How to boost your holiday sales on Amazon (Valentine’s Day & Co.) - Part 2

Welcome back!

In the last edition we laid the groundwork to pick the right events and products.

Now, let’s actually get you some money!

We will be prepping up your Amazon SEO, Design, and Amazon PPC.

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1. Amazon SEO

PPC will get you exactly 0 impressions if you’re not indexed for the keywords you’re trying to rank for.

Let’s say your product is an artificial rose and Valentine’s Day is coming up.

First off, make sure you enter “valentines” and “day” in the respective Child ASIN’s backend keywords.

But that’s just the start.

That’s just the basis that every non-beginner does.

You also want and need to rank for more specific long tail keywords.

Go to Amazon, type in “valentines day …” and look at Amazon’s suggestions.

Find the most relevant word, type that in, and again wait for Amazon’ suggestions.

In the above example “decor” seemed the most relevant to me.

And after that “flower arrangements”.

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Another more data driven way to search for relevant long tail keywords:

Go to Seller Central’s Brand Analytics → Search Analytics → Top Search Terms.

Select the past month or week and refine the search terms with “valentines day”.

But don’t be tempted to go for any and every high volume keywords.

They need to be somewhat relevant!

You want to have a chance of actually winning and keeping your organic ranking.

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Now, Amazon SEO always changes.

In some years you'll read repetition between backend/title/bullets does nothing.

In others you’ll read repetition is a must.

Either way, few people would argue repetition actually hurts (as long as it reads naturally).

So if you want to be on the safe side and have a real shot…

Also add the respective long tail keyword to your title and bullet points. (additionally to the backend keywords)

Your title might look something like this:

Brand XYZ Artificial Rose (…keep regular keywords…) - Valentines Day Decor Flower Arrangements

While you’re at it, you can of course try to index for a few even longer tail keywords.

In other words adding those to your backend keywords, title or bullets as well.

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The lower your budget, the more important it becomes to first rank for the the longest tail keywords.

All this, of course, as early as possible to have the least competitors.

For some long tail keywords you might not even need PPC if you’re early enough (like 2 months before the event).

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If you want to increase your chances further, you now move to the next step:
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2. Design

Make it easy for customers to realize your product fulfills their exact need.

How?

By adding clear and obvious symbols to your main image.

In this case it could be a little red bow added to your product to signal a loving gift wrapping:

Check out Matt Kostan's post for many more of these visual add-ons!

Of course it also doesn’t hurt to use these elements to upgrade your Sponsored Brands and Display ads visuals.

But your focus should be on Sponsored Products (which simply use the product’s main image).

And, of course, AI is an option as well, as described here by Destaney Wishon.

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Alright, now that you’re indexed and you’ve improved your CTR and CvR likelihood, let’s get you some more traffic.

Let’s get you ranking on the higher volume “valentines day decor” keyword.
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3. Amazon PPC

You’ve already done the majority of the work.

Now it’s about ensuring you actually have a chance to get those initial clicks and move up the rankings.

6+ weeks before the event, create a separate Sponsored Product campaign for those longer tail keywords you identified.

Start with an aggressive bid and see where that takes you.

The earlier you start though, the less you’ll need to pay per click.

Already enjoying a high impression share after one day?

Dial down your bids.

Otherwise, keep it going, until you’re ranking for those long tail keywords.

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Of course, always consider the budget that you’ve set aside for this project.

You don’t want to take away budget from your main category keywords.

It may take a few weeks depending on when you started.

But after you’re ranking, move to the next bigger (short tail) keyword and create a separate SP campaign.

In our example for “valentines day decor”.

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And if you actually manage to rank for that one (which will take another 2-3 weeks)

…well, you might just have a shot at ranking for valentines day, too.

If you have another 2-3 weeks - this is why you need to start early.
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But know that you must truly have a valentine’s day relevant product for that…and the necessary budget.

You won’t just be competing against the big boys and girls for that kind of keyword (even at the “decor” level).

But also against all the masses of sellers who are naively looking for that quick win.

And remember: You need to rank (ie. prove yourself to Amazon) for one of the 5-6-7 word phrases first.

Or you’ll have close to 0 chance to rank for the 3-4 word phrases, let alone "valentines day".
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It’s like with an onion…you can’t get to the inside without peeling off the outside first.

But it will be worth it!
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So, to sum up, here’s your TLDR:

• prioritise events,
• pick the right products with the LIVESS framework,
• lay the SEO and design groundwork, and
• start ranking early enough with the help of ads, starting with long-tail keywords.

There’s more, but I’ll save some extra advanced tips for members of my course, the Amazon Ads Scaling System.

Hint: dayparting can play a huge role for some events.

And yes, some tools do it better than others.

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Oh, and what if you’re running late? (like I am with this blog)

Well, you’ll have to lower your expectations and settle for ranking for a 4-5 word long-tail keyword.

Although that may not be worth the trouble, check the Search Frequency Ranks in the Brand Analytics first!
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Now it’s up to you to go out there and prepare for those events and reap the benefits.

One last thing though…

With all this talk of events, I cannot NOT mention the largest overview of global Amazon seller events.

You should add some of those to the calendar I shared in the part 1 of this blog as well!

And maybe we'll see each other in person somewhere :)

Though not in February, as I'll be recharging in Asia for most of it!

See you in March...and keep on grinding!

David