How to Generate Product Reviews on Amazon

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How to Generate Product Reviews on Amazon Proven Strategies for Growing Third-Party Sellers RETAIL ADVERTISER COURSE

Transcript of How to Generate Product Reviews on Amazon

Page 1: How to Generate Product Reviews on Amazon

How to Generate Product Reviews on Amazon

Proven Strategies for Growing Third-Party Sellers

R E T A I L A D V E R T I S E R C O U R S E

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Jeff ColemanDirector of Account Management

Amazon Specialist Google AdWords Qualified Professional Over 7+ Years Experience With Retail Search

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Before We Get Started

Session Recordings Will Be Sent Next Week

Q&A Following the Presentation

Submit Questions In the Chat Box to the Right

Logistics SpeakersJeff ColemanDirector of Account Management CPC Strategy

Keith O’BrienCEOiLoveToReview

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•Founded in 2007

•Over 300 active retail clients

•Top 50 fastest growing company in San Diego 3 years running

•Recognized as an Official Google Shopping Partner

•Custom-built retail search technology platform, CAPx

Solutions

Retail-focused Paid Search

(PPC)

Google Shopping

Management

Shopping Channel

Management

Amazon Sales AccelerationCPC STRATEGY HAS BEEN FEATURED ON

DELIVERING LASTING RESULTS FOR OUR CLIENTS

VISIT CPCSTRATEGY.COM

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Poll QuestionDo you solicit product feedback from customers?

o Yeso No

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Amazon TOS Update: The Spirit of the Law

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TOS Update Intentionally Vague

• Allows Amazon state their primary objective without identifying every possible way an advertiser might get around it.

• Allows Amazon to continuously adapt to the arms race

Spirit Of The Law: Provide value to Amazon’s customersAsk yourself 2 simple questions:

• What’s in the customer’s best interest?• Am I deceiving Amazon or the customer?

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Google Panda

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Cracked Down On• Link farms: Intentionally deceived Google’s algorithm• Duplicate content: Provided no value to the customer

Perfect Execution?• Absolutely not• Many legitimate businesses used these practices & they

were hurt as well.

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Paid Positive Reviews & Super URLs

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2 Affected Strategies

1) Paid Positive Reviews• Extension of Amazon’s continued scrutiny of product reviews• Clearly an attempt to deceive the customer (or future customers)• There are plenty of ways to solicit feedback honestly

2) Super URLs• Obvious attempt to deceive Amazon’s ranking algorithm• Still seems to be a viable strategy• Only a matter of time before Amazon closes this loophole for good, & possibly

penalizes retailers for using them

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Welcome you to...

REVIEWS, RANKING, CONVERSION RATE & TOS

UPDATES

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WHO IS TALKING?• Keith O’Brien - CEO, iLoveToReview

• Father, Entrepreneur, 20+ years in Marketing & Leadership Development

• Prior to iLoveToReview, Keith has been on the marketing, training and sales end of a number of multi-million dollar companies & campaigns

• iLoveToReview has worked with 100’s of Amazon Sellers helping them launch, ramp up and expand sales through strategic review campaigns

• We’ve generated 10’s of thousands of reviews for clients - 32,401 since May 15 to be exact.

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THE FACTS• Reviews are an essential part of Amazon’s business

model

• Providing a product in exchange for an unbiased review is clearly outlined within their Terms of Service

• Organic reviews from general customers come in at an average of 1/2% - 2%

• Reviews (social proof) are oneof the biggest influences on consumer buying behavior

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SALES IS THE NAME OF THE GAME

Sales = Traffic + Conversion Rate

Traffic Organic Ranking Paid Ads Existing CustomersExternal Traffic

Conversion Rate PriceTitleBullet PointsImageDescriptionKeyword TargetingREVIEWSSeller Feedback

Organic Rank PriceDaily Sales Conversion RateSeller Feedback

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New Amazon TOS Updates

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PROHIBITED SELLER ACTIVIES

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PROHIBITED SELLER ACTIVIES

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The Big Questions:

• What does “excessive number of free or discounted products” mean?

• Does that mean that giveaway campaigns for reviews are no longer within TOS?

• What about using Super URL’s?

• What else may be a violation of the new TOS?

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Examples• Sellers are having single buyers purchase multiple units

of the same product at a discount or free (using coupon codes) to drive sales rank

• Sellers are setting up fake accounts acting as real buyers - making purchases using coupon codes and canceling orders…

• Sellers are offering buyers additional product to change bad reviews into good ones

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Our Conclusions About The TOS Updates:

• The intention of the updates is to mitigate fraudulent behavior from sellers trying to manipulate the system

• Providing buyers free or discounted product in exchange for unbiased reviews is within TOS with specific guidelines of what is necessary to remain compliant (re: disclosure statement)

• Remove terms from your headline and bullet points that promote rankings. Ex: #1 Best Seller, Best Selling, etc.

• We are still researching and reviewing use of SuperURL’s

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WHY REVIEWS MATTER• Social Proof is one

of the biggestinfluencers of consumer buying

• All things being equal…those with more/better reviews often wins

• High Reviews and Rating can sway decisions over higher ranking products

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HOW TO GAIN MORE COMPLIANT REVIEWS ON YOUR PRODUCTS

• Follow up emails - autoresponder email series designed to engage your customer to leave a review or seller feedback or both.

– Benefits - can raise organic review rate, fairly simple to use. Recommend for all sellers

• DIY / Manual Method - Hunt down individual reviewers, find their email or connect through Amazon, reach out to them personally, ask if they would be willing to review your product. Follow up with everyone to make sure it happens.

• Benefits - free (other than time), can target reviewers

• Review Service - Companies that have done the legwork for you to build database of consumers and systems for coupon distribution and potentially systems to enforce review follow through and TOS.

• Benefits - Takes almost no time, customer service, potentially very high review rate (85%+), increases sales velocity & conversion rate

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EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES FOR REVIEW CAMPAIGNS

• New ProductsSolid PerformersLeading Products

– Drive needed reviews to create social proof (new)

– Drive daily sales

– Increase conversion rate

– Stay ahead of competition

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DAILY SALES AVERAGE & CONVERSION RATE

# of visitors Sales Conversion Rate

Oct 1 100 15 15%

Oct 2 105 19 18%Oct 3 104 22 21%

Oct 4 280 191 68%5

Oct 5 175 90 51%Oct 6 115 27 23%Oct 7 112 25 22%

Daily Average 56 31%

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REMEMBER THESE GUYS?• 100% organic reviews

• New competitor has taken over#1 position and has 350+ reviews in a short amount of time

• This seller must get more aggressive as competition enters the marketplace

• You can play the Price War Game = Everyone Loses

• Or you can out-market them (PPC, Optimize, Reviews)We could drive 254 new reviews in about 3 weeks

• This is true in any industry and on any sales platform

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WHAT TO LOOK FOR IF CHOOSING A REVIEW SERVICE

• Reviews & VolumeHow many reviews have they actually generated? Do they even know?Can they handle volume?

• ComplianceDo they guarantee reviews or star rating?Do they say they will put reviewers in touch with you if they have a problem with the product?

• Public vs. PrivateDo you want your sale priced or free product open for everyone to see?

• Full Service vs. DIY Do you want to spend staff time on managing this part of your business?

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NEXT STEPS• Review your products & run a comparison vs your

main competition

• Decide if you are going to get reviews through email follow ups, manually or with a review service (most sellers use a combination of these)

• Decide what you will need to do to reach your goals - how much, how fast?

• Create a plan and take action

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Questions for Jeff or Keith?

Session Recordings Will Be Sent Next Week

Submit Questions In the Chat Box to the Right

Logistics SpeakersJeff ColemanDirector of Account Management CPC Strategy

Keith O’BrienCEOiLoveToReview