Q4 has arrived and Amazon sellers are expecting to see a lot of additional traffic for the holidays. But what good is all this traffic if your listings don’t convert?
Envision Horizons CEO, Laura Meyer, met with Daniela Bolzmann of Mindful Goods to discuss common mistakes and best practices when it comes to listing optimization. We’re summarizing the key points addressed during the conversation between Amazon experts…
Common Mistakes for Amazon Listings
Mistake 1: Having an Empty/Incomplete Listings
The most obvious mistake of all is simply not putting effort into your listing. Amazon provides sellers with a lot of tools to convert the customer, and if you’re not utilizing them you’re making a mistake. For example, you should be using every image slot in the PDP carousel to show your customers the value of your product.
Mistake 2: Copying and Pasting
Sellers should be creating custom content for Amazon, not copying and pasting from other sources. Too often we see sellers simply copy their product description from their own website, from Shopify, or from another platform, and simply paste it into their Amazon listing. Copy needs to be optimized for Amazon specifically in order to get your listing ranking on the first page of results. Sellers should understand what terms Amazon customers are searching for in relation to their product and incorporate these keywords into their copy.
Mistake 3: Copy and Creative That Don’t Connect
When it comes to Amazon, the team writing the copy needs to collaborate with the creative team. It is a best practice to build optimized copy first, in order to flesh out the true benefits of the product. After you have your key bullet points down, build Creative that connects to these points. After all, many consumers skip over the text and go right to looking at your images. For this reason, your images need to provide the same information that your copy does in order to demonstrate the value of your product and answer any questions the customer may have.
What’s More Important, Copy or Imagery?
People often ask, when it comes to listing optimization, what should Amazon sellers prioritize? Copy or Imagery? The short answer is you need to prioritize both if you want to convert customers. First and foremost- if you have a bad copy and are not indexing for many keywords, then you won’t show up on the customer’s SERP, and they’ll never see your listing. However, if you do have an optimized copy that’s driving traffic to your listing, you still need to convert the customer. Having compelling content all the way down the page is key. A good rule of thumb is that every image is an asset, and every asset needs to provide a function. Your PDP images should not only be visually appealing, but they should also be informative and educate the customer. Your EBC/A+ content should continue to provide background information and answer questions your customer may have. A good rule of thumb is that every image is an asset, and every asset needs to provide a function.
Mindful Goods’ BUY NOW Method
Daniela’s Agency, Mindful Goods, have developed their own method for optimizing listings called the BUY NOW method. You can download their 25 point checklist here.
BUY NOW is an acronym that breaks down the goals and intentions behind optimization.
B – Build Trust. Be transparent with customers.
U – Unforgettable. Be compelling and stand out from competitors.
Y – Your Why. Be authentic. This can come from sharing your story, mission, impact, or even sharing a photo of the team.
N – No Questions Left Unanswered. Shoppers don’t read Amazon listings, they click & scan. Read reviews to make sure you are answering every question your customer may have.
O– Optimize. Make sure your listing gets found – keyword optimization is key.
W -Win-Back. Shoppers will scroll down the page to learn more about your product. Your EBC/A+ content is often the last chance you have to convince potential customers to convert. Win them over with compelling content all the way down the page.
Why You Need to AB Test Your MAIN Image
Once your listing is showing up in the results, it’s the job of the MAIN image to entice customers to click through to your listing. To find the perfect MAIN image we have to ask – how can we get customers to click on our image vs. the 50 other competitor’s images that are showing up next to us on the page. With your main image, ideation and being creative is key. Take a look at the competitive space and try to figure out what interesting ways you might be able to stand out from the competition (while still following Amazon’s MAIN image guidelines). The goal is to attract eyeballs and get the clicks! AB testing within Amazon is great when applicable, but you need to have a big enough pool of responses to be able to collect significant data. Luckily there are alternatives! Mindful Goods and Envision Horizons are both partnered with a great company called PickFu. PickFu allows you to split test multiple ideas for MAIN images to figure out what gets the most clicks. You can even test your ideas against the competitive set to see what stands out. AB testing is key to success when it comes to optimizing your listings and is especially important for the MAIN image.
Optimize Your Listing by Reading Reviews
Reading through reviews can be a powerful way to learn more about your customers and your own product. There are multiple ways to gather this information. You can look at reviews from your split testing. With PickFu, respondents leave feedback that can be extremely helpful. You can also look at the Amazon reviews on your listing. What are customers saying most often? If customers are frequently saying how much they love a particular product feature, make sure to highlight that feature in your listing. If customers are complaining about an aspect of the product, try to manage the customer’s expectations in your copy and imagery. For example, if you have a product that many consumers were expecting to be sweet but were disappointed to learn it has a sour flavor, you can set the expectation that the product is sour in your product description and imagery. This will reduce negative reviews and returns. Another way to get useful information from reviews is by looking at your top competitor’s listings. What are customers saying they like or dislike about the product, and how can you apply these learnings to your own listing. For example, if you just launched on Amazon and are selling bidets, you might not have many reviews to use as feedback yet. Instead, look at your competitors who have thousands of reviews to see what customers are saying. If you see that many reviews mention “ease of use”, this is something to make sure to highlight in your own listing. Finally, you can also use return reasons as actionable feedback to optimize your listing. For example, if you use an Amazon analytics tool like myHorizons, you’ll be able to see your top return reasons. If the top reason is “product is too small” this is a sign to update your sizing chart and help the customers better understand what size will work for them.
In Conclusion
Make sure you are doing everything you can to optimize your listings before the holiday season. Take advantage of the additional traffic by ensuring you have compelling content that converts. Optimized copy and imagery are both essential to a successful listing. AB testing is key to finding the right main image, and don’t forget to use reviews and return reasons to make positive updates to your listing that will better set customer expectations.
Happy holidays!
