What's Working for Amazon FBA 2017 - Tips and Tricks responsible for 7 Figures (22)
What's Working for Amazon FBA 2017 - Tips and Tricks responsible for 7 Figures
Hey Stackers,
Over the past year, I've helped run some of the most successful brands on Amazon. Here are some quick optimizations and strategies you can implement today on Amazon FBA and increase sales.
Listings:
- EBC Stuffing – when you create EBC (Enhanced Brand Content) your description is hidden. This is great, you can revisit this space and dump 2000 characters of keywords in there to index. With the new limitations on backend keywords, there’s finally a space to add almost as many as you can think of. This has led to a 4x increase in sales within a week on multiple products
- Image Upsells - People to tend to ignore special offers on Amazon. Put your upsells where people will look – in the images! Images 3-6 work best for including offers that utilize tiered discounts (Buy 2, save 10% on both) or cross sells (Buy Item X + Item Y and save 15%) - This works really well when you have related products.
- Coupon Stacks – People also ignore the coupon and special offer section – Stack it high with 7-10 discounts even if they’re the same thing to get people to take notice when they scroll on the page.
- Keyword Research – my process is really simple. I use Seller Lab’s Ignite tool not as much for PPC as I do for running Reverse Asin searches – I copy and paste into an excel sheet, and then copy it again into AMS Headline Search Ad Creation tool to get keyword volume from Amazon.
- Keyword Research Part 2: Use AMS Headline Search Ad Creation -> Add 3 Competitor’s products for your ad and then Amazon will suggest their best keywords for you to use! Copy this and combine with the above to be able to get 500-1000 keywords in less than 10 minutes.
- Best Seller Badge: Based on the subcategory. If your BSR is better than the No. 1 in any subcategory – switch your product to that category and instantly get the best seller badge - can increase daily revenue by 10-25%
- Backend Keywords: Don’t forget to fill up almost every field on your backend. Subject Matter and Intended Audience are great to put important keywords.
PPC:
- Catchall Campaign – 2-4% ACOS
- Create an automatic campaign that includes every product on your account with super low bids ($.10-.15) – forces Amazon to get you cheap clicks and find good long tails. This campaign won’t be high volume, but has gotten great results - $72 ad spend, $3900 in revenue, in 2 weeks. I have tested this on around 25 Amazon accounts and this always works.
- Single Keyword Campaigns: If you’re in a very competitive niche, don’t be afraid to have some campaigns with only one keyword – this sometimes works out really well and is worth experimenting on.
- Force Keyword Impressions (sometimes works): Create a High Budget campaign using only keywords that are getting no impressions. Amazon will sometimes start giving these some love.
- Force Keyword Relevancy by using a SuperURL to buy the product: If there are keywords you really want to advertise on and Amazon doesn’t think you’re relevant enough – get sales using the SuperURLs below on that keyword to trick Amazon into thinking you’re relevant.
- Advertise on your own Brand Name – if you aren’t doing this, someone else is. Protect your space and your sales by advertising your own brand name. Results on my branded campaign for just 1 week - $59 spent, $2249 Revenue.
- Optimization – 90% of your PPC work should be done at the search term level. PPC is easy – just take out the bad, and put in more good.
Promotions:
SuperURL
The SuperURL is back in full force. All of the deal sites (Zonblast, Viral Launch, etc) use these superurls, use your digital marketing experience to own your customers while using these links to rank new products within days. I have tested these on dozens of products and they work incredibly well for very competitive nutra products including Fish Oil, Preworkout, Garcinia Cambogia and more.
See Instructions and screenshots + a breakdown of Amazon URLS at AMZKungfu.com/2Step
Storefront URL: Storefront URL is the best if you can use it – only one search result + minimal ads.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...words=turmeric
Keyword + ASIN URL:
Example: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...%2B+B00HHLNRVE
Another tip: Sign up for the consumer side of the deal platforms to get an idea of which competitor's are Amazon savvy: Zonblast = UberZonClub, Viral Launch = EliteDealClub, Vipon, and Snagshout
Unknown Chinese Amazon Software:
- Haimai – a tool from the Chinese Amazon Team – a free dashboard that it easy to see daily sales, traffic, and conversion per asin/sku – saves a ton of team digging around in reports. This is the default home screen for Chinese Amazon Sellers
- Ziniao: Amazing Chinese Keyword tool, you’ll need a Chinese phone number and Wechat pay to use it, but very useful to find backend keywords or some interesting analysis. Recommended.
- AMZ123.com – Chinese Amazon Affiliate Site that has links to every site, service and forum for Chinese sellers.
Upsells, Cross Sells, Loyalty Programs
- VIP Card -> Manychat Landing Page Growth Tool
- Use Taobao to find providers of plastic cards to put in your packaging – the same feel and weight as a credit card to make it seem premium – better than a paper insert that gets ignored. A link on the card should go to either a special landing page on your site “yourbrand.com/VIP” or use a redirect to send them to a Manychat landing page growth tool to enroll in VIP by giving you their name and email.
- You can also use Manychat to automate much of your customer support, warranties, etc. Use keywords to send automatic replies to phrases such as “won’t charge” “cracked” or “refund” – by keeping communication open off Amazon, people can come to you first instead of leaving bad reviews.
- Tag Manychat Users based on Product (use Zapier) and then use “Bought X but not Y” campaigns to cross sell them. Send 30 day purchase reminders if your product is consumable.
Helpful Zapier Integrations:
- Amazon Seller Central -> CRM, CRM -> Add Tag (based on the product) to Manychat
- Amazon Seller Central -> Manychat
- Amazon Seller Central -> CRM -> FB Offline Event Set
Facebook Ads:
- Set up your offline event set and customer audience using ManagebyStats.com
- Discounts or Contest -> Manychat -> Landing Page with SuperURL -> Amazon
- See screenshots from one of my competitors by going to: Amzkungfu.com/GSS
- Use Reverse Psychology on Ads "This is limited to 3 per customer" to make them want to buy 3 instead of just one. A huge part of the algorithm is conversion rate, and if a customer buys 2 or more units in one session, your average conversion rate skyrockets.
Reviews:
- Review emails don’t work anymore – Amazon blocks 90% of communication with customers (+1 for
Shopify ). Port your Emails over to Manychat or your VIP landing page. Some people I know are even sending computer “hand written” messages to customer’s house. With Manychat I've been able to get 360 real reviews from real buyers for one product within 60 days. - The subject line that worked the best was "Only 3.2% of Amazon Buyers Leave Reviews" with a 30% Open Rate
- Using Visual Cues (HTML Stars) is surprisingly effective to make people click the links.
- You can also spy on competitor’s inserts and see what they have set up (look at “customer images on the listing to see most inserts without buying the product”. Some have website funnels for this. Some people used to iframe to the review page on Amazon, but that has been shut down.
Blackhat
Amazon pretends that black hat tactics do not exist on their platform. There are 20-35 ways to destroy your competitor's account on Amazon with no defense. Here's one for educational purposes only.
1. Pop Traffic with PopAds.Net or Similar. - URL is your competitor's Amazon Link -> $3-5 per day over a few days at lowest bid and blank referrer could destroy their conversion rates.
Happy Q4! Comment below if this helps you or you'd like to learn more about Amazon in the future. Post any Amazon Questions, Tips or Tricks below.
Damn! This is a fantastic post. Gold stuff!
I think these are great tips. But to be honest i strongly disprove with the blackhat technique here and who it is targeting.
Usually blackhat techniques are targeting big companies and traffic sources like FB and Google. Now here its just plain mean, for all you know you could be targeting a fellow AM and forum member. I say Amazon is a big pond and there's room for a lot of fish. This method can potentiality harm the small players just trying to make a living.
I'm not trying to pass judgment here on anyone but i know i wouldn't feel comfortable with that.
With that being said i really think your post is golden and i have learned a few things here ill surely test.
@zack - thanks - this is awesome stuff.
Def. don't want this to go into the direction of the black hat item, as it is such a small part of a post with massive value.
I would say that it's important to be aware of which black hat techniques are out there, as it can definitely help figure out what's going on when you are the target yourself.
And believe me - there are plenty of legitimate Amazon sellers that have been hit with attacks with the sole purpose of destoying whatever business they have on Amazon.
There's a lot to go through in this list - I'll definitely will be trying out and testing things!
Fuck!!! Zack you are the truth baby! This is more than worth the price of admission. The blackhat example opens my mind on other ways to scale not to put anyone down. Zack you are a savage for this one. Thank you for the bottom of my wallet bro!
Thanks Zack!
More great info! I love this!
I signed up to a Amazon FBA a little while ago, but your information here is so valuable I'm hoping to build a good brand on Amazon.
One big knowledge bomb - thanks Zack you're awesome!
Amy
Dude! This post is gold!! Literally changed my whole approach to promoting on amazon!
Thank you so freaking much!!
I would like to throw down another tip to these who have a vendor central account (and maybe it’s possible to be accomplished in seller central as well using support.)
In vendor central, Amazon has two types of Keywords (see image)
Generic Keyword (optional) – Provide any terms that may be relevant to customer searches
I believe this one is the same as the backend search keywords in seller central, we are also able to change it from the vendor central interface
Subject Keyword - Provide keywords that describe the subject of the item, these are hidden terms used in search (limited to only 100 chars :-( )
These keywords we actually have to submit via feed to vendor central and support than applies them.
I am currently testing the effect on a couple products which are not actively promoting to see how well this can effect. But from speaking to support over the phone, they explained that this section actually has a lot of weight.
I am wondering also how would this effect with combination of superURL promotions…
I also have a couple questions if you don’t mind
Not really sure what is VIP card, you mean the plastic cards to place in the shipment?
And when you refer to ManyChat as a landing page, is that something similar to what you did with the AMZKungfu.com/2Step page?
And to be truly honest, I would love to hear about some other methods like that, this type of info can actually help us protect our hard work!
From now on, i will be checking sessions DAILY and flag any discrepancies.
Have you ever faced with such attack? You think seller support/seller performance can actually help with something like that?
From all of our communication with Amazon it seems that they have no ability to actually modify things that effect the algorithms.
We opened another account recently, and even though the parent account has over 20K feedbacks, not seller support/ account managers/ performance mangers were able to remove the 90 days “trial” holds amazon places on the accounts.
It feels like the access to effect anything related to the algorithm is really truly restricted
Altough, its important to mention, when Amazon lunched his basics lines, they all appeared top results the same day, so they must have some control on search results and algos... :-)
Thanks again man, this is truly GOLD!
Originally Posted by Zack
Quick update for this post based on $367,000 of new product launches from the last month
1. Snagshout "slow burn" strategy - I now just set and forget Snagshout giveaways for a month at a time with the keyword boost turned on. Depending on competition, I typically do 5 units per day at just above the break even cost. This way I'm not losing money, but my conversion rates stay high and I'm constantly getting super URL sales. I was even able to rank on the first page of Dash Cam and beat Anker's ROAV listing within the month. The boost to conversion rate really helps you stay in a good position after my launch strategy of Facebook contests.
2. Big changes to Google - You can now customer match with just name and address, which allows you to use your Amazon data across all of Google's services. Use Adwords, Gmail Ads, Display, and Youtube Ads for your Amazon customers. Currently playing around with this, and wondering just how far to take it. Examples: Putting a subject "Re: your Amazon Order for {Brand}" and getting the review or an instant upsell - Youtube videos for cross selling and reviews - Google Display + Facebook + Email for retention for supplements.
3. Backend Keywords Hyphenation - I didn't realize this, but adding a hyphen allows you to add many variations into backend keywords. Example: "cam-era" will provide Amazon with "Cam" "Cams" and "Camera" or "Anti-Aging" will work for Anti, Aging, or Anti-Aging. So use a lot of hyphens for maximum effect.
Originally Posted by Zack
One question though: whats the risk of using Super URL and Snagshout to my Amazon account? I would love to increase sales but wouldn't want to get suspended...
The Risk is quite low, I've been in talks with all the main suspension services and they never see suspensions for "ranking manipulation" - it's quite safe at the moment.
I've done this across many accounts, niches, and products with no performance notifications or suspensions.
Great stuff - thanks for posting.
Just wondering about the customer match in Google. Do you just google their name and address?
On another note, do you use repricers? Any you can recommend? We are currently testing appeagle. Seems to do the job, but always interested in what else is out there and works.
Thanks!
Really great read, thank you Zack
Super-valuable as ever - the update's going in next week's newsletter!
Originally Posted by Zack
Zack - Not to be greedy, but I KNOW you have a ton more knowledge to share! Looking forward to more awesome posts like these!
Amy
Amazing post, this is some legit advice for next level Amazon sellers!
I'm a mid 7 figure Amazon seller and I'm going to pm you to have a chat, but before I did, I just wanted to publicly acknowledge this info is on point 
@Zack
thank you for the tips. I am not sure if you are still active on STM, but I am using AMS for POD products and was wondering which campaign bidding strategy should be used.
I am currently using fixed bids, but I have read somewhere that dynamic bids - down only are supposed to be better in terms of lowest ACOS.
I always wanted to have the full control and when starting new products with no sales history I thought that fixed bids will be best to choose.
Would love to hear some thoughts of other Amazon sellers as well.
Originally Posted by kaizen502
"Dynamic Down is usually the best, after you dial in everything else you can test the other options.
It's very worthwhile to test the placement modifiers as well.
Video in search is great."
Amy
Hey Kaizen,
It's a great question, I would almost always start with dynamic down until everything else is going well, and then you can test.
Optimizing the "placements" as far as top of search vs product pages is usually more effective than split testing the bid strategy there.
Some other thoughts since I don't know what kind of campaign you're setting up here.
For Auto campaigns - set up a campaign for each "match type" - complements, substitutes, close match, loose match.
Take high performing asins from the auto and use them for product display ads. For anything that's more based on visual products like maybe some POD, Product display ads can work very well for products that don't fit a keyword exactly.
Set up some manual campaigns - I like to have some ranking campaigns where I just have 2-4 keywords I want to rank for on exact, and then several other manual campaigns for the product.
Video in search is where it's at right now - go big on this. Most brands are too lazy to make videos.
Originally Posted by Zack
Thanks so much for the most insightful reply!
You really should share some of those juicy numbers you were showing me, here on the forum. People need to know dropshipping isn't dead!
Amy
@Zack
thank you a lot for your detailed reply. That helps in my future tests!
With POD I have a lot of products, so I try to keep the setup as lean as possible, but I will definitely consider using some tactics. Video works great especially with some of the bestsellers.
With Dynamic Down I have always the doubt that I will get no impressions especially on new products that do not have a lot of conversion data to compete, but I will test this on a few established products for sure.
I was watching your talks from the past AWs and will also try to run more external traffic on some products where I can use Amazon Attribution to see if I can push some rankings. Are there any deal platforms that can be used as well to get outside traffic? I remember that you have your own deal site if I am correct.
Thanks!
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