Tag Archive for: amazon marketing

Amazon’s New Account Health Assurance: What You Need To Know

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What is Amazon Account Health Assurance

Account Health Assurance (AHA) is a new benefit offered by Amazon to professional sellers in the US and Canada who consistently maintain a high Account Health Rating (AHR) score. 

Sellers eligible for AHA will no longer have to worry about their selling account being deactivated, as long as they work with Amazon to resolve any issues that may arise. 

In order to be eligible for AHA, sellers must maintain an AHR score of 250 or higher for at least six months, with no more than 10 days where their AHR dropped below 250. 

They must also have a valid emergency contact number on file. 

When an issue arises that would typically result in account deactivation, an account health specialist will now proactively contact the seller to explain the problem and how to address it. 

As long as the seller works with Amazon to resolve the issue within 72 hours, their account will not be deactivated. There is no charge for AHA.

Many professional Amazon sellers that have experienced an account suspension or deactivation claimed that they received little or no advance notice whatsoever and even less explanation as to the reasoning behind the suspension. This makes it difficult for sellers to understand the underlying problems and required solution(s). 

The Benefits of Amazon AHA

For many sellers, the primary benefit of this new service is that it keeps legitimate stores up and running and better serves to weed out bad actors on Amazon.

For Amazon, the amount of time spent answering seller inquiries as to the reason behind deactivation is extremely time-consuming. By proactively resolving issues before they get to a crisis point, Amazon will be saving enormous amounts of CSR time that is currently spent going back and forth with sellers who have been unceremoniously suspended as a result of an honest misunderstanding.  

The Takeaway

As an Amazon seller, the takeaway is simply to make sure that you communicate with Amazon in a timely manner to resolve identified issues and respond quickly in order to maintain good account health.

Building Your Amazon Business – Part 3

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Introduction

This is the third in a series of blog posts that will cover some of the key elements when it comes to building your Amazon business. In the first post, we talked about some of the key elements when it comes to establishing your presence on Amazon. In the second post, we discussed Product Page details. This blog post discusses marketing and advertising your business on Amazon.   

Part 3 – Marketing Your Business on Amazon

Advertising on Amazon incorporates a number of items but moves beyond the surface advertising seen from many brands. In addition to sponsored products, deals, coupons and promotions, any successful Amazon advertising campaign built to scale will combine non-traditional ad initiatives with the standard programs. This will include keyword research, SEO, competitor analysis, customer service management, review solicitation, account health oversight and voice of the customer (VoC) responses. Each of these plays a role in the overall marketing of your Amazon business and serves to enhance your presence on the platform and contribute to your ever growing reputation and visibility.  

The Amazon Advertising Basics

Briefly, these are some of the basic marketing and advertising elements you will want to capitalize on: 

  • Sponsored Products – promote your own products which allows you to create listings in specific categories
  • PPC – similar to Google, to bid on specific keywords that customers search for when looking for similar products
  • Vine Programs – Amazon driven reviews from Amazon ‘authenticated’ influencers 
  • Lightning Deals – allow you to run short term deep discount deals
  • Promotions & Coupons – provide discounts on certain products or variation in order to move inventory

ACOS and ROAS

It’s great to run ad campaigns but you need to pay close attention to the data they generate. In your Amazon dashboard, under the Campaign Manager, you will find all of the analytics  for your ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales) and ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) results. Amazon defines ACOS as “The percentage of your sales that you spend on advertising” and ROAS as “The revenue (return) you receive from your advertising investment”. 

Ideally, you want a higher ROAS and a lower ACOS. Fortunately, ad spends are in real time so you can easily adjust underperforming programs and allocate funds to revenue generating campaigns. However, keep in mind that all lower performing ROAS campaigns are not all negative as they may also be generating page views which can enhance brand awareness for future purchasing decisions. Ideally, you want to monitor ACOS and ROAS at least once a week in order to ensure campaigns are performing optimally.

Advertising Content

In addition to the different campaign options available on Amazon, there are other features you can add to your product pages that will add to your advertising efforts. Many of the items we discussed in our previous post in this series called “Creating Amazon Product Detail Pages” (put a link the post here) add to the overall customer advertising and marketing experience including Product Title Optimization, Informational Bullets, Product Description and Optimization, A+ Content, Product SEO and Product Imagery and Videography all play a role in your marketing efforts. The benefit of these features is that they don’t have a direct cost associated with them and you have full control over each one.

Reviews and Ratings

Ratings are a crucial part of any growing Amazon business. According to Statista (https://www.statista.com/statistics/623659/amazon-customer-review-usage-usa/), over 90% of all Amazon shoppers trust the reviews they read on Amazon in one form or another. Only 6% don’t trust the review which tells you that generating positive reviews should be a key part of your marketing strategy. This means that customer support, responding to questions, on time shipping and delivering quality products will all serve to drive organic sales results on Amazon.

Takeaways   

Amazon advertising is much more than PPC and sponsored ad campaigns. There are a multitude of indirect marketing initiatives that when combined, come together to deliver synergistic results that can exceed expectations and generate positive results that individual campaigns cannot produce in a siloed approach. 

Capitalizing on each of these opportunities will help your brand see positive results as you move towards optimizing ACOS and ROAS through direct and indirect channels.    

Building Your Amazon Business – Part 2

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Introduction

This is the second in a series of blog posts that will cover some of the key elements when it comes to building your Amazon business. In the first post, we talked about some of the key elements when it comes to establishing your presence on Amazon. This blog post discusses the creation of high-converting Product Detail Pages.   

Part 2 – Creating Amazon Product Detail Pages

Optimized and comprehensive product detail pages are a key to your success as a seller on Amazon. Let’s take a look at some of the more important elements that will impact the customer experience and remember to always follow Amazon’s best Practice for creating product detail pages.

Product Title

The product title plays an important role in helping Amazon guide consumers to your product page. Essentially, it makes the connection between what users are searching for and what you are selling. For this reason, keyword research will play a big part in coming up with the right title for your product page or pages.

Amazon Marketing Product Title

Ratings or Reviews

The number of ratings or reviews will show up just under your Brand name which falls directly below the title. While the number of ratings is important, it is also crucial to maintain a high level of good reviews and comments. Amazon will tell you that you should have a rating level of at least 3 stars but anything under 4 stars and higher is facing an uphill battle when it comes to growing the brand. Generating these reviews is one of the hardest things a new or even existing brand faces on Amazon. There are ways to do so legitimately such as Vine programs which we’ll discuss in the upcoming post on Amazon marketing but a word of caution, Amazon closely monitors ratings and sellers that try to generate false reviews are quickly suspended from the platform. 

Amazon Marketing Ratings

Product Pricing

Competitive pricing research will be an important aspect of your product presentation. While your product certainly does not have to be the least expensive in your category, you still want to make sure that you don’t price yourself out of the market no matter how good your product is compared to the competition. If you are a major brand, consumers are less focused on the price point and more so on the brand name and reputation. However, if you are one of many unknown or lesser known brands in your vertical, competitive pricing is one way to build your sales and corresponding ratings which will allow you to gradually increase your price point. Combining attractive pricing with free shipping and Prime offers helps to further advance a successful Amazon strategy. 

Prime Offers

In the October, 2022 report from Stastita seen below – ‘Prime and non-Prime members’ perception of Amazon and selected services worldwide in 2022’ (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1274977/prime-vs-non-prime-perception-on-amazon/) –  the chart shows the clear benefits of making your products available through Prime.  

Prime eligible products are fulfilled through Amazon FBA so a review of your logistical capabilities will be necessary in order to determine if you think Prime can benefit your brand. But if you’re looking to make a competitive statement, then Prime is most likely the way to go.

Amazon Marketing Prime Offers

Product Page Images

Amazon will show the first 7 images you load to your product pages (or 6 plus a video link). Investing in high quality photography is extremely important as it gives consumers a clear look at your products. Amazon is also aggressively pushing video content so video is highly recommended as your 7th placeholder in the image area of the product page. Remember, potential customers will look at images and visuals before they read content so if your images are poor or pixelated, you are likely to lose customers before they even begin to learn about your product.

Amazon Marketing Product Page Images

Bullet Points or Features

The bullet points on your product page provide customers with in depth details about your product including features, benefits, advantages and unique selling points. This is where you can help the consumer make an informed buying decision.

Amazon Marketing Bullet Points

The Buy Box

Winning the Buy Box is extremely important as more than 83% of sales are made through the Buy Box. Winning the Buy Box means that customers are adding your product to their cart. In order to be eligible for the Buy Box, there are a number of factors that Amazon takes into account; you must have a professional seller account combined with a strong account health rating, competitive pricing, and good performance metrics.

Amazon Marketing Buy Box

Takeaways

Creating high-converting Product Detail pages requires a lot of attention to a number of different features as highlighters above. A+ content, optimizing existing listings, adding variations to products, uploading images, sponsored products, ‘frequently bought together’ highlights, and a host of other elements will also come into play as you build your product pages. Combine these with strong account performance and you will quickly see results from your pages.

Building Your Amazon Business – Part 1

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Introduction

This series of blog posts will cover some of the key elements when it comes to building your Amazon business. Whether you are an Amazon startup or an established seller on the Vendor or Seller channels, this series will help you better understand the steps to take and maintain in order to operate successfully in the Amazon ecosystem. These posts assume that you are a brand owner or license holder as opposed to a third-party product reseller although many of the issues discussed apply to all Amazon sellers.

Part 1 – Establishing Your Presence on Amazon

For Amazon newbies as well as established sellers, this first series of items should be reviewed or revisited as part of your ongoing store oversight and management.

There may be other considerations you will need to focus on but this set of blog posts is intended to concentrate on the areas that our experience shows as most crucial to your Amazon success.  

Store Design & Build

Before you can start selling on Amazon, you’ll need to create an account with Vendor Central or Seller Central depending upon which channel you are using (you can visit Amazon to learn more about the differences between these two channels but you will likely be selling through the Seller portal). While the actual look and design of the store is important, mapping the customer journey is paramount to your success as it allows customers to quickly find what they are looking for. Any design elements that impede the path to conversion, no matter how nice they may be, are working against the user experience. It’s also extremely important that your store design follow Amazon best practices and is optimized for mobile and tablets so that customers can easily find what they’re looking for on their mobile device. Amazon offers a number of recommendations for optimal image size as part of the onboarding process.

Brand Registry & Approval

If your brand is trademarked, you will definitely want to subscribe to Brand Registry. There are numerous benefits in doing so including brand protection, an increase in product sales, better reporting options, and more. Plus, it provides credibility for your brand on Amazon by letting customers know that whenever they make a purchase from your company on Amazon, they’re getting authentic products from an approved seller.  

Warehouse Capabilities

To be able to sell via Vendor Central or Seller Central, you’ll need to have a warehouse facility where products can be stored and shipped out when needed. As a seller, you can use the Amazon platform to market and sell your products as well as manage inventory and fulfill orders on behalf of customers. You can choose to use FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) or sell your products directly from your own warehouse.

FBM or FBA

Once you have a clear understanding of your logistical capabilities, you will be able to decide if you want to fulfill your orders via FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) or FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon). FBA offers a number of advantages such as prime listings and Amazon managed customer service. FBM is better suited to operations that have a complete internal structure which can ensure on time deliveries and a fully managed back end of the Amazon platform. Keep in mind that FBM logistics involve much more than simply fulfilling and shipping orders and generally require a strong understanding of the Amazon back end. You’ll also want to do a cost analysis to determine which option is best for you. Amazon provides tools to do this and you can also run your own spreadsheet numbers. 

Coming Up Next

In our next post, we’ll look at creating product detail pages that ensure optimal customer experience and follow Amazon best practices.

How to Increase Your Sales on Amazon

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Introduction

Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world, with over two-thirds of all online shoppers visiting Amazon at least once per month. As a seller on Amazon, you have the opportunity to reach thousands of customers—at no cost to you! However, this doesn’t mean that selling on Amazon is easy. In fact, it can be quite challenging to get your products noticed amidst so many other sellers. But if you follow these simple tips for increasing your sales on Amazon, there’s no reason why your business should stay small any longer.

Prosper by Providing Quality Customer Service

Customer service is key to success on Amazon. As a seller, you are in the business of providing a good customer experience. This means that you’re not just answering questions from your customers—you need to be proactive about helping them out with their problems and issues. You can do this by following up on negative reviews, contacting customers when there’s an issue with their order or shipment, or simply being available for support at all times.

You’ll want to make sure that your staff is trained in how to interact with the public online so they can respond quickly and effectively when a customer has an issue (or even just needs some general guidance). If someone writes in saying “I hate these shoes,” don’t tell them they should love them because they’re made from recycled material; instead, ask what specifically they don’t like about them so you can address those concerns directly before moving forward with the next step of resolving their problem.

Be Sure to Respond to Customers’ Questions and Reviews

It is important to respond to both negative and positive customer reviews. Responding to a negative review shows that you care about your customers, while responding to positive reviews will encourage people who’ve been happy with your service or product to leave a good review.

Responding to all customer questions is also important for the same reasons that responding to all customer reviews is, but it is also important because it can help you identify potential problems with your company’s products or services that could be fixed in the future.

There are several ways of responding: answering emails directly from Amazon (or an email management tool like SendGrid), replying in-app via messages, replying by phone call, etc. The method you choose should depend on what kind of response time frame each customer expects as well as what resources are available at any given time (e.g., whether someone needs help right away).

Boost Your Sales with Great Product Photos

You can have a killer product idea, and you can write a great product description. But if your photos are not up to par, your customers will be turned off from buying. The importance of good product photos cannot be overstated – these are the first thing customers see when they view your listing and make their purchasing decisions.

To increase sales on Amazon, you must take advantage of every opportunity to draw in potential customers with compelling photos that will help them visualize what they’re buying before they even click ‘Add to Cart’.

Make Sure Your Products Are Prime-Eligible

Prime is a paid membership program for Amazon customers. Members have access to free, fast shipping on eligible items, as well as other benefits, including Prime Video, Prime Music and Prime Reading.

You can make your products eligible for Prime by enabling the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service in Seller Central or the Marketplace Web Service (MWS). You’ll want to pay special attention if you plan on selling in countries outside of the U.S., because some services aren’t available internationally.

Optimize Your Listing for the Search Box

The search box is the most important place to optimize your listing. It’s also where your customers will find you! The more customers that find you through the search box, the more sales you’ll make.

So what are some tips for optimizing your listing for the search box?

  • Use keywords that customers actually search for
  • Use keywords that are relevant to your product
  • Use keywords that are relevant to your customer’s experience with purchasing from Amazon (i.e., brand and budget)
  • Make sure there is a balance between generic and targeted keywords

Keep an Eye on Your Amazon Competitors’ Pricing and Listings

One of the best ways to keep track of what your competitors are doing is by checking their listings and reviews. By doing so, you can make sure that your product is competitively priced and has a competitive listing. You can also use this information to respond to bad reviews with an apology or explanation—you never know when a negative review can turn into a positive one!

When reviewing your competitors’ pricing, look for any patterns in how they’re pricing their products and make sure that you’re staying within those bounds. If there’s too much variation between how different sellers are pricing the same item or if too many sellers are offering it at below cost, then maybe it’s time for you to lower yours.

Have an Accurate Inventory Management System in Place

It’s important to have an accurate inventory management system in place for your Amazon business. An inaccurate inventory management system can cause all sorts of problems, including:

  • Missing out on sales because you don’t have the stock available
  • Missed potential customers who are looking for your product and can’t find it

Conclusion

The key to maximizing sales on Amazon is to focus on the items that have high demand, but your product won’t be competitive in this space without some serious work. The solution? Find a niche where there’s less competition and higher margins for growth. You just need to do more research to find it!

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