“Advertising is the absolute necessity for proper strategic branding of your brand and business enterprise.”
Amazon is a retailing market leader, influencing more than 40% of all online retail sales through their platform. It provides an opportunity for businesses to showcase their products and services through their global retailing service. Many business owners get associated with Amazon’s Marketing Services (AMA) to offer direct sales to their target audience.
AMA is an extended service that Amazon provides to business owners with a strategic advantage of marketing their products and services on their platform and bringing new opportunities for them. Additionally, it also provides a scope for small businesses to accomplish their goals and objectives effectively.
So, small and medium businesses must explore this eCommerce platform to connect with their customers globally and generate higher revenue with maximum sales. They can also reach out to the digital marketers of the leading digital marketing agency like Esolz to help them with Amazon advertising.
By learning their advertising strategies, digital marketers can help businesses in the following ways –
- Drive incoming traffic
- Improve conversions
- Boost sales
- Earn revenues
- Create brand awareness
- Improve capital flow
- Create a competitive edge in the marketplace
Some of the essential Amazon advertising strategies that all small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can get aligned with for a better scope of brand positioning and a better return on investment are stated below-
Mastered Paid Ad Campaigns
Firstly, you need to understand the main aspects that amazon advertising comprises. A large part of the sales in Amazon relies on the pay-per-click model, commonly known as PPC. This means that your business won’t be charged for an advertisement run, until and unless a user clicks on it. There is also an auction that Amazon relies on for such a marketing model. In this auction method, all the businesses name the price they are willing to pay for each click, and the winner of the auction has their ads appear.
The Amazon paid advertisements can be further categorized into these main types-
1. Sponsored Products
The sponsored products of Amazon usually appear in the search results alongside the organic search results on the detailed product list pages. These ads are triggered on keyword reporting. Therefore, businesses can choose which keywords to use to prompt their ads to the target customers. Here, Amazon should be allowed to suggest the search terms to target the ad run. The usage of keyword reporting will drive your product sales.
2. Sponsored Brands
The sponsored brands of Amazon are also keyword-triggered ads that generally appear in the search results and at the top of the page. They are featured with the brand’s logo, a custom headline, and a maximum of three product listings.
3. Headline Search Ads
Headline search advertisements appear above the search results like banner ads. They are keyword-targeted ads that grasp the attention of the targeted audience and promote any three products. They comprise keyword-level sales reporting to know which keywords prompted sales for any listed product.
Calculating Advertising Cost of Sale
You need to determine the Advertising Cost of Sale or ACoS before creating the campaigns. This has a major impact on your cost-per-click or CPC bid. The whole process will help you set a realistic, performance-based, mostly accurate budget and help you to bid in the auction.
While calculating the ACos, you need to have a detailed listing of each of the factors listed below-
- The selling price (SP) of the products
- Cost of goods sold (COGS)
- Fulfillment by Amazon or FBA fees
- Miscellaneous Cost
You can subtract the COGS, FBA fees, and miscellaneous costs from SP to know how much you are having as profit. Additionally, even calculate the break-even point to keep track of your inventory. This will help you sort the budget on how much you can spend and drive a profit too.
Organic Search Engine Optimization
Advertising with Amazon constitutes a whole lot of other strategies than just simply purchasing the advertisements. Though you can see the progress in sales immediately with this method, Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a very crucial factor for any business in the long run and in terms of organic results.
SEO helps in moving the products you offer to the top of the search results over the duration. Additionally, it is about getting the pages of your website to rank higher or at the top in regular search engines like Google, Bing, etc. It also helps in creating the product listings to be excellent, whether paid or unpaid, that appear on the search results organically on the top like Amazon ads usually do. That is why makes Amazon Advertising Services (AMA) and its strategies are successful among others.
You need to make these features in your ad runs optimized while deciding on the advertising strategies-
- Title
- Images
- Description
Insertion of Keywords in Product Listings
While listing a product, you need to include as many keywords as possible relevant to your product with clarity. This is crucial while creating a product listing because it will engage buyers and the search algorithm. Keywords are necessary for the product title as well. It brings a greater scope for business by popping up the products in the search results.
Try avoiding any repetition of keywords in these titles or descriptions. When customers are going through the bullet points, they look for variety and differentiation in these points about the product. These bullet points with keyword-rich language will pitch the audience about the product’s utility.
You can look for each keyword’s ACoS in your Amazon Marketing Services or AMS dashboard under ‘Advertising’. It also helps you check the feasibility of your keywords to advertise and which can drive you no profit.
Robust and Accurate Product Listing Description
When it comes to Amazon advertising strategies, a well-written product description is an absolute imperative aspect of marketing. A well-written product description does not only mean a spelling and grammar error-free, typo-free description, rather it means an informative, factually accurate description focusing on the benefits of the product using keywords is the right one.
Sometimes the customers are more focused on the unclear and misspelled words that are not how you elevate your product in the market. Therefore, as an entrepreneur, it is your job to see that your products are easily discoverable with accurate, easy-to-read words for faster selling of products/services.
Usage of High-Quality Images
The whole point of online shopping like with Amazon is to go through the products virtually. Therefore, there is always close attention to the virtual element of all the advertising campaigns, including Amazon.
If customers are worried more about the specifications and quality of the product and thinking about the return process, it might break the sale process wholly. Thereby, pictorial representation of all your products offered in the market should follow some guidelines that will appeal to the customer’s needs. For example-
- First of all, you need to put high-quality images of at least 1,000 pixels or larger, with a zoom-in feature.
- You can list the image on Amazon which ensures an accurate representation of your product in real life and then focus on the product being sold.
Accumulate Positive Feedback
Customer reviews play a major part in the marketing and advertising of products and services. Even after the sponsored ads, keyword enriched product listing, high-quality images may get the clicks and sales too but a good review is a cherry on top. After investing in the whole Amazon marketing campaign, you must include a real-life experience of your products/services. This way you can improve the organic search results and secure the top ranks in the Google SERPs.
But over time, even the shoppers on Amazon have gotten a keen eye for the bots. These bots flood the system with thousands of reviews written continuously. It benefits the sellers in misdirecting the customers while making a purchase decision.
But Amazon is strict while combating fake reviews. A great deal of Amazon is that it does not permit any solicited reviews or feedback. Amazon’s advertising strategy is ethically accurate and fair for all customers and sellers. You can send follow-up emails to review the sale of a particular product or may also include package inserts politely asking for reviews. Demanding for a review may sound like a bribe. But ask your customers, in a neutral tone, to put in feedback for their purchase. Studies have shown that more than 60% of shoppers go through reviews before purchasing.
You can also provide contact to your customers if they are dissatisfied with the product and want to connect with your business directly. This way, you can avoid a direct negative review on the sale that pops up sometimes. Additionally, it also proves that you can take care of your customers and keep them happy. Amazon offers an Early Reviewer Program that includes some fees to help you with your review.
Reviewing Search Term Report
After the launch of your advertising campaign, you need to focus on the other factors driving the sales and revenue of your business. Reviewing Search Term Report is your next task at hand. This report will assess the data collected from your ad runs.
The search terms report appears in the Amazon Marketing Services or AMS dashboard in ‘Advertising’. This data is crucial to run the sponsored products and headline search ads as they reveal which keywords are driving the sales and clicks from the users and visitors. It also helps you run and be informed about your future and current campaigns.
Conclusion-
Hopefully, this blog gives a clear understanding of Amazon’s advertising services and strategies. Any small and medium scale business can benefit from it and improve their sales. For professional help do connect with the leading digital marketing company and put forward what best suits your eCommerce store.