Developing an Amazon Strategy: A Guide for Brands
No brand in the UK can ignore Amazon. The retail giant accounts for 25 per cent of all online retail activity in the UK, with over 10 billion visits and 660 million transactions processed in the past year alone. Whether or not a brand sells through Amazon, it’s almost certain that their customers or their prospective customers are using it.
Amazon’s recent Prime Day from the 10th to the 11th of July, has also shown Amazon’s power to effectively shift online shopping patterns. Hitwise found Prime Day 2017 converted a more successful rate of sales compared to Black Friday, at a rate of 8.4 per cent compared to Black Friday’s 7.5 per cent - although the online retailer saw more site visits to the site on Black Friday in 2016 (49.0 million compared to 44.4 million visits), a higher volume of transactions were processed on Prime Day 2017 (3.72 million compared to 3.68 million transactions).
With brands already planning their products, promotions and marketing strategies for the festive season, we’ve put together the 5 best practices for brands selling direct or indirect on Amazon.
1. Benchmark brand performance
Track how a brand is searched for, visited and purchased on Amazon verses their competitors to understand where your competitor’s audience shop and purchase their products
For instance, the below example shows the share of searches across top sportswear brands. With Nike recently announcing a direct partnership with Amazon, product searches for Nike grew by 27 per cent in the week of Prime Day. However, direct competitor, Adidas’ search share still eclipses at 38 per cent.
2. Track top products viewed on Amazon
Understand the top-visited products on Amazon and track how demand shifts overtime to stay on top of the consumer trends effecting purchases
Over the week of Prime Day (ending 16/07/2017), Amazon products like the Echo and Fire Stick jumped enormously taking six out of the top ten spots. Product page views are a key indicator of purchase intent. A brand needs to keep a close eye on which products are trending as we head into the festive season.
3. Identify which audiences a brand attracts on Amazon
Profile the type of person viewing and purchasing your products on Amazon verses Google to target unique audiences directly
Hitwise’s audience data has revealed Amazon skew towards slightly older, female audiences, compared to shoppers on Google, who skew towards a younger and more male audience. An audience profile can also shift by category and product level, making knowledge of the specific channels by which you reach a unique audience for specific products, paramount.
4. Use search to inform Amazon SEO
Analyse which search terms are driving traffic to a brand’s page verses their competitors to win branded and unbranded traffic share
For instance, as illustrated in the graphic below, Adidas dominates traffic share from unbranded search terms on Amazon, such as “running shoes”. This therefore presents opportunities for competitors to analyse which products and types of content Adidas produces, in order to win this unbranded traffic share. Marketers should be incorporating analysis, such as this, to feed directly into their Amazon product and search strategies.
5. Tailor product demand on Amazon vs. Google
Understand how search is favoured differently on Amazon and on Google to tailor search strategies according to differing demands
As the chart shows from last year’s festive season, Google dominates traffic for branded terms (such as “minecraft” and “overwatch”), whereas, Amazon is favoured for generic searches (such as “headphone” and “coffee machine”). In order to optimise from each channel, brand should allocate spend and product assortment according to differing demand.
Developing a tactical Amazon search strategy presents brands and marketers with a prime opportunity to turn data insights into tangible retail sales, all through the optimisation of search. However, data can only provide so much. It is down to the brand and marketing teams to utilise the information the data provides to truly understand the unique audiences behind the searches and what their individual preferences are. Finalising an air-tight Amazon search strategy is crucial to cut through competitor noise and ensure your products are front of mind.