Conquering your metadata challenges: Increasing sales with better data

Conquering Your Metadata
Challenges
Joshua Tallent
@jtallent @firebrandtech

Agenda
• Metadata testing results
• Four major publishing data challenges
• Five suggestions

Your
metadata
is
important!

Online vs. Offline Sales
80%
50%
20%
50%
2010 2019
Online
Offline
Industry estimates

Preferred shopping method (February 2018)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/913198/digital-shopping-method-preference-usa/
41%
28%
16%
7%
5%
3%
Search and buy on Amazon
Search Google, buy on Amazon
Search Google, buy elsewhere
Search and buy on another site
Search on another site, buy elsewhere
Search on Amazon

The everlasting backlist

The Importance of Metadata
for Discovery and Sales
Nielsen, December 2016

Metadata
Testing

1
7
2.5
6
0
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Delivery Time in Days

Delivery Time in Days
1
7
2.5
6
0
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

• Care and concern
• Description
• Author Bio
• Reviews
• Excerpt
• TOC
• Linked series name
• Edition
• Clean design, minimal
ads

• Duplicate Reviews, inconsistent display
• Longer text is always hidden, requires multiple
mouse clicks

• Almost everything
• Description
• Author Bio
• Reviews
• Excerpt
• Publisher’s Comment
• Flap/Back Panel Copy
• Series name
• Edition

• Design is cluttered and inconsistent
• All extra content hidden behind “See all
Editorial Reviews”
• Plus “Read More” for excerpts
• No TOC

• Description
• Author Bio
• Series
• Edition

• No Reviews
• No Excerpt
• No TOC
• No additional content
• Publisher’s content can be overwritten by site
editors

• Description
• Author Bio
• Reviews

• Only the last review shown
• <em> tags have italic style removed
• <p> replaced with <br>
• No Series
• No Edition

• Description
• Short Description
• Series

• All copy mashed together, no headings
• No Author Bio
• No Reviews
• No Excerpt
• No Edition info
• Publication month and year, not day

• Issues finding products
• Duplicate descriptive copy

• Duplicate copy, weird copy, and more
• Some titles mysteriously have no descriptions
• No Edition info, no Excerpt, no TOC
• Ampersands all switched to “and”

Metadata
Challenges

Challenge #1:
Metadata
Overwriting and
Ownership

FIRST

Challenge #2:
Third Party Sellers

~40,000 titles from
50+ publishers

Third party sellers on Amazon
have won the buy box on
50% of these titles at least
once

Third party sellers win the buy
box only about 15% of the
time on average

We have tracked ~7,500
individual third-party sellers in
the Amazon marketplace

Of those, 43% have taken
the buy box fewer than
10 times.

The top 30 third-party sellers
make up 50% of buy box
wins

Current top 7 sellers:
Book Depository US 7%
DK Outlet 5%
What America Buys 4%
itemspopularsonlineaindemand 3%
Teach&Play 2%
book182wire 2%
ayvax 2%

Average sale price offered
by third party sellers is
34% off the list price

Average sale price offered
by Amazon is
26% off the list price

Publisher
Third Party

About 52% of third party
sellers use Amazon fulfillment

Challenge #3:
Invisible Branding

Brand recognition is
a key indicator of
success on Amazon

Amazon Brand
Registry

Caveats
• USPTO Principal Registry, not Supplementary
• Or Canadian Intellectual Property Office registry
• Can take years to get registered
• Distinct brand with Words/ Letters/ Numbers
• Reports from some publishers that reporting
violations causing problems
• Integration with Amazon Advantage is not great
(better with Seller Central)

Samuel Maverick

Challenge #4:
What You Miss

of publishers manually check their
metadata
of publishers say their metadata is
altered

You miss one hundred
percent of the shots
you don't take.
- Wayne Gretzky

List Price
Sale Price
Buy Buttons Disappearing
Titles Disappearing
Review Counts
Review Stars
Sales Rank

#1
Assign Someone

#2
It Takes a Village

#3
Prioritize Metadata
Quality

Images
• At least 1600px on shortest side
• RGB, not CMYK
• 300dpi
• JPG

Look inside

Interior Images

Sales Handle / Promotional Headline
• No retailers utilize the ONIX field
• Add it to the top of your description in bold

#4
Refresh, Refresh,
Refresh

Author Bio
Book or Author Awards
New Reviews
Keywords
Book Description
Comp Titles
Interior Images

#5
Watch Your Titles

Joshua Tallent
Director of Sales and Education
joshua@firebrandtech.com
978-225-2757
@jtallent @firebrandtech

Conquering your metadata challenges: Increasing sales with better data

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