Bottom Line: don’t think about only short-term benefits when creating an Amazon sales funnel. You should be focusing on getting as much long-term value from each customer. Do this by driving traffic to a landing page, where you can capture your customer’s email address and market to them more in the future.
Everything you Need to Know about Optimizing the Amazon Sales Funnel in 2024
Sending external traffic to your product listings without the proper Amazon sales funnel is a big mistake. You’re going to end up missing out on some of the big benefits of external traffic, such as building a list and retargeting, and you can easily wind up doing damage to your search rankings How to Rank for Keywords on Amazon.
Luckily, building a simple Amazon marketing funnel is not rocket science, and will help you address a major challenge all Amazon Sellers face: how to increase traffic to your amazon store.
What is the Amazon Marketing Funnel?
The term Amazon Sales Funnel (or Amazon Marketing Funnel) refers to the process taking potential customers through all the stages of the purchase decision journey: from creating awareness, to getting them to consider buying your product, all the way to completing the sale.
You will sometimes find that a fourth stage is added to this funnel: Loyalty. This extra step simply refers to consumers making repeat purchases. From a marketing perspective, so-called owned channels such as email marketing, can be effective in increasing “customer loyalty” and contribute to triggering a repeat purchase. Repeat purchases are important, because the cost of re-acquiring an existing customer is often lower than acquiring a new customer – Sending an email comes at a low cost, but running Amazon PPC ads to generate sales conversions can be pricey.
The Three Stages of the Amazon Sales Funnel
The basic steps of a sales funnel are awareness, consideration, conversion. To make it through the funnel a customer will:
Be aware of their problem/need,
Consider your product,
Convert (buy your product)
Another way of detailing a sales funnel is like this:
Unaware
Problem Aware
Solution Aware
Product Aware
Most Aware
Most products are made to solve a problem. For example, supplements to help with low levels of Vitamin D. The first step is then to make people aware of the problem (Vitamin D deficiency).
Once someone is aware there is a problem, they move on to the next step of the funnel, which is becoming aware of a solution to the problem (in this case, supplements). Now their buyer-intent is higher, as they are aware there are products that solve the problem.
The next step is becoming aware of particular products. Rather than searching for “Vitamin D supplement”, they may search for “ABC Brands Vitamin D supplement”. Now you’ve got a highly-targeted potential customer.
1. Awareness Stage
In the “awareness” stage of the funnel Amazon Sellers leverage so-called push marketing channels to showcase their products to potential customers. Examples for awareness building activities are running YouTube ads, Facebook / Meta ads or display ads.
By selecting relevant target audiences (i.e. based on contextual or demographic targeting) brands can reach a broad audience of shoppers that potentially have interest in their product(s).
Not all Amazon Sellers invest in the awareness stage as the return on ad spend (ROAS) is typically lower as compared to focusing on shoppers who are already further down the purchase-decision making path.
The advantage of investing in awareness marketing is that it creates the opportunity for you to create brand equity: Once solution-aware consumers may search for your brand directly. Brand and awareness marketing can thus help create brand salience. Brand salience, refers to the degree to which a brand is impacting a consumers’ purchase decisions.
Having a strong brand is highly beneficial as it shields you from purely price and product benefit based competition.
Marketing and Advertising Channels predominantly used by Amazon Sellers in the “Awareness” stage:
Meta / Facebook / Instagram Ads: Meta ads offer options that allow you to narrow your audience targeting down to a broad enough, yet still relevant target audience. One issue however is that you will not be able to optimize your ads towards a commercially viable conversion goal (such as “add to cart” or “purchase”) when driving traffic directly to Amazon. We however have a solution for that (scroll down to the section: The Solution: How to Optimize Your Amazon Sales Funnel Beyond the Basics?).
Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing can be a great way to build awareness. This applies specifically to products that address specific and common problems in a very direct way. Think of barbecues that do not require any assembly. An influencer can create a simple unboxing video and the benefits of the product (no assembly required) can be grasped within seconds. For other product categories, such as apparel or skincare products, where immediate benefits cannot be demonstrated that easily, the efficiency of influencer campaigns is typically lower. Pro tip: when you work with influencers make use of Amazon’s affiliate programme Associate Central to create a powerful incentive while reducing your financial risk.
YouTube Ads: Youtube ads are part of Google Ads. A big advantage of YouTube is that it is typically cheaper to reach wider audiences. According to Emarketer, Youtube’s average CPM (Cost per Mile = The cost to reach 1,000 users) is around $15 in the US. For Facebook ads on the other hand CPMs can vary dramatically from being lower for broader and potentially less qualified traffic to being a multiple of YouTube CPMs for traffic that is more likely to convert. One downside of YouTube ads is that they do not inspire click-troughs. Users on YouTube are less likely to skip their favorite show just to shop your products right then and there. Thus CTRs for Youtube ads are typically only between 0.2 – 0.6% whereas well targeted Meta and TikTok ads can easily reach CTRs of 1.5% and above. However do not let these numbers disencourage you: User journeys are no longer just linear and shoppers who have seen your YouTube ads may end up searching for your brand directly on Amazon later on. In practice it is however difficult to attribute this traffic and to measure the gain in brand salience.
Amazon Sponsored Display Ads: Amazon Sponsored Display Ads are Amazon’s native display ad format. With these ads you can increase shoppers’ exposure to your brand directly on Amazon. Based on previous browsing behavior, life events or interests you can serve visually appealing static or short video ads.
Please note that this list is not exhaustive, but just lists those channels that are typically used to build awareness. There are other options, such as traditional offline advertising, advertising on podcasts, or programmatic advertising that can also help you grow brand awareness.
2. Consideration Stage
On Amazon, most shoppers start their purchase journey in the “Consideration” or “Solution Aware” stage: They are looking for a specific product that they want to buy and use the Amazon on-site search bar to search for keywords that reflect this.
If your only source of sales is organic traffic, your sales funnel works like this:
Customer comes to Amazon -> Searches for keywords -> Clicks on your result -> Buys
This is fine – it’s the backbone of Amazon FBA as a business model. It can be very lucrative if properly optimized. This strategy allows you to operate a very lean business model where you focus on getting your product listings in front of shoppers who are ready to pull the trigger. Once they click-through to your Amazon product pages chances are they end up buying. After all, the average conversion of Amazon product listings is typically around 10% to 15% (Source).
For these reasons, do not forget to spend time optimizing your product listings. Having high-converting Amazon product listings, with SEO optimized product titles, bullet-point copy, quality product shots and infographics, is crucial for attracting and converting shoppers.
However, it is important to note that are a couple of constraints if the “consideration” stage is the starting point of your Amazon sales funnel:
You don’t have a lot of control over your funnel. There’s only so much of your customer’s journey you can manage.
You can’t retarget people who enter this sales funnel but don’t convert, which results in a loss of potential customers.
It’s also missing the first step of a funnel – awareness. Your customers are entering the funnel at the consideration stage, which means there are a lot of people you missed a chance to add to your funnel.
It will be difficult for you to build up brand equity. In the long-run building a healthy brand is critical to driving repeat purchase (loyalty) and also controlling customer acquisition cost.
Regardless of these limitations, especially for new Amazon Sellers or those with very limited budgets, focusing on this stage will often prove to be most cost-efficient. Typically focusing on Amazon on-site search, be it via Amazon SEO, or also supported by Amazon PPC ads, is the lowest-hanging fruit. At later stages, as your Seller business grows, you should complement this with an external traffic sales funnel.
In the “Consideration” stage Amazon Sellers typically try to tap into existing demand by featuring their Amazon listings on the Amazon search results page. Common tactics include:
Amazon SEO: Amazon SEO describes the process of optimizing your product listings for specific high volume and high relevance keywords (or search terms). In doing so Amazon shoppers can more easily discover your products.
Amazon Sponsored Products Ads: These are Amazon PPC ads: They allow you to target specific keywords. As a result your product listing can surface on top of the Amazon search results page when your predefined keywords are triggered. However, please note that Amazon PPC advertising is highly competitive and that expert knowledge is required to fully optimize your ads.
Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads: These ads are available to Amazon Sellers that are enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry. They allow for more control over visuals as you can add your own ad creative (ad copy plus hero visual and logo) than Amazon Sponsored Products Ads. With Sponsored Brands Ads you also have the option to target specific keywords, but you can also target other (i.e. competitors’) Amazon listings or relevant product categories.
Google Search Ads: Many Amazon Sellers also invest in Google search ads to drive relevant traffic to their Amazon Storefront or Listings. As with Meta ads, one limitation of this approach is that you cannot optimize your Google Ads for purchase conversions when driving traffic directly to Amazon. As with Meta ads, we have a solution for this issue that you can find further down in the section: The Solution: How to Optimize Your Amazon Sales Funnel Beyond the Basics?.
The Ultimate Amazon Sponsored Brands Tutorial
3. Purchase Stage
The difference between the “consideration” stage and “purchase” stage is the degree of purchase intent. While shoppers in the consideration stage are typically “solution aware”, they are “product aware” when they reach the purchase stage.
At this stage shoppers have already made up their mind and are really narrowing their purchase decision down to a few purchase options they have previously researched.
From a marketing point of view, you ideally want to give them a little nudge and remind them of your brand and products. One way of doing so is investing more aggressively in those same channels you invest in during the consideration stage: your search ads. With sufficient experience (and ad spend under your belt), you will develop an understanding as to which keywords are “high-converting” keywords. Ideally, your approach in targeting these keywords should be different than your approach towards targeting more “research” or “navigationally” inspired keywords. In most cases Sellers will bid more aggressively on keywords that perform better and drive more sales.
Pro tip: In practice the degree of purchase intent is often correlated with the length of a keyword. The keyword “men’s running shoes red size 8.5” will convert at a higher rate than a search just for “men’s running shoes”. The reason is obvious: in the first example a shopper has already done his/her research and is now looking to complete the purchase. In contrast to that the second, much shorter search query is much more navigational in nature and indicates that a shopper is still trying to narrow his/her decision down.
In practice it can take quite a long time (and be very costly) for Amazon Sellers to figure out which type of keywords to prioritize. In practice things are not always as straightforward. That’s the reason why many Amazon Sellers choose to work with a professional Amazon Agency: An agency that has a bird-eye view across many different ad accounts can accumulate learnings much faster than any individual Seller ever could. Spotting trends and changes in consumer behavior and arriving at statistically significant findings is easier when more data is available.
Besides the advertising options listed above, remarketing ads are another options at your disposal that can help deliver the final “push” and to close a sale:
Amazon Sponsored Products Ads and Amazon Sponsored Products Ads: Both ad types can be used to serve ads to Amazon shoppers who have previously visited your Amazon listings pages, but have not yet completed a purchase. Note: this will only work well if you have already accumulated a significant amount of traffic to your product pages as otherwise the size of these “remarketing pools” may be quite limited.
How to run effective Amazon ads retargeting campaigns
Should You Invest in all Three Stages of the Amazon Sales Funnel (Full-Funnel Marketing)?
One question we get all the time is: How can we scale our Amazon Seller business? Should we invest in so-called upper-funnel marketing (brand awareness building)? The answer is: it depends.
If you have fully optimized your mid- and bottom-funnel marketing activities, then investing in upper-funnel activities will eventually be the next logical step.
However, you need to be aware that you will need a strong visual identity and a well differentiated product offering with truly unique USPs in order for brand marketing to work. If you happen to sell another USB cable or power bank and your Amazon sales are mostly generated because your listings rank in high positions for related keywords, investing in brand building may not be effective. That however does not mean that you should not drive external traffic to Amazon. What matters is that you test different funnel types and find a way to broaden your reach while still targeting relevant shoppers.
Four Different Types Of Amazon Sales Funnels Every Amazon Seller Should Test
Here are a few different ways you can build an external traffic sales funnel for your Amazon product.
1. External Traffic – Landing Page – Amazon
Very simple, very effective. You get in front of someone, usually on Facebook or Google Ads. The ad links to a landing page, which replicates all the details from your Amazon listing (minus the sponsored ads of course!).
The page serves as a filter, for people to decide then and there whether they like your product and if they want to buy. You can also embed analytics on this page, such as Google Analytics and the Facebook Pixel. This allows you to track what kind of people you’re attracting, build powerful customer avatars, and retarget.
You can also use single-use percentage off discount codes as an incentive to capture emails on the landing page (this is a great incentive for people to buy, too!).
2. External Traffic – Shopify Store – Amazon
This works basically the same way, except you replace a standalone landing page with the product page on your Shopify store. You then direct traffic from Shopify to Amazon.
Why on Earth would you do this, you ask? Why not just make the sale on your own site and keep a larger cut?
Well, although your profit margins on Amazon are going to be smaller, there’s greater upside. The more sales you generate on Amazon, the higher your rankings, and the more chance for organic sales.
That means it’s often worth sacrificing a little in profits up front, so that you can rank higher and make more sales in the long run.
(We say Shopify here, but this works no different if your store is built on another platform, such as WooCommerce)
3. External Traffic – Messenger Bot – Amazon
This works best for driving traffic from Facebook Ads, as it reduces friction by keeping the customer on one platform until they go through to Amazon.
You’ll get in front of your potential customer on Facebook, with an ad that generates a Messenger flow when clicked on. You can use the Messenger flow to offer details on your product, instructions on how to use it (or how to buy it), and give out a unique discount code.
The Messenger flow also serves as a way to filter and qualify potential customers before sending them to Amazon. But with less space to show off your product, you want to be more descriptive in the previous step (your Facebook Ad).
Finally, when someone interacts with your Messenger flow, they’ll be added to your ManyChat audience, where you can send paid broadcasts to them in the future or add them to additional flows. You can also use your audience for Pixel retargeting and audience building.
4. External Traffic – Amazon (via special link)
Finally, if you just want to generate a lot of sales quickly, you can send people to Amazon without an intermediate step. In some cases this makes sense over using a landing page. For example, if you’re trying to get rid of stock of a product you’re discontinuing, or if you have traffic that’s high buyer-intent (from an email list, for example).
You can cut down on friction by using a link direct to Amazon. However, you’ll want to use a link that allows you to retarget with tracking & analytics. A link with the Facebook Pixel embedded lets you do that.
Amazon Marketing Funnel Goals: Capturing Email Addresses vs Generating Sales
You might be thinking that the goal of every funnel is to make a sale. But in some cases capturing emails is more beneficial.
Of course you want to generate as many sales as possible, but on an individual basis, an email subscription may have more long-term value.
With an email (this also applies to Messenger or any other actionable contact info, to a degree), you can:
Build a launch list to cheaply and effectively launch future products
Send regular email newsletters and content to stay engaged with your audience
Drive sales and run promotions with the push of a button
Send people to buy on your own site
Retarget customers on Facebook
Grow your audience by building lookalike audiences on Facebook
An email keeps working for you and has value well after the sale is done. So while a low-friction funnel that’s focused on making sales may offer more immediate return, think about setting up your funnel so that it’s focused on capturing emails too. A landing page offering a discount or lead magnet is most effective for this.
The Two Biggest Mistakes with Amazon Sales Funnels
Time and time again, Amazon sellers make two big mistakes with external traffic funnels. Lucky for you, you’re about to learn what they are, so you can avoid doing the same.
The first thing people do wrong: not optimizing their product listing before setting up their funnel.
After your funnel does all the heavy lifting, your product page better be set up to convince people to buy. Otherwise, you’ve just wasted a lot of effort, and most likely money too.
Even worse, with the amount of sponsored placements on Amazon these days, you could have just set up a sales funnel to drive traffic to your competitors.
You could have a beautiful sales pitch, gorgeous ad copy and a great deal, but that will all be wasted if your listing looks like garbage.
Listing copy is something that many sellers overlook. The first instinct is to get as many keywords as possible, but it has to be readable and convincing too. Remember that a human being needs to be able to read (quickly – people have short attention spans) your copy and decide to take action. If your title, bullets, description etc is too hard to read or doesn’t clearly describe your product and its features/benefits, your would-be customer is probably going to bounce.
Images are another big thing to think about. A lot of shoppers digest information easier in visual forms, so clear, high-quality images are a must. You should use as many images as you can, and show off as many use cases, features and benefits as possible. Give potential customers as much as they need to be able to picture themselves using your product.
Images are especially important for mobile customers, since they dominate the screen when someone first lands on your listing.
Along with images and copy, you should also make sure your keyword strategy is fully fleshed out. This doesn’t directly impact your sales funnel, but will help you capitalize on the sales momentum you generate, translating it to higher rankings for more (or more important) search terms.
The second mistake Amazon sellers make with their sales funnel is using a bare Amazon link as the destination URL.
Most sellers want to reduce friction and give the straightest path possible to Amazon. Here’s why that’s not the best idea.
First, traffic from Facebook (or other traffic sources like Google) is often unqualified and low buyer-intent. Audiences on these channels are often not in the mode to buy something right now.
In comparison, internal traffic on Amazon is hyper-targeted, and obviously, high buyer-intent. That’s why Amazon has a much higher conversion rate than most other online platforms.
What this means is traffic from outside Amazon will convert at a lower rate, and result in a drop in conversion rate for your product listing. As a ranking factor, a low conversion rate can mean lower rankings.
Also, sending people on a direct flight to your product listing means you miss out on one of the most valuable pieces of external traffic – building an audience. You haven’t captured any contact information from them, and now if you try to get that info, you’ll be in violation of Amazon’s terms.
A smooth sales funnel going straight from Facebook/Google can work, as long as the traffic you’re sending is highly targeted, and your goal is to drive sales velocity (rather than building an audience). But make sure you use a special link, which allows you to add a pixel, enable retargeting, and include your branding – rather than using the plain old Amazon URL. In addition to that, consider setting up an Amazon Landing Page for your Meta ads.
The Solution: How to Optimize Your Amazon Sales Funnel Beyond the Basics?
The solution to this problem is to use a landing page or Messenger bot in between the initial traffic source and Amazon.
This way you gather all the information you need before the shoppers go on to Amazon, and you offer enough knowledge about your product to decide whether they want to buy, before going on and hurting your seller metrics.
You have a lot of information, features, images etc you want to show off
You want a more stringent way of qualifying and filtering customers
Capturing emails is one of your primary goals
Use Messenger if:
Your audience is more familiar with your product
You want a quicker funnel with less friction
You have a larger percentage of mobile traffic
Recap: How to Design and Test Effective Sales Funnels for Amazon
Customer journeys are important. Without taking this into consideration, you’re going to end up scrapping for each sale you get, instead of building a sustainable external traffic flywheel.
A well-crafted sales funnel not only helps your paid ad campaigns be more successful, it also helps you get more value out of each customer, by enabling retargeting and list building.
This is how you can take your external traffic game to the next level.
