How to Drive Traffic to Amazon & Optimize Conversion Rates
Drive Traffic to Amazon from Google / Facebook
If done correctly, driving off-site traffic to Amazon is a strategic way to increase volume and conversion rates. Unfortunately, tracking this type of off-site generation can be difficult because marketers are essentially piecing together two sets of data from Google / Facebook & Amazon.
Note: At this time, Amazon has not made any public attempts to shut down off-Amazon traffic generation since their main goal is to drive traffic to the marketplace.
Benefits of Driving Off-Site Traffic to Amazon:
- Off-site generation directs customers to Amazon, the highest converting site in the world.
- Likely to drive volume and increase conversion rates for sellers.
- Sellers gain additional exposure to Google and Facebook’s large database of customers.
- Seller’s can still utilize Amazon’s Ad Copy (such as free shipping, ratings, ect).
- Marketers can target competitors using Google AdWords.
- Leverage Amazon’s premium services such as Prime Membership and 1-Click Ordering.
According to Jeff Coleman Director of Account Management at CPC Strategy, there is no question that driving traffic to Amazon is likely to convert better. But, if a brand’s main concern is improving ROI – they might want to drive traffic back to their website where it could be more profitable (even with a lower conversion rate).
“Brand building on Amazon can be difficult, so it really depends on what your business goals are,” he said.
4 Tips for Driving Off-Site Traffic to Amazon
Use Exact Match Keyword Targeting
One of biggest challenges with driving off-site traffic generation to Amazon is tracking and attribution. Because brands are driving back to a domain they don’t own, it is difficult to attribute.
“What a lot of sellers end up doing is they infer the impact of the AdWords traffic on sales by correlating two sets of data – which if course isn’t always going to be perfect,” Coleman said.
According to Roman Fitch, Retail Search Manager at CPC Strategy brands should use exact match keyword targeting rather than broad match. Although broad match will show up for a wide range of keyword terms (which in theory sounds great), businesses are not going to be able to identify which terms are converting.
With Exact Match Keyword Targeting, brands can add one keyword at a time. When they see a boost in sales they will know that sale is attributed to that specific term so they can bid up.
“That way you can figure out which terms are working for you on Google,” Fitch said.
Avoid Outranking Share as a Measurable KPI
Outranking Share or when a seller outranks a competitor for a given term is a pretty common KPI for retailers to measure. Unfortunately, when sellers are driving off-site traffic this is not an accurate measurement. Why?
When sellers drive off-site traffic back to Amazon, Google recognizes the ad as an Amazon ad. Essentially it’s calculates that your company is trying to outrank itself. In addition, you are also competing with Amazon’s own team (competing for traffic with Google) as well as other competitors in your market. Brands should be aware that they are competing against Amazon, competitors and themselves when it comes to determining outranking share.
Be Aware of Your Buy Box Percentage
Sellers should always be aware of their Buy Box percentage. If a seller does not own the Buy Box, when a customer clicks on the ad and is directed to Amazon, they are likely to lose the sale.
“If you are the manufacturer, eventually the same will come back to you but if you are the reseller and not in the Buy Box, you are probably paying for someone else’s order (conversion),” Fitch said.
Sellers must win the auction (in AdWords) for the ad to show but must also outbid anyone who is advertising under Amazon.com (which is likely to include competitors and Amazon itself).
Super URLs Violate Amazon Terms of Service
“A lot of retailers think of Super URLs as a silver bullet to increase ranking but Super URLs can hurt rankings if sellers send more converting traffic to them,” Coleman said.
“Super URLs are a pretty clear violation of Amazon’s TOS. Although we haven’t seen any action being taken yet, they do violate their policy and will eventually cracked down on them at some point in the future. This only remphasises why sellers should use exact match targeting instead.”
For more information on off-site traffic generation to Amazon email [email protected]
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