Amazon Conversion Rate Optimization: Tips for CRO Mastery

One of the hardest things on Amazon is having your product appear in the top of search results and getting click-throughs to your listing. The next hardest thing? Getting a customer to hit “buy now”. That’s where Amazon conversion rate optimization comes in.

Conversion rate optimization is a well-known tactic used on e-commerce sites, but many Amazon sellers don’t think about it for their product pages.

Instead of throwing up you’re listing once, you should be optimizing your conversion rate on Amazon to increase the number of people who visit your page that buy (and increase the return on your ad spend).

Read on to discover all of the ways you can increase your conversion rate on Amazon.

What is conversion rate optimization (CRO)?

First of all, what is conversion? In e-commerce, a conversion is the desired action a visitor takes on a website. It can be a purchase, page visit, newsletter signup etc. 

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of using various strategies to increase the percentage of customers you get to take a specific action, a conversion.  

The most common type of conversion rate optimization is for someone to make a purchase. 

How is conversion rate calculated?

Conversion rate is represented by a percentage. It’s the total number of conversions divided by the total number of visitors or sessions, multiplied by 100.

This formula will give you a percentage that is your conversion rate:

Note: “sessions” is the number of times a person views your page.

So if 100 people viewed your page and you had 10 orders then your conversion rate would be 10%. 

What is conversion rate optimization (CRO) on Amazon?

Amazon conversion rate optimization is simply the process of increasing the number of orders relative to the number of visitors to the page.  

So if you have 100 people visiting your page every day and only 1 person buys, you probably won’t be very happy with a conversion rate of 1%. 

You’ll want to increase this conversion rate by making any number of changes to get it over 1%. We’ll go into a lot of examples below but they could include changing images, copy, price, and more.

It could also mean changes to how you communicate the value proposition of the product and/or reduce the chance of a bad review (which really hurts conversion rate). 

What are the benefits of optimizing conversion rate on Amazon?

The first and most obvious benefit of optimizing for conversion is more sales. Increasing the percentage of browsers that turn into customers means you’ll convert more people and make more sales. 

Amazon is always trying to improve its customer experience and present the product that will best match a customer’s search. 

If your product produces more orders than a competitor for the same number of visits, Amazon will notice. The algorithm makes it so that the best product matches (the ones that convert quickly and at the right price) appear in its search results.

How to optimize your listing to increase conversion rate

There’s a lot that goes into Amazon listing optimization. You can do it yourself or hire a team of professionals to get everything taken care of for you. 

A fully optimized listing includes: 

• Title 
• Bullet points 
• Product description 
• Listing images & graphics 
• A+ Content 
• Brand story 

Taking the time to make sure to optimize all of these features on your product listing increases the chances of a customer making the purchase. If you’re not sure what you want to do you can run A/B tests to see which ones are actually better. 

Here’s a breakdown of all the different ways you can increase your conversion rate on Amazon.

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Product Title

The title is a big player in increasing a product’s visibility.  

It’s one of the places where keywords hold the most weight which helps the product appear to customers on the search results page in the first place. 

Read more on writing the perfect product title here.

There are 2 main ways that changes to your title can impact conversion rate:

1. It influences who clicks on your product in the search results. If you don’t have the right information in your title then people may click through to your listing (or on your ad!) that would never buy in the first place. 

2. Your title is the main place for you to communicate the key benefits of your product. It’s front and center and in big text so what you include here matters. Most customers are going to make split decisions on this first bit of information without reading any of the other information on the page. 

You can optimize your title either manually or with Amazon Experiments and there are a lot of easy and simple ways to do this such as changing the location of words/phrases and/or focusing on different types of benefits. Sometimes, even putting fewer words could help more (in case you’re confusing customers or scaring them with keyword stuffing). 

Listing Images & Graphics

Images are what get most customers to click through from search results to your listing. Since customers on Amazon have no way of touching or feeling the products, images are one of the first things they’ll check out to get more information. 

So how can you optimize your images to convert? 

Make sure you include as many images as possible – include the 7 most relevant as those are the ones that customers can preview on desktop. 

If you have more than 7 images, include those as well since mobile customers will often see all the images as they scroll down (in addition to the top carousel).

What kinds of images should you include? We have an article that goes into every image you need for your Amazon product listing. 

Here’s a short list: 

• Different angles 
• Include the packaging (a way to include more details) 
• Show the product in use 
• Lifestyle images 
• Include infographics

The point is to help the customer envision your product solving their problem and remove friction by addressing concerns. You want them to be as comfortable and confident in purchasing your product as possible. 

If you’re stuck on what kinds of photographs you need for your listing graphics, check out our Amazon Photography Guide. Send it to your product photographer and you’ll have a bunch of photos you can include and use in your graphics to convert more customers. 

Maximize reviews for social proof

Your star rating and number of reviews are most likely what got the customer to click through from the search results in the first place.  

Like everywhere else, social proof is important. People are understandably hesitant about buying a product that doesn’t have many reviews or is rated poorly. 

In fact, after price, it’s thought that reviews and star ratings are the two BIGGEST contributors to conversion rate on Amazon. 

How can you make your reviews better? 

Set expectations. When you’re putting a listing together you essentially make a promise to the customer that your product will do this and that. If you deliver on that promise, you’ll have a happy customer. That happy customer will hopefully leave a review. 

If you want a quick way to gather reviews and generate buzz, consider enrolling your products in the Amazon Vine Program.  

Brand Story & Storefront

Most things that influence conversion are about trust and your brand is no different. A high-quality brand that looks and feels right is going to be a big help with conversion. The brand story on Amazon is a great way to showcase your brand on every product page. 

A brand story on Amazon helps you connect with customers on a more meaningful level. The Brand Story is a type of A+ Content that allows you to add carousel-like modules. Share more about your beginnings, your mission and values here. 

If you have a customer swiping through the modules to learn more, there’s also the possibility to send them to your store. Your branded Amazon Store is one of the only places you can present your full product line without intrusive ads from competitors or suggested products from Amazon. Think of it as your brand’s own website within Amazon.  

Although you’re taking them away from your product listing page, you can increase dwell time on the store, increase the chance for a conversion and perhaps even upsell them.

Below is a brand story from skincare brand civant. You’ll see the products have links to get a customer directly to the store.

A+ Content

Aside from images, A+ Content on Amazon is another visual addition you can use to convert customers and optimize conversion rate on the product page.

A+ Content is a free tool available to brand-registered sellers that contributes to conversion rate optimization on Amazon.

All this extra content allows you to get into even more details of the product. Usually appearing under the “Product description”, it’s another chance for you to connect with the customer and help them understand more about the product.  

The more they understand and are attracted by what they see, the easier it will be for them to decide to buy, in turn increasing your conversion rate. 

A+ content is another great way to display high-quality assets that help give your product (and brand) and look and feel that makes customers trust you more.

If you’re able to put in the extra effort for Premium A+ Content (which Amazon is currently offering for free), even better. Premium A+ (or A++) includes interactive modules like sliders, hover-overs and the option to add video. These will all contribute to a healthy and attractive product listing optimized for conversion.

Price & Conversion Rate Optimization on Amazon

A lot of Amazon customers shop on the web or app because they know Amazon is rigorous about price.

There are so many ways on Amazon for customers to compare prices that it’s important to understand what a competitive price is in your market and where you fit. 

Make sure you do your research and offer customers a price that makes sense given your brand and quality of the product relative to others. 

Test different price points and see how customers react. We’ve even seen conversion rates and sales go up after increasing prices. 

Coupons & Promotions

Another way you can influence price (without actually changing it) is to add coupons and/or promotions. 

Depending on your product mix and margins, you have a number of options on the coupon discount you can offer. You can give volume-based discounts, buy one get one, and more. All of which can help improve conversion rates. 

At the end of the day, everyone loves a good deal. 

Subscribe & Save

Another way to affect the value a customer feels they are getting is the subscribe and save option on Amazon.  

Having a subscribe and save section on your product listing page gets customers to think ahead and commit to buying more of your product on a regular basis. This is helpful for products that are bought frequently – things like toothpaste, skincare, pet treats etc. 

There is a discount that can be applied to subscribe and save meaning that customers can not only get a deal (likely increasing conversion rate) but also have the convenience of automatic orders. Just keep in mind that this isn’t a good fit for everyone. The extra click it takes to get out of subscribe & save and buy one product can actually hurt conversion rates. 

Brand tailored promotions

Brand Tailored Promotions is a promotional tool from Amazon available to brand-registered sellers that lets you offer exclusive discounts to loyal customers. These are like secret coupons that only people in certain “audiences” can see. 

The 6 audience segments are: 

• Brand Followers: Customers who have followed your brand from your Amazon store 
• Repeat Customers: Customers who’ve ordered from you more than once in the last 12 months 
• Recent Customers: The most recent people who have purchased from you 
• High-Spend Customers: The ones who have spent the most on your products in the last 12 months 
• Potential New Customers: Browsers – people who have clicked on your brand and products or added to cart recently but haven’t made a purchase 
• Cart Abandoners: People who have added one (or more) of your products to their cart but haven’t purchased in the last 3 months 

These special types of promo codes can increase the likelihood of purchase, increasing sales and improving customer retention.

Prime Eligible Shipping

In the era of getting everything you need almost instantly customers expect their products to arrive fast. When asked how one of our interns purchases products, he explained that he filters “by Prime shipping”. He just doesn’t want to wait.

It’s understandable. Prime shipping is the only filter that can be toggled on directly from the app or mobile (for now). If it means you get your product faster, wouldn’t this be a no-brainer?

The best and easiest way to offer your products to be shipped via the Prime program is by sending your products to the Amazon warehouse. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) lets you outsource order fulfillment to Amazon so you don’t have to worry about shipping.

Note: A “seller fulfilled prime” program also exists however it’s usually best for brands that already have established fast and reliable shipping programs.

Inventory

It may sound strange to say that more inventory will help conversion rates but it’s important. 

Inventory availability affects shipping times. If you have just a few products, it’s likely they’ll all be shipped to one warehouse. If your products are further away from most customers, the longer the shipping times will be.

This example shows a product with just 1 unit. This screenshot was taken on a Friday and delivery time was showing for the following Thursday. Some people may not want to wait that long.

If someone in San Fransisco wants to order a product like yours but it’s only available in a warehouse around Boston, then your shipping times are likely going to be longer than competitors who have inventory in SF. Customers want fast shipping and the further out your shipping times, the lower your conversion rate will be. 

Obviously it’s hard to have product all around the country if you’re just starting out, but you should definitely consider getting to a minimum amount of around 100 units per SKU. For standard products, this should give you good distribution to the most important warehouses which can reach a high percentage of the country. 

A/B testing with Amazon Manage Your Experiments 

After you’ve built a strong foundation through the listing optimization process, Amazon conversion rate optimization is all about making small, measurable changes. 

Amazon’s tool for this is called “Experiments” which allows you to run specific and multi-variable A/B tests on your listings. 

By putting up 2 versions of content against each other, Amazon can measure the results and decide which version is better, ultimately optimizing your content.

Amazon allows you to A/B test: 

• A+ content 
• Bullet points 
• Product images 
• Product description 
• Product title 
• Brand story 
• Multi-attribute 

Curious about how to run great A/B tests on Amazon? Check out our walkthrough here! 

Key Takeaways

Conversion rate optimization on Amazon is about small, consistent changes.

• Never stop optimizing – when you finish optimizing a product title, move on to images. Make micro adjustments to A+ content, try different modules in A+ and just keep going
• Register your brand to take advantage of tools like a branded store, A+ content and more
• Optimize your product listing – play with copy and visuals to get the perfect fit
• Invest in Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to optimize shipping times
• Make sure you have enough inventory to minimize shipping times
• Use Amazon’s tool Experiments to get data-driven results on your changes