name and logo, the promoted image, a ‘show product’ button, a caption, and tags. Most of those elements will sound familiar if you’ve spent time promoting on Instagram, but the implementation of tags is a bit different on Amazon.

Instead of hashtags on Instagram, which let you control where your post appears and what it’s related to, Amazon auto-tags your post and automatically determines which feeds it will display on.

Tips to Create Amazon Posts That Successfully Promote Your Products

Now that you know what Amazon Posts are, let’s talk about how to make them work for your brand. Here are three tips to make the most of this new feature.

Post Often

This is where SMM shines. Creating a post on Amazon is entirely free! Instead of having to manage an ad budget, your brand can focus on creating and sharing as much relevant content as possible.

Developing a relationship with shoppers takes time, so the sooner you get started, the better. To ensure regular content updates, schedule your posts through the platform. With scheduled posts, you can simplify your marketing efforts and consistently engage with your audience.

Daily posting is a good place to start, but if you have an extensive backlog of content, feel free to schedule more. Remember to experiment here, to make sure you aren’t overwhelming your audience!

Content Is Still King

We’ve tackled the “quantity” component, but it’s important we address the “quality” component as well.

No one, and I do mean no one, enjoys spam. Instead of overloading your audience with every single possible image, think like an art curator. Your brand is made up of dozens, maybe even hundreds of unique content pieces. Which pieces are exceptional? What kind of customer will want to engage with a particular piece of content?

Crafting remarkable pieces of content is great, but crafting memorable marketing experiences is what drives conversions. Use this platform as an opportunity to explore exactly what your brand and your content is capable of.

Monitor Campaigns and Metrics

Some brands view marketing campaigns as a mad dash for awareness. Don’t get me wrong, traffic is definitely important, but truly effective marketing is about more than just visibility.

As a marketer, I don’t just want to be seen. I demand to be heard, and when my content doesn’t drive conversions, something needs to change.

This is what makes monitoring your campaigns and metrics crucial. If you’re new to Amazon Posts, it’s not enough to simply start posting. You need to determine clear marketing objectives, campaign strategies, and content initiatives.

Social media platforms change constantly and understanding how those changes affect your campaigns makes it much easier to adapt and evolve.

Examples of Successful Promotional Amazon Posts

If you’re worried about what kind of content to create, or how to define your visual branding, take a page from an e-commerce store and just let the product speak for itself.

VIKICON offers a relatively small caption, a decent product offering, and some saturated tags. The image itself demands attention.

amazon posts - vikicon example

Bold, eye-catching visuals are a powerful way to tell your entire brand story without saying anything at all. Sometimes, less truly is more.

amazon posts - kiwi design example

Likewise, KIWI Design understands the appeal of its product. Getting lost in a virtual reality world is about more than just computational capacity and frame rates. It’s about the shock and awe of diving into an immersive digital experience.

My favorite part about this image? It also sells you on the value of the ceiling pulley system! If you want to get lost in a digital experience, the last thing you want to deal with is tripping over cables.

Conclusion

Social media marketing is crucial to building a relationship between consumers and sellers. Our capacity to connect in honest, meaningful ways directly impacts how well our business does. Amazon Posts serves as a bridge between social media marketing and a straight e-commerce experience.

Amazon Posts is interesting mostly because it reduces friction and integrates so well with the Amazon platform. That being said, there are brands with dynamic visual content that are perfectly suited for this environment.

If your brand falls into that category, don’t waste any more time. Get to strategizing and see how well you can connect with shoppers on Amazon Posts.

If you want to learn about other innovative ways to promote your e-commerce company, let our agency know. We can keep you in the loop and partner with you to integrate custom digital marketing strategies.

Are you planning to leverage Amazon Posts? What results are you hoping to see?

How to Use Amazon Attribution For Ad Campaigns

Every Amazon seller knows how difficult it is to track and measure the impact of external advertising channels on sales. It doesn’t matter how you are driving clicks to your Amazon page; once consumers land on the website, it’s anyone’s guess what happens. 

Thankfully, that’s not the case anymore. Amazon Attribution makes it possible for certain sellers to track what happens to every user they send to the platform. In this post, I’ll explain everything you need to know about Amazon Attribution, including:

  • who can use Amazon Attribution
  • the benefits of using Amazon Attribution
  • how to set up Amazon Attribution
  • what you can track using Amazon Attribution

What Is Amazon Attribution?

What Is Amazon Attribution

Amazon Attribution is a new tool that promises to grow your Amazon business by improving experiences away from the Amazon platform.

Specifically, the tool provides analytics insight into how non-Amazon marketing channels like search, social media, display, PPC, and email marketing impact sales on Amazon. It can also track traffic sent to a different website that ultimately converts on Amazon.

Access to Amazon Attribution is available through either the platform’s self-service console or through tools that already integrate with the Amazon Advertising API.

What Does Amazon Attribution Cost?

Amazon Attribution is currently available for free, which is great news for e-commerce owners.

Who Can Use Amazon Attribution?

Amazon Attribution is currently only available to sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry and Vendors in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, Spain, France, and Italy. That may change in the future, so keep your eyes peeled if you are in other locations.

What Can You Track Using Amazon Attribution?

Amazon Attribution lets you track a range of metrics that can impact e-commerce sales, including:

  • click-throughs
  • impressions
  • detailed page views
  • purchase rate
  • add to cart
  • total sales

How Does Amazon Attribution Work?

Amazon Attribution uses parameterized URLs—essentially a tracking URL. When users click on the link and go to your store, Amazon can track precisely what they do.

It’s a bit like a combination of Facebook’s Pixel and Google Analytics. Everything users do once they click on your ad is tracked, and you can see it all in an easy-to-use dashboard.

4 Amazon Attribution Features You’ll Want to Try

Amazon Attribution isn’t just a URL tracking tool. It has several key features marketers will want to leverage.

1. Full-Funnel Amazon Analytics

Amazon Attribution significantly increases the number of sales funnel data brands have access to. You’re not just limited to conversion data. Instead, Amazon lifts the curtain on how consumers interact with your product on their platform, providing metrics like clicks, detailed page views, and how many times customers add your product to their basket.

2. On-Demand Amazon Conversion Metrics

You can see campaign performance as and when it happens. Real-time reporting means marketers can optimize their marketing campaigns faster than ever before.

3. Customer Insights

Because of the wealth of metrics Amazon Attributes provides, marketers can understand how the users they send to their store behave once they get there. Do they add the product to their basket as soon as they land on a page? Do they find a different product they prefer? Do they not buy anything at all? Amazon Attribution lets you answer all those questions and more.

4. Separate Tracking for Each Advertising Channel

Amazon Attribution lets marketers create different tags for every marketing channel. Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, blog posts, social media posts, it doesn’t matter. You can make hundreds of tags so you always get granular detail on the performance of every channel.

Why Is Amazon Attribution Such a Big Deal?

It’s not an overstatement to say Amazon Attribution could be a transformational tool for sellers and vendors. Before the tool was created, tracking off-Amazon marketing campaigns was an absolute nightmare.

There was simply no way to differentiate traffic from separate marketing channels. It was all dumped together.

Let’s say you made 500 sales, and you know that your own Amazon ads generated 100 of them. That leaves 400 sales that could have come from any marketing channel or even through an organic Amazon listing.

Do you see what a problem that is for marketers trying to find the best channel? There’s no way they can tell.

Amazon Attribution changes everything completely. Now marketers and brands will be able to see precisely where each sale comes from, and that comes with a bunch of benefits.

3 Benefits of Using Amazon Attribution

“Why use Amazon Attribution in the first place?” I hear some of you ask. There are several reasons eligible brands should start using Amazon Attribution immediately. Here’s my top three.

1. It Identifies the Most Valuable Marketing Channels

It’s not always easy to calculate the ROI of your non-Amazon marketing efforts, especially if you use multiple channels. Amazon Attribution allows sellers to see exactly which advertising efforts drive the most sales and provide the highest ROI. With a clear picture of what’s working and what’s not, store owners can focus on their most profitable channels.

2. It Optimizes Existing Campaigns

Amazon Attribution lets you understand how users interact with your store and the broader Amazon ecosystem. If traffic from one demographic converts better than others, you can optimize your existing campaigns to drive more users that do convert and fewer of those that don’t.

3. It Can Drive More Sales

Some sellers may find the concept of sending external traffic to Amazon strange, but it’s becoming increasingly important. Amazon is becoming increasingly dominant in e-commerce. At the same time, the price of sponsored ads on the platform continues to rise.

Why Drive Traffic to Amazon in the First Place?

When you understand which marketing channels are most effective and how consumers interact with your products on Amazon, you can start to make real, data-backed decisions. The kind of decisions that will help you sell more on Amazon For some that could be investing more in a specific marketing channel. For others, it could be adjusting the price of their products.

What’s more, new sellers are signing up to Amazon every day. Oberlo recently reported that a million new sellers are joining Amazon every year. With so much competition, external traffic can be a vital lifeline to help sellers survive.

Reduce Amazon Advertising Costs

External traffic helps you sidestep the competition for listings on Amazon and drive traffic directly to your storefront. There’s no need to pay for sponsored ads on Amazon when you drive traffic directly to your products.

Boost Your Seller Rank

External traffic can seriously increase the number of sales your store makes. This can have a huge impact on your overall sales. Sales velocity is one of the ranking factors Amazon uses in its A9 algorithm, so the more sales you’re making, the higher your products will rank in the future.

Better Understand Your Amazon Customers

The insights from Amazon Attribution can help you learn more about your customers than ever before. You may find that one product doesn’t convert as well as you thought it did, for instance. Or that customers prefer one product over another.

You won’t just be improving your Amazon store’s performance, either. These kinds of insights can improve your business outside of the Amazon platform, too.

How to Set Up Amazon Attribution

The first step to getting started with Amazon Attribution is filling out a signup form and logging in to your account.

How to Set Up Amazon Attribution - Amazon Attribution form

Once your account has been approved and set up, you can start matching products to the campaigns you’re tracking:

  1. Create a tag by clicking on the relevant advertiser’s name.
  1. Click “New order.”
  1. Select the “Set up an order” parameter.
  1. Choose the product you want to link to by searching for your products and clicking “Add.”
  1. Give a name and external ID to your attribution tag. I recommend being as obvious as possible with your name, so you know which link is which (Don’t forget you’ll have a separate tag for each of your products).
  1. Choose where you’re going to place this link: Facebook, AdWords, etc.
  1. The clickthrough URL is the URL of your product. Find your product on Amazon, copy the URL and paste it here.
  1. Click “Create,” and you’re done. You can now copy the Amazon Attribution tag and start using it in the wild.

Alternatives to Amazon Attribution

Amazon Attribution is an incredible tool, but unfortunately, it’s not available to everyone who sells on the platform. Luckily, there are several alternatives you can use instead.

Amazon Associates Tracking

Alternatives to Amazon Attribution - Amazon Associates Tracking

Amazon Associates tracking links were the most popular way to track external traffic to the store platform before Amazon Attribution. With Associates tracking links, you get paid a commission every time a customer converts.

Unfortunately, this tracking solution is nowhere near as in-depth as Amazon Attribution. You’ll only be able to see which items users bought, not their behavior on the site before conversion. Plus, Amazon Associates only get one tag. That means it can be hard to differentiate between traffic sources.

Pixelfy.me

Alternatives to Amazon Attribution - Pixelfy.me

Pixelfy.me is a URL shortener and tracker built specifically for Amazon sellers. You can create and track every kind of Amazon link, including Supreme, Brand, Canonical, Store Front, Add-to-Cart URLs, and many more.

Pixelfy.me can track almost everything apart from conversions. While that’s not as comprehensive as Amazon Attribution, Pixelfy.me does let you pixel users to retarget them in the future.

Amazon Super URL Tool

Alternatives to Amazon Attribution - Amazon Super URL Tool

The Amazon Super URL Tool is part of the AMZ Tracker suite of tools. It does not offer sellers more insight into the way users shop their store, but it can significantly improve the quality of inbound traffic and boost sales as a result.

The platform’s special URL shortener makes Amazon believe visitors have searched for specific keywords on Amazon instead of going directly to the listing. Amazon should rank your products higher for these keywords, as a result, which can lead to more sales.

Conclusion

Amazon Attribution is the best way to track how off-site traffic performs on the Amazon platform. If you run external marketing campaigns for your Amazon store and are serious about optimizing your Amazon store, then Amazon Attribution is a must.

Not only can you optimize your marketing campaigns, but you can also increase conversions, too.

Creating Attribution tags is easy. Just follow my advice above or contact my team if you want an Amazon marketing agency to do the work for you.

How many external marketing campaigns are you currently running to Amazon?

How to Use Amazon Audio Ads

With over 55 million listeners, Amazon Music is one of the leading music streaming platforms out there. Wouldn’t it be great if you could find a way to reach these subscribers and share your products with them.

Well, you can, and it’s all thanks to Amazon audio ads. Through Amazon’s free, ad-supported tier, you can create short, engaging audio ads to reach a whole new audience base. Let me walk you through how it works.

What Are Amazon Audio Ads?

Think of Amazon audio ads like radio ads.

They’re commercials between 10 and 30 seconds long, and you can use them for any marketing campaign, from promoting brand awareness to hyping up a new product.

You don’t need to sell products on Amazon to use this service, either, which makes it accessible for more businesses.

The ads themselves play between songs. You can’t choose your slot preference, but there’s great reach available anyway. Listeners can tune in through their Echo devices, or they’ll hear your ad when they use the Amazon Music app on Android, FireTV, and iOS.

How much do these ads cost? Well, Amazon charges for audio ads on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) basis, so you pay each time a thousand people see your ad.

You need to spend at least $15,000 per month on Amazon audio ads to use the service. However, according to Amazon, the average minimum budget is about $25,000 per month, so you might want to bear this in mind.

Why Should You Use Amazon Audio Ads?

Audio ads are nothing new, but there are two main reasons why Amazon’s audio ads may be worth a try.

First, think about the potential reach. The Amazon Echo is America’s most popular smart speaker, for one thing, and as I’ve mentioned, there are over 55 million Amazon music subscribers and counting!

Secondly, ad-supported streaming subscriptions aren’t going anywhere any time soon. According to Amazon, 68 percent of Americans rely on free streaming subscriptions, so there’s surely an audience for your campaigns.

The best part, though? You’re engaging with audiences in a creative, exciting new way. In a hugely competitive marketplace, Amazon audio ads may give you an edge over your rivals.

Who Should Use Amazon Audio Ads?

Can any business use Amazon audio ads? Sure.

Are these ads suitable for every business, though? No.

For starters, consider your budget. $15,000 per month is pretty steep, so small or niche businesses might find the cost isn’t justified.

Next, think about your overall marketing strategy. Do you plan on using any other Amazon advertising product? The ads might work best when used alongside other Amazon marketing tools to build a stronger, more cohesive presence on the platform.

Finally, think about your brand. Although you don’t need to sell through Amazon to create an ad, you might find Amazon audio ads make more sense if you’re already an Amazon seller and want to direct people to buy from your store.

3 Steps to Set Up Amazon Audio Ads

Ready to try Amazon audio ads? Great! Let’s break down the steps involved.

1. Understand Your Own Goals

Before you sign up, set out your goals. Why? Because it gives you some creative direction, which you’ll need to write a great script and create compelling visuals to accompany it.

Remember, no two campaigns are alike. Be clear on what you need from your Amazon audio ad before you go live.

2. Contact an Amazon Ad Consultant

Next, reach out to an Amazon ad consultant. They can help you plan, optimize, and launch your audio ad campaigns based on your budget and marketing goals.

To get going, simply click the “Get Started” link on the audio ads page.

Amazon Audio Ads - How To Create An Audio Ad Campaign

Select which country you want to advertise in and choose your monthly budget. Remember, if you want to spend less than $15,000 per month, you can’t launch a custom audio ad campaign.

If you’re OK with the budget requirements, input your company contact details and provide a summary of your marketing needs. A consultant will be in touch to discuss your campaign in more detail.

Steps to Set Up Amazon Audio Ads - Contact an Amazon Ad Consultant

Even if you can’t access Amazon audio ads for your marketing right now, there’s always a chance that Amazon will introduce a more flexible pricing structure in the future.

3. Provide an Audio File and Companion Banner

Your Amazon audio ad needs both an audio file and a companion banner for when your ads run on devices like FireTV.

Audio File

The audio file contains the ad itself. Remember, it must be somewhere between 10 and 30 seconds long, and the file size can’t exceed 1 MB.

In terms of format, you can submit either a WAV, OGG, or MP3 file, and the volume should be at least 192 kbps so it’s easily audible.

To be clear, you shouldn’t use suggestive, provocative, or offensive language. It must be suited for a general audience.

Companion Banner

Your companion banner (or graphic) shows up while the ad plays. Here are some guidelines for it:

  • The file must be a JPEG sized to 1024 x 1024 px.
  • It can’t be more than 750 KB.
  • The headline can’t be more than 19 characters. In other words, keep it short and sweet.

There are some visual guidelines, too.

For starters, you can’t use style tools that make it look like any particular part of the ad is clickable. Here’s an example from Amazon:

Steps to Set Up Amazon Audio Ads - Companion Banner

A banner along these lines may be more appropriate because there’s nothing to suggest it’s clickable:

Amazon Audio Ads - Amazon Ad For Baby Elephant

You can also include a URL if you want, but it should be something compact so it doesn’t take over the whole graphic. “Shop now at Amazon.com” or some variation of this is OK.

Finally, make sure the text is clear and legible.

Struggling to put a companion banner together? Don’t worry. Your ad consultant can help you design it, and they’ll offer feedback if something’s not working.

Once you’ve submitted your banner and audio file to your consultant, your ad could go live within three working days.

How to Add a CTA to Your Amazon Audio Ads

A call to action (CTA) encourages people to do something after listening to your ad, such as buy your product. Unsurprisingly, every Amazon audio ad should have one! Where should your CTA go, though, and what should it include? Let’s take a look.

First, since you want people to take action after hearing your ad, it’s usually best to place your CTA at the end. Ensure you include your brand name and a specific action for people to take.

Next, keep your CTA short and specific. Don’t leave listeners in any doubt over what they should do and how they can do it.

Finally, avoid using sound effects. You don’t want to lose the message in your CTA behind a jingle!

Let’s say your company’s called Coffee King, and you want people to buy your new Regular Roast. Here are some CTAs you could use.

  • “To buy our Regular Roast, go to CoffeeKing.com.”
  • “To start shopping, ask your device to search for Coffee King’s Regular Roast.”

Remember, if you don’t ask a consumer to do something, how will they know what you want them to do?

6 Tips to Create Great Amazon Audio Ads

Remember, your audio ad can’t be more than 30 seconds long, so every second counts. Here are some tips for making the most of the time you have.

1. Write a Great Script

OK, so there’s an art to writing a great script. The good news? It’s something you can learn. Here are some tips:

  • Use short and simple statements to make your point.
  • Ensure your language and tone resonates with your audience. For example, teens may not go for highly formal language, and so on.
  • Focus on one core concept per ad campaign. Don’t confuse your listeners.

2. Promote the Product Benefits

What’s so great about your product, and why should consumers buy it? Make this the focus of your ad. If you’re running any promotions or exclusive offers, be sure to mention them, too.

You might want to avoid testimonials, though. Too many voices can muddle your recording and distract from your message.

3. Provide a High-Quality Recording

It sounds obvious, but ensure your recording sounds professional.

  • Speak in a crisp, clear voice.
  • Make sure the recording is free from interference.
  • Avoid talking too fast. You’re trying to form a connection with your listener.

4. Avoid Sound Effects

Does your ad need dramatic sound effects like sirens or horns? Probably not. Jarring sounds can annoy your listener, which isn’t great when you’re trying to nurture them into buying your products.

If you really must use sound effects, use them sparingly, and only if they’re necessary to drive your message home.

5. Use Smooth Transitions

Remember, your ad doesn’t play in isolation. It’s playing between songs or other audio ads. Don’t begin with a long pause, and don’t “apologize” for interrupting someone’s music. Since you don’t know when your ad will play, a statement like this could be irrelevant.

Avoid long fade-outs, too. Simply end with your CTA.

6. Spread a Consistent Brand Message

Consistency is key. According to Forbes, cross-platform consistency can boost your revenue by 23 percent.

The takeaway? Ensure you’re using consistent language, visuals, and brand messaging across all your marketing campaigns. If your audio ad sounds off-brand, it could deter listeners from shopping with you.

How to Track the Success of Your Amazon Audio Ad Campaigns

Once your ad campaign is up and running, you need to monitor your key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure it’s working for you. For audio ads, here are the metrics you should track:

  • impressions: how many times the ad plays or people hear it
  • listen through rate (LTR): how many times someone listens through to the end
  • reach: who listens to your ad
  • purchase intent: how likely a customer is to buy your product after hearing the ad

Amazon offers tools to help you track these metrics, but you can also use your own tracking tools.

Examples of Great Amazon Audio Ads

Want to learn more about Amazon audio ads in action? Here are two great success stories to inspire you.

Samsung

Samsung, the tech industry giant, needed help marketing its Galaxy S10 Lite handset. They opted for audio ads to reach young listeners tuning in to Amazon Music.

According to stats compiled by Amazon, these audio ads generated a 64 percent increase in organic impressions for Samsung and an 18 percent jump in overall product awareness.

All in all, I call this a successful campaign.

Berocca

This brand took Amazon audio ads to a whole new level.

Examples of Great Amazon Audio Ads - Berocca

Berocca is a popular vitamin company with customers around the world. They wanted to identify new ways to reach their diverse audience base and sell their Berocca Boost tablets.

How did they achieve their goal? They used actionable audio ads powered by Amazon Alexa.

  • The ad includes a clear and effective CTA, inviting people to try Berocca Boost if they feel lethargic.
  • If interested, the listener gives the voice command to try Berocca Boost.
  • Listeners can then either hear more about the product or use another voice command to buy the energy tablets directly through the ad.

What’s great about this campaign is how easy it is for listeners to engage with the audio ad and actually purchase the product.

Conclusion

Amazon audio ads can help you increase your reach, sell more products, and ultimately grow your business. They’re simple to set up, and you can go live in as little as three working days.

That said, Amazon audio ads are not for everyone. If you’re in any doubt as to whether this campaign’s right for you or if you need help with audio marketing more generally, let me help you.

What do you think of Amazon audio ads? How are they helping your business?

How to Find and Grow Your Amazon Sales Rank

Are you a seller on Amazon?

If so, you need to understand the importance of your Amazon sales rank and how it can help (or harm) your business.

What is Amazon Sales Rank?

Amazon sales rank (also known as best sellers rank or BSR) is a numerical score representing an item’s popularity in both its overall category and respective subcategories.

What does that mean? Let’s look at Jenga’s performance. While Jenga scored position three in the overall category of Toys & Games, it earned the number one rank in Stacking Games.

Where to find your Amazon sales rank

With this level of visibility into performance, sellers can view performance on multiple levels.

Amazon sales rank can range from one to over a million, with lower scores indicating superior rank. The metric is calculated hourly using the number of recent sales, as well as historical sales in relation to other products in the same category.

Wondering how you can find your product’s Amazon sales rank?

It’s easier than you think. Simply scroll to the bottom of your product page until you encounter the Product Details section. Then, look for the Amazon Best Sellers Rank. 

Now that you’ve found your Amazon sales rank, you’re probably wondering, ‘is this a good score?’ When it comes to sales rank, all things are relative. 

If you’re in a saturated category, a “good” score could still be an astronomically high figure. Conversely, if you’re in a small, niche community, a score that may present as low may not actually mean that much. As a general rule, you’ll want to aim for a score under 2,000.

Why Is Your Amazon Sales Rank Important

You might think your Amazon sales rank doesn’t have much bearing on your present performance, as is based on past performance. However, there are four distinct reasons why you should care about your ranking.

Amazon Sales Rank Shows Trust

For Amazon sellers, having a low Amazon sales rank is vital to success on the e-commerce site. Since rankings are used to define product popularity within a specific genre, and comparatively with its competitors, consider your sales rank as a vote of confidence in popularity of your product. 

Provides a Competitive Edge

In addition to serving as a testimonial to the popularity of your product, Amazon sales rank provides insight into your competitors by providing visibility of the most high-performing products in your category. By assessing products that hold top Amazon sales ranks, you can then reassess your own campaign through their lens, optimizing your listing and marketing strategies accordingly.

It Increases Sales

In addition to credibility, consumers are more likely to purchase a product that others have also bought. What’s the likelihood that you would buy a product online without any reviews? None, most likely. 

The same premise is at work here—more sales means more reviews, leading to even more sales. 

It improves Brand Awareness

If your products are routinely ranking in top positions in your category or subcategories, buyers will notice. By increasing your products’ positive visibility, you can increase the visibility and awareness of your brand.

6 Ways to Increase Your Amazon Sales Rank

While it may feel like your sales rank is completely out of your control and dependent solely upon your consumers, there are actions you can take to drive sales and increase your Amazon sales rank.

Let’s look at six strategies to increase your sales rank. 

1. Incentivize Reviews to Increase Amazon Sales Rank

Eighty-eight percent of consumers trust online reviews just as much as they trust word-of-mouth recommendations from their friends and family. Positive reviews can be the tipping point that causes a consumer to choose your product over a competitor’s.

While Amazon has banned true financial incentivization of reviews (such as offering a discount or payments) there are still options to encourage shoppers to leave glowing reviews. Here’s a few ways to increase your online reviews.  

Follow Up

After a purchase is made, send a follow-up email. In this email, you can include a valuable piece of informational content that will grow goodwill between buyer and seller, perhaps leading to future purchases and future reviews.

You can also opt for Amazon to automatically send an email to the purchaser to review the product. This is a quick, easy way to score some valuable reviews.

Amazon autogenerates email to request review for increased Amazon sales rank

Inserts in Packaging

Including a valuable piece of content in your packaging can also encourage customers to leave a review. Consider including a hand-written note that encourages the consumer to leave a review, which will also further foster that sentiment of connection. Even a printed thank you note with a reminder to review can help. 

Amazon Vine

Amazon Vine is an internal program that offers products for free to trusted Amazon customers in return for feedback. The goal is to encourage honest reviews from real customers and is invitation-only for participants. 

The only catch here is that you must be an Amazon vendor to participate in this program.

2. Do Keyword Research to Improve Amazon Sales Rank

We believe that keyword research should be the foundation of any online campaign, and selling on Amazon is no different. Identifying the right keywords for your product can be the differentiator between success and failure. 

As you craft your Amazon listings, include your keywords in your title and bullets. By including these terms, you ensure more searchers see your listing, which, in turn, increases the likelihood that your product will be purchased.

3. Use Quality Photos to Increase Amazon Sales Rank

Photos matter. In fact, 63 percent of consumers report that photos are more important to them when shopping on Amazon than verbal descriptions. It pays to invest in quality photos. 

As you select photos to include in your listing, think about what you would want to see as a consumer. Would an image that incorporates an infographic be effective? Would an image of an individual using your product convey value? If you take your own photos, look for tips that will help you take professional-level photos. 

Regardless of which approach works best for your product, quality photos can attract and convert attention, drive sales, and increase your Amazon sale rank.

4. Write Good Sales Copy

A lot of Amazon product listings showcase some pretty lackluster writing. Common offenses include un-optimized pages, titles stuffed with keywords, and sentences that don’t even make sense (which won’t inspire trust in your company.) 

To help your product stand out from the crowd and drive more purchases, write thoughtful sales copy for each of your product listings. Focus on the benefits your product offers and what makes it stand out. 

Amazon visitors come with commercial intent. If you can attract them with strong sales copy, they’re that much more likely to convert.

5. Optimize Product Description and Title

Here’s a fun fact—90 percent of Amazon product listings don’t adhere to Amazon’s description requirements. Just like Google, Amazon makes frequent algorithm updates. Staying current on recommended listing details, including character counts and word limits, can help your products perform better and increase visibility.  

When crafting product descriptions and titles, remember that Amazon users are shopping on the platform because it is quick and easy. If your would-be consumer struggles to understand your products, they’re likely not returning for a second look. 

To make your titles stand out among the multitudes, try these three things:

  • be creative
  •  adhere to Amazon’s 200-character limit
  •  use descriptive titles that communicates what your product is 

Be sure to use Amazon’s best practices when creating product titles. They exist for a reason, so be sure to implement them in your title strategy

  • first letter of primary words must be capitalized
  • on’t use an ampersand
  • share exact size detail
  • use numerals when conveying numbers

6. Promote Your Products to Increase Amazon Sales Rank

The conversion rate in the Amazon Marketplace averages around 15 percent, considerably higher than other e-commerce platforms. The key to ensuring your products see that level of conversion is to ensure and increase visibility. If no one sees your product, no one can buy it. 

While there are a number of ways to promote your products on Amazon, we’ve gathered our top three to share with you.

Invest in Sponsored Product Ads

To increase your product’s visibility, consider investing in sponsored product ads. As a seller, you only are charged when a buyer clicks on your ad, so this is a reasonably priced way to get your product in front of fresh eyes. 

sponsored products can increase Amazon sales rank

In the above ad, the sponsored product appears on the first page of search results.

Use Your Social Channels 

Harnessing the power of your business’ social channels is a great way to get your products seen by more buyers. While you don’t want to inundate your followers with ad after ad, there are a few strategies you can employ to get your Amazon listings noticed.

  • Host a giveaway or contest: By creating a contest that encourages people to interact with your Amazon product listing, you increase visibility. For example, you could give away a product to a lucky winner who shares your Amazon listing in their bio or in their stories.
  • Share content with a link to your Amazon listing: When you post a helpful blog specific to your industry, people will come to that content to learn. Not only will this establish you as a thought leader in your industry, it also is an opportunity to link to your Amazon listings and increase visibility.
  • Offer a social media promo code: If you have a Professional Selling account on Amazon, you can create a promotion link to share through social highlighting a discount offered on the listing. Here’s a guide for navigating setting up a promotion link.

Offer a Lightning Deal 

Increase interest in your product by offering shoppers a Lightning Deal. These sales are time-sensitive and buyers can locate them in Amazon’s Today’s Deals section. These are extremely popular with shoppers as they urge action given their time-sensitive nature.

When you include your product in Amazon’s Today’s Deals sections, you not only will increase your sales, but you’ll inevitably boost your Amazon Sale Rank. 

Conclusion 

Now that you understand the components that make up your Amazon sales rank, it’s time to start optimizing your store for more purchases.

Whether you start by researching keywords for your e-commerce store or shining up your existing copy, you’ll be on your way to improving product visibility. As that visibility increases, so will your sales, driving your sales rank up simultaneously.

What’s your most successful strategy for increasing Amazon sales rank?

The post How to Find and Grow Your Amazon Sales Rank appeared first on Neil Patel.

How to Optimize Your Amazon Storefront

980450_HowtoOptimizeYourAmazonStorefront_022521 Selling on Amazon can be incredibly profitable, but it’s also incredibly competitive. It’s important to take advantage of every bit of help Amazon offers. The first step to improve sales on Amazon is to get an Amazon Storefront. This gives your brand a customizable home on Amazon. It’s not enough just to have a …

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How to Optimize Your Amazon Storefront

980450_HowtoOptimizeYourAmazonStorefront_022521 Selling on Amazon can be incredibly profitable, but it’s also incredibly competitive. It’s important to take advantage of every bit of help Amazon offers. The first step to improve sales on Amazon is to get an Amazon Storefront. This gives your brand a customizable home on Amazon. It’s not enough just to have a …

The post How to Optimize Your Amazon Storefront first appeared on Online Web Store Site.

A Starter Guide to Amazon Vendor Central

Becoming a third-party seller isn’t the only way to make money on Amazon. What if I told you there’s a way to get rid of the bulk of your seller admin and focus solely on helping a single customer who will sell your products for you? Well, that’s what you can expect from Amazon’s Vendor …

The post A Starter Guide to Amazon Vendor Central first appeared on Online Web Store Site.

Amazon Marketing Consulting

Amazon’s so big that it has become an entire marketing channel.

You could build your entire business on just Amazon.

Many entrepreneurs do. It’s crazy how many 7-figure businesses are running on Amazon right now.

The downside?

Lots of folks know about the Amazon opportunity.

There are 353 million other products on Amazon already.

Granted, you don’t have to compete for all of them. But that’s still an insane number of products.

No matter how obscure your niche, you’ll have top-tier competition.

How do you stand out in such a highly-competitive marketplace?

Find an Amazon marketing consultant.

3 Ways an Amazon Marketing Consultant Can Help Grow Your Business

Most Amazon consultants focus on one goal: getting you more customers.

That is, after all, why most businesses get on Amazon.

They want access to Amazon’s customers.

Here are the main ways that a consultant can help.

1. Store Setup and Product Listings

Some sellers on Amazon set themselves up for failure from day one. 

And they do this with poor store setup and product listings. 

If you, a seller on Amazon, get the foundational areas like excellent store setup and product listings wrong, other efforts to grow your store will fall flat. 

No doubt, signing up for an Amazon Seller account takes only a few minutes.

But it takes a lot of work to get Amazon’s algorithms to know what category you should be in and when to show your products higher than others. 

An Amazon marketing consultant will properly set up your store and build your product listings to get you more customers. Not only will your products get more views, the product descriptions will also help you convert more of those prospects into customers.

The best Amazon consultants will help you: 

  • Choose the right seller account type for your store. 
  • Make your product descriptions as enticing as possible. 
  • Ensure that Amazon knows exactly which categories and terms you should be in.
  • Get the back-end set up properly so it’s as easy to manage as possible. 

They’ll also help you avoid these mistakes: 

  • Don’t accidentally get featured in the wrong categories which could hurt your store. 
  • Make sure all products comply with every Amazon guideline. 
  • Your listings avoid common mistakes that annoy customers, which could increase the number of negative reviews if you don’t catch them early. 

Get the foundation of your store done right. Then everything else gets a lot easier. 

2. Product SEO in Amazon

It’s one thing to have your store properly set up and your products accurately listed. 

But it’s another ball game to have them actually appear on Amazon. 

According to a study by Feedvisor, about 74% of ecommerce shoppers go to Amazon first for any purchase they want to make. 

Do you know what that means?

Amazon has become a search engine for products. Amazon SEO is now a real thing. And it’s just as important as Google SEO. For ecommerce businesses that are on Amazon, it’s probably MORE important. 

Amazon even developed its own SEO algorithm called A9. 

You could try to learn all the ranking optimization tricks on your own.

Or you can partner with an Amazon marketing consultant to help you save time, money, and make the most of your scarce resources. 

They’ll help you: 

  • Find the best categories and keywords to focus on.
  • Optimize your products for rankings.
  • Get the reviews you need to compete.
  • Break down your competition so you can learn what’s working today. 

3. Amazon PPC Management

Amazon turned on the firehose of PPC.

Not only is it making them a ton of money. It can also make you a ton of money.

For the first time, you can pay a small fee to get in front of the most valuable customers in your entire market: customers ready to make a purchase right now.

With the right product, you can easily take $1 and turn it into $2 with Amazon paid ads.

However, paid media on Amazon is also complicated.

Like any PPC platform, it requires a ton of specific know-how and tons of work to keep it optimized.

You could try to manage all this on your own.

Or you could get an Amazon consultant to do it for you.

PPC campaigns are a great type of marketing task to outsource. The work is repetitive and usually the same workflow across businesses. Consultants can easily take this off your plate and give you a nice ROI at the same time.

Even if you could do this yourself, I recommend finding a consultant to help. Your time is better used elsewhere.

Most consultants get really good at bid management and ad optimization. Use them for these areas.   

How to Get Started With An Amazon Marketing Consultant

First, what should you have before engaging an Amazon marketing consultant? 

  • An Amazon store or a store that’s about to go live. 
  • Products you want to sell and sourcing or manufacturing are sorted out. 
  • Key competitors and search terms for your market.
  • Budget set aside. 

An Amazon consultant can help with setting up your store and getting you customers. You’ll need to sort out everything outside of Amazon.

Basically, they’ll help you develop and implement marketing strategies to drive sales and revenue. 

When you visit the website of a top Amazon marketing company, you’ll usually find a contact form to schedule an initial call.

Even if you’re not sure if you need help yet, I recommend getting a call done. You’ll have a much better idea with how consultants can help you once you’ve done a few calls.

You can also ask them loads of questions like:

  • What budget would you recommend?
  • What are the key trends that you see in your most successful clients?
  • What should I do ahead of time to set this project up for success?
  • What would make us a bad fit to work together?

Yes, the consultant will treat the call like a sales call. It’s their chance to close you on a proposal. But it’s also a chance for you to learn a lot more about the space from a real expert. And the best consultants will happily teach you as much as they can. That’s how they prove their expertise.

After you’ve done a few of these calls, move forward with the one that you think is the best fit. Since this project should generate real revenue for your business, I’d go with the one that has the best chance of succeeding, even if they’re a bit more expensive than others. The good consultants will easily pay for themselves.

Measuring the ROI of Amazon Marketing Consulting Services

The ultimate measure for any marketing service is how much demand and sales it drives. For Amazon consulting, this same rule applies. 

Specifically, you should track: 

  • Views for your store and products
  • The number of new products sold
  • Conversion rate of impressions to sales
  • Total revenue
  • Average order value

I recommend that you track your totals, not just revenue and purchases from specific campaigns.

Marketing channels and campaigns often bleed into each other. For example, an increase in Amazon PPC budget will often lead to an increase in your organic Amazon sales. Trying to get perfect attribution is super difficult.

So get a good baseline before the consultant starts. Then compare the overall performance of your store afterwards.

Let’s go deeper on each metric.

Conversion Rate

This is a measure of how many impressions you’re getting for your store and products compared to how many of those impressions led to sales. 

For any consultant working on your product listings, it’s probably the most important metric to watch.

When optimizing products, you should see it go up.

And when working on product rankings, you want to see your conversion rate stay stable. If it drops while your impressions go up, it’s a sign that you’re getting less-qualified traffic. It’s possible that the extra traffic is still worth it, you’ll need to dig in. 

Product impressions

Any Amazon consultant should be able to get your products more impressions.

It’s always nice to get a conversion win right away but the real money is getting your products in front of more people. 

This is what separates great Amazon consultants from the ones that are just average. Great consultants will have a plan to double, triple, and quadruple your impressions over time. They’ll also be able to execute on that plan.

This can take a lot of time and money.

But within the first few months, you should be able to see at least some signals that things are going in the right direction.

Total revenue

At the end of the day, marketing is about increasing revenue.

The ROI needs to be there.

After a few months, check your total monthly revenue and compare it to your baseline before you started working with the consultant.

Is it moving in the right direction? Have you generated enough profit to pay for the consultant fees?

You might not be generating enough extra revenue yet but there should be a path to a positive ROI.

The great consultants will have set expectations with you at the beginning. Things should be playing out like they planned. 

4 Point Checklist For Finding the Right Amazon Marketing Consultant

Below are six things to check when finding the right Amazon marketing consultant to help drive growth for your store. 

1. Thought Leadership on Amazon Marketing

Since most of what an Amazon marketing consultant would do is help you to drive sales for your store, it’s essential you find one with practical knowledge on how to do it.

Every marketer knows the power of thought leadership.

For the best Amazon consultants, I’d expect to see some of their content already published.

It’s a great way to get a feel for how they build Amazon stores, their favorite tactics, and how they’d fit with your own company. 

For example, I have a guide, detailing persuasion tactics to upsell products on Amazon and a full course on how to drive more sales on Amazon: 

2. Real Amazon Marketing Expertise

Many marketing consultants who didn’t offer services specific to Amazon stores have jumped on the bandwagon, seeing how much the marketplace is growing. 

The result?

They apply the same generic marketing practices, thinking it will automatically work on Amazon. 

If you don’t want to fall for this and waste your money, ensure that the consultant has true expertise with Amazon marketing. They should plenty of:

  • Deep answers to all of your tactical Amazon marketing questions 
  • Case studies with Amazon marketing
  • Clients and testimonials from Amazon marketing projects

3. Expertise on How Amazon Impacts Other Channels

If you have an ecommerce business that focuses 100% on Amazon, feel free to ignore this criteria.

But most businesses go after multiple channels.

Especially ecommerce businesses. They usually have Amazon product listings and their own ecommerce story.

Great consultants will get your different channels to help each other.

That’s right, you can can get each channel to make your other marketing channels stronger.

Here’s a few examples:

  • Using discounts and promos to get Amazon customers to sign up for subscription deliveries on your website.
  • Getting your biggest fans to help with Amazon reviews.
  • Tapping into your audiences to kick-start new products on Amazon.

With a little creativity, you can hit goals a lot faster by using assets you already have.

The best consultants look for these opportunities and take advantage of them.

4. A Proven Process for Execution

The really great consultants have a formula for rolling out their Amazon marketing campaigns. It’s how they deliver results over and over again, for every client.

Less experienced consultants may depend on the brilliance and wit of a single person.

That can work great as long as that person focuses on your marketing. But what happens when they move to another client?

Campaign performance usually suffers.

Look for a consultant that has a team behind them that can reliably execute on your project month in and month out.

The odds of accomplishing your goals goes way up.

During your initial discovery calls, dig into their process, how they manage deliverables, and train new team members. You should be shocked on how thorough it all is.

Start With an Amazon SEO Consultant

Don’t know where to focus?

Get help with your  Amazon SEO first. One project could get you more impressions, more sales, and more revenue on an ongoing basis.

The ROI of that single project can be massive.

So if you’re not sure what you really want, start there.

The post Amazon Marketing Consulting appeared first on Neil Patel.

6 Alternatives to Amazon For E-commerce

With a net worth of  $1.7 trillion, Amazon has dominated the e-commerce sector for years, leaving many of its competitors in the shade. But are there alternatives to Amazon?

With an audience as vast as Amazon, small business start-ups and solo entrepreneurs flock to the site to sell the products, get established, and build their enterprises. Despite the audience Amazon offers, you may want to look for other online venues to list your items.

There are many good reasons to broaden your e-commerce horizons.

First, it makes little sense to put all your eggs in one basket. Second, selling on a wider range of marketplaces gets your products in front of a larger audience. And finally, looking at the other choices available could save you money on fees, or get you closer to your target buyers.

Below are some viable alternatives to Amazon. We’ll look at their advantages, their fee structures, and what makes them different.

Why You Should Use an Alternative to Amazon for Your E-commerce Business

We already touched on one of the main reasons to seek other venues: the perils of depending on one sales platform.

It’s not unheard of for sellers to have their accounts blocked. If you haven’t already established yourself on one of the alternatives to Amazon, your business could tank.

However, by setting up multiple accounts with different marketplaces, you’ve got greater flexibility if things go wrong. Plus, you can use other online platforms to test out which ones are the best for your products.

And there are other benefits in finding additional marketplaces, like:

Greater Flexibility 

All e-commerce sales platforms have some measure of control over your business. They determine:

  • What products you can list
  • The terms and conditions of doing business
  • Your payment options
  • Shipping fees

These terms might not be suitable for your business. So, If you’re looking for greater flexibility, then seeking alternatives to Amazon is a good idea.

Better Customer and Vendor Support

Perhaps you feel the vendor or customer support is lacking. Amazon provides useful resources for sellers, like its university. But some sellers feel seller support is sometimes thin, especially when things go wrong.

More Shipping Options and Lower Fees With Some Amazon Alternatives

Amazon has changed its fee structure over the years, bringing frustration to some.

Amazon sets its professional selling plan at $39.99, with individual plans available free. And referral fees differ, depending on which category you’re selling in.

Shipping is a further reason to consider seeking alternatives as individual sellers on Amazon lack flexibility over their shipping costs.

If you’re looking to cut fees or branch out, then signing with some alternatives to Amazon may allow you to further scale your business while reducing costs.

Amazon Alternative Payment Choices

If you’re a seller on Amazon, you’ll know it makes payment via ACH or electronic funds transfer. Amazon distributes these payments to your bank account every two weeks, and they can take up to five days to clear.

But that doesn’t always work for everyone. If you’re a small business and cash is tight, signing up to e-commerce platforms with a broader range of payment options can improve your cash flow.

What to Look for in an Amazon Alternative

Before you search for alternatives to Amazon, you need to decide what you want from your business. You’ll need to consider the products you’re selling and your target customer, too.

For example, if you’re selling printable products, Etsy could be an excellent choice. Or, if you’re looking for consumers who understand tech, you may find Newegg works well for you.

Other areas you’ll want to think about include:

Ease of Use

Marketplaces that allow you to add items efficiently mean you can list more products in less time. But you’ll want to view any alternatives to Amazon from your customer’s perspective too.

How important is the ease of use? Well, if you note some recent research from Digital Commerce 360 and Bitrate, you’ll see this is a significant factor in the buying decision.

When researching new platforms, perhaps test them out for yourself and consider areas like:

  • Navigation
  • Ease of checkout
  • Payment options
  • Shipping choices

User Types

Think about your ideal consumer and the type of users the platform attracts. For example, eBay is huge, with 182 million active buyers. It’s great for snapping up limited-time deals, brand name products, and pre-loved items.

However, it’s not always the first place shoppers think of when looking for handmade goods or unique items. They’re more likely to head somewhere like Etsy.

Fees

Fees can take a considerable chunk of your profits if you’re not careful. Depending on the fee structure, some sites may not be suitable if you’re selling smaller, lower value items.

If you need some help in this area, fee calculators are helpful. Here’s a list of the well-known ones.

Best Alternatives to Amazon for E-commerce

What are some of the best Amazon alternatives when you’re looking to sell your products online? Let’s look at some of the top options, in no particular order.

Bonanza

alternatives to amazon bonanza

Established in 2007, Bonanza has built itself a loyal following, with a vast range of categories. Sign up is free, and fees are straight forward. Final offer value fees are 3.5 percent for sales under $500. Sales over $500 attract an additional 1.5 percent fee.

Although it’s much smaller than Amazon, Bonanza has some advantages over its larger rival. They include a greater emphasis on building customer relationships and developing a sustainable business through repeat customers.

Equally appealing to sellers is the marketing tools Bonanza provides. These give you access to valuable data about product performance, allowing you to spot trends, optimize listings, and better market your items.

Other features include:

  • Automatic syncing with eBay, Amazon, and Shopify
  • Customized marketing tools
  • Image editing tools
  • Google integration
  • High level of customer support.

But what makes Bonanza stand out is its focus on unique items. It’s not trying to be another Amazon. As Bonanza puts it, it’s a site where you’ll find “everything but the ordinary”.

eBay

One of the most prominent alternatives to Amazon is eBay. Like Amazon, eBay has made considerable changes since its launch back in 1995. Over the years, eBay’s focus has moved away from the collectibles market it used to cater to, and it’s now more product-based.

Many famous brands like Rolex, Hasbro, and Microsoft make their goods available via ebay.com brand outlet site, enabling consumers to bag a bargain. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a place for more unusual or collectible items.

On eBay, listing fees and final value fees vary, but it sets many of its final value fees at 10 percent or less. If you need to calculate fees before listing, use an eBay fee calculator.

Some advantages of selling on eBay are:

  • A more comprehensive range of categories
  • More payment options for shoppers, like a credit/debit card, PayPal, and local collection. Sellers can also accept Apple Pay, Google Pay, and gift cards through managed payments.
  • Improved branding through eBay stores and marketing materials

What makes eBay stand out, though, is its auctions. Auctions may not be ideal for every business. However, sellers who specialize in collectible or rare items may find the bidding pushes their final sales price up higher than they could’ve imagined.

Etsy

If your business primarily sells printable products or art and craft items, then Etsy might be for you. Of the many alternatives to Amazon, Etsy has perhaps one of the most affordable and straightforward pricing approaches.

Each listing costs just 20 cents, and the listing is good for four months. Then there’s a five percent transaction fee for goods that sell. Payment processing fees are variable and depend on location. If you want to grow your business further, Etsy Plus is available at $10 a month.

Re-listing is simple, too. Just select the auto-renew option, and there shouldn’t be anything else to do on your part.

Advantages of selling on Etsy are:

  • Greater customization over how your store looks
  • Ideal for beginners
  • Lower fees
  • Sellers can list collectibles and vintage items on Etsy

That’s the advantages, but there are a couple of possible disadvantages worth mentioning. First, Etsy is much smaller than Amazon, which means there’s intense competition, so your products need to stand out.

Second, although fees are cheaper, you may make more sales on Amazon Handmade because of its larger audience share.

Walmart Marketplace

Amazon dominates e-commerce, but Walmart is gaining ground. Recent sales figures show Walmart’s e-commerce sales have soared by 74 percent. This stat means if you’re looking for alternatives to Amazon, Walmart could be promising.

Like Amazon, Walmart now offers a fulfillment service. Although storage and fulfillment fees apply, Walmart’s fee structure is less complicated than Fulfillment by Amazon, and referral fees are competitive.

alternatives to amazon walmart interest form

In addition, with Walmart’s marketplace, there’s no start-up or ongoing monthly fees. However, you’ll want to factor in other costs, like unique product codes (UPCs).

Advantages of selling on the Walmart marketplace include:

  • Lower costs
  • Less competition due to buyer/seller ratio
  • Price control over inventory

What makes the platform different? Unlike Amazon, Walmart’s marketplace is only open to invited brands. You can’t just register and start selling. But you can sign up.

To register your interest in selling, Walmart asks businesses to fill out the interest form.

Newegg

alternatives to amazon newegg

Newegg has gained a reputation as the top global tech marketplace online. But it also sells apparel, home and lifestyle products, sports/health-related items, TVs, and plenty more.

As for fees, non-elite membership is free. Elite membership has two tiers ranging from $29.95-$99.95 a month. Commissions vary, with the highest being 12 percent.

Advantages of selling on Newegg include:

  • Can be cheaper for tech products
  • Attracts tech buyers who are knowledgeable about products
  • The Newegg search engine makes finding electronics and components quicker
  • Customized marketing for businesses
  • Various payment choices for sellers including weekly ACH payments, PayPal, Wire Transfer, PingPong, Payoneer, and World First
  • A wide range of payments for buyers, including PayPal and BitPay

But it’s the multi-channel fulfillment option that may interest sellers the most. If you’re selling from various platforms, Newegg provides a central point to manage all your orders.

Shopify

When you sell on a third-party platform, you have limited control. Many online sellers favor setting up their stores the Shopify platform.

The site offers new sellers a 14-day free trial to get them started. After that, a basic Shopify store will cost you $29 a month. Online credit card rates are 2.9 percent + 30 cents. And you should find it easy enough to start selling.

Once you’ve signed up for the free trial, the next steps are to:

  • Add products
  • Selecting images
  • Set shipping details
  • Customize pages for search engines using keywords
  • Create main pages
  • Customize store

The benefits of Shopify include:

  • Highly-rated customer support and selling features
  • Greater customization
  • Large range of e-commerce tools and apps
  • Access to the e-commerce university
  • You can accept a large range of currencies

Conclusion

There are a variety of reasons you might be looking for alternatives to Amazon. Maybe you want a platform that provides a wider range of payment options, a site that’s more niche, or you just want a more extensive selection of online marketplaces to sell your wares.

As you can see, there are many venues available, and they all have their advantages. Sites like Bonanza have established a loyal audience, and Walmart’s e-commerce presence is growing strong.

Niche sites such as Etsy and Newegg are ideal for specialist items, and eBay offers greater customization and various selling methods, including auctions.

If you want to go it alone, there’s always Shopify, where you can set up and market your own e-commerce business.

Are you an online seller? Tell us about your favorite platform and your experiences below.

The post 6 Alternatives to Amazon For E-commerce appeared first on Neil Patel.