Introduction
Since 1996, I’ve helped clients generate awareness, clicks and conversions via search engines. Over the past decade or more, Amazon has transitioned from a major advertiser on Google to a real threat to Google’s future. According to a Kenshoo study, 56 percent of consumers start product searches on Amazon. That number increases to 2x in a similar BloomReach study. On the seller-side, 63 percent of Amazon Advertisers plan to increase budget next year (a larger percentage increase than Google and Facebook spend). In short, Amazon is the new Google in many respects. If you don’t have a solid Amazon marketing strategy in place, you’re at a disadvantage. This article explores best practices when creating an effective Amazon marketing strategy.

Strategic Planning
Whether you are a manufacturer, physical or online-only retailer, you need to evaluate a presence on Amazon. Many brands are already on Amazon and have been for years, but I regularly talk to small brands and boutique retailers that are not on Amazon and are hesitant to jump in with both feet. To assess the viability of a presence on Amazon, you must build a strategic plan.

Competitive Benchmarking
One of the first and best places to start is to evaluate the competitive landscape. If most of your competitors are on Amazon, that indicates the potential need to remain competitive by joining the fray. Conversely, if your competitors have yet to set up stores on Amazon, it may indicate an opportunity to gain a competitive edge. Manufacturers have a greater challenge, as they must consider the impact on the wholesale/retail channel relationships. They also may have to compete with resellers listing their products on Amazon. Some manufacturers create Amazon-only sub-brands or product lines to protect brand and channel perception. Retailers must also be aware that competitors may be creating ‘unbranded’ stores to protect brand equity, yet still leverage the channel.

Keyword Research
Regardless of the number of competitors, the next logical step is to conduct keyword research to understand which brands and products are most popular and competitive. Within the Amazon platform, sellers will see keywords ranked based on the Best Seller Ranking (BSR), which is determined primarily by sales volume, but includes other variables. While searching on Amazon is helpful, utilizing tools like Google Keyword Planner and MOZ are helping see the entire keyword universe, including search engine traffic. Developing and optimizing keywords specific to each product ASIN is critical to maximizing the visibility and overall SEO performance of your Amazon presence.

Pricing Strategy
Once you’ve identified your product selection, the next step is to develop a pricing strategy. Setting pricing is one of the single greatest influences on ranking factors in product searches. While lowest price is an obvious evaluation criteria, it is not the only factor. The goal on Amazon is to own the “Buy Box” or yellow purchase button associated with every product. Over 90% of Amazon’s $250 billion in sales are triggered by the Buy Box.

While there are a host of dynamic pricing tools available, Amazon provides an ‘Automate Pricing’ tool on Seller Central to help automate pricing decisions.

Buy Box
Amazon uses an algorithm to rank sellers of the same product against each other and rewards the seller with the highest overall ranking with ownership of the Buy Box. The Buy Box is often constantly rotating. Amazon no longer rewards a single seller with the Buy Box on a particular product listing, but instead assigns each seller a percentage of the Buy Box web traffic based on the seller’s ranking. It is still possible to achieve 100% Buy Box ownership, for example, if you are the sole manufacturer & seller of a product, but it has become increasingly more difficult as more sellers enter the Amazon Marketplace. Some sellers have adopted a strategy of purchasing inventory wholesale through other outlets and reselling products on Amazon. This can create frustrations for manufacturers who sell their products on Amazon with the assumption that no one else is listing their products for sale.

A seller’s ranking depends on many factors including seller history, price, shipping time, and fulfillment method, amongst others. The below chart offers a comprehensive list of all the major factors in determining what seller wins the Buy Box.

A common frustration for third-party Amazon sellers is failing to win the Buy Box on product listings where there is little to no competition. This can even happen to sellers who manufacture and sell their own products on Amazon. There are several factors that can prevent a seller from losing out on the Buy Box, despite no competition from other sellers. The most common issues plaguing sellers are their Amazon seller rating, and Amazon’s Buy Box algorithm identifying similar products being sold on and off for a lower price.

Amazon sellers should constantly be monitoring their seller ratings through Amazon’s Brand Health page within Amazon Seller Central and address any issues as soon as possible to get their seller account back in good standing. Amazon tracks its seller ratings on a 30-day period. Failing to meet benchmarks in Late Shipment Rate, Cancellation Rate, Order Defect Rate, etc. will often cause the seller to lose its Buy Box eligibility.

A less widely known issue many sellers experience in losing their Buy Box ranking is how Amazon’s Buy Box algorithm compares the seller’s pricing to identical and similar products both on and off Amazon. If Amazon’s algorithm determines a seller’s pricing to be too high, the seller may lose Buy Box ranking, even if there are no other sellers currently offering the same product on Amazon. To avoid this issue, sellers should avoid marking up their products sold on Amazon compared to any other online channels their products may be sold. Sellers should also research similar products offered both on and off Amazon to ensure their pricing is in-line with typical pricing often seen within the product category. Sellers on Amazon’s Seller Forums have even mentioned that lowering a product’s pricing by as little as $0.01 can have a significant impact on their Buy Box ranking.

Fulfillment
Before we delve into product page optimization and advertising, I want to touch briefly on a key business decision that will influence how you market your products or Amazon store. Before you sell any product on Amazon, you must decide where it will be warehoused, who will manage inventory and shipments and provide customer support. Amazon offers two options: Fulfillment by Seller and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). In short, FBA is generally a great way to get product onto Amazon, with potential to reach Prime customers and even achieve Buy Box status, although pricing is typically higher and thus less competitive. In this model, you ship your product to Amazon, and they manage fulfillment for your direct sales. This is ideal for smaller businesses that need to focus on product development and marketing instead of warehousing and logistics. Fulfillment by Seller provides more control over pricing and inventory, however.

Organic Product Page Optimization
There are two primary categories of Amazon ranking criteria: performance and relevance. Performance factors are primarily sales-related, while relevance factors are keyword-related.

Performance Factors
Since Amazon is a retail marketplace that monetizes transactions, product pricing and sales history are important performance factors. A complete list of performance ranking factors include: product pricing, product options (model, color, features, etc.), product availability, sales history, customer reviews and click-volume.

While product options, availability and sales history are straight-forward performance factors, pricing is its own complicated beast. Since pricing drives most purchases on Amazon, setting the right price is critical to generating ideal sales volume, product reviews and rankings. Achieving an optimal conversion rate requires data analysis. To view your current conversion rate, go to: Seller Central: Reports > Business Reports > Detailed Page Sales > Traffic > Unit Session Percentage.

Another key performance factor that is challenging but essential to manage effectively are customer reviews. In 2015, Amazon transitioned to a weighted system for measuring average star ratings. The algorithm for customer reviews is weighted with the following criteria: if a product is purchased at a discount, the age of the review and how helpful the review has been, based on visitor feedback. With a more sophisticated average formula, you can’t incentivize reviews. You can remind customers to write reviews, however. The ideal outreach frequency is twice: after the order has shipped to set the expectation and a few weeks after the product has arrived, to give the customer time to use the product.

Relevance Factors
Like Google’s ranking algorithm, relevance factors focus on keywords embedded in the product page. Amazon’s ranking algorithm is also like Google in that it does not appreciate keyword-stuffing or otherwise negatively impacting the user experience with poorly crafted copy and irrelevant keyword usage. The primary relevance-related ranking evaluation criteria are outlined below:

When it comes to helping Amazon rank your product pages above the competition, it is essential to incorporate relevant keywords across all relevant fields mentioned above. The current keyword character limit is 250 (not including spaces or punctuation). The length limit applies to the total content in all generic keyword fields, with a max of 5 attributes.
When optimizing product pages, Amazon provides guidelines for sellers:

While the algorithm weights brand name, product title and description heavily, sellers cannot underestimate the importance of optimized product images. Best practices for image optimization include: providing high resolution (1,000 x1,000 pixel images) that are zoomable; images of the product from a variety of angles; product label closeup; action shots of the product in-use; product comparison or contextual images of product relating to a human hand or other point of reference; images including informational charts, graphics or even text.

Amazon Advertising
Amazon has transitioned from online retailer to advertising juggernaut in the past decade. Total Amazon US ad revenue in 2020 was previously projected at almost $10 billion. 66% of all product specific searches across the web originate on Amazon. Advertising on Amazon is an effective way to drive traffic and ultimately sales of listed products. It also can be a great tool to boost brand/product awareness & visibility as Amazon sponsored brand and sponsored product ads often appear at the top of search result pages.

Campaign Types
Amazon currently offers three core cad products: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display.

Eligibility Criteria
Unfortunately, not everyone can take advantage of all of Amazon’s Advertising offerings. Amazon’s Seller Eligibility Criteria include two primary requirements: you must have an active professional seller account and enroll in Amazon Brand Registry to use Sponsored Brand ads. For more information about Amazon Advertising, check out the following links: How it works, Amazon Ads FAQ, Advertising specs and policies
and Amazon Sellers Education YouTube channel.

Bid Strategies
Amazon weighs many parameters to choose a winning bid across campaigns. The ad ranking system includes the following factors: daily budget, keyword relevance, ad rank, ad relevance and buy box eligibility. The advantage of an aggressive spending approach is that you’ll get data more quickly. The more insight you have into impressions, clicks and sales, the more effectively you can build high-performing campaigns and decrease spend as optimization strategies make an impact.

Measurement
Be sure to build ad campaigns to be profitable, which means understanding your break-even Advertising Cost of Sale (ACoS). As a key performance indicator, the ACoS indicates the ratio of ad spend to targeted sales. The chart below from SELLICS outlines the basic ACoS math:

Additional Amplification
Beyond optimizing product pages for organic Amazon searches and mastering AMS offerings to increase reach and sales, there are other ways to increase traffic to your Amazon store, like social media and blog posts. Product posts and promotions can perform well on social media, but descriptive blog posts linking to product pages can perform even better, both in terms of organic search rankings and conversions, since shoppers are already engaged with your brand. Email marketing is another way to drive traffic to Amazon product pages, especially if you do not sell direct on your website. Don’t forget to create an affiliate link to maximize margins.

With more than half of all product searches beginning on Amazon, manufacturers and retailers can no longer afford to ignore the marketing juggernaut. A successful Amazon presence requires research, planning and a long-term commitment. After conducting competitive research, setting pricing and optimizing product pages, focus your efforts on advertising to maximize reach and conversions. As the old saying goes, ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.’ If you need help with your Amazon marketing program, help is available.

The post Effective Amazon Marketing Strategies for 2021 appeared first on SEMpdx.

Advertising: Amazon Will Eat Google and Facebook’s Lunch
You may be aware that many product searches start on Amazon. Amazon, smart agencies and brands are already well-aware (that includes Anvil of course). What we see changing most in 2020 is Amazon’s ability to improve its advertising options for brands and sellers alike, especially in the voice search realm (we’ve been wrong about this in the past, but we really feel it this year!). Amazon Advertising is one of the few high growth areas of its business lines and will make greater strides in 2020, taking more market share from Google and even Facebook. Make sure you have an Amazon marketing strategy for your product business in 2020 or get left in the dust.

Display Ads: Animated GIFs, Video and Interactivity will Replace Image Ads
Static image ads on social platforms will start to fall away and videos, animated GIFs and interactive ads will supplant the 25-year-old ad format on popular platforms like Google and Facebook. This trend is already starting to occur, with video becoming increasingly prevalent. The reason is obvious: interactive and motion-oriented ad formats are more engaging, memorable and tend to convert better. While static imagery is still a majority of ad format inventory, that will change by the end of 2020. Brands and agencies designing ads in animated, interactive and video formats will take a leadership role and stand out in a crowded marketplace.

SEO: Structured Data Strategy will be More Important than Ever Before
In 2019, “0” or ‘no-click’ searches surpassed regular clicks on organic and paid links in search results. As a result, brands will need to become intimate with structured data, most commonly powered by schema markup. As more searches move to mobile devices, users are not scrolling down the page, as they expect the first result they see to answer their query. Similarly, with voice search, users expect the first search result to be the best answer to their query. Marking up content with multiple types of structured data to secure the featured snippet real estate will be more important than ever. Sites who do not take advantage of structured data will see their site slip down the results page and will ultimately lose traffic to competitors with strong structured markup strategies. Google wants to be able to provide an answer to a user query as fast as possible, and with structured data on a page Google can more easily understand and compartmentalize the information on you site. With that better understanding, Google will be able and more likely to serve your content as a result when it is applicable to a query. Routinely making sure the structured data implemented on your site is error-free and up-to-date should be a required part of every ongoing SEO strategy.

SEO: Google Will Mandate That All Websites Be Voice Search Compliant
Anticipating the continued proliferation of smart speakers and digital voice assistants through 2020, Google will proactively mandate that all websites be voice search compliant by the end of 2020. Currently, over 40 percent of searches are voice-activated and that will continue to increase, likely becoming most searches by 2021. Website copy and content will have to be voice search friendly to rank well in Google searches. Brands will need to utilize structured data (aka schema markup or rich snippets) to power the ‘best answer’ on smart speakers or position 0 on screens. Site structure and content will also need to be altered to better answer questions commonly asked via voice assistants and smart speakers. Websites that lack structured data will be penalized by Google. This prediction expands on the previous structured data trend.

SEO: Augmented Reality Will Play a Bigger Role
Imagine virtually trying out clothes from your favorite brands without leaving your home. Augmented Reality (AR) can make this a reality. AR provides brands an opportunity to overlay information in video, text, or image format onto everyday surroundings, objects and real-world locations. Nearly 80 percent of the information the brain takes in is visual. By providing information in a visual medium, that also has the spatial nature of augmented reality, brands are giving the brain a very intuitive way of accessing and understanding information. ECommerce will benefit the most from AR implementation, as will destinations, automotive and other complex sales. Brands like adidas and Converse have already implemented AR, earning higher conversion rates with fewer product returns.

Email Marketing: The Flywheel Will Displace the Traditional Sales Funnel
More companies will be moving away from the traditional sales/marketing ‘funnel’ to the Flywheel model in 2020 in order to focus on creating experiences that engage and empower customers. Originally created in 1898, the AIDA (Awareness/Interest/Desire/Action) funnel model is a linear approach that focuses on attracting new customers and engaging them in a business or service to turn them into a quantifiable lead. The flywheel approach takes an innovative view of the buyer journey and uses all client-facing roles such as customer service, marketing, and sales to interact with customers at every stage. Attracting, engaging, and delighting customers even past the point of purchase – so companies continue to interact with customers instead of treating them as one-time-only prospects. The customer is the lynchpin, with the flywheel itself divided into three equal segments, each representing stages along the customer journey: attract, engage, and delight. Each area creates energy and passes it along to the next, with the delight phase feeding back into attract. Note: Anvil was not paid by HubSpot to endorse its model, we just agree with the methodology and hope for greater awareness and adoption.

Email Marketing: Push Notifications Will Replace Email
Email is going the way of the dinosaur, maybe not next year, but in the coming years. Starting in 2020, however, there will be a notable shift to push notifications and chatbots as viable replacements, especially for brands targeting Gen Y/Z, consumers and retail environments. Push notifications are alert style messages that can be sent to a user via desktop or mobile web, depending on context. At least twice as many people today sign up for web push notifications, compared to newsletter registrations. Only the top 10 percent of the email marketers can achieve a newsletter sign-up rate that matches the performance of push notifications. The average time that passes before the recipient opens a newsletter is 6.4 hours. With push notifications, the recipient will see the message immediately. The updates to the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) and stricter filters have dented the potency of email marketing, which will be further compromised by the CCPA legislation. As alluded to earlier, younger, digital-native audiences favor fewer touchpoints and other methods of communication than email, when engaging brands.

Social Media: Performance Metrics Will Replace ‘Likes’
Those following social media closely are likely familiar with Instagram’s recent decision to hide “Likes” from followers. With the proposed change, only account owners and select third-party platforms will have access to that data. While influencers and marketers alike have voiced concerns about the change, it does provide an opportunity for everyone to be smarter about social media strategies, especially evaluating influencer marketing programs. For example, influencers will need to up their game to become more professional about how they represent their potential impact, focusing on reach and engagement rates over Likes. This trend will also push brands to adopt performance models based on transactional goals. The social platforms, especially Instagram and Pinterest, are making buying product easier than ever, so the timing is ripe for change.

Social Media: Consumers will Drive Alignment and Transparency in Influencer Marketing
Moving forward, look for brands and influencers to create better alignment and transparency. According to research, 84 percent of consumers believe authenticity is important when choosing influencers to follow. More compelling: only 11 percent of influencers are CMA and FTC-compliant when disclosing relationships with sponsoring brands. Millennials are increasingly skeptical of businesses’ motives and impact on society, according to Deloitte. As a result, brands looking to target Gens X, Y and Z will need to be more intentional about how they select and engage influencers based on core values and fit vs reach. Another trend that will go together with transparency and alignment is a shift to “always-on” instead of project-based influencer campaigns. The writing is on the wall for brands and agencies, especially for brands targeting younger consumers, to plan accordingly.

Social Media: TikTok Will Lose Momentum – Relegating It to a Snapchat Knockoff
While we’ve seen a good deal of hype and momentum built around TikTok this year, marketers are still trying to figure out how they can use it to their advantage. It is true that TikTok saw incredible growth this year (over 500 million active users in Fall 2019), which earned it the title “social platform of 2019.” But’s also true that signups are coming to a near grinding halt. As a result, parallels can be made with Snapchat’s adoption history – incredible growth, everyone joins, signups slow, users leave/become less engaged. We believe TikTok will figure out how to utilize ads more effectively in 2020, but we don’t think user engagement will sustain and the platform will end up in the same purgatory as Snapchat. It will become an afterthought as brands evaluate platforms on which to target and invest. The one exception to this prediction, is if you’re looking to reach a very, very broad audience within a certain *cough* young demographic (and China as a growth marketplace).

We hope to get good grades when we review our 2020 digital marketing predictions at the end of the year. Let us know what you think of our 2020 digital marketing trends in the comments section or add your own predictions. May your 2020 be full of fulfilled predictions!

The post 2020 Digital Marketing Predictions from Anvil Media appeared first on SEMpdx.

Social Media Marketing vs. Viral Marketing. Creating profiles on Web 2.0 sites vs. Linkerati – Targeted Content, Building friends & relationships in blogoshphers vs. Digg etc. SMM can rule the SERPS, control the brank, get link love, show the community you are a participant, traffic, influence traditional media.

Top Social Media Sites:
You Tube
Wikipedia
Yahoo Answers
Yelp
Linked-In
Flickr
Craigslist (Best of)
Facebook
Amazon
Myspace
Technorati
Judy’s Book
Newsvine
Twitter
City Search
Wikihow

Top Viral Marketing Sites
Digg
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Delicious
Netscape
Techcrunch
Newsvine
Boing Boing
Fark
Engaget
Techmeme
Lifehacker
Yahoo Picks

The post SMX Seattle: SEM Meet SMM: Rand Fishkin appeared first on SEMpdx.