3 Ways to Tailor Your Amazon Marketing Strategy for the Pet Supplies Category

The Pet Supplies category is an emotions category — shoppers buy with their emotions and justify with logic. The joy that comes from delighting a beloved pet or the fierce protectiveness that comes when thinking of their safety — these are grounding factors that must guide your marketing strategy for the Pet Supplies category.

Pet Owners Seek Trustworthy Brands

Shoppers in the Pet Supplies category tend to demonstrate high brand loyalty. Shoppers want to trust that the toys, treats, and items they buy for their pets are safe and reliable. Once they’ve found a brand that they trust, they tend to stay with it.

We see this played out in data, which shows that first-time buyers enter the category using broad keywords, like “dog toy,” while repeat buyers often use branded keywords.

In the same vein, we also see that shoppers in the Pet Supplies category are willing to pay for quality. Because pet owners want the best for their pets, they’re willing to pay more for higher quality items. This is especially important to consider given that this category struggles disproportionately with counterfeit product. The low production and freight costs often associated with this category make it a prime hunting ground for counterfeiters.

3 Ways to Tailor Your Amazon Marketing Strategy for Pet Products

1 — Lifestyle Images are a Must

Exciting visuals are critical in emotions categories because they are the first step towards inspiring an emotional rapport with shoppers. Lifestyle images are images that show your product in use in a natural setting. An adorable photo of a dog using your chew toy will delight shoppers and make them want to see that joy in their own furry friend. In many cases, they also help display the size of the product, helping ensure customers know what size they’re buying.

Recommendations:

• Re-use images generated by influencers for your Amazon listings
• Include 2–4 lifestyle images and 1 video, if possible, in your Amazon listings

Read more about the role of images and video for Amazon marketing.

2 — Tell a Story with A+ Content

A+ Content is a potent marketing tool in any category, but especially so in the Pet Supplies category. Pet owners value safety and reliability from the brands they patronize. A+ Content is an excellent place to acknowledge and empathize with their desire. Share your brand’s story and values to show shoppers that your brand is worthy of their trust.

Recommendations:

• Create A+ Content for top performing ASINs (requires Brand Registry)
• Share your brand story and values
• Use additional imagery that shows your products in use
• Highlight product features
• Include a sizing chart, if applicable to the product
• Link to your other product lines through a comparison chart

Learn more about earning customer trust in a skeptical world.

3 — Reach Brand-Loyal Shoppers with Sponsored Brand Ads

Earlier, we identified shoppers in the Pet Supplies category as being brand loyal. We see this played out in Sponsored Brand Ads — banner ads that show the brand name, logo, and several products. Sponsored Brand Ads typically have lower conversion rates than Sponsored Product Ads, but in the Pet Supplies category, we see strong performance because repeat buyers are seeking specific brands.

Recommendations:

• Direct Sponsored Brand Ads to your Amazon Store
• Bid on branded keywords so the ads appear for repeat buyers

Learn more about sponsored ad strategy on Amazon.

The Best Doggone Guide to Pet Supplies on Amazon

Like what you’re learning? This is only scratching the surface. Our Amazon marketing experts put together a comprehensive Amazon seller’s guide to selling pet products on Amazon. It contains a category overview, top challenges for pet brands on Amazon (and solutions for them), legal and marketplace requirements, and 10 ways to customize your Amazon marketing strategy specifically for the Pet Supplies category.

Download the guide for free!