A Brand on Amazon that Plays Within a Restricted Category Boosts Traffic and Sales by Pulling Multiple Advertising and Retail Levers
What we’re celebrating:
The brand hit their shipment goal and improved year over year (YOY) traffic, conversion rate, and sales despite significant category constraints.
18% increase in glance views, 15% increase in shipped COGS, and 5% increase in conversion rate YOY.
Overview:
GO manages a health and personal care brand whose core product categories are highly restricted on Amazon. The brand needed to boost sales and traffic on Amazon in order to increase their shipments by 20% YOY. Due to the category restrictions, the brand has historically struggled to utilize Amazon advertising tools, update their content, participate in Amazon’s Vine program, and optimize inventory levels. To maneuver around these category difficulties and help our client reach their objectives, Global Overview implemented strategies across Born to Run, content, advertising, and Subscribe & Save.
The Challenges:
Low weeks of coverage (WOC) due to Amazon POs, risking out of stocks and impacting brand P&L expectations.
Consistent content rejections due to the nature of the category, constraining product detail page optimization.
Couldn’t implement Vine, therefore new products struggled to quickly grow their review counts.
Inability to consistently use most of Amazon’s ad tools due to the sensitivity of the category, limiting the brand’s ability to drive new traffic.
The Strategy:
Born to Run (BTR)
Our GO team was confident that we could tackle the brand’s low WOC and get their inventory levels at a healthier place through the utilization of BTR. We ran weekly audits of Amazon orders, worked to maintain 6-8 on-hand WOC and 8-10 total WOC, tracked ASIN sell-through rates, and activated a hybrid fulfillment model, moving rejected BTR ASINs to Seller Central.
Content
To mitigate how often the brand’s content was rejected, our team tested different content variations, removed keywords from copy that could be construed as problematic, eliminated packaging images that displayed the brand name, and moved their most restricted products to an adjacent Amazon sub-node that places fewer restrictions on the category. Though all these attempts were to no avail, Global Overview persists in pivoting and experimenting with different content creatives to find the right combination of elements that earn Amazon’s approval.
Advertising
GO got creative with our advertising tactics, leaning into generic and Spanish category keywords with Sponsored Brand as well as targeting competitor keywords and 3P sellers. We also used The Trade Desk, an external programmatic media platform, to drive brand awareness, employing Amazon attribution tags for traffic and conversion data. The Trade Desk places fewer restrictions on sensitive categories.
Subscribe & Save (SNS)
On top of building awareness and consideration through advertising, we began implementing strategies to turn previous buyers into loyal customers. We encouraged the brand to begin allocating budget toward SNS and tested various discount types to determine which deals shoppers preferred.
The Results:
Not only did our strategies help the brand reach their shipment goal, but we also superseded it by 6 figures.
Additionally, we saw impressive YOY results, growing glance views by 18%, shipped COGS by 15%, and conversion rate by 5%.
Is This Strategy Right for You?
Even if your brand isn’t experiencing category limitations on Amazon, our team can still help you reach your goals with out-of-the-box tactics! Let’s work together and win together.