Amazon Product Launch Success – Zero Rebates [ 2023 ]

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Updated:

12/26/2022

Amazon Product Launch Success

Amazon Product Launch 

The Amazon Product Launch Sequence is one that can be done a variety of different ways. There is no 1 best way.  The method in this article may not be popular at the moment but it keeps our margins where they belong and charges up the listing right out of the gate. 

As consultants, we are not always there for product launch and assume accountability later. We still need the knowledge and momentum for a launch or re-launch. The following is a readers digest version of our secret sauce as applied to Amazon listings.

We do not launch with massive giveaways or promos. We have no desire to compete for cheap buyers. There is little to no competition on Amazon for premium buyers, yet they are everywhere.  Amazon Primes' main demographic is not cheap buyers.

Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis is a key component to dominating any playing field. How can you ever reach the top of anything if you have no idea what you are up against?  

We put a lot of effort into profiling the competition and strive to understand their strategies as well as they do.   Leveraging their strengths and weaknesses to our advantage has created endless additional opportunities for clients over the years.

While our methods and process may vary between different industries, when we are finished with this key phase, for the most part, we have a very clear path forward.

Listing Optimization Effectiveness

The only measurement of how good (effective) a listing is, depends on how it stacks up against top competitors.  The person or company building your listing may tell you they created a masterpiece and may feel like they did.   But, if it does not stand out as better than the top performers in your category, it is not optimized.  You will never get to the top and stay there unless your listing can compete and convert at the top.  

If you are not in the top three sellers on page one, then you should be constantly looking at the listings ahead of yours.  Look for things they do better than you do and find a way to incorporate it into your listing.  Those ranking ahead of you should always have a target on their back, but remember you do as well!

Experience has shown us that doing this over and over will create a bullet-proof listing.  Study their reviews and Q&A's looking for pain points that your product solves and address it in your listing.  

Our Suggestions

We suggest taking full page screenshots of the top listings, store each on its own tab in an excel spreadsheet and reviewing it quarterly for changes.  Ask yourself, how well it is optimized for relevancy(keyword targeting)?  How well does it convert (messaging & sales)? How does it stack up against the top sellers?  

If you are not creating listings designed and optimized to compete at the top right at launch, then you are only lengthening the learning curve and postponing your success.

Metrics To Focus On

We always start with keywords.  Listed below is an outline of what data points we gather during this crucial step.  We start by identifying the top converting keyword phrases for the product both on the marketplace and elsewhere.

There are many different methods and tools available for gathering the data points. We use home grown tools.  A simple Google search will normally reveal both free and paid tools for revealing the data you will need.  See our Ultimate List of Marketing And Design Resources for links to all of the tools necessary and more to do your job.

Profile the top sellers in multiple marketplaces.    Reverse engineer the listings of the top 10 sellers for those top converting keyword phrases, revealing:


  • Audience
  • Demographics
  • Motivations
  • Pain Points (Reviews)
  • What information is important to them(listing Q&A's)
  • Opportunities
  • Hidden or potential traps
  • Untapped or saturated markets
  • Strengths & Weaknesses
Buyer Persona- Avatar

Create A Buyer Persona

While doing your research, have your Buyer Persona Worksheet handy, filing in the details as they become clear. When you have a clear image of your buyer, an avatar. It becomes easier to tailor your message to their motivations.

Speak To Your Avatar

Make a detailed list of the best thing about each listing that stands out to you, then try to improve and optimize this into your listing.  It is human nature to find all of the bad things others do.  The first exercise that we give to any client is to identify what their competitors do right.  You have to be better for a competitive advantage.

Using Results To Create Your Listing

The information revealed during your competitive research should tell you many things such as: What you need to say. How to say it. Who you are saying it to. How to best get your message to them. What they expect. How to motivate them. Where to find them, their obstacles, and opportunities. 

If you have kept good notes, your listing can almost write itself.   You should now know what to say and how to say it to appeal to your audience.  

We make a careful review of all of the product pictures. Utilizing this info, we know exactly what and how to create a listing that will launch and compete at the top optimized, targeted and converting. 

When setting up an Amazon product launch, you need to assist Amazon in properly categorizing your listing by thoroughly filling out every relevant back-end field. Your ultimate goal is to stand out, above and separate from all of the competition. Creating an optimized listing is key to your success.

Social Sharing

Focus On The Goal

Create additional value or perceived value and give buyers a reason to pay full price. It is a proven fact that people will gladly pay a little more for added value or the perception of it.

Your goal is to be able to grab their attention.  You want to make them say 'oh wow this is just what I need, I need to order this now'.  Then motivating them to press that buy button before the thought of scrolling south to the reviews even crosses their mind.  It is very important that you get this.  The success of your Amazon product launch depends on it.

Social Engagement & Targeting

During this time, we identify relevant groups, forums, media, influencers where we can put ourselves in front of our target audience. We get involved, build trust, gain acceptance and most importantly, start building out our list and pixel data.

This drives our launch or relaunch right out of the gate with zero reviews.  This traffic is warmer traffic so getting reviews from them is easier after the purchase.   We focus this on places we have identified as places to target and speak to our audience. This can be on FB, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Forums, Q&A sites, Video submission sites like Youtube, Vimeo and more, etc...

Social Engagement & Targeting

If running ads for paid traffic, the key to success is very targeted, segmented subgroups of your larger audience. Run 8 subgroups specifically targeting the motivation of the smaller group using a lower daily budget ad as opposed to a 200$ per day ad targeting the entire group.

Additionally content matching must be targeted. Do not target pet lover groups if you are selling dog accessories. Instead target dogs groups, even specific breads with the ads themselves targeting the different motivation for the different sized or breed dogs.

Never Waste Traffic - List Building

Maximize all traffic by first driving them into your funnel with your opt-in.   The reality of the situation that Amazon propaganda fails to tell you is that Amazon only has 330 million members while 3.3 billion people are on social media. That means for every FB ad run by Amazon sellers, they are losing people from their funnel that do not buy on Amazon like myself. E-commerce is changing.

A smart marketer sees this and adjusts. Your funnels should contain multiple payment channels so that your potential customer can pay via whatever means they are most comfortable with.

For example, Amazon, Stripe, eBay if you sell there also, and maybe PayPal. This way you are not potentially wasting your money on traffic that won't convert because you only choose Amazon. You win with more sales and options that cost much less than Amazon.

You can still MCF via FBA if you must.

SEO For Traffic:

SEO is the number 1 priority for everything we do because it drives traffic. We build out several different traffic drivers, properties, profiles for off-site traffic. Amazon now rewards off Amazon traffic, social mentions, back-links etc...   Bing and Yahoo, while both a small % of total worldwide search volume, are much easier to rank on and still drive 562 Million retail products searches yearly.

Long Tail As A Conversion Driver

Lastly, we build out an enormous detailed, long tail PPC campaign, exact match, one or two penny bids most of the time. Contrary to popular belief 95% of all sellers have no business dumping a ton of $$ into bidding on 1 and 2-word kw phrases because you cannot compete against big businesses with bottomless budgets.

Outside of Amazon, it is widely known that the money and savings are in the long tail. Amazon itself does 57% of its sales from long tail search phrases. Long tail converts better, ranks faster, costs pennies but has low search volume so you need a ton of phrases.

Long Tail List Creation

For example, tennis rackets, go to scientificseller.com and use their free keyword tool that provides Amazon buyer search terms, let it run overnight. While it is running, read their faq and follow their process, export your list when finished so you can get it for free.

Then go to a site like Wordstream and use their free keyword grouper. Your goal is multiple subgroups of 2 to 4 similar keyword phrases. Take those sub-groups to answerthepublic.com and run each subgroup separately Do the same on lsigraph.com, keeping the subgroups separate.

Other sites:

Your goal is upwards of a thousand 3 to 7-word keyword phrases with each subgroup becoming its own ad group, exact match, bid no more than 2 cents per phrase.

Tennis rackets right now are avg CPC of 70 cents with a vol of 60k searches a month and a difficulty level of .98, next to impossible to rank for. Graphite men's tennis racket right now has zero bidders, 1 penny puts you first on every search and a difficulty of ZERO.

One conversion and you will rank naturally for this phrase. Seer Interactive recently did a study that showed 83% of the converting keyword phrases convert 1 time a year and account for 8.7% of the total PPC spend. Keep your margins in your pocket with long tail

Timing Is Key

This is best utilized as a pre-launch strategy. Start this process as your order goes into production so you have time to be thorough, detailed and well entrenched in relevant groups. 

The more effort put into each area on this list before launching, the more successful your launch will be!  The ultimate goal with your Amazon product launch is to launch with most of the learning curve behind you.

At the same time, coming out of the starting gate with momentum and excited buyers waiting to purchase at full price driven by your recommendation or the implied trust of Influencers.

Product Launch Sequence

The Amazon Product Launch Sequence is an integral part of successful Amazon selling. For additional reading, see our Ultimate Guide On Amazon Ranking as well as all of our Dominate Amazon Products related posts

About the author 

Joe Reichsfeld

Joe Reichsfeld is an E-commerce Coach and Consultant who has been helping entrepreneurs succeed online since 1999. Before E-commerce, Joe spent almost 20 years managing and consulting in the food and beverage industry. His background, plus years of experience working with thousands of sellers, gives him a unique perspective and approach that has helped many clients.

Joe currently works with solopreneurs, small and medium-sized businesses, and Fortune 500 companies. He helps his clients create strong brands—using organic and paid methods—that have proven to deliver sustainable sales, traffic, and long-term growth. His strategies help clients dominate their niches and reach a larger target audience while diversifying across markets and borders. Book a 1 on 1 coaching call with Joe today and find out how he can help your business grow!

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The workshops below are designed to help you level up your game in each of the areas of interest presented. Many include the full systems and processes used to help a client stand apart from their competitors and take control of their business. As a member, you can access all of these workshops for as little as $39.95 per month after a 7-day free trial. The Pinterest Traffic Domination Workshop is available for FREE to all users.

Sellers who want personalized, guided coaching and a detailed game plan covering the best methods to increase sales in their niche and product categories should sign up for 1 On 1 Ecommerce Coaching with Joe. It's only $299.95 per month. Availability is limited, so get in while you can at this low price.

14 lessons

Intermediate

The half-life of a tweet is 24 minutes, a Facebook post is 90 minutes, and a Pinterest pin is 3.5 months . Pinterest is the number 1 source of FREE Ecommerce traffic since 2018 and users spend over 35% more than any other Social Media referral. As an effective visual, planning, search engine, how will you use to benefit your business?

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A Buyer Persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on research and data about real people.
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“Using Joe’s techniques, I was able to engage my target audience in a way like never before to create social proof for my product, gain reviews, and build traction in my niche. With Joe’s methods, I was truly able to add value to my product like no other seller in the market.”

Adam L. (Amazon 3rd Part Seller)

“Ecommerce Optimizer was a huge benefit to my business. Leveraging tested methods and fundamentals I was able to tune my existing marketing and add new forms to reach potential customers without wasting tons of money. My weekly sales baseline increase 3 fold over 6 months and I was able to keep my marketing budget the same. Solid business fundamental a must if you're looking to grow your business.”

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“We have seen substantial growth in our online sales while also expanding into markets and onto platforms we wouldn't have with ease and success.   Joes' insight has enabled us to avoid making costly mistakes while optimizing our existing listings and increasing sales on them as well.   His knowledge of how the marketplaces function saved us quite a bit, almost 100k a year in fees on Amazon alone.   This has been a very positive experience for us and we look forward to continue working together. ”

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