How to Promote Your Amazon Shop

Want To Know How To Promote Your Amazon Shop? Here’s How!

Are you one of the STAT people who have started selling in TIMeFRAMe on Amazon?

You may have noticed that there’s a lot of competition. And maybe business isn’t coming as easily as you thought it would. 

This post is all about ways on how to promote your Amazon Shop to get sales.

We’ll start with paid options and work to organic. Let’s get in.

It’s time to talk promotion. 

How To Promote Your Amazon Shop: Run Ads On Amazon

Obvious, right? Don’t throw your phone, we promise this isn’t a post full of airy “tips” lacking substance.

We’re starting with this because it’s the most obvious, but we’ll be sharing pros & cons and best practice suggestions for your Amazon Shop.

Plus, some points include bonus ideas for your small business and pro tips for what you need to watch out for. 

Pros & Cons of Running Ads on Amazon

Pros:

• Pay per click

You only pay when someone clicks your ad. Plus you can set a budget limit, especially helpful if you’re bootstrapping.

• Interest & keyword targeting

Choose long-tail keywords that show intent, and target based on interest and stage of buying. This ensures those clicks were “qualified”.

• Retargeting options

This shows previous website visitors your products in search results, shows a video ad to them on YouTube, or displays your product on their favorite site.

In short, you have options.

• Accurate data w/ no delays (unlike FB ads)

This applies to platforms like Facebook, we can see a delay in results reporting, sometimes by a few days.

On Google, especially when using Google Analytics, we’ve not noticed the same (or any) delay.

And speaking of GA, here’s a tutorial on Google Analytics setup if you want to know how to set up yours.

• Reach customers deeper into the buyer journey

Those intent-based keywords come into play here. Instead of “bookshelf ideas”, bid on “modern white bookshelf under $200”.

Cons:

• Requires time investment

Setting up, troubleshooting, and optimization take time. You’ll need to spend at least a couple of hours a week, at least during the first few months.

Then you’ll need to continue optimizing monthly. This is simply time man small biz owners don’t have.

• Requires an investment of money

You’ll want to use at least $500 a month to see results in a decent timeframe (a few weeks to a couple of months).

If you’re just starting or don’t have much, this may be off the table. If that’s the case, opt for the organic options we’ll be covering later in this post.

• Your shoppers need to be Amazon

Unless they’re on the platform, they won’t see your ad. This is a pro, too, because of the intent bit we discussed earlier.

But it also means you’re relying solely on Amazon’s audience to grow your business. We recommend coupling this with other marketing strategies.

Best Practice Suggestions When Running Paid Ads To Promote Your Amazon Shop

• Focus on keywords and SEO

This will help you rank organically in search results, and helps you show up in relevant shopper searches on the platform.

• Take good quality photos & have videos

Since folks can’t touch, weigh, or examine the product, they have to rely on videos and photos.

Make a good first impression or folks will leave and not come back. If you want to learn how to capture quality product shots, here’s our tutorial for that.

Or, you can also get our Amazon product photography services if you don’t have time to do it yourself.

• Do competitor research

Amazon is a price game for a lot of shoppers, so you should know whether you are above, below, or right in the middle of the pricing scale.

How To Promote Your Amazon Shop: Run Paid Ads On Social

Pros & Cons of Running Paid Social Ads

Let’s look at some of the benefits to running ads on social media (and some of the reasons you might not). 

Pros: 

• Low cost

The average cost per engagement is 0.12, which has slightly increased from last year.

You can use small monthly budgets, sometimes even just a few hundred dollars can go a long way.

• Big potential reach

Billions of people are on social media, and there’s a platform for every audience. Facebook and Instagram are great places to start.

TikTok is amazing for growth. Here’s our TikTok ads for beginners post that you can read next if you need some help getting started.

• Easy to use

The platforms are simple enough to use once you know your way around.

Though these platforms are always changing and can be overwhelming at first, they’re not difficult.

Cons:

• Distractions

This includes travel inspo, cats doing cute things, news, and dozens of other ads…

….that can distract social media users from following your ad out to your site or watching your video fully.

• Big-time investment

Coming up with ideas, researching social media holidays, doing hashtag research…

…writing captions, creating graphics, organizing the feed, scheduling the posts…

…we’re tired just going through that list, and as a small business owner, when will you find the time? Honestly.

• Long-game strategy

Social really isn’t the place to get sales. Yes, you can and should be tagging products, using CTAs, and promoting your business…

…but social is more about building relationships, and those sales typically come through paid efforts.

Or, after months and months of consistent posting, adding value, and nurturing those relationships.

Best Practice Suggestions When Running Social Ads To Promote Your Amazon Shop

• Use A/B testing

Figure out what does and doesn’t work with A/B testing. Check out our Facebook ad testing post next to learn more about A/B testing.

• Go for quality traffic and then retarget for conversions

You can try cold targeting conversions…

…but you can usually get a cheaper cost per result by building up a retargeting office and showing conversion campaigns to them.

This is something you’d want to test. It may be changing as FB unveils Advantage+ Shopping Ads.

• Utilize Machine Learning (when it works)

Automated ads, dynamic creative, and audience expansion are all tools to help your ads perform better with less effort on your part.

While the robots are willing, let them make your life easier.

• Use Dynamic Ads (set up your catalog)

Speaking of machine learning, dynamic creative, showing products they were browsing, both possibilities when you use dynamic creative.

Ideas

• Offer a coupon to first-time customers  
• Retarget visitors with products from their abandoned cart  
• Run a brand awareness campaign with a video telling your brand story 
• Collect email addresses or contact information (lead generation) 
• Get page followers or engagement on your post or profile
• Get app installs or increase in-app activity

What to Watch For

• Cost Per Result – Make sure it’s affordable for you.
• Frequency – This is how often (on average) each person has seen your ad. Once you reach a 3 or 4, it’s time to freshen creatives.
• Audience overlap – You don’t want to be bidding against yourself. It’s the worst.

How To Promote Your Amazon Shop: Get Found On Search Engines

If you already have an Amazon listing (or have looked into it at all), you probably know how important keywords are.

SEO (search engine optimization) is ensuring that you use terms, phrases, and words that people will actually use to search for your product. 

Build organic traffic with on-page SEO (takes time, but is worth the effort) and/or prepare paid ads to expedite results. 

Pros & Cons of Using SEO

Pros: 

• Lots of people search as part of their buyer journey

Billions of people use search engines every day to research everything from life events to small household purchases.

Google, of course, is the main search engine with YouTube (owned by Google) a close second. You can reach folks at every stage of the journey.

• Target for intent

You can choose keyword phrases that show intent, like the example we shared above. You can also opt for “in-market” audiences on Google.

• Shopping ads show up

Take up more real estate for keywords you want with search AND shopping ads.

Both can display at the same time (and you are charged when someone clicks.)

Cons:

• Requires management

This requires ongoing keyword optimization for paid ads, and researching and adding new and relevant keywords to your organic strategy.

Plus, creating the content and imagery – it’s a lot.

• Costs money

Again, if you’re bootstrapping, even just a couple hundred dollars a month goes a long way.

• Organic strategy is a long game

Building SEO, blogging, sharing backlinks, guest posting, etc. is a lot.

It often pays off, but often not for a while. If you need immediate results, this may not be the strategy for you.

Best Practice Suggestions When Using SEO To Promote Your Amazon Shop

• Use Performance Max on Google Ads

it’s automated, it shows on all Google properties, and it utilizes dynamic creative.

Just monitor them and don’t just follow what they say without questioning it.

• Connect product feeds ASAP

Even if you aren’t ready to run ads promoting your products yet…

…connect your shopping feed as soon as possible so you can troubleshoot early and have it ready to go.

• Check analytics & optimize

Don’t set it and forget it! Check back in every couple of weeks, especially at the beginning. Then you can start to check in monthly.

Ideas

• Blogging – Write articles focused on specific keywords.

• Backlinking – We recently created a post with tips and ideas on how to build backlinks, so check that out after you finish this one.
• Run PPC Ads – For the sake of time, we won’t cover that in this post, but we have lots of posts about this topic here on our blog. 
• Pinterest is a search engine – It’s true! Pinterest is a search engine, so optimize your pins (leading to your product or website).

How To Promote Your Amazon Shop: Vertical Video (Organic Social)

Pros & Cons of Using Vertical Videos

Pros:

• TikTok is growing

TikTok just passed 3 billion downloads worldwide (took Facebook 10 years to do that).

And it’s not just for young folks – 1 billion monthly active users.

TikTok’s generation Z penetration is the highest in America. 47.4% of their active users are aged between 10 and 29.

However, American adults using TikTok grew 5.5 times in the last 18 months, with a 2:1 female to male gender ratio.

• Users prefer video

78% of people watch online videos every week, and 55% view online videos every day.

72% of customers said they would rather learn about a product or service by way of video.

In fact, 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video

• Easier than ever to get into it

You only need an iPhone or Android phone, ring light or natural light, and a built-in microphone that works well.

Cons:

• Takes time to conceptualize

You have to use the platform to understand the trends and the nuance, which is hard to do when you have a million things to do.

• You have to be the talent (or get creative)

Unless you’re using product video or slicing together stock footage, you have to be in front of the camera.

And even if you use good stock footage, you’d still have to put it together.

• Editing is time-consuming (or requires an employee or freelancer)

If you don’t have time to put it all together, then that means an in-house person or a freelancer. That can get pricy, even at part-time hours.

• Writing captions, finding hashtags, and scheduling takes hours every week

It’s not a difficult task, but it’s time probably better spent on the things that you and you alone can do for your business.

Best Practice Suggestions When Using Videos To Promote Your Amazon Shop

• Stay up to date with trending audio (check apps for that)
• Make trends work for your business
• Follow the data
• Engage with the viewers & commenters (social media is supposed to be social)
• Focus on adding value (why would someone follow you after that post)

Ideas

• Ask users to tag your products

UGC is incredibly valuable to small businesses. It’s a great form of social proof and a positive review, even from a stranger online.

Plus, it is more trusted by many shoppers than any positive advertisement from the company.

• Work with influencers

Focus on micro-influencers (10,000 or less). Others are just too expensive, and micro-influencers tend to have more engaged audiences anyway.

• Educational series

Pick a broad topic that your customer would be interested in learning more about (make it related to your product).

Publish videos to this series regularly. Each video should be a singular subtopic.

• Reaction videos

Tell a story, connect to an emotion (heartwarming, funny, jump scare), and capture authentic social proof.

These are used everywhere but they don’t get old.

So those are our tips to help you promote your Amazon Shop!

As with any form of digital marketing these days, it will take some trial and error. Just get started, use the data to inform your next steps, and dive in!

If you need any help with your Amazon marketing, we’re just a call away! Get in touch with us today to schedule a free meeting.

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