Julian Galindo is a Client Project Manager at Bobsled, an Acadia company.
Amazon continues to rule over the eCommerce world as the largest platform in online shopping, but that also means competition is getting tougher as well. Brands need every edge they can get to stand out in a market that is constantly evolving.
In my experience working with brands on Amazon, I find that most are unaware of the breadth of branding opportunities the platform offers. And when there’s an opportunity to stand out on Amazon, I believe you should jump right in with two feet.
Having a superior brand experience improves trust with shoppers and improves conversion rates – which can lower your customer acquisition costs and improve your organic ranking. It can also create more consistency in your brand message on and off Amazon.
One of the most profitable storefronts on the platform is Amazon Basics.
Today, I want to share two overlooked branding opportunities that exist on Amazon, that you should not be sleeping on.
1. Product detail page branding opportunities
The Current Situation
Brands that have deprioritized Amazon end up missing out on the growing quality and diversity of branding opportunities on the platform. In the past, one might have been able to achieve measurable success with a simple logo and tagline. With competition growing fiercer, it’s imperative that brands make products relatable to customers in new ways. Dynamic lifestyle images and videos pique the interest of new audiences and can give your brand the edge it needs to be a big name in your niche.
The Solution
Invest more time and thought into telling your brand’s story and product attributes on Amazon product detail pages.
I won’t lie – developing A+ content can be time-consuming. Planning the message, producing the copy and visual assets, and even the upload process itself can be costly and time-consuming. But consider the bar that is being set by other brands on Amazon.
Shoppers are coming to expect this level of information from brands on Amazon. You don’t want to be the only brand in your category that’s coasting by with minimal content and losing potential sales.
A+ content example (Source: Amazon.com)
Dynamic imagery and video content have become essential to developing your brand, especially when catering to mobile users. In fact, there is currently a surge of growing mobile and app users. Device optimization cannot go ignored. According to a recent study by Statista, Amazon saw a monthly mobile audience of 98 million in 2021. This year, the number of customers who use mobile devices to shop and make Amazon purchases continues to rise. Make sure to optimize your content for mobile first, as that is often the first point of contact customers will make with your brand before deciding on a purchase. Lack of mobile optimization reflects poorly on even (and especially) the most established brands.
While almost 70% of shoppers finish their purchases on a desktop computer, more than 30% of Amazon users rely on their phones or mobile devices for the entire shopping process. (Source: Statista)
Client Story: Visual Branding Increases Month-Over-Month Sales By 11%
I recently spoke with a client about the state of their Amazon pages. Although they are a well-established lab equipment brand, they did not prioritize their Amazon presence in the past. I presented the state of their Product Display Pages, Storefront, and overall business profile to them and made it clear that they were not treating these things like they would their own website, which I believed was doing a disservice to the brand.
We started working immediately on improving the technical language used in their copy, creating much more informative content, and bringing the same off-Amazon branding efforts to their Amazon account. We added 45-second videos to top-performing ASINs, published new infographics, and worked on overall improvements to the Storefront. Since focusing on these updates, the brand has had the most successful month since launching the account. Their sales increased 11% MoM from July to August.
2. Store Branding Opportunities
The Current Situation
More brands are starting to uniquely combine video and shoppable images to make their storefronts stand out from the pack. This has proven to result in higher conversion and more returning customers.
Allowing for the dynamic access of your products invites more customers to your Storefront, giving your brand the opportunity to grow within Amazon itself. The platform continues to provide brands with the opportunity to create their own profile – and entire brand identity – on Amazon. Customers will no longer have to leave Amazon to research who you are and what you have to offer once you develop a unique approach to Storefront branding.
Storefront example (Source: Amazon.com)
The Solution
Storefronts should reflect all of the latest and greatest offerings from your brand. Prioritize the continuous refreshing of your Storefront to solidify future success on Amazon by adding seasonal content, product collections, brand stories, and lifestyle content. As reported by Amazon themselves, stores with more than 3 pages have an 83% higher shopper dwelling time and 32% higher attributed sales per visitor than smaller stores.
Just this month (September 2022) we have noticed that Amazon is indexing and displaying information from Amazon Stores in search results.
“Featured from the store” and “Collections from the store” display when searching for certain keywords. For example, my colleague Ken searched recently for “new balance men’s shoes” and a few scrolls down, there is a featured snippet from the New Balance store.
Featured snippet (Source: Amazon.com)
All brands want to secure more ‘real estate’ on Amazon search results pages, and most of the time, they have to pay for it with ads. This is one of those rare opportunities to actually get free, and highly visible, real estate on Amazon search results. But you can only get this placement by having an optimized Store and organizing it with product collections.
“I already refreshed my content last year. Why do I have to do it again?”
Keeping up with Amazon branding trends and niche competitors can feel like an uphill battle when you don’t have all the possible tools at your disposal. Your Storefront should always reflect the latest products that represent the current season. This isn’t just for the sake of staying up to par with your competitors, but with Amazon’s indexing systems as well.
Amazon Advertising reports that brands that updated their Storefronts at least once every 90 days saw a 35% higher attributed sales rate per visitor, and 21% more repeating visitors than those who don’t treat Storefronts as influential and changeable branding opportunities.
Amazon’s A9 and A10 algorithms are constantly indexing the most sought-after search terms, delivering the results for whichever PDP is most likely to convert. Brands are always creating new compelling products; simultaneously, seasons and trends are changing. A savvy seller must stay ahead of the curve by making sure their Storefront tells customers what makes this brand different from the rest.
Client Story: Storefront Creatives Establish Strong Brand Identity
Many of Amazon’s newer branding opportunities present a learning curve to big and small brands alike, affecting even the most well-established names. One of our global Premium brand clients had not been using their listing images to promote products in the correct way. Looking at their product listing pages alone, one would not think that this was a Premium brand.
As a solution, I suggested that we bring over the same level of imagery and creatives to Amazon that they had been using across social media. Customers like to see other shoppers using their products, and brands should take advantage of the creatives that work to drive sales. It is possible to use these same creatives on the brand’s Storefront, A+ content, product pages, and more in conjunction with informative language to design a memorable brand identity.
A focus on Amazon Storefront and product pages resulted in higher month-over-month conversions.
This client ended up being very happy with the way the product is now represented to customers. With 2 ASINS seeing a bump in conversion rates and an increase in the shipped cost of goods sold, the company now sees how having striking and influential visuals on social media can be used to direct traffic towards their Amazon pages and sell more products on the marketplace.
Amazon Maturity Can Dictate Branding Results
At the beginning of the year, we published new proprietary research on the Amazon Maturity Matrix. In the study, we learned that some of the most mature brands on Amazon are those that have high numbers of engagement and branding execution. This leads to fast and superior results that keep those well-established brands at the top of the eCommerce food chain.
I believe it is important to take risks and pivot your marketing strategy when needed. But it is equally imperative not to waste energy on initiatives that won’t contribute to increased awareness and growth. Hold the mindset of learning and adjustment when adopting new Amazon branding opportunities, treating the platform as an extension of your overall presence.
Mature brands often treat Amazon as a cohesive part of their strategy and not “just another channel to be in”. While Amazon offers plenty of tools for the trade, it won’t automatically generate success for you. Be aware of the small changes you can consistently make across your eCommerce platforms to keep your brand going strong.
Want to learn more about maturity on Amazon? Read our report on Why Amazon-Fluent Companies Outperform Peers by 16%!
Future Branding Opportunities on Amazon
Amazon continues to beta test more branding initiatives that will make creative efforts all the more important. As an example, the platform recently released a way for brands to send emails to their full lists of customers – not just to those who have followed a certain post. I am seeing a huge surge of better influencer programs that utilize off-platform resources to support brands on Amazon. The small insights being gathered speak to the increased strength of growing brand trends on this platform.
At Bobsled, we are also seeing new types of reporting around Storefronts, allowing for the easier collection of data after testing the results of different branding options on Amazon. Brands that take advantage of consistent and regular branding opportunities on Amazon will easily stand out from their competitors.
Don’t be another brand that sells “X”. Use these tools to take control of your niche and be the brand that people search for both on and off Amazon.
Need help developing and executing a better branding experience on Amazon? Bobsled works with brands to create and deploy A+ content, stores, Amazon posts, and other branded content. Contact us to learn more.
