Rock Your Q4
By Liz Downing, Ecommerce Marketing Manager | Teikametrics
It seems like everybody is writing about, podcasting about, and webinaring (yes, I just made up that word) about Q4. Why? Well, eMarketer predicts retail ecommerce sales to increase by 16.8% this year – to $4.921 trillion globally. And you know that Amazon is a big piece of that pie. So what can you do to make sure you’re set up for success for the busiest selling season on Amazon? LOTS.
Be Smart About Your Inventory
It’s hard to be smart about your inventory when Amazon throws curveballs at you every Q4, right? This past April, Account Level Restock limits were announced. This is something beyond normal inventory limits. Restock limits aren’t tied to your Inventory Performance Index (IPI), nor are they based on GSV. For their Restock Algorithm, Amazon cares about turnover, so think about a perfectly run supply chain where JUST the right number of each SKU is drip-fed into FBA at the exact right frequency, maintaining a perfect 30 days of stock, but no more, with zero out-of-stock time. Haha, right? The fact that you have to think about that now, in addition to keeping your IPI score where it needs to be to avoid actual inventory limits, is bananas. What can you do about it? Namely, get help. Most sellers and brand owners need the following to keep their inventory situation as awesome as possible:
- 1 or more 3PLs
- Consider diversifying your sourcing
- Implement inventory management software early so it can work for you
Keep an eye on your IPI score, and monitor your inventory closely to make sure you’re checking all of Amazon’s boxes that measure your performance.
Make Your Listings Sing
Top selling ASINs have better images, longer descriptions, perfectly crafted feature bullets, great keywords, and helpful (and compliant) product titles. Let’s work backward.
Great Product Titles
- Cap out at 50 words (even though you’re allowed 200)
- Have a consistent structure – brand name>variant info>size/weight>1-2 keywords
You’ll want to keep product titles shorter so that they are visible on Amazon. There was an irritating trend of keyword stuffing in product titles, and all that does is make for a messy, unreadable product title that shoppers will be happy to ignore. A consistent structure helps with your advertising strategy, as well as making your product title easy for consumers to understand.
Feature Bullets
- Highlight the benefits of your product, starting with the most interesting or beneficial
- Have helpful keywords, but aren’t keyword-stuffed
- Don’t have emojis, punctuation, or all caps
Third-party sellers have up to five feature bullets to highlight why a shopper should buy their product. These bullets help potential buyers find your products, but they have to be compliant. That’s why no emojis, punctuation, or all caps – all those are against Amazon policy.
Smart Keyword Strategy
- Words are shoppers using to find your product
- Words are shoppers using to find your competitor’s products?
You have to include the right keywords for your listings to be found, and for your advertising efforts to work. Why put a bunch of money, time and effort into Amazon ads if your listings are keyword optimized? If you don’t know how to do this yourself, ask for help from a professional.
Product Descriptions
- Are “concise, honest, and friendly…”
- Highlight your product’s features and benefits
- Don’t mention competitors
This is all clearly stated by Amazon on the Product Description page. Keep in mind that if you’re Brand Registered and have A+ content on your product detail page, you have to plenty of optimized text in there too. If you use all images, you miss out on search.
Making sure your listings are great is so important. If you don’t have the time or the patience to do this yourself, hire someone reputable to do it for you.
Amp Up Your Advertising
Ideally, you’ll have an advanced ad strategy in place well ahead of time so you can take advantage of increased traffic to your listings. You should think about increasing your budget for key holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday – in a recent webinar, Andrew Waber, Director of Insights here at Teikametrics, said that a good baseline is to budget about 20% more for advertising during the holiday season. Some other Q4 Amazon advertising tips:
Run multiple campaigns to reach shoppers at each stage of the buying journey
TARGET YOUR COMPETITORS
Advertise ASINs with promotions running
Monitor ad performance (watch it like a hawk)
Obviously, there’s a lot to think about when prepping for Q4. That’s why the Ecom Cooperative exists! We’re here to help. Reach out if you have any questions!