Roughly twice as many shoppers start their product search on Amazon over Google.  Amazon’s advantage intensifies when you consider their strong double-digit conversion rates vs. the ~3% achieved by most online retailers through their own websites.
Amazon sellers give up a lot to piggyback on such success, making it feel like a competitive partnership with a monster. Not only does Amazon withhold the strongest assets of any business, the customer list, but they can drive sellers off their platform at any moment without notice.
Given such constraints, resellers on Amazon aren’t truly building a business, they are merely building revenue.

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For brands, however, Amazon doesn’t fully own the customer.  Every well-executed Amazon order builds your brand, driving loyal customers back to you – both on and off Amazon.

Yet, unless you’re already a household name, most brands struggle to gain a foothold on Amazon amidst the other ~500 million products sold by the giant.
A strategy built on organic search ranking is as unreliable on Amazon as it is on Google, especially considering you can’t simply pay for “honest reviews” anymore to boost your Amazon SEO.
A better path exists, especially for brands.
As Google has demonstrated with AdWords and Google Shopping, launching paid advertising placements atop a robust organic search engine has been nothing short of transformative to the ecommerce industry.  With text ads and Google Shopping, channel growth isn’t at the mercy of complex, ever-changing organic ranking algorithms.  Advertising brings predictability and scale to the channel, driving incredible ROI-positive ecommerce revenue growth.
The breadth and functionality of Amazon’s advertising options are just getting off the ground, but have already proven transformative for brands willing to strategically invest & execute ahead of the pack.A strong Amazon advertising strategy can catapult your brand’s growth.
 How Amazon Advertising Affects Your Organic SEO Rank on Amazon
The advertising opportunity on Amazon becomes even more compelling when you consider how such paid clicks to your product pages affects your organic rank.
Every time you meet or exceed Amazon’s standards in areas such as customer service, shipping, and customer reviews, you boost your Amazon ranking potential.  Products with great reviews from highly ranked sellers will rank much higher organically than me-too products with single-digit reviews counts.ROI Revolution 2This is where the strong connection between advertising and organic comes in… every well-executed sale boosts your organic ranking, regardless of the source of traffic to the product page (paid or organic).
So, even if the numbers don’t make sense in the end to pursue an Amazon advertising strategy long-term, advertising is a phenomenal strategy to get the ball rolling for your newly listed products organically.
Let’s take a look at the three main advertising opportunities on Amazon.
 Amazon Sponsored Products
Though still in its infancy, Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns change the game entirely for the big brands and everyday sellers alike.
Amazon Sponsored Products are basically Amazon’s equivalent to Google Shopping.  Even with Amazon taking a ~15%+ cut off the top, Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns consistently achieve strong ROI.  (Amazon’s ~10x higher conversion rate than the industry average probably has something to do with it!)
Keep in mind that Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns are still lacking a lot of the ad targeting options you’d find in Google Shopping.  This doesn’t make it any easier to manage, however, because this platform is also lacking a lot of the reporting tools you’d expect.  In fact, performance reports essential for optimization currently only go back 60 days!
First-movers on the platform with strong strategies and technology are able to gain a TREMENDOUS advantage.ROI Revolution 3

 Amazon Marketing Services (AMS)
AMS is available to all 1st and 3rd party sellers with a Vendor Central or Vendor Express Account.  Under this platform, Amazon kindly lets you pay to advertise products “sold by Amazon” which they have purchased from you in a vendor relationship.
This may seem self-servicing of Amazon, but it’s obviously in your best interest as well for Amazon to sell through their inventory and initiate another purchase order – hopefully even larger!
The AMS platform includes Amazon Sponsored Products, but also includes the following ad formats:ROI Revolution 4

 
 Headline Search Ads
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Targeted by keyword, these text-only ads appear prominently on search results pages. Headline Search Ads can point to a specific product, your brand page, or a custom URL.Product Display Ads
Targeted by product or interest area, these ads are similar graphically to Amazon Sponsored Products, differing mainly in placement.  Product Display Ads appear directly on product detail pages.  You can even target competitor products!ROI Revolution 6

 Amazon Advertising Platform
At the outset, note that Amazon Advertising Platform is still in beta and currently only available to merchants working with an Amazon-approved agency such as ROI Revolution.ROI Revolution 7

 
Amazon Advertising Platform allows sellers to promote their Amazon products with programmatically targeted display advertising across the Internet to your defined audience.
Are you driving sales through your own website in addition to Amazon?  Amazon Advertising Platform includes a pixel/script on your website to expose the cross-channel attribution interplay between your website and Amazon.
An amazing component of this platform is the ability to gain advanced insights into your target audience even before you officially launch any campaigns.  With the pixel mentioned above in place on your website, you’ll gain access to reports from Amazon on the specific nature of your website audience as it pertains to Amazon.  You’ll see their shopping interests and patterns which you can then use as part of a targeting profile once you launch a display campaign through the platform.
This is obviously a game-changing opportunity for both audience insights and growth potential.
 Do you see any opportunities to expand your marketing strategy on Amazon?
If you own a product brand, an all-in investment in Amazon advertising is a no-brainer. By taking advantage of Amazon Sponsored Products, Headline Search Ads, and the Amazon Advertising Platform, you are leveraging one of the most powerful and successful selling platforms to work for you! You’ll be more visible to consumers, improve your organic ranking, and ultimately, make more sales.
So what are you waiting for? Get on the fast-track to Amazon success today!
 ROI Revolution is an ecommerce-focused, digital marketing agency. Whether you’re looking for help with paid search, Amazon advertising, social media, SEO, or conversion optimization, our expert team are focused on the most crucial KPIs and metrics to meet and exceed your revenue goals. With over 15 years in the ecommerce industry and a suite of proprietary tools, ROI Revolution delivers exceptional results for our 300+ clients, including: Perry Ellis, Plow & Hearth, Boll & Branch, Hydro Flask, and many others.
 
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If you enjoyed this content, consider joining us at PROSPER Show, March 13-14, 2018 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. 
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