Competing with the likes of Amazon is a lesson in futility for most e-commerce marketers — especially today, on Prime Day. That’s why many have become Amazon sellers and decided to join forces with the online retail giant, instead of selling on their own.
If you are one of the over 2 million Amazon sellers, then you know how competitive it can be. However, there is a way to increase your chances of success: Take a data-driven approach.
While that might sound tricky, a data-driven approach can be simple to execute. You don’t need to be an analytical ninja to begin harness data. Here are a few tips to begin leveraging your data to sell more on Amazon.
Use Amazon Seller Central to Track Important Business Metrics
If you have never looked at your reports in Amazon Seller Central, now is a good time to get acquainted. This is where e-commerce marketers can find important data.
You will find a variety of data on anything from sales to your PPC campaigns, but this data isn’t worth much unless you have established your key metrics. Which metrics should you track? That depends on your business, but some common metrics to track on Amazon include the following:
- Revenue
- Costs (such as FBA fees, PPC campaigns, promos, etc.)
- Profit
- Best seller rank
- Gross margin ROI
- Inventory-to-sales ratio
- Inventory turns
- Days of inventory
There are plenty of other metrics that you can track. Here is an excellent breakdown from BigCommerce on how to tell if your Amazon business is profitable.
Optimize Your Product Listings With Split-Testing
We’ve talked about using data to find the best keywords for your product listings. Now, let’s discuss how you can use A/B testing (otherwise known as split-testing) to optimize them. Essentially, you’ll test two different versions of your product listing. Split-testing can boost e-commerce conversion rates, which is key to higher visibility on Amazon.
Begin by split-testing your product images on your best sellers. Images are the first thing that Amazon users see, and they can make a big impact on your conversion rates.
Track Products and Keywords
Do you know where your product listings rank and which keywords they rank for? If not, then you need to find out.
Tracking your products and keywords is key to maximizing your sales on Amazon. By identifying the right keywords, you can optimize your product listings to boost conversion rates, improve your best seller rank and beat your competitors.
Few marketers enjoy doing keyword research, but it pays off in the long run. If you have a Google AdWords account, you can use Keyword Planner to get keyword ideas.
Create a Long-term Pricing Strategy
When consumers first begin searching for products, many start on Amazon — because they are looking for the best price.
When it comes to your Amazon pricing strategy, analyzing your Amazon seller data can be both good and bad for your success in the marketplace. Many inexperienced sellers change their prices when they notice a drop in sales over a few days.
If your share price drops, don’t instantly react by changing your prices. Instead, carefully watch your elasticity over time and form a long-term pricing strategy based on your data. By setting stable prices, you are building consumer trust.
You can also rely on automated tools that adjust prices without going below a certain amount. These can help you win the buy box without damaging your bottom line.
Test Amazon Sponsored Products
Amazon Sponsored Ads is a pay-per-click advertising solution that can help boost the visibility of your product listings. Although they can be highly effective, this is one area where you can’t afford to ignore data.
If you’re new to Amazon PPC, you can first test an automated campaign. Automatic targeting ads appear to shoppers based on the relevance of the shopper’s query to your product’s content. These ads are designed to generate higher search traffic to your ads.
To improve the performance of your Amazon PPC campaigns, you need to pay close attention to your data and adjust keywords, bids and pricing as necessary. By identifying your most profitable keywords, you can spend more on what is working. Let your campaigns run for at least a week before making adjustments. You may not see sales in the first few days, because it sometimes takes Amazon a few days to generate a report.
Centralize Your Data
When you enter the multichannel retail arena, things can get complicated fast. Tracking costs, managing inventory and analyzing data are difficult when they are scattered across multiple platforms. It’s far easier to consolidate your tools and view your data on a single marketing platform. Choose a robust tool that makes it easy to launch your products on Amazon and that provides you with data in real-time. This will help you manage your inventory, shipping and logistics, identify underperforming products and, ultimately, increase your sales.
Final Words for Amazon Sellers
As one the largest online retailers in the world, Amazon offers significant advantages to e-commerce marketers. But if you aren’t taking a data-driven approach to selling on Amazon, then you are leaving money on the table.
You don’t need to master your data overnight to start maximizing your sales on Amazon. By leveraging the tactics listed above, you can take small steps toward a data-driven strategy — and big steps toward bigger profits.
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