Promote and sell your own products on Amazon ? Performance and content marketing are essential for retailers and brands on the e-commerce platform. This German company shows you what to look out for!
Purchasing is enthusiastic about the new product – expectations of performance and sales figures are high. What then follows, however, is an unpleasant realization: even if the product makes an excellent impression in reality, it can neither be well presented nor sold online. At the German e-commerce company Sellvin, that’s what they call the Sophia effect: “Sophia was a very high-quality bedspread in our range. The quality of the blanket was much higher than the regular microfiber blanket, but we couldn’t get that across online. This is an article that you have to touch, ”explains Dorothea Zehnpfennig. She is responsible for content marketing at Sellvin Hürth near Cologne.
Your colleague Patrick Müller takes care of performance marketing and advertising. Together they have a lot of expertise when it comes to selling successfully on platforms. In the Zoom interview, both of them shared their five most important tips with us.
1. Unique content
“We create different content for each platform and our own shop. We do not want our offers mutually cannibalizing, ”explains Zehnpfennig. The first focus is on Amazon. Titles, bullet points, images and A + content are the main focus for Sellvin’s products. Especially products that are important for SEO are edited manually. Dorothea Zehnpfennig had all the products in hand.
2. Research in advance
“You have to plan time for each listing” – that sounds banal, says Zehnpfennig, but you are always tempted to shorten processes. She wants to invest half a day in each product to see what the important keywords are, how the competition is doing – and she analyzes the data. “Brand analytics is a powerful tool,” she says.
3. Image production
First, the product is classified. Which ten unique selling points does it have? A photo passport is derived from this. “How can you express the USP in the picture?” Asks the Cologne native. In their experience, users no longer read the text, but also receive the facts, especially through the images. A size comparison is made by always seeing hands in the picture. “There are pictures out there that don’t work,” says Zehnpfennig. Sellvin has just completely rebuilt the subject of images in recent years. You let professional photographers do the work and present the products in their context of use. “The picture is the alpha and omega for the conversion and therefore also for the ranking.”
4. Retail Media
The competition on Amazon is extremely high and there are a lot of cheap products. “A large part of the products can hardly be distinguished from ours optically,” says Patrick Müller. Nevertheless, advertising works best for him in the Amazon universe, simply because the purchase decision is so close and because the sheer reach is so large. “You also accept a higher CPC than on the smaller platforms.”
However, Müller does not want to rule out that smaller platforms can also play a role in advertising. The French platform Manomano is growing very strongly organically for the Cologne-based company. They are just looking carefully. But the process works like in content marketing: “First test it on Amazon and then transfer it to other platforms,” says Müller.
5. Instagram for awareness
It is not directly part of Sellvin’s business model to bring inventions or previously completely unknown products to the market. Nevertheless, Müller and Zehnpfennig clearly see that Amazon SEO will not be enough for such a product. Awareness is increasingly being addressed on other channels, for example on Instagram with short video clips that explain what is new about the product. There is hardly enough brand space on Amazon itself. “That works better with ads than with content, because we can better address different target groups.”
6. Tools and structure
Both content and performance marketing work with keyword and data tools specifically focused on Amazon such as Helium10 , Sellics, and Amalyze . For Müller, it is particularly important that the advertising account has a very clear structure so that he can quickly output reports and change parameters. “Sounds basic, but everyone knows that a gradually growing offer becomes chaotic at some point.” The naming of the line items follows the principle: brand, category, exact product including color and size.
7. Trend surfing
Current keyword trends are also reflected on Amazon. “During the corona crisis, we let a back support pillow run specifically for the keyword home office,” explains Müller. At the same time, content marketing also takes on such trends in the description. “Some of our ideas come from DIY areas on Instagram or Pinterest,” says the Cologne native.
8. The brand on Amazon
“No, the topic of brands is not difficult on Amazon,” Zehnpfennig defends himself against the critical thesis. Amazon is gradually strengthening this as part of the A + content, with the seller account and of course when displaying product recommendations under its own articles. “It’s also about protecting our offer from plagiarism.” Each product title starts with the name of the brand. Brand keywords play a role in advertising insofar as they are cheap to advertise. With one exception: “Of course we also advertise with competitors.” But advertising in competition is expensive.
Brand safety is one of the most important goals in advertising and at the same time serves to upsell with complementary products. “Basically, it is important to be clear beforehand what exactly the campaign is supposed to achieve,” says Patrick Müller. That also decides targeting, creatives and ad placement. “You should use all formats and coordinate the creatives with one another.”
9. Answer questions
“If the seller replies himself, it creates a lot of trust.” Dorothea Zehnpfennig takes care of bad reviews and criticism in order to show the next user that you are involved and are looking for an exchange. In addition, the important questions and problems give rise to suggestions for optimizing the product content. However, according to the Sellvin experts, FAQ topics do not play a major role in the search. Here the “Amazon search engine”, so much touted in the past, is clearly product-heavy.
10. Know listing rules
Each category has its own Amazon laws and hardly anyone knows them. Zehnpfennig is surprised that some retailers are surprised at a ban, even though they have clearly broken the rules. Rules such as showing the word “Special Offer” or promoting “Free Shipping”. “Then comes the seller performance – also known as the Amazon police – and then your listing is closed and then it takes weeks for it to be restored,” says the Cologne-based woman.
Additional tip: test car campaigns
Müller finds the auto campaign function particularly exciting when he is unsure about the positioning of a new product and the associated keywords. “With auto campaigns, you just give Amazon the product and Amazon controls the display itself.” After two weeks, Patrick’s team analyzes the performance and uses the learnings from the Amazon AI to refine a campaign.
Talking to the experts, it becomes abundantly clear how exciting it can be when the “number crunchers” from performance marketing can get along well with the “fine minds” from content marketing. Müller would like to see even closer cooperation.
And the subject of “competition on Google”? He frowns: “We rank behind Amazon when it comes to our own products, you can’t get past that”. Above all, the fact that customers are missing in his own shop annoys him. “We just don’t have enough data for CRM at Amazon customers.”