4+ Expert Tips to Better Marketing on Amazon

Among many platforms, Amazon’s status as a worldwide giant in the e-commerce industry is indisputable, scoring the highest market cap of $857 billion in December 2022 and accounting for 37.8% of e-commerce sales. But marketing on Amazon goes beyond simply selling the best products on Amazon. Making yourself visible involves a top-notch ad strategy to reach your target audience and boost sales.

Consumers interact with Amazon at the end of the customer journey funnel, making effective performance marketing pivotal. Performance marketing done right at this stage likely leads to sales conversion, compared to marketing on social media or search engines where direct purchases may not be available. 

While social media marketing pushes ads to an audience that we think might be interested in your product or brand, a keyword search means we can target an audience who is specifically looking for your product. It follows, then, that sales conversions are higher on Amazon. “Usually, when we’re running ads on social media platforms, it will lead them to their home websites [...but this will usually lead to] high bounce rate,” says Phoebe Lam, Performance Marketer at BorderX. Thus, the all-important Amazon ad strategy. Lam shares the secrets to how to capture audiences at this crucial stage of the consumer journey.

‍

‍

‍

The Ads

While the spectrum of ads on Amazon is wide, we will discuss 2 main types that, strategically executed, stand to support your sales goals.

• Keyword Optimization on Amazon: One Amazon marketing strategy is to optimize bids for certain keywords. You control which keywords will trigger your ads (for instance, with sponsored products), giving you targeted spending for the best outcomes.

• Ads on Amazon: The beauty of Amazon ads is that they’re offered in a variety of formats. From brands to displays and video ads, the options are aplenty. 

‍

‍

‍

The Why

If a consumer is looking for a product without a particular brand in mind, there is less hesitation for them to buy on Amazon. Even without much background on the brand, Amazon users already trust Amazon, making it more likely to purchase from a brand with which they are unfamiliar. This, along with a thoughtful branded ad, make sales all the more likely. With targeted search terms, better reach, and a “Brands You Might Like” feature, Amazon holds plenty of potential for great conversion rates.

‍

‍

‍

Tips and Tricks

While it’s possible to reap big benefits with Amazon, it’s not without due effort and attention. Here are a few ways to ensure that you achieve the best results when marketing on Amazon.

‍

‍

• ‍Keywords As opposed to social media marketing, it’s impossible to target region, gender, or age for e-commerce platforms, so the focus is narrowed to keywords and products. It’s savvy to aim for low-hanging fruit, or less common, often long-tail keywords that give you the benefit of less competition with a lower cost. On Amazon, these less common keywords may mean that Amazon banners at the top of the page receive more exposure as well.

• Language Speaking of keywords, you should mind the global nature of Amazon. The more you know about your target country and audience, the better you can cater your keywords in the appropriate language. For example, the large Spanish-speaking audience in the U.S. makes Spanish a crucial consideration when marketing on Amazon to an American audience.

• Competitors One distinguishing characteristic of e-commerce platforms is that products are displayed right alongside competitor’s products. This means that the higher up on the search results you appear, the better. Doing this requires careful monitoring; “you need someone to keep looking at the others [competitors] and the Amazon sales trend,” says Lam.
  Also, when you understand which competitors your consumers have been exposed to, you can better differentiate from them with a localized and well-designed product page (Take a look at Yopokki or Migachan for inspiration). Keep yourself updated on competitors in the same industry selling products branded in a similar way, at similar price points. Consider not only the ads, but the product page, the brand as a whole, and the competitive landscape. You can boost sales with promotions on your end, but you’ll never be able to predict what competitors are up to next.

• Timing Whatever the promotion or ad, you can create great synergy by pairing your efforts with influencer marketing, social media marketing, general branding, and press releases. Take a moment to look at the big picture. It matters.

‍

When you put all this together, you can achieve surprising results, like the results we saw with K-beauty brand FaceTory. BorderX offered Amazon paid ads to boost up sales, ultimately helping the client rank #6 in the Amazon Face Mask category as of December 2022. We saw exponential growth during our 3 years of management, resulting in a 428% growth in ad sales.

‍

‍

‍

How We Can Help

Because Amazon ads offer a diverse array of formats for their ads that many other platforms don’t offer, it opens up more opportunities with the caveat of having more factors to consider. Due to the need for constant monitoring and adjusting, marketing on Amazon takes constant attention, with the potential for great reward. “With millions of sellers on Amazon, utilizing Amazon marketing is essential to making your presence known to customers and communicating the value of your product,” says Lam.

If this sounds like an extensive task, we’re here to help. We support:

• Paid ads strategy and operation
• Product page strategy for your current product pages
• Product page design and copywriting for your future product pages

‍

If you’re ready to boost your sales through Amazon ads, you can say hello here.