9 Effective Ways To Improve Your Conversion Rate On Amazon

If you’re an Amazon seller, then you know that conversion rate is key to your success. A high conversion rate means more sales and more money in your pocket.

But how do you improve your conversion rate?

In this article, we’ll cover nine tips that will help you boost your average conversion rate on Amazon and help accelerate your business growth.

What is Amazon conversion rate?

Conversion rate on Amazon is the number of times a customer purchases a product from you in relation to how many visits your product page has had.

This can be calculated at a single product level by comparing the visits to a product page against the sales of that product.

It can also be calculated across your Amazon business by comparing total visits to your product listings combined against your total sales volume.

On Amazon, visits are either referred to as page views or sessions.

Page views refer to the number of views of a page regardless of who is viewing them, whereas sessions refer to unique viewers regardless of how many pages they viewed.

For example, 100 customers visit 150 pages between them. Some view just the one and then – using Google terminology – ‘bounce’.

Others will view more than one and add to this higher number.

In this case, your sessions would show as 100, whereas page views would show as 150.

How do I calculate my Amazon conversion rate?

To calculate conversion rate on Amazon manually, divide orders placed by sessions.

For example, if your product listings have had 200 sessions and you’ve made 30 sales, your conversion rate would be 15%.

Where can I find this on Amazon?

Thankfully, you don’t have to calculate your conversion rate manually.

Amazon provide this data for you in the reporting dashboard, and here’s how to find it:

• Step 1: Navigate to Reports > Business Reports.
• Step 2: Choose Detail page sales and traffic by child item.
• Step 3: Look for the column titled Unit Session Percentage.

Here you’ll find conversion rates broken down by ASIN.

What is a good conversion rate?

When first learning to sell on Amazon there are a lot of new metrics to understand. It’s hard to know which ones to focus on and which to ignore.

Conversion rate is by far and away one of the most important, but how exactly do you define “good”?

What is a good conversion rate in eCommerce?

General eCommerce conversion rates are widely reported to be as low as 2-3%.

This means you have to get somewhere between 30-50 customers just to visit your store to achieve a sale. Sheesh!

What is a good conversion rate on Amazon?

The good news is that conversion rates on Amazon are much better than eCommerce in general.

Amazon has built such incredible trust with its users and are continually testing the design and functionality of the website and app meaning conversion rates are significantly higher.

Marketplace Pulse suggests the average across all categories and marketplaces is 12.5% – a 4-6x increase on conversion rates for direct to consumer (DTC) eCommerce sites.

This is one of the primary reasons we teach new eCommerce entrepreneurs to launch on Amazon and capitalize on these industry-leading metrics.

What is a good conversion rate for Amazon PPC?

When it comes to running paid ads with Amazon PPC it becomes even more key to measure and improve your conversion rate.

Investing in Amazon ads to drive traffic to a listing that isn’t going to convert is like trying to collect water in a sieve. You need your ad spend to be a sound investment and grow your business.

Some studies suggest the average Amazon PPC conversion rate is a little lower than organic at around 8-10%, but on the whole, most sellers find it to be pretty similar to their organic conversion rate.

So, shooting for somewhere in the 10-15% range is usually a good aim for your ad campaigns on Amazon.

Benchmark your conversion rate against direct competitors

It’s important to note that whilst the average Amazon conversion rate is 12.5% across all marketplaces and categories, we highly suggest you look closer at the category you’re selling in.

The Sellics Benchmarker is a free tool that compares your Amazon store metrics against your direct competitors.

This helps you understand whether you have a good or poor conversion rate in the context of the category you’re selling in.

For some products or categories, the average conversion rate may be 20% – so if you aim for 12.5% you’ll be sitting behind the competition.

In other more competitive categories it could be 8% and shooting for 12.5% could be setting unrealistic expectations.

So, be sure to drill down on the exact metrics to be aiming for by getting your free Sellics Benchmarker report.

How can I improve my Amazon conversion rate?

Improving a product’s conversion rate is not as simple as pushing one button, or pulling one lever.

Amazon conversion rates are impacted by a range of contributing factors and successful sellers should implement a strategy for each of the following nine areas.

1/ Ensure relevancy with detailed keyword research

Including relevant keywords in your listing is the first step in establishing a good conversion rate.

Consistently ending up in search results for terms that are irrelevant to your product will primarily harm your Amazon click-through rate. ie. You won’t get anywhere near as many clicks as you should.

But it will also harm your conversion rate. If a shopper is looking for a yoga mat and your skipping rope appears in search results they *may* be interested in buying it, but they just as likely may not.

This results in a lot of tyre kickers and will therefore negatively impact your conversion rate.

To find the best, most relevant keywords for your product, try a reverse keyword search with Helium 10 Cerebro.

2/ Use features to tell and benefits to sell

Amazon sellers love to talk about their products. It makes sense – you spent hours, days, and weeks developing your baby.

You invested money into bringing your ideas to life. You (hopefully) added some differentiated features to stand out from your competition. It’s only natural to then want to tell the world about the amazing features of your product.

The only problem? The customer doesn’t care about your product.

They care about themselves. More specifically, they care about what your product will do for them.

As such it’s absolutely essential to work hard to communicate the benefits of your product as opposed to just the features.

For every feature you highlight in your listing, be sure to link to a relevant benefit that the customer may experience as a result of buying your product.

For example, don’t just talk about a bath pillow with extra strong suckers… talk about how your bath pillow has extra strong suckers to keep the pillow secure even in the longest, most relaxing of baths.

You just thought about a nice warm, relaxing bath, didn’t you? It evoked emotion in you just as it would a customer reading the second more benefit-driven version.

Remember: features tell; benefits sell.

3/ Write for a human/algorithm hybrid

Keyword targeting is the name of the game on Amazon.

You’re operating on a search engine as much as you are an eCommerce platform and your ability to rank on page one will greatly impact the level of your success.

As a result, many Amazon sellers develop a level of obsession over including as many keywords in a listing as possible and write for the Amazon algorithm.

This can result in listings that are “keyword stuffed” and make for difficult reading.

Sure, you may index for more keywords than your next competitors, but the lack of persuasive flow to your sales copy will harm your conversion rates.

In turn, this will also have a negative impact on your keyword ranking and defeat the entire purpose of stuffing extra keywords into your listing.

A better approach is to write first with a good flow for human readers, whilst also optimizing keyword placements for the Amazon search algorithm.

If you really need to include additional keywords that you just can’t seem to fit into a natural-sounding listing, make use of the search terms field – the contents of which aren’t displayed on the front end of your listing.

 

4/ Tell the story through your images

In our listing optimization course, we teach new sellers to write their human-oriented copy before even thinking about product images.

The reason for this is that you want your images to tell the story of your product. By crafting your copy first you do the hard work of clarifying the benefits and communicating them well.

This makes it much easier to map out 6-7 high-quality images that answer questions, resolve pain points, and overcome objections.

Let this be clear: images of your product from each angle on a white background with no supporting text or graphics are simply not good enough.

Whilst your main image must only be of your product on a plain white background, your sub-images can – and absolutely should – be colorful, engaging, and informative.

Make the most of every image slot to tell the benefit-led story of your product to ensure a direct impact on your overall conversion rate.

5/ Perfect your pricing & promotions

Sellers should not be as obsessive over price as Amazon is. Your business goals and Amazon’s business goals are not always 100% aligned.

Whilst Amazon will always be pushing for lower and lower prices to satisfy the demand of its customer, reducing price is not always your route to an improved conversion rate – or more profits.

In fact, on some occasions increasing price can also lead to an increase in conversions due to the greater perceived value of a product.

However, this is of course something that should always be tested gradually.

The key is understanding that price points will play a key role in conversions. We recommend launching new products with low, competitive prices and slowly testing higher prices as a listing gains more keyword ranking and reviews.

Don’t forget to add promotions into the mix – Amazon has a range of promotional tools to help you convert browsers into buyers.

One of the best – and still under-utilized – promotional tools is the coupon (or voucher if you’re in the UK 🇬🇧).

If you’re not using this feature you’re missing out on an eye-catching tag on your product listing that will bump conversion rates.

Our studies have shown that only around 1 in 2 buyers will actually clip the coupon, so you’ll often be giving much less of a discount when averaged out.

To set this up, just head to Seller Central > Advertising > Coupons.

Hot tip: a fixed dollar amount tends to convert better as it requires no calculation on the customer’s behalf. For example, a $40 listing will often see better conversion rates for a $6 coupon vs a 15% coupon despite giving the same discount.

6/ Put branded content to work

Amazon continues to roll out more and more brand-friendly features in order to attract bigger and better sellers to the platform.

Features like Sponsored Brand ads, product videos and A+ Content give brand owners more creative control over their brand presence on Amazon and create opportunities for improved conversion rates.

Sponsored Brand ads should be tested utilizing all the available features including custom header images for headline ads and dynamic video ads that quickly and clearly sell the benefits of products.

If you’re not also using product videos on your listings then you are leaving further money on the table. Online users consume video at a higher rate than ever before, and this is another opportunity to make a case for your product.

Finally, be sure to utilise A+ Content on your listings. This gives further space to go in-depth on the benefits of your product and give some extra background on your brand to connect with buyers.

By using these branded features you’re making the most of every opportunity Amazon is giving you to convert browsers into buyers at a higher rate.

Some customers will respond better to video, others to images, others to text. Covering all bases with this branded content gives you the best possible chance of category-leading conversion numbers.

7/ Be proactive with review generation

If you’re this far into the article it’s safe to say you’re either selling on Amazon, or are interested in selling Amazon.

If that’s the case, the concept of reviews being important won’t be a new one for you.

You get it, you gotta get reviews.

But a “build it and they will come” strategy will leave you languishing behind your top competitors as they accelerate their review base and dominate the category.

Instead, be intentional about creating a proactive review generation strategy and mitigating negative reviews.

This should include – but not be limited to – strategies such as requesting reviews through an automated follow-up tool, including product inserts to engage customers, and providing stellar customer service.

In time you may well develop some more creative strategies, but don’t forget at the root of all good review generation strategies is a high-quality product.

8/ Drive repeat purchases

The people most likely to buy from you are those who already have. (Assuming your product is good, of course.)

As such, making an effort to drive repeat purchases can be a fantastic strategy for increasing conversions on Amazon.

Given the customer will have bought a product from you already they don’t need to be made aware of, or sold on the idea of your brand. This means a higher conversion rate and thus higher profits.

To grow your repeat purchase rate on Amazon, consider including a special offer on your product insert featuring a discount code to be used on Amazon (not your website!), or encouraging the customer to engage with your brand in some way eg. via social media.

This can begin a conversation with the customer or at least keeps your brand at the top of their mind so when they come to make a purchase again hopefully it will be with you.

9/ Always be testing

Leonardo da Vinci once famously said that “art is never finished, only abandoned.”

The same can be said for Amazon listings.

The most successful brand builders are those that continually test, tweak, and optimize product display pages and landing pages to improve their conversion rate.

If you’re looking to take this business seriously and build something of significant size then you must make regular testing part of your monthly routine.

The key with testing on Amazon as with any experiment is to make sure you only change one thing at a time to ensure you get meaningful data.

Amazon are beginning to roll out a new feature called Manage Your Experiments which enables previously impossible split testing functionality.

It enables you to test multiple variations of different aspects of your listing such as main image, sub-images and title to compare results and choose which performs best.

You can also use a tool like ProductPinion to gather real data from your target market to make informed decisions on conversion driving changes.

In Conclusion: A Metric To Commit To

Improving your Amazon conversion rate is not a one-time activity. It should be a continual commitment you make to test and optimize in order to make more sales on Amazon and grow your business’ profitability.

The nine strategies covered in this article should give plenty for you to be working with in order to improve Amazon conversion rates for both organic and paid traffic.

If you’re looking for daily conversation with other successful sellers and weekly live coaching calls then check out all that a Brand Builder University membership has to offer.

Until next time!