Understanding and Optimizing for Traffic, Click-Throughs and Conversions to Increase Amazon Sales
Update: I have been invited to speak several times about this topic including presentations at Amazon's Seller Summit, the Global Sources Online Show, and an interview with The Asian Seller.
Amazon's Seller Summit was a closed door event with 500 participants, so I can't share the recording, but here are the videos from Global Sources and The Asian Seller that explain why keywords are so important and their effects on your online sales funnel. If you've watched the first video on the homepage, skip below.
Amazon's Seller Summit was a closed door event with 500 participants, so I can't share the recording, but here are the videos from Global Sources and The Asian Seller that explain why keywords are so important and their effects on your online sales funnel. If you've watched the first video on the homepage, skip below.
This is a more extensive 1 hr 27 min video episode from The Asian Seller, which you can watch on this page or at: https://www.facebook.com/jasontayonline/posts/1441340542694024
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The information on this page was originally a reply to a question asked in my Facebook group for online sellers.
While the question was specifically about how to increase sales on Amazon, and my answer addresses that directly, the strategy is applicable to all online sales channels. The questions was: "Hey guys! I've been running PPC for about 1 week now and i've only been getting about 1 sale per week from manual campaigns. is there anything i can do to increase the amount of sales?" |
The 3 Step Funnel for All Online Sales
My reply:
Sales result from a process of Impressions > Clicks > Conversions. This is referred to as a sales funnel.
There are various factors that affect each of these 3 stages. Some factors are within you control and some are not. The important thing is to focus on optimising for the factors we can work on.
1. Impressions (also known as Traffic)
Getting impressions is the foundation to all online sales.
If you don't get any impressions, it does not matter how high quality or life-changing your product is, how amazing you product photography and images are, how compelling your price point is... because no one will see it.
You see, almost all online sales start with the buyer first searching for something.
Therefore, the key first step in the online sales funnel is that your product must show up at or near the top of search results for keywords that are relevant to the product. That typically means appearing on page 1 of various keyword search results, preferably as high up as possible, because most people (about 80%) do not click beyond page 1, and many only look at the top few results.
The key to getting impressions without burning a huge hole in your pocket is to find multiple product related keywords that people are searching for that have low and/or weak competition. This translates to demand with low supply.
For Google keyword research and advertising, Google has their own Google Ads and there are many 3rd party keyword tools such as semrush. Amazon has its Advertising Console, and for keyword research, there are numerous 3rd party tools.
I have tried to do this for free without any paid tools by just using Amazon search suggestions and looking at other listing. I've also tried and tested many of the Amazon 3rd party tools including those by Jungle Scout, Merchantwords, Seller Labs, Viral Launch, Keepa, Salesbacker, etc. I've been on the highest plan for some and for others the tool creators have given me a free account in the hopes that I will review and recommend their service. But having used them, I've now unsubscribed and stopped using all except two.
The only paid 3rd party tool I now use is Helium 10 because it does everything that the others do and more, plus Helium 10 does it better, faster, and more accurately.
At first I was really hesitant to pay for Helium 10. But on hindsight I should have just started using it earlier, because it literally helped me discover so many keyword terms I would have never though of myself and that resulted in my sales increasing by 400% (4x) in one month as a result the increase in impressions from low competition keywords that most competitors were not aware of that I discovered through Helium 10's Magnet and Cerebro tools.
You can click here to read my Helium 10 review or my comparison of the various Amazon seller tools.
I use both the free Chrome extension AMZ Suggestion Expander and two Helium 10 tools, Magnet and Cerebro, for keyword research and analysis to compile info for demand and competition.
For every potential product, I create a shortlist of keywords that customers are using, and analyze the competition on Amazon for each and every keyword term. If you can identify unsaturated (low/weak competition) keywords, these will be relatively easy to rank for.
For example if you try to rank for the keyword term coffee, that would be a monumental task that would cost an arm and a leg in advertising, but probably not get you anywhere still. However if you try to rank for more long-tail, specific keyword terms such as Jamaican blue mountain coffee, blue mountain coffee beans, gourmet blue mountain coffee, etc., while the search volume for each of those is much smaller than for "coffee", it will be much easier to rank and therefore get impressions. In addition, if you have many keyword search terms, the sum total of all their keyword search volume can also be significant.
It is better to have 10 keywords with an average search volume of 1000 each, than 1 keyword term with 10,000 search volume.
An analogy I like to use is that every keyword term is like having a store in a different location, because it gets traffic from a different customer base.
Finally, casting your net wide with multiple lower competition keywords will also result in more effective advertising due to lower advertising spend and therefore better advertising ROI.
Here are some points to consider that can drive impressions:
2) Clicks
After getting impressions (a potential buyer/interested shopper sees your listing in their search results or on their FB newsfeed, etc.), you want to maximise your click-through rate. How to increase the percentage of people who see your listing to click through to the product page?
Some factors are:
a) Price - is your price competitive or attractive? In most cases a competitive price is helpful, but in some cases, a higher price might actually be more attractive, especially if pitching as a premium product. Do your research and decide. Or experiment with different price points. Keep in mind that $25 is a "tipping point" on Amazon as it's the threshold where even non-Prime members get free shipping (though it's the slowest speed).
b) Product Name - your product title is very important not just for search results ranking, but also to catch the attention of the shopper and convince them to click on your listing. The beginning of the title is especially important as that is what most potential buyers will read when skimming through the list of options.
c) Main Image - a picture paints a thousand words. Images take up a huge amount of screen real estate in search results and can have a significant impact on clicks and conversions. I have written a page on product photography and how to create product images.
d) Social Proof - number of reviews and average star rating. This is not directly within your control, but you can try to increase the review rate by enrolling in Amazon's Early Reviewer Program. You can also increase the probability of getting positive reviews by always selling good quality products.
e) Amazon Coupon - I like to use this as it creates an eye-catching, bright green (formerly orange) discount tag on the listing in search results. Having a discount coupon highlighted on your listing makes it stand out from all the other listings on the search results pages. This can lead to a higher chance of capturing attention and clicks. I've explained what and how to create Amazon coupon codes on another page.
On an Amazon search results page, only 4 things are always seen for every listing - Image, Title, Price, Star Rating. If you add coupons, that can be an additional outstanding click magnet. These are THE factors that influence click-throughs. Therefore you want to focus on doing these well in order to maximise click-throughs.
A common click metric is Click-through-rate (CTR). This is measured as a percentage. If 1000 people see your listing in search results and 100 click to view the product page, that is a 10% CTR.
3) Conversions (also known as Sales)
Once a potential buyer has clicked-through, the important thing is to convert them, meaning to convince them to buy.
This is where your product page comes into play. The main areas that can move someone from looking to buying are:
You have direct control over Pricing, Images and Copywriting. While you have indirect control of reviews.
Reviews
While you are not supposed to influence or incentivize reviews on Amazon, here are 2 things everyone can do.
Pricing
Do study the market for the product and set a competitive price point. Depending on the product type, it might make sense to position a product as premium, or value-for-money, in multipacks or bundles, etc.
Images
You can upload up to 9 images per standard listing. I would recommend having at least 6 or 7.
Only the main image needs to be the product only on a pure white background.
The other images can be lifestyle shots and infographics. This is pretty important. I've seen sales double for some of my listings, which had only 1 image, after adding 5-7 more lifestyle/infographic images.
Copywriting
b) Title - while you write for Amazon SEO, do also write readably for humans.
c) Bullets - Tops sales people understand that "facts tell, but emotions sell". Don't just state facts, features and WHAT your product is. Point out the benefits, positive emotions, desired results associated with using it. But keep it brief. Bullet points should be 1 or 2 lines at most. Also note that the most important bullets are the first 2 or 3 as the last 2 typically get truncated (they are hidden and user has to click see more to read them).
d) Description - same as point above except that you can write more.
A+ Content
If your brand is Amazon Brand Registered, do maximize your brand registry advantages by creating A+ or Enhanced Brand Content for your listings.
Of course A+ Content should be done well too, so that it helps to increase your conversion rate.
Conversion rate can be measures as a percentage: If 100 people click from search results on to your product page and 10 of them end up buying, that is a 10% conversion rate.
Every small increase in conversion rate equals to a big increase in sales. For example say your current conversion rate is 10%. If by improving images, copywriting, adding A+ content, the conversion rate goes up by just 2%, that equals to 20% more sales!
Now imagine you have 10 keywords with an average of 1000 impressions each, 10% CTR, and 10% conversion rate. That equals 10,000 impressions, 1000 clicks and 100 sales. If you increase the conversion rate by just 5%, that now becomes 15% of 1000 click = 150 sales! That's 50% more sales!
Here's a summary:
1) Increase impressions by
2) Increase click-through-rate through
3) Increase conversion rates
If you can continually do the above, imagine (or take a few minutes calculate) the compounding effect when you achieve the following over several rounds!
This is where another Helium 10 becomes even more useful as I can run the Cerebro and Keyword Tracker tools on my own listings to discover new keywords and improve optimisation for existing keywords effectively. For example, I am now targeting over 2500 keyword terms for just one of my listings with 47 ad campaigns! Without Helium 10, I only managed to find 20 or 30 keywords.
Sales result from a process of Impressions > Clicks > Conversions. This is referred to as a sales funnel.
There are various factors that affect each of these 3 stages. Some factors are within you control and some are not. The important thing is to focus on optimising for the factors we can work on.
1. Impressions (also known as Traffic)
Getting impressions is the foundation to all online sales.
If you don't get any impressions, it does not matter how high quality or life-changing your product is, how amazing you product photography and images are, how compelling your price point is... because no one will see it.
You see, almost all online sales start with the buyer first searching for something.
Therefore, the key first step in the online sales funnel is that your product must show up at or near the top of search results for keywords that are relevant to the product. That typically means appearing on page 1 of various keyword search results, preferably as high up as possible, because most people (about 80%) do not click beyond page 1, and many only look at the top few results.
The key to getting impressions without burning a huge hole in your pocket is to find multiple product related keywords that people are searching for that have low and/or weak competition. This translates to demand with low supply.
For Google keyword research and advertising, Google has their own Google Ads and there are many 3rd party keyword tools such as semrush. Amazon has its Advertising Console, and for keyword research, there are numerous 3rd party tools.
I have tried to do this for free without any paid tools by just using Amazon search suggestions and looking at other listing. I've also tried and tested many of the Amazon 3rd party tools including those by Jungle Scout, Merchantwords, Seller Labs, Viral Launch, Keepa, Salesbacker, etc. I've been on the highest plan for some and for others the tool creators have given me a free account in the hopes that I will review and recommend their service. But having used them, I've now unsubscribed and stopped using all except two.
The only paid 3rd party tool I now use is Helium 10 because it does everything that the others do and more, plus Helium 10 does it better, faster, and more accurately.
At first I was really hesitant to pay for Helium 10. But on hindsight I should have just started using it earlier, because it literally helped me discover so many keyword terms I would have never though of myself and that resulted in my sales increasing by 400% (4x) in one month as a result the increase in impressions from low competition keywords that most competitors were not aware of that I discovered through Helium 10's Magnet and Cerebro tools.
You can click here to read my Helium 10 review or my comparison of the various Amazon seller tools.
I use both the free Chrome extension AMZ Suggestion Expander and two Helium 10 tools, Magnet and Cerebro, for keyword research and analysis to compile info for demand and competition.
For every potential product, I create a shortlist of keywords that customers are using, and analyze the competition on Amazon for each and every keyword term. If you can identify unsaturated (low/weak competition) keywords, these will be relatively easy to rank for.
For example if you try to rank for the keyword term coffee, that would be a monumental task that would cost an arm and a leg in advertising, but probably not get you anywhere still. However if you try to rank for more long-tail, specific keyword terms such as Jamaican blue mountain coffee, blue mountain coffee beans, gourmet blue mountain coffee, etc., while the search volume for each of those is much smaller than for "coffee", it will be much easier to rank and therefore get impressions. In addition, if you have many keyword search terms, the sum total of all their keyword search volume can also be significant.
It is better to have 10 keywords with an average search volume of 1000 each, than 1 keyword term with 10,000 search volume.
An analogy I like to use is that every keyword term is like having a store in a different location, because it gets traffic from a different customer base.
Finally, casting your net wide with multiple lower competition keywords will also result in more effective advertising due to lower advertising spend and therefore better advertising ROI.
Here are some points to consider that can drive impressions:
- Demand - what is the overall demand for the product (total sales on Amazon) and the search volume for keywords relevant to the product? You can research to get a good estimate of these numbers.
- Increase Traffic (aka Impressions) to you listing by increasing impressions. This can be both on and off Amazon (sort of like onpage and offpage SEO for those who are familiar with SEO). The foundation for Amazon search indexing and search results ranking is onpage optimisation, meaning a listing that is optimised through good keyword terms in the title, bullets and description.
- Advertising - on and off Amazon. Amazon Ads and external ads with click-throughs and sales that are attributed to keyword terms.
- Promotional campaigns such as using deals sites or services like Viral Launch, Sixleaf, Jump Send.
2) Clicks
After getting impressions (a potential buyer/interested shopper sees your listing in their search results or on their FB newsfeed, etc.), you want to maximise your click-through rate. How to increase the percentage of people who see your listing to click through to the product page?
Some factors are:
a) Price - is your price competitive or attractive? In most cases a competitive price is helpful, but in some cases, a higher price might actually be more attractive, especially if pitching as a premium product. Do your research and decide. Or experiment with different price points. Keep in mind that $25 is a "tipping point" on Amazon as it's the threshold where even non-Prime members get free shipping (though it's the slowest speed).
b) Product Name - your product title is very important not just for search results ranking, but also to catch the attention of the shopper and convince them to click on your listing. The beginning of the title is especially important as that is what most potential buyers will read when skimming through the list of options.
c) Main Image - a picture paints a thousand words. Images take up a huge amount of screen real estate in search results and can have a significant impact on clicks and conversions. I have written a page on product photography and how to create product images.
d) Social Proof - number of reviews and average star rating. This is not directly within your control, but you can try to increase the review rate by enrolling in Amazon's Early Reviewer Program. You can also increase the probability of getting positive reviews by always selling good quality products.
e) Amazon Coupon - I like to use this as it creates an eye-catching, bright green (formerly orange) discount tag on the listing in search results. Having a discount coupon highlighted on your listing makes it stand out from all the other listings on the search results pages. This can lead to a higher chance of capturing attention and clicks. I've explained what and how to create Amazon coupon codes on another page.
On an Amazon search results page, only 4 things are always seen for every listing - Image, Title, Price, Star Rating. If you add coupons, that can be an additional outstanding click magnet. These are THE factors that influence click-throughs. Therefore you want to focus on doing these well in order to maximise click-throughs.
A common click metric is Click-through-rate (CTR). This is measured as a percentage. If 1000 people see your listing in search results and 100 click to view the product page, that is a 10% CTR.
3) Conversions (also known as Sales)
Once a potential buyer has clicked-through, the important thing is to convert them, meaning to convince them to buy.
This is where your product page comes into play. The main areas that can move someone from looking to buying are:
- Price
- Images
- Reviews, which can provide positive or negative social proof
- Copywriting
- Title, what Amazon terms the Product Name.
- Bullet points, what Amazon terms Key Product Features
- Product Description
- A+ Content, formerly known as Enhanced Brand Content (EBC)
You have direct control over Pricing, Images and Copywriting. While you have indirect control of reviews.
Reviews
While you are not supposed to influence or incentivize reviews on Amazon, here are 2 things everyone can do.
- Sell good quality products. If your product is high quality, then most customer would be happy and most reviews would be positive. If you sell crap, you will get bad reviews. So don't. Also make sure that your product lives up to the images shown and how it is described in the copywriting. There's nothing worse than reading a fantastic product description or looking at amazing photos and then receiving a product that doesn't live up to expectations. I'm sure you've experienced this with food orders!
- Enrol in Amazon's Early Reviewer Program. This is available in Seller Central under the Advertising menu. You can read the details of this service on the Early Reviewer Program page. I do this for all my new launches.
Pricing
Do study the market for the product and set a competitive price point. Depending on the product type, it might make sense to position a product as premium, or value-for-money, in multipacks or bundles, etc.
Images
You can upload up to 9 images per standard listing. I would recommend having at least 6 or 7.
Only the main image needs to be the product only on a pure white background.
The other images can be lifestyle shots and infographics. This is pretty important. I've seen sales double for some of my listings, which had only 1 image, after adding 5-7 more lifestyle/infographic images.
Copywriting
b) Title - while you write for Amazon SEO, do also write readably for humans.
c) Bullets - Tops sales people understand that "facts tell, but emotions sell". Don't just state facts, features and WHAT your product is. Point out the benefits, positive emotions, desired results associated with using it. But keep it brief. Bullet points should be 1 or 2 lines at most. Also note that the most important bullets are the first 2 or 3 as the last 2 typically get truncated (they are hidden and user has to click see more to read them).
d) Description - same as point above except that you can write more.
A+ Content
If your brand is Amazon Brand Registered, do maximize your brand registry advantages by creating A+ or Enhanced Brand Content for your listings.
Of course A+ Content should be done well too, so that it helps to increase your conversion rate.
Conversion rate can be measures as a percentage: If 100 people click from search results on to your product page and 10 of them end up buying, that is a 10% conversion rate.
Every small increase in conversion rate equals to a big increase in sales. For example say your current conversion rate is 10%. If by improving images, copywriting, adding A+ content, the conversion rate goes up by just 2%, that equals to 20% more sales!
Now imagine you have 10 keywords with an average of 1000 impressions each, 10% CTR, and 10% conversion rate. That equals 10,000 impressions, 1000 clicks and 100 sales. If you increase the conversion rate by just 5%, that now becomes 15% of 1000 click = 150 sales! That's 50% more sales!
Here's a summary:
1) Increase impressions by
- ranking for more keywords
- ranking higher through better optimization and advertising
2) Increase click-through-rate through
- Testing and improving the main image
- Improving the Product Name
- Adjusting Price
- Growing positive social proof
- Using Amazon coupons
3) Increase conversion rates
- Reviews
- Images
- Copywriting
- A+ Content
If you can continually do the above, imagine (or take a few minutes calculate) the compounding effect when you achieve the following over several rounds!
- 5% increase in impressions
- 5% increase in clicks
- 5% increase in conversions
This is where another Helium 10 becomes even more useful as I can run the Cerebro and Keyword Tracker tools on my own listings to discover new keywords and improve optimisation for existing keywords effectively. For example, I am now targeting over 2500 keyword terms for just one of my listings with 47 ad campaigns! Without Helium 10, I only managed to find 20 or 30 keywords.
Traffic (Impressions) > Click-throughs (Sessions) > Conversions (Sales)
In a nutshell, the outline for an effective online sales funnel is:
Hope this gives you a clearer picture of the steps you can take to optimize your sales funnel.
To learn more or help grow your online business:
- Get traffic (aka impressions)
- Get click-throughs (aka sessions)
- Get conversions (aka sales)
Hope this gives you a clearer picture of the steps you can take to optimize your sales funnel.
To learn more or help grow your online business:
- Feel free to look through the other content on this site.
- Join our free Facebook groups MySilentTeam and MySilentTeamSG.
- Check out the 2 training resources
- Amazon Seller Live Training: Small group live training with 1-to-1 coaching with me.
- Proven Amazon Course: Self-directed training using a carefully curated resource of proven Amazon selling strategies.