In our last article we discussed the basic techniques of ranking up your listing on Amazon. In this piece, we’ll explore some methods on some more ways to rank:
1. Expose your listing to as many customers as you can.
2. Make your product listing as appealing as possible.
Not all of these can be used at once, but overall each is sure to be an asset you can use to increase sales on Amazon.
Amazon PPC – Product Targeting
PPC is one of the best ways to increase your organic ranking. Doing product targeting campaigns can serve to boost another type of ranking, too. When your listing is indexed for a certain keyword, it means that the A9 algorithm has recognized the relevance between the term and your listing. This also means your listing can rank up as a recommended product.
Check out the listing of the beanie below:
We can see that there are 3 types of ranking:
Organic keywords
Sponsored keywords
Amazon recommended
Product targeting is used to create a correlation between your product and other products in your niche. This means your listing can show up in more places that you’re even aware of!
When looking at the bottom of the listing of the same beanie, we can see these 2 sections:
PPC influences more than just product targeting. In addition to boosting up this new type of ranking, product targeting is a precise marketing tool. There is a lot to gain if you invest the time and effort to push these campaigns, both in recommended rankings and in sales.
The campaigns allow you to be very precise and very deliberate in the customization process:
You can target entire categories, or target individual listings of competitors or yourself.
The negative targeting option lets you exclude entire brands (inducing your own) from targeting, as well as individual products. You can also refine the campaign by the properties of the product you want to advertise on, such as the number of reviews and the rating.
Another way you can boost your Amazon recommended ranking using PPC, is with Auto Campaigns. If you go to the “targeting” option beneath Auto Campaigns this is what you’ll see:
Substitutes – Product targets similar to yours
Complements – Product targets that may be bought along with your product
Close match – Prime search terms that are highly relevant to your product and can be found in your listing copy
Loose match – Search terms that are somewhat relevant and are in the same area as your key relevant terms
By having just Substitutes and Complements turned on as the targeting for your Auto Campaign, you can cast a wide net and sort of maximize the spread of those Amazon recommended rankings. You can also let the campaign run like that for a while and extract reports to create really precise Product Targeting Campaigns.
Becoming a registered brand
Amazon brand registry is a program within Amazon’s seller platform that is meant for brands to grow and expand on the platform. It comes with a slew of benefits not available to standard sellers.
In order to apply for the program you need to meet a few requirements, such as:
-Owning a website with a domain name connected with your Amazon-registered email
– Brand logo being displayed on the product(s) you are selling and the packaging
And, most importantly,
– A registered trademark with the proper authorities of the country of the market you are selling on
The last one is the most demanding requirement, since if you don’t have a trademark, you might be in for a wait. The process, depending on the country, can take anywhere from 6 months up to a year. So, if you are already confident in your brand you should get on top of it. You can start the process online and the cost for it is usually in the neighborhood of $500 or so.
Once you get into the brand registry your seller central panel gets bigger, and you’re presented with more tools to help boost your product(s).
A+ Content
If return to the Carhartt beanie example, this is how the seller used their listing space:
As a part of the many options that fall under the umbrella of A+ Content, you can even add a short video. Here’s an example of a ring light kit:
Taking full advantage of these options is sure to have an effect on your conversion rate. Additionally, A+ Content allows you to build a brand identity and leave a lasting impression on your customers. Having more space to dedicate to your brand and product selection should result in cultivating some brand loyalty, which in turn should result in more purchases and recommendations. This is a creative way to boost your rankings by boosting sales.
Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display
A significant benefit of being a registered brand is the fact that your PPC toolkit gets bigger. You get exclusive advertising space on the platform in two types of ads:
Sponsored brand ads
This limits you to advertising 3 products in your catalogue, and there can only be one per page.
These campaigns are mostly automatic and target items that are viewed by customers that viewed your product page in the past, or the product page of a competitor. Using the additional PPC advertising avenues is a great way to increase the exposure of your product lines and reach new people in a very impactful way. The main difference between regular and Brand registry PPC is not only the fact that you have access to a new advertising space, it’s the fact that the people coming in contact with it have a much greater chance of noticing your brand and remembering it.
ManyChat
The use of ManyChat has become a standard practice for some of the more successful sellers, or rather sellers with larger catalogues.
One of the main issues with Amazon is that sellers cannot re-engage with customers the way they would like to. ManyChat, along with some other complementary services, allows you to circumvent that and help you create a community out of your customers.
You can use services like Zonepage that will integrate with your Seller Central account and access your order history in order to create an audience you can contact later on. This in turn can be integrated with a ManyChat Facebook messenger bot that can interact with your customers in various ways. You can even use this to offer discounts and ask for reviews outside of Amazon’s system.
For more details you can read this step by step guide. Keep in mind that Amazon frowns upon contacting your customers outside of their approved system, so using a chatbot places you in a bit of a gray area, technically speaking.
Remind yourself of the rules and guidelines for reviews, you should not ask for either a positive review or incentivize a review by offering a discount. Many people have found a lot of success getting really high rates of reviews from their customers, but you should keep in mind that if you go over 15% review rate that you will be on Amazon’s radar. In that case it’s best that you temporarily turn off ManyChat in order to avoid any risk.
Amazon Launchpad
Amazon Launchpad is Amazon’s page that features new and innovative products. The perks of getting into this program are truly envy-inducing. You basically get treated like Amazon’s favorite child. If you manage to get in you can expect:
$5,000 in AWS (Amazon Web Services) promotional credits to use for things like web hosting, cloud storage and other related services.
Free Access to the Vine Enrollment Program – Access to this program is quite expensive with costs ranging between $5,000 and $7,000. The program is basically a way of getting reviews from Amazon’s hand-picked trusted reviewers that can become a part of the program by invite only.
6 month complimentary FoundersCard ($595 value)– It’s like a perks card that can grant you airplane seat upgrades and car rentals.
Promotion to the Launchpad e-mail as well as promoted on their social media platforms – This might be the single greatest perk you get. It puts your product in front of a huge audience.
Add all of these features with the fact that your product can be found on the Amazon launchpad page, along with whatever department/subcategory your product is placed in. It goes without saying that any seller would be very lucky to get in! Your product needs to meet these criteria in order to even be considered:
Needs at least 10 reviews
A rating that’s 3 stars or higher
You must be a registered brand and you need to have your A+ content fully set up
You will also be required to provide some information about your company and most importantly, provide some mentions by the media about your product.
Getting into Amazon Launchpad is easy for products that generate a ton of interest with crowdfunding campaigns, since they are market-tested and Amazon is already aware there is interest. As the mission of Launchpad says, you need to have a product that is in some ways innovative, or provides a new twist on an old product.
In conclusion, there are many opportunities for you to get your product to rank higher. If you try these different options, they will result in more people seeing what you’re selling, buying your product, and the results will follow!
