02/08/19 // Written by Samantha Beckham

Amazon Ads v Amazon SEO – Which should you be using?

Amazon’s shopping channel provides two valuable, yet completely different, sources of traffic: paid search and organic search. You may be wondering which is more important. Should you try to rank organically, or does it make sense to spend on paid ads?

As the popularity of Amazon Ads increases, eCommerce businesses should consider using paid and organic search working in harmony for maximum performance.

The rise of Amazon Ads

Amazon is an eCommerce market leader, fast advancing and attracting traffic over search engines such as Google and Bing as consumers are able to read extensive customer reviews, ask questions and view photos all in one place.

Research has found that more than two-thirds of product clicks occur on the first page of Amazon search results, with one-third occurring on the first two rows displayed. Given these statistics, businesses should capitalising upon this potential as part of their PPC strategy to help propel them ahead of competition.

Nearly every Amazon SERP has organic and paid product listings. A question often asked by many is which is better for your business, organic or paid? Businesses need to move away from the mindset that organic and paid search work against one another, as the reality is both can be as effective as one another! Although the goal of PPC and organic traffic is essentially the same, the strategies vary. Taking a combined approach to Amazon search will help to increase conversion rates, ultimately making more of your product listings.

What are organic search listings on Amazon?

Organic rankings refer to the traffic from unpaid product listings, these products show below paid advertisements and can improve over time through relevance and performance.

Amazon organic search operates similarly to search engines such as Google and Bing, ranking products based on relevance and the likelihood of purchase. Considering the user query, keywords and product performance are used to filter search results, and will determine how high you’ll rank within the SERPs. your general product performance, which is measured by click-through rate and sales.

There are many factors that contribute to increasing your position within Amazon organic search listings, with the most pertinent being enhanced content. Optimising your content will help to improve your click-through and conversion rates, both of which will boost sales, and in turn, your ranking.

What are Amazon Ads?

Paid traffic on Amazon comes from ads. Unlike organic ranking, this is an immediate way of boosting sales when done effectively. If you operate an eCommerce business, advertising on Amazon is a growing trend that you should be considering. A study reported that 56 percent of UK, US, German and French shoppers use Amazon to start their search when looking to purchase a product online, highlighting the necessity to incorporate Amazon Ads within your PPC strategy.

Advertising through Amazon bolsters brand awareness and increases how many potential customers see your products. There are currently three types of Amazon Ads, these are:

  • Sponsored Product Ads
  • Sponsored Brand Ads (formerly known as Headline Search Ads)
  • Product Display Ads

Visit Amazon’s Advertising help page to find out more about these methods and which may be best suited to your business.

Is organic or paid better for your business?

Amazon SEO and Amazon PPC are both effective marketing tools for eCommerce brands to increase sales on Amazon, but when used hand in hand, the impact can be stronger.

If all your efforts are focused on optimising organic search results, you could be limiting your sales opportunity and business growth. Likewise, you shouldn’t rely solely on Amazon Ads to generate your Amazon store traffic. Essentially, organic traffic increases paid traffic and paid traffic increases organic traffic, so look to optimise both to reach a higher-converting audience.

Getting ahead of your competition is important in all industries, and with growing importance, you should consider investing in Amazon Ads to reduce the impact of organic results which, by nature, can be unpredictable. It isn’t a case of which works better, it’s about harmonising these tactics to create maximum opportunity for your business to grow traffic and sales. Contact the team at Ingenuity Digital to discuss how you can get the most out of Amazon.