Prabhat Shah from Online Seller UK talks about Amazon SEO best practices and Sponsored Ads Best Practices. Reach out to Prabhat - www.onlineselleruk.com

1. 1
@OnlineSellerUK
Prabhat Shah
Amazon SEO and
Sponsored Ads Best Practices

2. What are we talking about today?
A. Factors that influence your product discoverability
B. Amazon marketing services best practices

3. 3
About Me
• Started working in Amazon & eBay in 2009
(Used to work in Leprosy Hospital before )
• Worked with Small and Large Size businesses throughout the UK,
Ireland and the US
• Currently leading two projects
• DaytodayeBay – Solution Provides complete for Marketplaces (eBay, Amazon & beyond)
• Online Seller UK – Organises Meetups, digital marketing training & consultancy

4. Head Line Display
Sponsored Ads
Organic Results
Sponsored Ads
Sponsored Ads
A TYPICAL
AMAZON
SEARCH RESULT

5. Additionally, we have
started to see Amazon
choice which usually
added on the product
when any product has
high sales velocity.

6. A. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
1. Sell via Amazon FBA ( Fulfilment by Amazon)
2. Conversion
3. Dispatch on time
4. Improve Amazon Product reviews
5. Optimise for search

7. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
1. Sell via FBA – increased conversion means better ranking
• Amazon FBA products are free for delivery with Amazon prime and
becomes automatically eligible for Alexa
• Prime has now become a successful loyalty tool with 3.8 millions
customers in the UK and 90 millions in the US (2017 data)
• Customer Trust is high with Prime because of Next day delivery, free
returns, and brilliant customer service

8. Statistics from Marketplace Pulse, of top 10,000 sellers suggest
• About 58 % of the top 10,000 US Amazon marketplace sellers makes
use of Amazon’s fulfilment service, about 40% of the European Sellers
use Fulfilment by Amazon
• When product is right FBA increases sales velocity quicker than FBM

9. Plus postage if this was less than £20
Read more about free delivery
FBA can get
buy box even
if it is
expensive
FBA enables you to win buy box = sales

10. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
2. Ship to Stock on time (FBA / FBM)
• Keeping your inventory with 4 week’s supply is a good idea.
• Overstocking can result additional storage fees which starts after your
stock is > 6months.
• For FBM – express delivery guaranteed 24 hours deliver can help

11. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
3. Improve Product Reviews
• New Reviews, Verified Reviews and Reviews that are most helpful are given more
weight.
• Proactively check your reviews. Create a process to deal with negative reviews.
• Encourage customers to write reviews.
• Follow up emails is acceptable and it can be automated via 3rd
tools like Xsellco
• Negative reviews does impact negatively. So, get in touch with buyers to resolve
issues.

12. The order of reviews are based on “most
helpful” clicks. So, it is important to we
balance positive reviews with negative

13. Very common ways to improve product reviews
• Sell as loss leader for a limited period to accelerate sales and hoping
to get verified reviews
• Use Sponsored Ads to boost ranking

14. Amazon Early Review Program ( US)
How to Enrol in Amazon’s Early Reviewer Program ?
#1. Enrol Your Brand in Amazon’s Brand Registry
#2. Upload your SKU with CSV from < Advertising tab >
#3. Upload upto 100 SKUs at one time

15. What exact it is ?
• This program is a way to incentivise reviews for new products. It is
aimed at to help brand owners to gather early reviews. These
reviews:
• Helps shoppers make smarter buying decisions
• Increases page views
• Increase click-through, and
• Ultimately sales

16. FAQs more info here>
#1 Is this available everywhere ? : Currently it is available only in the
U.S. brand registered Amazon sellers.
#2 Is this available for everyone ? : It is only available for Brand owners
so you’d have to apply for Brand Registry if you own the trademark. If
you have not applied for your brand, find out more here
#3 Can I enrol all of my ASINS ? : In order for an ASIN to be eligible for
the Early Reviewer Program, it must have fewer than 5 reviews and
must be priced above $15.00

17. #4 What is the cost?: A seller pays $60 for each SKU to be enrolled in
the program chargeable once a SKU gains a review. The Early
Reviewer Program will continue to gather reviews for a SKU for up to
1 year from time of enrolment, or until 5 reviews are received
through the program, whichever occurs first. More info here>
#5 Can we select customers to write review ?: No, Amazon randomly
selects customers from a list of all customers who have purchased
products participating in the program
#6 What is the incentive for Reviewers? : They receive a small reward
(a $1-$3 Amazon gift card, for example) after submitting their review
that meets the community guidelines. Their review can be positive or
negative.
#7 Early Reviewer Program reviews are denoted with an orange badge
that reads “Early Reviewer Rewards.”

18. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
5. Optimise for Amazon SEO
Price
Paid Ads
Product Titles
Key Features
Product Descriptions
Structured Data – Brand, MPN
Product Search Terms
Parent-Child relationship

19. Price
• Low price have a direct impact on where products show up in the
SERP
• We cannot always “race to the bottom”
• Price Comparison before listing is recommended
• Price reduction can help
• Sale price is taken into consideration
* FBA items of £20.00 or over are
free shipping for all (including non-prime members) * Sale price / Strike through
price impacts sales positively

20. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
Price
Paid Ads
Product Titles
Key Features
Product Descriptions
Structured Data – Brand, MPN
Product Search Terms
Parent-Child relationship

21. Position 1
Position 2
Position 3

22. Paid Ads: Sponsored, Product Display,
Headline Search
• Free £20.00 Voucher available for all
• Only products with buy box are eligible
• Helps to generate additional sales
• Use both automatic and manual campaigns
• Eligible Categories: Electronics & Photo, Music, Toys & Games, VHS, DIY & Tools,
PC & Video Games, Software, Film & TV, Baby, Kitchen & Home, Garden &
Outdoors, Health & Beauty, Computers & Accessories, Grocery, Jewellery, Pet
Supplies, Sports & Outdoors, Stationery & Office Supplies, Watches, Car &
Motorbike, Shoes & Accessories, Beauty, Large Appliances, Musical, Instruments
& DJ and Lighting.

23. Campaign
Clicks Campaign Turnover % ACOS Total Amazon Turnover %
M 1 £1,029.47 £18,802.63 5% £58,307.00 32
M 2 £667.01 £10,402.54 6% £57,285.00 18
M 3 £757.16 £16,728.61 4.53 £55,216.00 30
Our Client Campaigns Result

24. Sponsored Product Ads
These are Keywords targeted Ads
Appearance: Top, Below, Right hand side of the search
and product details page
Types: Automatic and Manual
Who is for?: Seller central and Vendor Central
Analysis: Can measure ACoS, Search Terms
effectiveness
Tip: Use optimised content to get best out of Automatic
ads

25. Sponsored Product Ads
Best Practices
• Keyword suggestions can be good if content is good.
• Optimise your campaigns in a periodically
• Don’t set minimum bid when you start
• Adjust bids depending on performance
• Keep Automatic ads always on to appear on product
details page

26. Sponsored Ads Best Practices
• Start with Automatic Ads and harvest converting search terms for
manual ads
• Start with optimal budget so we ensure maximum exposure as
possible in the beginning and then refine it afterwards
• Spend based on your profitability, find your Cost of sale to determine
how much you can spend
E.g SP – ( PRODUCT COST + ALL AMAZON FEES) = Profit
Profit / SP = Profit Margin
27 – (14+4)=9
9/27=33% * Our ACOS must be less than 33% to make profit

27. Use Search term report to find keywords that converted and use
them in manual ads

28. Sponsored Ads Best Practices
• Use Amazon search tools ( sonar tools) to find relevant search terms
• The main advantage of the Reverse ASIN search function is that you
do not need a source keyword in order to start your keyword
research.
** I struggled initially to get
good paid result on Amazon US
platform and reverse ASIN
helped a lot

29. Sponsored Ads Best Practices
• Run your advertising campaigns for 4 weeks without making any
adjustments.
• Amazon’s advertising reports have a several days latency, which
means that it takes 48-72 hours sometimes for conversions to be
reported.
• In manual ads - Remove non-converting keywords and targeting
• Increase bids if needed for keywords that convert well
• Ad groups can be created based on category

30. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
Price
Paid Ads
Product Titles
Key Features
Product Descriptions
Structured Data – Brand, MPN
Product Search Terms
Parent-Child relationship

31. Product Titles
• Each word in the Product Title is searchable on its own
• Relevant title will drive traffic to your product.
• Include the brand, material, size, color, product type, and descriptive
keywords in your product title for all of your products.
• Optimal title lengths are between 80 and 100 characters, although
this does vary by category, and are being policed more aggressively
by Amazon.
• If your titles are over Amazon’s character limit they will be
suppressed from the website or will not appear on the search. Please
check your “Manage Inventory” to see character limits.

33. Stay within Amazon’s character limits
Limits can vary based on category

34. How to find the right keywords for your
title?
• Use Keywords Tools like sonar http://sonar-tool.com/us/ Google
Keywords planner, Scientific Keyword tool ( US only free, rest paid)

35. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
Price
Paid Ads
Product Titles
Key Features
Product Descriptions
Structured Data – Brand, MPN
Product Search Terms
Parent-Child relationship

36. Key Features
• Bullet points are searchable
• You have 5 Bullet points with 500 character maximum length for
bullet points. ( Limit can differ based on category)
• Include keywords you want to rank
• Highlight crucial product features to give customers the confidence to
make a purchase decision.
• See example on next slide >

38. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
Price
Paid Ads
Product Titles
Key Features
Product Descriptions
Structured Data – Brand, MPN
Product Search Terms
Parent-Child relationship

39. Product Descriptions
• Searchable
• 2000 characters limit
• Differentiate your product from competitor products.
• Rich descriptions helps conversion
• See example on next page >

40. •Amazon allows only bold and
paragraph change HTML on
descriptions
•Next slide shows how to do this

41. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
Price
Paid Ads
Product Titles
Key Features
Product Descriptions
Structured Data – Brand, MPN
Product Search Terms
Parent-Child relationship

42. Structured Data: Brands, MPNs, Other
data
• The brand of our product is indexed for search.
• Avoid common spelling errors
• Include brand as the first word in your product title.
•A products’ manufacturer part number (MPN) and product ID (UPC,
EAN, or ISBN) are indexed
•These are generally commonly searched in categories: electronics,
automotive, computers, and appliances
* Get EAN from GS1UK

43. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
Price
Paid Ads
Product Titles
Key Features
Product Descriptions
Structured Data – Brand, MPN
Product Search Terms
Parent-Child relationship

44. Search Terms * 5 Fields with 50
characters each
Don’t ignore
this warning !

45. Search Terms
•They do not appear on product detail pages and are indexed for
search
•Most commonly underutilised
•The best search terms are synonyms and common abbreviations
•Consider using converting search terms from automatic sponsored
campaigns
•Use words that cannot be filled in fields such as product name, key
product features, product description, brand name etc.

46. Example of Keywords from Amazon

47. Example of Keywords from Amazon
*Creative
example
here

48. Some don’ts
• Don’t provide inaccurate, misleading, or irrelevant information such
as competitor product, brand or author name, wrong gender etc.
Providing misleading or irrelevant information is against Amazon
policy; your listing will be removed and your account will be
suspended. We have seen suspension when a seller included offers
on description. Moreover, your product might end up in a wrong
browse node and your sales might get affected.
• When entering several words as a search term, put them in the
most logical order. A customer is more likely to search for big stuffed
teddy bears than for teddy stuffed bears.

49. Some don’ts
• Use a single space to separate keywords. No commas, semicolons,
carets are required.
• Don’t include common misspellings of the product name. Amazon's
search engine compensates for common customer misspellings and
also offers corrective suggestions.
• Don’t provide variants of spacing, punctuation, capitalisation, and
pluralisation (“80GB” and “80 GB”, “computer” and “computers”,
etc.). Our search engine automatically includes different case forms,
word forms and spelling variants for searching.
• Abbreviations, alternate names, topic (for books etc.), and key
character (for books, movies etc.) could be included as keywords.

50. Factors that influence your product
discoverability
Price
Paid Ads
Product Titles
Key Features
Product Descriptions
Structured Data – Brand, MPN
Product Search Terms
Parent-Child relationship

51. Group Listing Variations
• Main product title is Parent and variants e.g. size, colour are called
child
• They are better when listed together
• Group them together using a parent-child relationship.
• When customer finds one product they will find others as well
• Also they help to build product reviews for all products which again
help in ranking

53. Quick Recap
• There is no secret. Follow a checklist method to ensure all aspects of
listing optimisation is completed.
• Trial FBA if you have not
• Invest time on getting positive reviews
• Create a process driven checklist for Amazon Marketing Services
Most importantly – Do your own experiment and don’t trust expert
opinion!

54. Thank you !

55. https://uk.linkedin.com/in/prabhatshah

56. Our one of many success
Our work: sponsored ads management and product listing
optimisation
< Group Training and 1-to-1 consulting available >

57. Our one of many success
Our work: sponsored ads management and product listing
optimisation
< Group Training and 1-to-1 consulting available >

58. WhatwecandointheUK
andEUplatforms?

59. www.onlineselleruk.com
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