Amazon Traffic is the Name of the Game

This is the first of our eight part series on driving traffic and conversion on Amazon.

First up, we’ll take a brief look at why traffic is such an important and fundamental metric on Amazon. Later on we’ll dive a bit deeper into ways brands can generate more traffic and turn that traffic into sales.  Finally, we’ll conclude by glancing at how cereal and and computer monitors brands are winning on Amazon in the US and UK.  Also included is a Q/A with Content26 co-founder and president Mark White and gen.video’s co-founder and president Jessica Thorpe, as they tackle several key questions generated by attendees of our most recent webinar, “Driving Online Retail Store Traffic with Paid Advertising and Influencer Programs,” which can be found here.

One of the main aims in traditional retail has always been traffic - getting the most feet through the door and the most eyes on the shelves. Endcap and window displays, marketing and price promotions, etc. were/are all about color, creativity, and drawing eyes and attention.  Even the location of the storefront itself has always been traffic-focused - Main Street outlets cost more because of the foot traffic that comes with them. The more people that walk past your front door, the more people will walk through it.

Digital retail is no different.  The more people who see your product online, the more people will buy it. And just like paying a higher price for a main street storefront, adjusting displays or developing promotions, there are a variety of levers in the digital marketplace that brands can pull to drive traffic to their webpages and Product Detail Pages, and increase sales.

And performing well on the digital shelf should be a top priority for every major brand.  It’s not news that eCommerce is one of the largest, fastest-growing, and most competitive spaces in retail everywhere.  Not only that, but performing well on the digital shelf can improve performance on the physical shelf as well.

Indeed, this is why we now refer to Amazon as a marketing platform, not just a retail one; Amazon has become the most common way for first-time customers to discover new products.  In 2013, for example, Amazon controlled a commanding share of the retail market, and that dominance translated to marketing; 30% of all shoppers went to Amazon to search for new products during their buying process .  Now however, Amazon’s domination goes beyond superlative - in 2016, 55%  of all shoppers used Amazon search before any other platform.

In fact, Amazon these days is widely used as an all-around consumer resource - shoppers who have no intention of buying anything from Amazon still visit the platform regularly to learn more about products, compare prices, and read customer reviews, often as they browse through brick-and-mortar stores (78% of customers have purchased an item with their mobile device while in a store).  

In other words, brands should invest in eCommerce, especially in driving traffic to their Amazon SKU’s and Product Pages (even if they don’t consider themselves to be digitally focused).  Not only because eCommerce is still the fastest growing sector in retail, but because driving traffic on Amazon is the surest way to drive sales for your products - on Amazon itself, on other eCommerce platforms, and in-store.

The most impactful way to do this is to dominate search and drive traffic. Stay tuned as we take a closer look at how optimize search and turn that traffic into sales on Amazon.

To go more in depth on how to succeed in this crucial space, download our whitepaper “Turning Amazon traffic into Amazon sales” here, or give our on-demand webinar “Driving Traffic and Conversion with Paid Advertising” a listen here, and check out the rest of this blog series, and all of our expert insights here.

 

Danny Silverman
Article by:
Danny Silverman
Marketing

Information Request

Configurable, actionable insight at your fingertips