Any ecommerce marketer worth their salt knows that an eye-catching, intuitive, and informative product detail page (PDP) is a surefire way to effectively frame a brand’s offerings for customers. Thankfully, Amazon offers a variety of tools to help your brand develop these types of enhanced shopping experiences on its platform.
Amazon’s “The Ultimate Guide to Build Your Brand in Amazon’s store” suggests that brands that leverage Amazon’s A+ content (also known more generally as enhanced content) on Amazon PDPs can encourage repeat purchases and increase sales by an average of 5%.
Enhanced content empowers brands to optimize the ways in which they showcase their products, highlight their stories, and provide shoppers with the content and information they need to make informed buying decisions.
Intrigued? Read on for an overview of the benefits of this type of content — and Amazon best practices for bringing your PDPs to the next level.
What Is A+ Content?
A+ content refers to a group of supplemental tools and features that Amazon offers brands, allowing you to strengthen your voice on its platform. This includes a diverse set of modules and layouts for content creation, product comparison charts, and more.
Some of the particularly impressive features include:
- The use of multiple HD-quality videos;
- Interactive hover hotspot modules;
- A customer question and answer (Q&A) widget; and
- Integration with Amazon’s Alexa system.
The platform’s “brand story feature” also provides ways to share your brand’s story independently from its individual product pages.
With Amazon’s A+ content offerings, your creative team will find no shortage of ways to bring your brand’s creative touch to your pages — and potential customers will take notice.
Key Benefits of A+ Content
While keeping your customers happy is always valuable, they certainly aren’t the only parties to benefit from the innovative use of enhanced content tools.
Increase Sales
We’ve briefly touched upon Amazon’s internal figures pointing to an average 5% increase after the deployment of enhanced content, but remember: That’s just an average. The company also found many brands saw double that — or more! — when employing established Amazon best practices on their PDPs.
If your brand has been sleeping on the power of Amazon’s enhanced content tools, you may be sitting on a game-changing gold mine of potential.
Improve Ad, Deal, and Coupon Performance
Adding enhanced content to your PDPs will likely result in increased performance for any ads, deals, or coupons you’re offering on the platform, too — which will have a multiplying effect on your sales.
For example, consider two hat companies (Hat Company A and Hat Company B), each of which allocates large advertising spend to improve their conversions on an Amazon PDP during the holiday season.
The two organizations offer hats that are of roughly equivalent quality, style, and price, with each brand’s ad spend being about the same.
However, Hat Company A features enhanced content on their product pages, with close-up photos, feature comparisons with other products, customer Q&A’s, and more.
Which company do you suspect will receive a better ROI on their ad spend? Exactly.
Reduce Returns and Negative Customer Reviews
When customers shop online, they’re much less likely to bounce, leave negative reviews, or request returns if they know exactly what they’re getting.
Enhanced content tools like detailed product pages, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and unfiltered customer feedback will go a long way in engendering bankable trust with your customers.
Encourage Repeat Purchases
The ideal PDP will not only deploy enhanced content to share a brand’s story and highlight its products’ key features but instill trust in the consumer that “what they see is what they’ll get.”
Your customers will be more likely to take a leap of faith and make an online purchase from you if your PDP offers:
- A comprehensive product description;
- A responsive, robust Q&A section, and
- Accurate product data.
Paired with a strong brand story that resonates with your customers, it’s easy to see how an effective PDP will keep shoppers coming back.
Creating an emotional connection with your customers at the point of purchase is one of the most effective ways your brand can leave a lasting impression — one that these shoppers will remember the next time they’re in the market for one of your products.
Amazon Best Practices for Exceptional PDP Experiences
If you’re new to Amazon, or just getting started with exploring enhanced content tools, there are a few best practices for ensuring maximum visibility and transparency for your PDPs.
Let’s address them component by component:
Titles
Titles are the first thing your customers will see, both at the top of your PDP and your Amazon search results. Make sure you keep this in mind while staying as descriptive as possible within the 200-character limit.
If you have questions about what Amazon requests for titles, check their rules and requirements.
You could also try this quick formula for writing PDP titles: Brand + Product Name + Size + Color. While that formula won’t quite work for every product, it’s a good foundation for providing what customers are looking for when they scan product titles online.
Images
Amazon recommends brands employ as many relevant high-quality photos as possible, with a focus on clear, understandable, and attractively presented images. HD videos, 360-degree product photos, and lifestyle product photos will also help to drive a connection with your customers.
Another good tip? Think of the ways your customers would handle or examine your project in a traditional brick-and-mortar store, and try your best to virtually recreate that experience.
Close-up photographs from all angles, lifestyle videos, 360-degree images, and other available tools can’t quite match the experience of holding a product directly in your hands, but it can come close.
Bullet Points
Amazon allows you to use up to five bullet points to highlight key features of your product, with a 1,000-character limit. (Amazon notes that shorter bullet points tend to improve readability and discoverability.)
As this information appears right next to your product images, bullet points are arguably equally as important as your images — or even the title! — when it comes to grabbing your customer’s attention.
Highlight the main differentiators for your product, with a laser focus on typical customer concerns or needs.
Information like size, key features, and cross-compatibility is all worth putting front-and-center here.
Product Descriptions
OK — you’ve convinced the customer to scroll further down your PDP. Now it’s time for your product description to take the stage.
As always, keep your copy precise, concise, and comprehensive. While you can have some fun here, it’s more important to provide actionable information than playful brand banter.
Consider what your various customer segments care about, and ensure their concerns are thoroughly addressed in each product description.
Ask yourself the following types of questions:
- What are some frequent questions or concerns you hear from your shoppers? and
- Can you address a common point of buyer hesitation before it’s even implanted in the customer’s mind?
This is your chance to make one final pitch to the customer on behalf of your product.
Don’t forget your search rank as it relates to your product description. While providing comprehensive information to the consumer is paramount here, any keywords you can include naturally in the text will be an added bonus.
Keywords
Keywords help your customers find the products they need during their Amazon searches. For example, let’s revisit Hat Company A’s efforts with their Amazon PDPs. While some folks might just look for “hats,” that’s hardly sufficient: Others might search for “caps,” “winter hats,” “brimless hats,” “cheeky British hats,” and more. You don’t want to miss out on their business!
Hopefully, you have some general idea of the kinds of terms customers may use when seeking out your products. Make sure you include those terms, as well as any synonyms or even misspellings if they have the potential to boost your search ranking.
To simplify this process, consider leveraging a third-party tool that will identify relevant keywords for your products, as well as their synonyms and common misspellings.
Remember: The Shopping Experience Is Your Brand
It’s not always easy to provide a fully immersive brand experience on a third-party platform. However, with access to Amazon’s A+ content tools, there’s really no excuse for not taking your PDPs to the next level.
The digital shelf is a diverse, competitive place. If you give customers high-quality, enhanced content they can trust, they’ll keep coming back in the future.
Check out Salsify’s “Winning Expert Strategies To Compete on Amazon” webinar for more insights on creating a state-of-the-art brand experience for your Amazon shoppers.
