Use Amazon Ranking to Boost Your Brand

When it comes to buying online, 72 percent of shoppers use Amazon to search for new products. With Amazon neck-and-neck with Google to become the world’s favorite product discovery tool, this means that many direct-to-consumer brands should consider using Amazon as a marketing tool.

Selling with Amazon is a great way to grow your online business. Ranking on Amazon can go a long way toward not just increasing sales, but also building authority and visibility for your brand. For some online sellers, Amazon’s product discovery engine can help increase brand exposure with an audience that is interested and ready to buy.

Looking to extend the market reach of your brand and products beyond Amazon? Use Amazon as a marketing tool to first pique the interest of shoppers and then leverage your brand equity to entice them to connect directly with your company. In this two-part series, we’ll cover how to do just that.

Amazon Sales Rank: A9 Algorithm Overview

A high Amazon Ranking is crucial to getting your brand found on the marketplace. How does ranking on Amazon work? When a user searches for a product on Amazon, Amazon extracts relevant results from their entire product catalog and then ranks them according to relevance. Amazon’s goal with their A9 algorithm is to maximize the possible revenue per customer. The following criteria are likely contributing factors in determining how buyer-friendly a product is:

• Conversion rate: How often shoppers buy your product helps you rank higher on search result pages. Amazon has found that reviews, image quality, and prices have the most impact on conversion.
• Relevance: To be considered for a search result, your product needs to be completely relevant to what potential buyers are searching for.
• Customer satisfaction: The more positive seller feedback and product reviews you obtain, the more likely you’ll rank and keep customers coming back.

The algorithm shows us that, in order to win at Amazon SEO, sellers will need to increase sales, optimize products for relevance, and keep customers happy. Your business can take these methods a step further in order to build your brand at every turn.

Drive Conversions with Amazon PPC And The “Flywheel Effect”

To increase your ranking and product search visibility, your business can capitalize on Amazon’s “Flywheel Effect”, a feedback loop of advertising, pricing, and customer experience that all function together to push a product’s performance forward.

This is the Flywheel in action: A seller invests in paid ads to drive traffic to their pages. Increased traffic helps boost their positions, increasing the likelihood of earning the “Amazon’s Choice” label. This ranking and label attract more shoppers, leading to even more purchases and reviews that continue to improve product rankings.

Triggering the “Flywheel Effect” is just the beginning. Once you’ve earned shopper attention, make sure their experience with your brand is top-notch every step of the way. A consistent and positive shopper experience can go a long way toward building your brand’s reputation both on Amazon and in the broader market.

Next Steps: Using Your Amazon Ranking to Boost Your Brand

Improving your ranking on Amazon is an effective way to catch the attention of your target market. Your appearance on search results pages and product listing pages encourages browsing, improves your company recognition, and builds your brand equity with Amazon shoppers. If sustained, this brand equity will translate to recognition, trust, and customer loyalty—on Amazon and off.

In Part 2, we’ll discuss how you can leverage your product listing and storefront on Amazon to encourage customers to connect directly with your brand. Check out Using Amazon to Boost Your Brand (Part 2): Your Amazon Product Listing and Storefront to learn more.