Amazon SEO and Sponsored Ads Best Practices

1. 1 @OnlineSellerUK Prabhat Shah Amazon SEO and Sponsored Ads Best Practices

2. What are we talking about today? A. Factors that influence your product discoverability B. Amazon marketing services best practices

3. 3 About Me • Started working in Amazon & eBay in 2009 (Used to work in Leprosy Hospital before ) • Worked with Small and Large Size businesses throughout the UK, Ireland and the US • Currently leading two projects • DaytodayeBay – Solution Provides complete for Marketplaces (eBay, Amazon & beyond) • Online Seller UK – Organises Meetups, digital marketing training & consultancy

4. Head Line Display Sponsored Ads Organic Results Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads A TYPICAL AMAZON SEARCH RESULT

5. Additionally, we have started to see Amazon choice which usually added on the product when any product has high sales velocity.

6. A. Factors that influence your product discoverability 1. Sell via Amazon FBA ( Fulfilment by Amazon) 2. Conversion 3. Dispatch on time 4. Improve Amazon Product reviews 5. Optimise for search

7. Factors that influence your product discoverability 1. Sell via FBA – increased conversion means better ranking • Amazon FBA products are free for delivery with Amazon prime and becomes automatically eligible for Alexa • Prime has now become a successful loyalty tool with 3.8 millions customers in the UK and 90 millions in the US (2017 data) • Customer Trust is high with Prime because of Next day delivery, free returns, and brilliant customer service

8. Statistics from Marketplace Pulse, of top 10,000 sellers suggest • About 58 % of the top 10,000 US Amazon marketplace sellers makes use of Amazon’s fulfilment service, about 40% of the European Sellers use Fulfilment by Amazon • When product is right FBA increases sales velocity quicker than FBM

9. Plus postage if this was less than £20 Read more about free delivery FBA can get buy box even if it is expensive FBA enables you to win buy box = sales

10. Factors that influence your product discoverability 2. Ship to Stock on time (FBA / FBM) • Keeping your inventory with 4 week’s supply is a good idea. • Overstocking can result additional storage fees which starts after your stock is > 6months. • For FBM – express delivery guaranteed 24 hours deliver can help

11. Factors that influence your product discoverability 3. Improve Product Reviews • New Reviews, Verified Reviews and Reviews that are most helpful are given more weight. • Proactively check your reviews. Create a process to deal with negative reviews. • Encourage customers to write reviews. • Follow up emails is acceptable and it can be automated via 3rd tools like Xsellco • Negative reviews does impact negatively. So, get in touch with buyers to resolve issues.

12. The order of reviews are based on “most helpful” clicks. So, it is important to we balance positive reviews with negative

13. Very common ways to improve product reviews • Sell as loss leader for a limited period to accelerate sales and hoping to get verified reviews • Use Sponsored Ads to boost ranking

14. Amazon Early Review Program ( US) How to Enrol in Amazon’s Early Reviewer Program ? #1. Enrol Your Brand in Amazon’s Brand Registry #2. Upload your SKU with CSV from < Advertising tab > #3. Upload upto 100 SKUs at one time

15. What exact it is ? • This program is a way to incentivise reviews for new products. It is aimed at to help brand owners to gather early reviews. These reviews: • Helps shoppers make smarter buying decisions • Increases page views • Increase click-through, and • Ultimately sales

16. FAQs more info here> #1 Is this available everywhere ? : Currently it is available only in the U.S. brand registered Amazon sellers. #2 Is this available for everyone ? : It is only available for Brand owners so you’d have to apply for Brand Registry if you own the trademark. If you have not applied for your brand, find out more here #3 Can I enrol all of my ASINS ? : In order for an ASIN to be eligible for the Early Reviewer Program, it must have fewer than 5 reviews and must be priced above $15.00

17. #4 What is the cost?: A seller pays $60 for each SKU to be enrolled in the program chargeable once a SKU gains a review. The Early Reviewer Program will continue to gather reviews for a SKU for up to 1 year from time of enrolment, or until 5 reviews are received through the program, whichever occurs first. More info here> #5 Can we select customers to write review ?: No, Amazon randomly selects customers from a list of all customers who have purchased products participating in the program #6 What is the incentive for Reviewers? : They receive a small reward (a $1-$3 Amazon gift card, for example) after submitting their review that meets the community guidelines. Their review can be positive or negative. #7 Early Reviewer Program reviews are denoted with an orange badge that reads “Early Reviewer Rewards.”

18. Factors that influence your product discoverability 5. Optimise for Amazon SEO Price Paid Ads Product Titles Key Features Product Descriptions Structured Data – Brand, MPN Product Search Terms Parent-Child relationship

19. Price • Low price have a direct impact on where products show up in the SERP • We cannot always “race to the bottom” • Price Comparison before listing is recommended • Price reduction can help • Sale price is taken into consideration * FBA items of £20.00 or over are free shipping for all (including non-prime members) * Sale price / Strike through price impacts sales positively

20. Factors that influence your product discoverability Price Paid Ads Product Titles Key Features Product Descriptions Structured Data – Brand, MPN Product Search Terms Parent-Child relationship

21. Position 1 Position 2 Position 3

22. Paid Ads: Sponsored, Product Display, Headline Search • Free £20.00 Voucher available for all • Only products with buy box are eligible • Helps to generate additional sales • Use both automatic and manual campaigns • Eligible Categories: Electronics & Photo, Music, Toys & Games, VHS, DIY & Tools, PC & Video Games, Software, Film & TV, Baby, Kitchen & Home, Garden & Outdoors, Health & Beauty, Computers & Accessories, Grocery, Jewellery, Pet Supplies, Sports & Outdoors, Stationery & Office Supplies, Watches, Car & Motorbike, Shoes & Accessories, Beauty, Large Appliances, Musical, Instruments & DJ and Lighting.

23. Campaign Clicks Campaign Turnover % ACOS Total Amazon Turnover % M 1 £1,029.47 £18,802.63 5% £58,307.00 32 M 2 £667.01 £10,402.54 6% £57,285.00 18 M 3 £757.16 £16,728.61 4.53 £55,216.00 30 Our Client Campaigns Result

24. Sponsored Product Ads These are Keywords targeted Ads Appearance: Top, Below, Right hand side of the search and product details page Types: Automatic and Manual Who is for?: Seller central and Vendor Central Analysis: Can measure ACoS, Search Terms effectiveness Tip: Use optimised content to get best out of Automatic ads

25. Sponsored Product Ads Best Practices • Keyword suggestions can be good if content is good. • Optimise your campaigns in a periodically • Don’t set minimum bid when you start • Adjust bids depending on performance • Keep Automatic ads always on to appear on product details page

26. Sponsored Ads Best Practices • Start with Automatic Ads and harvest converting search terms for manual ads • Start with optimal budget so we ensure maximum exposure as possible in the beginning and then refine it afterwards • Spend based on your profitability, find your Cost of sale to determine how much you can spend E.g SP – ( PRODUCT COST + ALL AMAZON FEES) = Profit Profit / SP = Profit Margin 27 – (14+4)=9 9/27=33% * Our ACOS must be less than 33% to make profit

27. Use Search term report to find keywords that converted and use them in manual ads

28. Sponsored Ads Best Practices • Use Amazon search tools ( sonar tools) to find relevant search terms • The main advantage of the Reverse ASIN search function is that you do not need a source keyword in order to start your keyword research. ** I struggled initially to get good paid result on Amazon US platform and reverse ASIN helped a lot

29. Sponsored Ads Best Practices • Run your advertising campaigns for 4 weeks without making any adjustments. • Amazon’s advertising reports have a several days latency, which means that it takes 48-72 hours sometimes for conversions to be reported. • In manual ads - Remove non-converting keywords and targeting • Increase bids if needed for keywords that convert well • Ad groups can be created based on category

31. Product Titles • Each word in the Product Title is searchable on its own • Relevant title will drive traffic to your product. • Include the brand, material, size, color, product type, and descriptive keywords in your product title for all of your products. • Optimal title lengths are between 80 and 100 characters, although this does vary by category, and are being policed more aggressively by Amazon. • If your titles are over Amazon’s character limit they will be suppressed from the website or will not appear on the search. Please check your “Manage Inventory” to see character limits.

32. Stay within Amazon’s character limits Limits can vary based on category

33. How to find the right keywords for your title? • Use Keywords Tools like sonar http://sonar-tool.com/us/ Google Keywords planner, Scientific Keyword tool ( US only free, rest paid)

35. Key Features • Bullet points are searchable • You have 5 Bullet points with 500 character maximum length for bullet points. ( Limit can differ based on category) • Include keywords you want to rank • Highlight crucial product features to give customers the confidence to make a purchase decision. • See example on next slide >

37. Product Descriptions • Searchable • 2000 characters limit • Differentiate your product from competitor products. • Rich descriptions helps conversion • See example on next page >

38. •Amazon allows only bold and paragraph change HTML on descriptions •Next slide shows how to do this

40. Structured Data: Brands, MPNs, Other data • The brand of our product is indexed for search. • Avoid common spelling errors • Include brand as the first word in your product title. •A products’ manufacturer part number (MPN) and product ID (UPC, EAN, or ISBN) are indexed •These are generally commonly searched in categories: electronics, automotive, computers, and appliances * Get EAN from GS1UK

42. Search Terms * 5 Fields with 50 characters each Don’t ignore this warning !

43. Search Terms •They do not appear on product detail pages and are indexed for search •Most commonly underutilised •The best search terms are synonyms and common abbreviations •Consider using converting search terms from automatic sponsored campaigns •Use words that cannot be filled in fields such as product name, key product features, product description, brand name etc.

44. Example of Keywords from Amazon

45. Example of Keywords from Amazon *Creative example here

46. Some don’ts • Don’t provide inaccurate, misleading, or irrelevant information such as competitor product, brand or author name, wrong gender etc. Providing misleading or irrelevant information is against Amazon policy; your listing will be removed and your account will be suspended. We have seen suspension when a seller included offers on description. Moreover, your product might end up in a wrong browse node and your sales might get affected. • When entering several words as a search term, put them in the most logical order. A customer is more likely to search for big stuffed teddy bears than for teddy stuffed bears.

47. Some don’ts • Use a single space to separate keywords. No commas, semicolons, carets are required. • Don’t include common misspellings of the product name. Amazon's search engine compensates for common customer misspellings and also offers corrective suggestions. • Don’t provide variants of spacing, punctuation, capitalisation, and pluralisation (“80GB” and “80 GB”, “computer” and “computers”, etc.). Our search engine automatically includes different case forms, word forms and spelling variants for searching. • Abbreviations, alternate names, topic (for books etc.), and key character (for books, movies etc.) could be included as keywords.

49. Group Listing Variations • Main product title is Parent and variants e.g. size, colour are called child • They are better when listed together • Group them together using a parent-child relationship. • When customer finds one product they will find others as well • Also they help to build product reviews for all products which again help in ranking

50. Quick Recap • There is no secret. Follow a checklist method to ensure all aspects of listing optimisation is completed. • Trial FBA if you have not • Invest time on getting positive reviews • Create a process driven checklist for Amazon Marketing Services Most importantly – Do your own experiment and don’t trust expert opinion!

51. Thank you !

52. https://uk.linkedin.com/in/prabhatshah

53. Our one of many success Our work: sponsored ads management and product listing optimisation < Group Training and 1-to-1 consulting available >

54. Our one of many success Our work: sponsored ads management and product listing optimisation < Group Training and 1-to-1 consulting available >

55. WhatwecandointheUK andEUplatforms?

56. www.onlineselleruk.com Stay in touch

Amazon SEO and Sponsored Ads Best Practices

You are reading a preview.

Check these out next

Amazon SEO and Sponsored Ads Best Practices

More Related Content

Slideshows for you (20)

Similar to Amazon SEO and Sponsored Ads Best Practices (20)

More from Daytodayebay (20)

Recently uploaded (20)