Last updated on April 5th, 2021 at 11:34 am
Your Conversion Rate (CR) is an important metric in any business.
Back in ye olden days, when customers would walk into your brick and mortar store, knowing your CR could help optimize certain aspects of your business such as margins, which would improve the overall profitability of your business.
Fast forward to today, your CR is even more important on ecommerce sites like Amazon.
Not only does your CR impact your profit, it’s a key factor for the Amazon algorithm to determine your organic sales ranking, and as a result, overall sales.
We know how it feels when you have a killer product, but for some reason, it’s just not converting.
In fact, it might not be the product at all―it may be that your listing is the thing hurting your conversions!
In this guide, we talk about what CR is, how to find and track it, what a “good” CR is, and 10 actionable ways you can increase your CR now!
What Is Conversion Rate?
CR is a ratio between the number of sales and the number of visitors to your listing.
Conversion Rate = Orders / Page Views
Why is CR Important?
First of all, a better conversion rate means more sales without having to increase the amount of people who click on your listing. This means more profit and a lower cost of advertising.
Secondly, CR is an important factor in regards to your organic ranking.
Increasing your CR tells the algorithm that your product is popular, as it converts a higher percentage of shoppers into buyers.
It’s in Amazon’s own self-interest to boost your product higher in search engine results, because then Amazon can make more money off of the commission from your sales. The algorithm rewards you with higher organic rankings, which further boosts your sales.
How to Find and Track Your Conversion Rate
Finding your CR only requires you to do some simple arithmetic using information from your dashboard.
- Log into Seller Central. Then head over to Reports > Business Reports.
- Find the “By ASIN” category, then click on “Detail Page Sales and Traffic by Parent Item.” This gives you information about each product that you sell.
- Then, find the “Total Order Items” for the product you are interested in and then divide that by the total Sessions, including those who left and returned.
What Is a “Good” Conversion Rate?
Compared to an average of 3.44% for other ecommerce sites, Amazon boasts an average conversion rate of 13%!
That said, this percentage fails to take into account many factors.
For example, if you sell something that is very expensive, you will naturally have a lower conversion rate, compared to if you sold something very cheap.
This is because the more expensive something is, the more time a customer takes to purchase. This is because they want to make sure they are making the right decision. So take that average with a grain of salt and don’t get discouraged if your CR is lower.
Here are some other additional factors to consider:
- Timeframe & Sample Size: the larger the sample size and the timeframe, the more accurate (and useful) your data will be. Your CR may be 100% on one day, but then plummet to 0% the next 29 days. The more data the better―that way you can make more accurate decisions.
- Product Niche & Competition: products in more competitive niches are going to have lower CRs. This is because customers are, understandably, going to shop around a bit more before buying.
- Source of Traffic: is your traffic coming from organic search results, sponsored product advertisements, email, Facebook ads, DSP ads, etc.? Each traffic source converts differently. In general, you’d expect to get a higher CR from ads rather than organic search traffic, so keep this factor in mind.
- Are You Turning a Profit?: at the end of the day, you could lower your price to $1.00 and expect to see a huge increase in CR, but you won’t be making any profit. For each conversion, the higher the price (more revenue), the higher the margins, which means more profit. So keep this in mind: as long as you are maximizing your profits, that’s what counts. You don’t get bonus points for a higher CR―it is simply just a metric that can help you maximize profits.
How to Increase Conversions
Now’s the moment you’ve been waiting for.
We’ll show you ten actionable steps you can take right now to increase your CR.
Switch to FBA for Faster Shipping
Quick, cheap (or even free) shipping is one of the top reasons why people will choose to shop on Amazon versus another retailer.
So if a customer comes onto your listing and finds the seller doesn’t offer Prime shipping, they will tend to click away.
Similarly, if a customer clicks on your competitor’s listing, and they don’t offer Prime shipping, but then they come to your listing and you do offer Prime shipping, this may be the deciding factor for them to buy your product over your competitor’s.
Plus, customers will know they’re getting a high level of trust and security because they will be primarily dealing with Amazon, not you. This tends to be the tipping point in purchases for most buyers.
So if you’re not already signed up for FBA, consider doing so. The extra fees are almost always well worth the huge increase in sales.
Find the Right Price
While your product is obviously very important, the price can sometimes make or break your product’s success. However, finding that Goldilocks zone can be tricky.
When setting the price, first look at your competitors. That will give you range between the highest and lowest prices that you see.
When launching, it would be best to not price it too high, even if your product is significantly better than your competitors.
You need to give customers a reason to test your product out, since it will not have many reviews and so will leave customers wondering if they can trust your product.
Once you’ve found a price that’s selling well while allowing you to be profitable, don’t consider your work to be done. You will now need to optimize your price.
Conduct an A/B split test to determine which price sells better. To do this, alternate between two different prices every day for 2 weeks. This will give you enough data to determine the optimal price for your product.
Create External Landing Pages
This simple strategy involves creating an external traffic sales funnel.
The sales funnel essentially looks like this:
You’ll start by running ads on high traffic websites/apps like Facebook or Google.
When they click on your ad, it will send them to a landing page.
The reason why this is so important is because without the landing page, your CR will not improve. In fact, it will likely go down.
As we mentioned before, the average Amazon CR is a lot higher than the norm, and this is because people on Amazon are already in buying mode. However, traffic driven by ads on external sites will not be buying mode.
For example, let’s say you run Facebook ads. Now, the general conversion rate for ecommerce is around 3%. This means out of 100 people that view your product, only 3 of them will buy. So let’s say you get 100 people to come onto your listing. Let’s be generous and say 5% convert, since Amazon is good at getting people to buy. That means only 5 people actually convert.
Let’s say your CR before was 13%, which is the average. Well now you’ve just lowered your average CR. So, we need some way to filter out the cold traffic.
Cue the landing page.
Your landing page will act as the filter. Essentially, you use the landing page to showcase your product and all of the important information, like price, sizing, colors, description, etc.―everything the customer needs to know before they decide to buy.
The customer makes the decision right then and there, instead of going to Amazon. That means only people with the highest intent to buy make it onto your listing.
Offer a Discount
This one may seem obvious, but most of the time the simplest solutions have the biggest impact.
Offering a discount can help increase your CR, which will help push your ranking higher, so that when the discount ends, your product is still more visible than it was before, leading to more traffic (and more sales).
Simulate Scarcity
Scarcity is one of the most basic, yet effective, marketing tools.
Let customers know there is a limited time to buy your product, or redeem a coupon code, or get in on a promotion. This will trigger massive FOMO in your customers, driving them to buy then and there rather than wait.
What you can do to make this visible is have your graphic designer add whatever type of sale you’re doing (% off, BOGO, etc.) to one of your product images (not the main image, but any of the other ones).
Add an FAQ
A large part of sales is overcoming your customer’s objections and concerns.
A fantastic way to do this on Amazon is by creating an FAQ section on your listing. If you notice customers are asking the same questions time and time again, this would be a great way to get those questions answered so that customers are one step closer to clicking that buy button.
High-Quality Product Photos
You can’t judge a book by its cover, as the saying goes.
Nowhere is that more false than on Amazon. 67% of Amazon customers report that photos are the biggest factor when deciding to buy a product.
To get the most bang out of your product photos, follow these guidelines:
- Make sure your images are at least 1000 X 500 to let your customers zoom in on your product.
- Showcase every side of your product, so that your customers know everything about your product before buying.
- Show your product in use. Your customers need to know how it can solve their problems, and how it fits into their lifestyle.
Cultivate and Reply to Reviews
Chase after every single review as if your life depended on it, because it does in a way.
Online, you are only as good as your reputation. Social proof is one of the largest factors that tip people into making a purchase.
Two methods to gather reviews are:
- Include an insert card in your product encouraging people to leave a review (do not ask for 5 stars, as this could result in action against your account).
- Go back and request reviews. You can automate this with various software like Feedback Whiz.
Include Brand Name in the Title
You should always include the brand name in the product title.
If you don’t already have it, this one small fix can help increase CR massively.
I know you’re probably saying duhhhh, but I can’t tell you how many times I see this mistake!
This one change will help customers trust your brand identity and give them a reason to buy your product over a competitor’s.
Build Trust in the Bullet Points
Put yourself in the customer’s shoes.
You see a cool product, and you’re thinking of buying it.
However, it’s not a big name like Apple or Samsung. And there are only 30-50 reviews. You’re not sure if you can trust the brand yet. What if it breaks after 1 month?
You’re just about to click off when you notice the last bullet point… “Please contact us if there are any issues with your purchase.”
Great!, you think, If I have any issues they will be there for me, so I might as well buy it!
Adding a note at the end promising great customer service will often be the last push they need before a customer buys.
Additionally, if you offer a warranty or a money-back guarantee, you can throw this in at the end as well (only if you have one though!).
Final Thoughts
As you’ve learnt from this article, there are many, many factors that affect your CR.
And CR, in turn, is just one factor for SEO.
Needless to say, if you want to increase your sales, you have your work cut out for you. There are so many ways we can optimize the SEO of our products―and thus, ultimately, our sales.
To learn more about optimizing your products’ SEO, check out our in-depth guide here.
