Amazon’s “Manage Your Customer Engagement” Tool: Overview & Early Results

What is the Manage Your Customer Engagement Tool?

In April 2021, Amazon unveiled a new marketing tool for brands enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry called “Manage Your Customer Engagement.” This tool allows brand owners or their authorized sellers to directly message shoppers who “follow” the brand on Amazon.

How does Amazon’s Customer Engagement Tool Work?

When Amazon launched their social media-esque Amazon Posts, they added a “Follow” button to Amazon Brand Stores and to the posts themselves. Shoppers who follow a brand are automatically notified whenever the brand publishes a new Amazon Post.

The Manage Your Customer Engagement tool adds another way that brands can engage their followers, this time through direct messages through Amazon’s messaging platform.

How Does it Work Exactly?

Shoppers must choose to follow a brand before they can be emailed. Sellers do not gain access to any identifying consumer data; they can only see the number of shoppers that will be emailed when schedule an email campaign.

To set up an email campaign, sellers must add:

• A high resolution brand logo
• The new product they wish to promote
• A delivery window

Besides the above, emails currently offer next to no customization options. Once a campaign has been prepared, Amazon reviews it for approval. Amazon notes that approvals can take up to 72 hours, so schedule your email several days in advance. Once approved, the emails will be sent to followers during the 5-day delivery window through Amazon Messaging.

After an email has been sent, sellers can see only a few performance metrics: total reach, open rate, click through rate, and opt-outs. They cannot see which shoppers took which actions or whether anyone purchased the featured product.

Eligibility Requirements for Manage Your Customer Engagement

To utilize this tool, brands must:

• be enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry
• have an Amazon Brand Store
• sell on the U.S. marketplace (non-U.S. Amazon marketplaces do not offer this feature currently)
• The product must have been on Amazon for less than 6-months

Amazon Email Marketing Expands Amazon’s Venture into Traditional D2C Marketing

While the Manage Your Customer Engagement tool is still only a pilot, it represents Amazon’s latest foray into more traditional direct to consumer (D2C) marketing.

In recent years, Amazon has added Demand Side Platform, or Amazon DSP, which allows sellers to target shoppers based on demographic information, location, and interests. Amazon also added ad placements on Twitch, a massive live streaming network, which targets viewers based on their interests.

Such targeting capabilities have long been used by social media platforms and search engines, but Amazon has traditionally focused on product-interest and keyword targeting. Over time, Amazon seems increasingly interested in monetizing its first-party consumer data through new advertising tools, while maintaining satisfactory privacy over consumer data.

Kaspien’s Preliminary Test Results

We tested the new tool over a one-month period to promote a new product for one of our partners.

Key Metrics

• Followers: 1,700
• Reach: 545
• Open Rate: 21.47%
• Click-Through Rate: 0.92%
• Clicks: 5
• Unsubscribes: 1

Campaign Learnings

• Sales are not attributed in metrics
• We tracked sales manually, and identified a 29% sales lift for the ASIN while the campaign was running
• Cannot assume that all followers will be “reached” with campaign
• Only 32% of their followers were reached
• Campaigns have limited customization; customization options include:
• Product ASIN — must be “buyable” and “new” within the last 6 months
• Logo selection — 3:1 aspect ratio required, PNG preferred type
• Header Preview — Either a dark or light background
• Campaign Delivery Window — M-F date range
• There is no A/B testing at this time
• There are no segmentation/targeting options offered at this time

Should You Use Manage Your Customer Engagement?

If you’re already brand registered, have a Brand Store, and are launching a new product, there is no reason not to leverage this tool.

• It’s free and requires low effort
• It boosts product visibility
• It can encourage brand loyalty
• It bypasses competitor ads by going straight to the shopper

There is a caveat, of course. For this tool to have any material impact, you need a large number of followers. To acquire followers, we recommend using Amazon Posts and encouraging your social media followers to also follow you on Amazon to get notified of your latest products and deals. If you’re curious, read our blog post about using social media to drive Amazon sales.

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