We fixed 3 Amazon sellers’ profit problems in 30 days. Grow profit on Amazon with these steps.
Here’s the exact 5-step process:
Audit product listings
- Optimize titles, bullets, and descriptions
We use Amazon’s Brand Analytics Search Query Performance to put the highest traffic, highest relevant terms in the title and bullet points. We use the backend of description and Alt-text of A+ content for the remaining terms.
We do concepting on our competition to see who is ranking highly on a term and where they put that term in their listing to make sure we understand what works and what doesn’t. We also typically ask the client to adjust the packaging for the next production run to have the root keyword of the product on the packaging in big enough font to be readable.
We follow Amazon’s rules explicitly. No emojis, no ALL CAPS where Amazon bans it (bullets), no guarantee claims that are against ToS, no Call-to-actions, no claims you cannot back up.
We A/B test every 10 weeks. We start with HERO photo first, then the title, and keep going on those two until we have heavily improved CTR and CVR. - Upgrade images and A+ content
We do concepting on our competitor’s product pages’ visuals. We do research on the brand’s website and social media. This helps us make sure the product page matches fonts, colors, tone, and more to the brand. We make sure the images help you visualize yourself using the product. If humans use it, the photos better be 70%+ of humans interacting with the product. We do a mockup, then get a professional shoot from either UGC, a mid-tier studio like soona, or a high-end studio near the brand’s HQ. We make sure all secondary images and A+ content have copy on it that tell an engaging, emotional story for why the product is BETTER than it’s competition. You do have to follow Amazon’s ToS rules around not using before/after or customer reviews, but you can be creative and stay within the rules.
After We A/B test HERO and titles, we A/B Test secondaries and A+ content every 10 weeks. - Fix pricing strategy
For subscribable products, we use every possible tool to get subscribers. That means trying cart abandonment deals, brand-tailored promotions to potential-churning brand lovers, and subscribe-and-save coupons, among more.
For non-SnS products, you need to be moving the price up slowly over time (You can typically go up $1/day or 1% per day without a high pricing error. You have to move prices up on DTC, Walmart, etc. on the UPC listings to avoid losing the buy box) to fight the rise of the consumer price index, the rise of the raw materials price rise, FBA fee increase, and more. Amazon will eat you alive if prices do not rise. It’s awful for the consumer, but when your product has above a 4.5/5 reviews with 1000s of reviews, you can move price up slowly without getting crushed. Even if that means the low-quality, low-priced products below you stand out more, you need to be able to have margin.
Use Machine Learning and AI to help us go deeper on PPC
- Implement machine learning for bid optimization
Technology is incredible. We believe you should be managing bids and budgets manually ALONGSIDE using large data learning to figure out what you cannot: analyzing thousands of data points everyday. You build processes to not be emotional on bid or budget changes. You have to understand that keywords on Amazon take time to build ranking on. The yellow brick road was not built in a day. You will have to get relevancy score up through SEO (see above) and through SEM. We build a sheet of what our goals are for each keyword then how much spend we need to get there based on the organic reports from Amazon and market share % from PPC. We slowly build towards those goals.
Check out AdLabs.app. That tool is really, really solid when you need to understand deeper your PPC. - Create dynamic ad copy
Use chatgpt to A/B test ad copy in meta ads, reddit ads, Amazon Sponsored Brand, TV, or Display ads. It’s incredible as you can feed it all of the copy you’ve ever used and it can help you understand what copy will give you the most emotion. Meta has an entire database that’s free to see of your competitor’s ads: read their copy and figure out what they’re doing right or wrong. - Target high-intent keywords
Don’t waste your money. To get profit up, you need to cut the waste. Go specifically for the competitor targeting and keyword targeting that is highly relevant. You can climb the marketing funnel once the product has stability.
Diversify sales channels
- Expand to Walmart and international Amazon markets
The Amazon US Marketplace is insanely competitive. Beauty brands have $20 CPC on some unbranded terms. The international markets may be small, but add up to over 50% of Amazon’s monthly traffic. We go to Canada and UK first, then expand from there. We partner with companies like AMZ prep to do this quickly. Labeling changes and compliance issue may occur, but it’s worth it to get 1/2 the CPC and CAC. It’s harder for large packaging changes like language changes, so be slow and strategic here.
Walmart is on Amazon’s toes. The fundamentals are very similar: good SEO, solid PPC, and use Walmart’s version of FBA to get fast shipping. We’ve seen Walmart as a slow time to large sales, but the profitability is solid. - Set up Shopify store for direct sales
It’s sad how frequently we meet Amazon brands who do not have a website that generates sales and builds an email list. We build beautiful shopify stores for our brands to help them scale. This is where you build a community alongside Social Media. You should be adding value to your customers with how-tos within your niche, blog posts that legitimately help your consumer out in your niche, among more. You need a clear path for the consumer to checkout. The product page on Shopify needs to be beautiful and have a lot content. People are here to learn in detail rather than quick decisions on Amazon. Build landing pages that are specific to the channel you are sending from: Reddit ads to DTC? Specific deal for that community you are targeting.
Worried about fulfillment? Use BWP or MCF to use your FBA inventory to ship in - Launch TikTok shop
This is no-brainer in 2024. Get your product on TikTok. Set up tiktok shop. Start reaching out to influencers and affiliates. Get 3 pieces of content up a day. TikTok is an incredible social commerce tool that will feed your Amazon branded searches. You can even set up Tiktok to checkout through your Amazon page without them even leaving the Tiktok app. Use tiktok advertising to push your shop up in sales, but also use it to send traffic to your DTC site and your Amazon brand storefront. Tik tok works best with a highly visual product!
Streamline operations
- Automate inventory management
We use profitcyclops for this. It is WILD how much time it has saved us to use software to understand what to ship in and when. Every week, we figure out what needs to be shipped in, and get the information over to the manufacturer so we can build out shipments that are cost-effective as Amazon’s ridiculous fees are spiking in Q4 when you’re trying to send shipments into FBA. - Optimize fulfillment strategy (FBA vs. 3PL)
FBA is incredible. Unfortunately, it’s expensive. You have to pay to ship the product in, then pay for it to be picked and packed. It’s very similar to a 3PL. If you add in Amazon’s AWD program, it’s essentially Amazon’s 3PL for you. We do price analysis of 3PL to FBA, Manufacturer to FBA, and Manufacturer to AWD to FBA to figure out what’s the most cost effective. If the brand can use BWP and MCF for their off-amazon profitably, then a 3PL may not be needed. If BWP and MCF is not profitable, find a 3PL that can leave margin on the bone for the non-Amazon. You also likely need a 3PL if you need an emergency stash of product (important if you ship in from overseas). - Implement customer service chatbots
On our DTC site, you need a chatbot. It’s very cheap and you can customize it’s copy by using ChatGPT. It lets you help with customer retention and also buys you time to get back to customer service needs.
Scale with data-driven decisions
- Set up real-time profit tracking dashboards
We use profitcyclops for this. It’s unbelievable how difficult managing or running a brand is if you don’t understand profitability by SKU. You need to know your numbers, so you can PUSH PUSH Profit correctly: Gain rankings, then reap the benefits. A $5M/year SKU making 1% margin makes less money than a $500k/year SKU making 15% margin. - Conduct weekly performance reviews
We internally have multiple scorecards that help us understand if a product is ranking properly. We have deep weekly audits for each product that goes into things as niche as the URL Amazon gives the SKU as it matters for Google SEO. - Adjust strategy based on ROI metrics
Because we do deep concepting on our PPC, we have to make sure that we know what our margin will be by stage. We set goals monthly, quarterly, annually, and longterm to make sure the products are giving us the correct cashflow to keep growing.
Brand A
Great reviews, well-niched product.
We raised the price a few times over a year, but the first time we raised the price, we saw a massive sales spike and thus, a large net profit spike.
This happened after we had optimized the product pages, touched up their DTC, worked on their Meta Ads, worked on their website SEO, and worked on their Google Adwords.
They had some stock issues that slowed them down a few months before, but in this 30-day window, we had stable stock enough to try to reach 1-day shipping all across the US on Amazon FBA. Technology to forecast inventory levels is such a game changer.
They had been stalled out for quite some time, but things just clicked. We had the right long-tail keywords nailed in and Amazon fell in love with the brand overnight. Full-funnel marketing may take years, but it works when you have a great product and a clear customer profile.
Sales went up 49% in just 30 days with profit tripling. The sales kept growing with now such a healthy margin that they could double down on some retail deals that were PO-money-locked. Since then, the brand has been able to look into international amazon, tik tok, and much more. This extra cashflow has had a massive impact on them being able to get into more retail channels as they have time to pitch buyers.
Brand B
Another brand with great reviews in a clear and defined niche.
We had not raised the price substantially in a few years, but with raw materials going up, we had to move price up and quickly. We used this margin to fuel discounts to help new-to-brand consumers to stomach the new price point. This helped us offset the conversion rate penalty of moving price up and let us scale subscribers quickly these first 30 days of a new price point.
Before we did this, we had to optimize the product pages, A/B test around messaging, test 1000s of long-tail keywords to figure out which had the best conversion rate and click-through rate. We also worked on the DTC site and Meta ads to make sure we had a great funnel for consumers that wanted to go deeper to understand the brand’s story better.
They had been likewise stalled out for quite some time, but things just clicked in this month. We had the right long-tail keywords nailed in and Amazon FINALLY helped us push visibility up. Niche products take so much time to find an audience but by having a great product and a clear value-add, it’s a matter of time until new customers flock to the brand.
Sales went up 21% in just 30 days with profit doubling. The sales kept slowly increasing from here with enough profit margin for the business to be able to thrive. Since then, the brand has been able to look into international amazon, tik tok, and much more. This extra cashflow has had a massive impact on them being able to get into more retail channels as they have time to pitch buyers.
Brand C
For this brand, we did not use price as a lever for profitability, instead we mapped out a relevancy score improvement plan and executed.
We love products that have a clear reason to buy them over their competitors. This brand came out of nowhere to take an ancient industry into a new age.
We started this brand from nothing on Amazon to millions a year. The biggest reason we were able to do this was a 30-day period early on in the brand’s life. As a bootstrapped company, it’s hard to invest enough into the brand to know when to double down.
This category was quite content with boring products, so we blitzed the market once we had enough positive reviews to start advertising on competitor product pages. We knew the category had monthly seasonality, so when most of the competitors were sleeping and not pushing, we came in and stole top 3 organic ranking on hundreds of terms. We got aggressive, knowing that $20k in ad spend today would mean massive organic sales during the monthly of high session rates when customers had higher buyer intent.
We also helped out on Meta Ads and Google Adwords to help make sure the brand was making the correct choices holistically. We launched Amazon internationally to search for marketplaces with great Customer Acqusition prices to success.
Sales went up 66% in just 30 days with profit up at a slightly lower rate. Over the next 90 days, sales went up another 300%. Since then, the brand has been able to look into international amazon, tik tok, and much more.
Result? 40% average profit increase across all 3 brands.
