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My Amazon Guy

Growing Your Amazon Sales

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How to Create Prime Exclusive Discounts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

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This feature rolled out in July of 2019 for Prime Day. It adds a special coupon, visible in search, and it generates clicks and conversions.

I recommend every company selling on Amazon that has the margins to use this during November 28 to December 2nd in 2019 for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend holiday rush. (We do not think November 28th will be a good sales day due to Thanksgiving, but checking the “Black Friday discount” checkbox it starts the deal on the 28th, which is okay)

To create a discount:

  1. Go to https://sellercentral.amazon.com/prime-discounts/create or put your cursor over advertising, select prime exclusive discounts
  2. Complete the 3 steps and fill out the information

If you don’t see this feature available on your account, it is likely a permission issue. To fix, go to settings / permissions, and add the appropriate permission as see in this below screen shot.

 

Step 1 is to enter a name of your discount, nothing special here, it’s just internal naming.

One major call out here – this can stack with other offers. So if you already setup a coupon or lightning deal, you’ll want to avoid stacking these…

 

 

 

Onto step 2. You will download a template, and then upload it.

 

 

I found this the template to be a bit tricky. Here’s a screen shot of one I got to successfully take. Please note you need to fill out every single column.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After you upload it you can validate whether it worked. Here’s a screen shot of an arrow pointed to one NOT scheduled. Means you have to work on it more until it looks like the one just below it, and it says “Scheduled”

 

 

Amazon Adopts Facebook-like Social Posting on its Detail Pages

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Amazon just rolled out “Amazon Profiles” which is basically Facebook-like or Twitter-like social posting on the Amazon detail pages.

Here’s how to get started with Amazon Profiles:

  1. Go to https://posts.amazon.com/profiles
  2. Upload a logo
  3. Begin posting

When you go to upload your logo here are the specs you’ll need:

  • File format JPG or PNG
  • Image is 640 x 640 pixels or larger
  • Color format must be RGB
  • File size is smaller than 100MB
  • Images are cropped to a 1:1 ratio

Example safe and unsafe logo areas:

Example with logo filled in:

End logo:

After you get a logo, next you’ll want to make your first post

To do this, hit “create Post” which brings up a screen like this. And from here it’s like building a social post with one small twist, you need to add an ASIN to associate it to.

These posts will ONLY show on mobile, at the bottom of a detail page. So who knows how much value this will add. But with all things beta on Amazon, it’s good test it out.
This rolled out on Amazon on 11/5/2019. If you didn’t get an invite simply click the profiles link to get started.

How to Track External Traffic into Amazon – Beta Advertising Attribution

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Amazon took away some nifty stuff with APIs and ability to track sales into platforms like Facebook this past summer. They are now rolling out new tools and functionality to everyone but in a more controlled format called “Attribution” which is in beta for Amazon advertising.

Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Register for Amazon Attribution
  2. Accept the invite by email.
  3. Create user login
  4. Create tracking ID for product
Step One: Registration Process:
 
 

 

Step Two: Tag Implementation Process

 

 

Step Three: Search Tag Implementation Process

 

 

Step Four: Social Media Tag Implementation Process

 

Help maximize your return on investment (ROI) and grow your product sales. For the first time, you can measure the impact of search, social, email, display, and video media channels based on how consumers discover, research, and buy your products on Amazon. Amazon Attribution’s unique conversion metrics — including Amazon detail page views, purchase rate, and sales — give you a comprehensive view into how each of your marketing tactics contribute to shopping activity on Amazon.

Here’s an example of what you will see when you are registered. A code that can be used to track into Google Adwords:

Then in Google Adwords you can see the final url suffix is added.

In theory this could even send sales data back to those platforms so they can optimize to conversion.

5 Ways to Increase Sales on Amazon

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There are several ways to grow sales on Amazon. All of them fall under two buckets: Traffic and Conversion. Below are the top five ways we recommend growing sales, if you’re already fully optimized.

1. Launch New Products

Launching new products on Amazon will help drive more visitors and customers to the product detail pages for your brand’s products on Amazon which in turn may drive higher levels of conversion and sales for your products.

2. Increase Amazon PPC within Amazon

Amazon Advertising can be effectively used to find and engage visitors and customers and help them discover and purchase products that you sell on Amazon. Advertisements such as Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display (beta) can be used to increase the awareness and visibility of your products on Amazon’s search results and product detail pages.

Sponsored Ads can help grow sales as they reach customers who are searching for products that are similar to yours. Sponsored Brands feature your brand’s logo and up to three of your brand’s products on Amazon’s search results page which helps drive higher levels of awareness and visibility for your products which in turn will help drive higher sales.

3. Drive External Traffic through platforms such as Facebook Ads/Google AdWords

Driving external traffic through platforms such as Facebook Ads and Google AdWords is another way to grow sales on Amazon. Targeting and guiding external traffic to your product’s product detail pages on Amazon will help drive more awareness, visibility and potentially higher sales for your products on Amazon.

4. Update Product Titles, Bullet Points, Enhanced Brand Content (EBC), and Brand Stores to improve conversion

Optimizing product detail pages for your products on Amazon will help drive higher sales of your products. There are several components to a product detail page including, but not limited to, the Product Title, Product Description, Product Images, Bullet Points, and Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) which play a critical role in sales of products on Amazon. All of these can help potential buyers get a better perception and understanding of a product’s features, uses, and benefits which can result in higher levels of conversion and fewer returns and exchanges.

Brand Stores can help drive higher levels of engagement for visitors and customers and also provide a platform for shoppers to learn more about your brand. Brand Stores are a great way for brand owners to design and create stores with multiple pages to showcase the value proposition of their products and brands.

5. Run promotions, coupons, discounts, or sales

Running promotions, coupons, and offering discounts for your products on Amazon can help drive higher sales. Promotions such as free shipping, percentage-off, buy one get one free can motivate customers to buy your product. You can also drive awareness of your promotions outside of Amazon (such as on social media platforms) to drive external traffic to your brand’s product detail pages on Amazon which will provide more visibility and awareness and can help drive higher levels of conversion and sales of your products on Amazon.

Amazon Advertising Broad Match Modifiers Now Work in Seller Central Ads

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Advertising on Amazon has changed a lot this past year. Many new beta roll outs, like Beta Display last week, have been implemented. Amazon could catch upto Google’s functionality very soon as a result. They are still way behind.

One recent change we noticed today was keyword modifiers for Broad Match now work. This is something Google long ago pioneered for Adwords.

A keyword modifier forces some logic behind the use of the keyword. From Amazon’s help file:

“Broad match modifiers can be added by adding the plus symbol “+” in front of the keyword. For example, if you use the keyword “+men shoes” with a broad match, then the ad will only match to searches that contain the word “men”. The ad may match to “men sneakers” or “running shoes for men” but not to any search term that does not contain the word “men,” such as just “sneakers” or just “running shoes.”

You can use Broad match modifiers when adding or editing keywords in the campaign builder, Campaign Manager, bulksheets, or through the ad API.”

This mean that the + sign can force the broad match to always include a select phrase when matching it. This doesn’t help phrase or exact match because those are already in essence keyword modifiers. But if you have 3+ words in a chain, and you want to rule out a certain audience pool on the broad match, simply + whatever keyword you want to be forced to be in use. Using +Men or +Women will force that keyword in use during a broad match comparison.

Amazon has increasingly been making ads more efficient, and I expect many more changes.

Amazon Keyword Optimization – Fewer Search Terms are Now Better than More

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Recently we’ve seen campaigns where we have chalked full of keywords, have been getting fewer impressions, versus campaigns with less keywords. Our agency strategy has been to put in hundreds of keywords, use all 3 match types, let the algorithm do its thing, and double down on what works and slough off what doesn’t. This strategy no longer works with recent changes.

When it comes to the performance of an ad, it’s not about the quantity of keywords added on a campaign, but the quality of them. It’s better to invest higher on keywords that are more relevant to the item being advertised than a lot of keywords that are not relevant at all. This is because you might have many keywords that are pretty similar between them but not all of them will work because these are considered as “duplicate keywords”. It’s better to add keywords that are directly relevant to product (meaning that they must be keywords that are added on the items detail page) and bid high on these particular keywords to increase the chances of better visibility.

When you have duplicate keywords (using the same words), they will compete against each other and even blocking the traffic of those potential keywords that could help the campaign perform better. Hence the importance of the match type as this helps you to fine-tune which shopper search queries your ads are eligible to show against.

You may want to set up a keyword as Phrase or Exact match if, for example, the keyword is related to your item but also happens to be too general or easily confused with another type of product or with a different use because of a close variation. Otherwise, we recommend you to go with Broad so that way your keyword will be more accessible and will cover misspellings and related variations. Consequently, you won’t have to repeat the keywords.

 

Amazon Product Reinstatement Email Templates

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Product Takedowns

Sometimes when Amazon takes down product, it requires an email to one of the specific departments to get it reinstated. Amazon Support will typically direct you to which team to contact.

List of Teams to Email:

  • Notice Dispute Team
  • Listing Evaluation Team
  • Product Compliance Team
  • Jeff Bezos Executive Team

 

Below are the email drafts that you can send to the respective teams regarding the product takedowns. Listed next to each draft is the email address of the team it should be sent to. Feel free to edit them anyway you like. Let me know if you need any more information.

 

Email Draft: Restricted Ingredients Takedown – (Goes to [email protected] & [email protected]com & [email protected]amazon.com) – Attach COA

 

XXXXX Team,

We are contacting you in response to the takedown of our product ASIN: XXXXXXX. The reason given was that our product was found to contain restricted ingredients. We assert that this product does not contain any restricted ingredients and have attached the certificate of analysis for ASIN:  XXXXXXX as proof that this product is in full compliance with Amazon Policy. We, therefore, request that you reinstate our ASIN immediately and allow us to continue to sell.
Thank you for your understanding
Sincerely,
[Your Company]

 

Email Draft: Brand Takedown – (Goes to [email protected] & [email protected]com) – Attach Invoice

 

XXXXX Team,

See Case ID: XXXXXXX

Our ASIN: XXXXXXX was again taken down under false pretenses. There was a product detail page violation claim regarding the brand we have listed. This is a false claim as we are brand registers on the brand of both of these products. We have the correct brand labeled as is apparent on the product packaging. We have provided the requested invoice as proof that we own the product we are selling. This ASIN is in full compliance with Amazon Policy. Therefore, as brand owners and registers, we request that our ASIN be reinstated.

Sincerely,
[Your Company]

 

Letter to Jeff Bezos – (Goes to  [email protected]) – For emergencies and critical issues you can email Jeff Bezos’s executive team directly. You this option sparingly. Response time is between 2-3 weeks

 

Jeff,

 

We have reason to believe that our brand or account is being targeted by false claims of policy violations. Over the last few months, we have had almost 20 different products removed from the catalog. Listed below are all of the Case IDs from the product takedowns we have had to fight. The reason for half of the takedowns was for having the incorrect brand listed. This was not true as we are brand registered for all of the brands listed on our products. We have fought hard with Amazon to get these listings reinstated. Each time we were able to prove that we were and had always been in full compliance with Amazon Policy. As you know, these product takedowns are detrimental to our sales momentum. These takedowns seem to be occurring on a regular basis without rhyme or reason. We have done everything on our end to satisfy Amazon’s requests and have not received any recompense. Therefore, as brand owners, we request that an investigation be opened up to determine who is making these false claims and put an end to it.

 

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

[Your Company]

How to Get to Your Amazon Store Link

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How to Get to Your Amazon Store Link

1. Log onto your Amazon Seller Central Account

2. Go to the left of the page of look for the Performance Tab, Go to Customer Feedback, and click on the link next to the stars.

3. You will be opened to your seller feedback page. Look for “See how your feedback displays to buyers on Amazon.” and click on the link.

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4. This page is where other customers can access and could see other customers feedback.

5. In the URL, look for where it says ‘&seller=A’. This will be your store ID number.

Instead of copying and pasting the whole URL, you can send this to other people by formating it like this.

http://www.amazon.com/shops/sellerID

Using the example above, your URL should look like this:

http://www.amazon.com/shops/A14CUC1LRMCT6s

 

What is Amazon ACoS? What is True ACoS?

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What is Amazon ACoS? What is True ACoS?

 

ACoS or Advertising Cost of Sales is the percentage of sales made through Sponsored Ad Campaigns.

On Amazon Seller Central, this will be already provided for you in the advertisement.

ACOS = Total Ad Spend/Total Ad Sales x 100.

Example 1 (image below):

Ad spend = $280.66 | Ad sales = $1,125.42. 

$280.66/$1,125.42 = 0.24938

0.24938 x 100 = 24.94% = ACOS

True ACoS is the same thing, except instead, the total revenue will go in place for ad revenue.

True ACoS = Total Ad Spend/Total Sales x 100

Example 2 (image below):

Ad spend = $280.66 | Total Sales = $5000

$280.66/$5000 = 0.0561

0.0561 x 100 = 5.61% = True ACOS

If you don’t see this metric in your advertisement, click on ad metric and select ACOS.

 

What is a Good TRUE ACOS?

7% is healthy. 10% if you’re going for growth. Anything less than 7% you’re leaving sales on the table, but probably are more profitable.

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