Amazon introduces new marketing solutions for third-party sellers
Amazon is beefing up the promotional capabilities it offers independent sellers operating on its Amazon Marketplace platform.
Amazon actively assists third-party retailers (primarily small-to-medium-sized businesses) to sell on its Amazon Marketplace e-commerce platform with at least 150 tools and services. The company regularly adds new offerings, including the following:
Improving customer engagement
First, the e-tail giant has introduced three new audience types within the Amazon Customer Engagement tool to help sellers increase their email marketing reach at no cost. Sellers can now expand beyond brand followers when sending free marketing emails to reach other customer categories, such as repeat, recent, and high-spend customers.
The Customer Engagement’s solution also has a Tailored Audiences feature which allows sellers to monitor the impact of their email marketing campaigns and customer engagement with performance and reporting metrics such as open rate, click-through rates, emails delivered, opt-out rates, sales, and conversion.
Amazon is currently testing Tailored Audiences in a beta program, and the company plans to make it available to all U.S. sellers at no cost in early 2023.
Amazon also recently rolled out Premium A+ Content, an upgrade to its standard content management system that supports new, larger modules on product pages—such as video, interactive hover hotspots, image carousels and Q&A—to all sellers worldwide that meet the eligibility criteria. According to Amazon, participating brands have seen sales increase up to 20% for products with Premium A+ Content.
“Brands are able to quickly acquire new customers in the Amazon store, but they expressed a need for improved tools to increase customer lifetime value,” said Benjamin Hartman, VP of Amazon North America selling partner services. “These improvements help unlock the value of remarketing as we further our commitment to helping sellers reach the right customer, at the right time.”
Buy with Prime upgrades
In addition, Amazon has announced new marketing solutions that enable direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce sellers to reach engaged Amazon shoppers and help drive sales on their own sites. Amazon is piloting the solutions as part of Buy with Prime, a recently introduced program that enables sellers to offer Prime shopping benefits to shoppers off Amazon.
[Read more: Amazon extends reach of Prime shopping]
Participating sellers can showcase their DTC products on Amazon with a new Buy with Prime page within their brand’s store, a customizable multipage storefront on Amazon. Sellers can then direct Amazon shoppers to those DTC products by using Sponsored Brands, which are customizable ads for brands.
Both the Buy with Prime and Sponsored Brands solutions are now available in an invitation-only beta.
Co-branded Buy with Prime social media ads, which are funded and managed by Amazon, are now available in an invitation-only beta to help participating Buy with Prime sellers reach shoppers on Facebook and Instagram and drive traffic to products on their DTC sites. Potential customers see ads from Amazon’s Buy with Prime page on Facebook and Instagram that feature specific sellers. When the shopper clicks on that ad, they’re taken to a product detail page on the seller’s DTC site where they can purchase directly from the seller using Buy with Prime.
Amazon is also rolling out the Buy with Prime Marketing Toolkit, which provides the Buy with Prime badge, which sellers can feature in their marketing alongside their own brand and Buy with Prime products. This enables sellers to show they offer Prime shopping benefits on their own DTC site, and is a free resource available to all sellers with active Buy with Prime product listings.
[Read more: Exclusive Q&A: Amazon explains key role third-party sellers play on its platform]