Amazon provides a variety of tools to help sellers develop a robust sales and marketing strategy to drive shoppers to their listings and increase conversions. The only problem? There is a lot of information out there, and not a lot of time to take it all in.
This blog post is a review of the most popular Amazon marketing strategies with a quick breakdown of how to use each tool on its own and what makes each one effective as part of a larger sales and marketing strategy. Many of these strategies can be found in our free downloadable eBook, 100+ Tips for Mastering Amazon Marketing, which provides additional details for developing an effective sales and marketing strategy on Amazon.
How the Buyer’s Journey Affects Marketing Strategy
The Amazon shopping experience is divided into three basic stages: Awareness, Consideration, Decision. In the first stage, marketing campaigns are geared towards more off-channel efforts, bringing in new customers who are only just becoming aware of a brand and their products. The second stage is where on-platform Amazon marketing efforts attract customers to a brand’s listings. In the final stage, the images, text, videos, and A+ content provide customers with the information they need to make the decision to purchase.
We will use these stages as steps in developing a comprehensive sales and marketing strategy:
Step 1: Create Awareness and Drive Traffic
Amazon has always been focused on capturing as much of the marketshare as possible, so much so that they offer tools such as the Amazon Attribution program and the Brand Referral Bonus program to encourage sellers to promote Amazon listings to off-Amazon shoppers.
Here are additional ways to create awareness and drive off-site traffic to your Amazon Listings:
Social Media Marketing
What it is: Promoting a brand or product through organic social media activity, including posts, shares, comments, messages, and networking text.
How to use it: Create content displaying your brand’s values and aesthetics and post consistently. Engage with other accounts daily to increase visibility, and don’t use paid services to gain followers.
Why it works: Build trust and rapport with your target audience, as well as differentiate your brand from competitors based on brand personality, values, and customer service.
Social Media Advertising
What it is: Advertising run on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, etc. Includes both paid advertising and organic advertising.
How to use it: Run ads with a call to action, using customer data to customize tone, message, and audience. Use Amazon Attribution links to track Amazon sales, listing views, etc., from each ad.
Why it works: Directing off-Amazon shoppers to your listing bypasses competitors’ ads, and if the shopper has already interacted with your brand on social media, you’ve already gained their trust.
Amazon Live
What it is: Live or pre-recorded videos broadcast to Amazon shoppers demonstrating product usage and features. Shoppers can watch the livestreams across devices and platforms.
How to use it: Hire Amazon Live influencers to review your product. Consider offering coupon codes to encourage purchases. If live, have someone interact with viewers in the chat.
Why it works: Adds additional product placements, engages shoppers, drives sales, and keeps your brand at top-of-mind when shoppers are ready to purchase.
Amazon Posts
What it is: Instagram-style posts that are published directly on Amazon. Posts are visible in Brand Stores, product listings, competitor listings, related post feeds, and category-based feeds.
How to use it: Share your Instagram and Facebook content and post often. Focus on lifestyle images over plain product images, as these tend to generate higher engagement.
Why it works: Amazon Posts is free, adds additional product placement, alerts shoppers who “follow” your brand on Amazon anytime you post, and offers cross-promotion opportunities
Amazon DSP
What it is: Programmatic advertisements that display on and off Amazon. Brands can reach targeted shoppers with display, video, or audio ads across a variety of Amazon-owned sites.
How to use it: Keep your targeting segments narrow and use a smaller portion of your budget to start. Re-target shoppers who have viewed your listings or subcategory shoppers before expanding.
Why it works: Uses Amazon’s extensive first-party data to target highly relevant audiences. Best used to capitalize on large volumes of traffic going to your listings, such as holidays or seasonal sales spikes.
Step 2: Capture On-Platform Attention
Capturing shoppers on the platform and getting them to click on your listings is what most Amazon sales and marketing strategies focus on. While it is important to understand how each tool works and what it can do to drive growth, recognize that none of these strategies do well with a ‘set it and forget it’ mentality. Sellers must monitor and actively respond to changes in consumer behavior and trends, which is why it is beneficial to partner with an Amazon agency who offers full-channel management to actively monitor and manage your campaigns.
Here are a few of the most effective sales and marketing tools for capturing attention on the Amazon platform:
Sponsored Display Ads
What it is: Ads which target shoppers based on previous engaged with designated ASINs rather than by keywords. These ads can appear on and off the Amazon marketplace.
How to use it: Launch “Lifestyle,” “In-Market,” and “Views Remarketing” campaigns to create a full funnel Sponsored Display Ad marketing approach, engaging shoppers across their path to purchase.
Why it works: By targeting high purchase intent and previously engaged shoppers, Sponsored Display helps increase conversion rate and is particularly good at reaching new-to-brand shoppers.
Sponsored Product Ads
What it is: The most common ad type on Amazon, Sponsored Product Ads resemble organic search results, except for featuring “Sponsored” below the product image.
How to use it: Set up your campaigns in a way that enables you to scale as you add products/keywords. Kaspien generally recommends a 4-campaign build.
Why it works: The highest converting ad type and a top marketing revenue driver, multiple placements are available per search results page, giving sellers more chances to populate ads for target keywords.
Learn more >>
Sponsored Brand Ads
What it is: Cost-per-click (CPC) banner ads that can appear at the top, middle, and bottom of the search results page. Like Sponsored Product Ads, Sponsored Brand Ads appear for seller-selected keywords.
How to use it: Direct shoppers to your Brand Store to learn more about your brand and products. Advertise like-products together, featuring variations or complementary items to improve conversion.
Why it works: According to Amazon, 69% of customer searches on Amazon don’t include a brand name. Sponsored Brand Ads are a great way to introduce your brand to them and draw them into listings.
Sponsored Brand Videos
What it is: CPC ads on Amazon that generate brand awareness and support conversions. These ads appear on the SERP for desktop and mobile.
How to use it: Feature top-selling ASINs in short, product-focused videos of about 15–30 seconds. Show the product in use and cross-sell your own products and draw shoppers away from competitor listings.
Why it works: Shoppers respond more positively to brands and products supported by high quality, professional content like videos. If you don’t have videos, create new ones or hire an Amazon agency.
Product Targeting
What it is: A subset of Sponsored Products, Sponsored Display Ads, and Sponsored Brand Videos, these ads appear on the product carousel section above reviews and allow sellers to target specific ASINs.
How to use it: Regularly review for new ASINs to add to Product Targeting campaigns. Use the “Negative ASIN” targeting tool to prevent your ads from appearing on irrelevant product listings and reduce ACOS.
Why it works: This strategy both defends and grows your market share on Amazon, protecting your digital shelf space from competitors while creating up-sell and cross-sell opportunities.
Amazon Deals
What it is: Short-term promotions used to accelerate sales velocity. Amazon offers three types of deals: Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals, and 7-Day Deals.
How to use it: Use deals when traffic on Amazon and/or interest in your product is high. Running deals during Prime Week, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or your peak seasonality will drive the most revenue.
Why it works: The Today’s Deal page is the second most-visited page on Amazon, making them ideal at capturing new traffic. They can also dramatically increase orders.
Amazon Coupons
What it is: Similar to traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, an Amazon seller offers a percentage or dollar amount off, and shoppers can redeem the coupon to activate the discount.
How to use it: Group like-products or product lines together in the same coupon. Play with different discounts, use dollar-off over percentage-off, and run on ASINs for which you’re also running ads.
Why it works: Catches the eye on the search results page and encourages conversions. Coupons also have a low minimum budget requirement, making them an affordable and effective option.
Step 3. Inform Shoppers to Prompt a Purchase
The final phase of the buyer’s journey before a sale is made, the decision phase is where the rubber meets the road. At this point, shoppers have made their way to your listings and are looking for information to help them decide to purchase your product. This is why listing optimization is such a critical component of your sales and marketing strategy. In our eBook, 100+ Tips for Mastering Amazon Marketing, we break down each element of the product listing, including title, key product features, product description, A+ Content, and images.
Here, we will focus on a few additional marketing strategies to help add to the product listing and boost conversion rate:
Video
What it is: Product videos appear in the media gallery of an Amazon listing. In most cases, they are product demonstration videos, but they can also be brand overview videos.
How to use it: Upload videos that are 60 seconds long, prioritizing complex products like tactical gear or games. Include subtitles or text overlays. Don’t include any URLs (including social media links).
Why it works: According to a survey by Wyzowl, 68% of consumers prefer to learn about products or services through video, and many keep videos on mute when scrolling on mobile devices.
Review Generation
What it is: Using Amazon-compliant tools and tactics to encourage customers to leave honest reviews for products that they purchased on Amazon.
How to use it: Click ‘Request a Review’ on all eligible orders (can be automated for higher volumes). Send only one message per order, and never offer a coupon in exchange for a positive review.
Why it works: Positive product reviews are a main consideration for purchasing decisions. Almost 90% of surveyed Amazon customers indicated they would not consider a product with less than 3 stars.
Brand Store
What it is: A digital storefront in the Amazon marketplace which can be customized to use a brand’s colors, images, and copy, and linked to your sponsored advertising campaigns.
How to use it: Share your brand story and any extra product information to help consumers learn more about your brand and products. Organize the navigation bar by category, product type, age, or holiday.
Why it works: Brand Stores feature all your products in a centralized location largely removed from the competition. Once a shopper is in your Brand Store, they are browsing only your products.
Variation Listing
What it is: A product detail page with multiple ASINs on the same page. The ASINs differ in size, color, pattern, bundle, or similar factor. Can be created using the Variation Wizard or with a template flat file.
How to use it: Create variations for items that vary by size, color, style, material and more. This gives customers a quick idea of all the colors or styles available at a glance.
Why it works: Grouping like-products together makes it easier for shoppers to find desired items. It also allows listings to aggregate traffic and occasionally reviews, ultimately improving conversion rates.
Amazon Experiments
What it is: A tool that allows brands and their authorized agents to create A/B tests in the Amazon platform. The tests can be run for A+ Content, titles, and images.
How to use it: Run tests on eligible ASINs for at least 6–8 weeks. We advise longer tests to mitigate factors like seasonality, unless the test is designed specifically for a season or holiday.
Why it works: Helps you identify best practices specifically for your brand. Without data to inform, marketing strategies rely on anecdotes, gut feelings, and third-party recommendations.
Grow Sales Without Growing Costs
Amid the fierce competition on Amazon, sellers are always looking for ways to grow sales with as little cost as possible. Extra marketing efforts, especially during peak seasons or holidays, is a necessity for growth on Amazon. While each category, brand, and product are unique, developing an effective sales and marketing strategy is easier if you understand all the components of marketing on Amazon.
While this list is by no means exhaustive, it does provide insight into the many tools and strategies for marketing on Amazon. Kaspien is an Amazon marketing agency that specializes in full-channel management and optimization, helping our partners craft custom advertising campaigns to drive growth and revenue while keeping costs down. To learn more about what Kaspien can do, visit our Success Stories page. To learn more about any of the tools in this post and discover additional Amazon sales and marketing tips, download our free marketing eBook.
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