Since competition between merchants on Amazon just keeps growing, it’s vital for vendors to differentiate themselves from others who offer competing or similar products. That’s where Brand Pages comes into play. Accessible from within Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), this feature lets you create a unique brand destination within the protective infrastructure and customer-friendly marketplace of Amazon itself, freeing you up to focus on satisfying your customers. Since Brand Pages is now more customizable than ever before, you have even greater opportunity to impress prospective buyers and reach the top goals of every vendor: more sales and increased visibility for your products.
The feature has been around since November 2012, so it’s a tool some vendors who use AMS are already familiar with. If you haven’t already given Brand Pages a shot, we recommend you try it soon. As a vendor, you’re essentially able to take ownership of the page—similar to how you would with a website of your own—while retaining the all-important trustworthiness factor that motivates customers to keep shopping on Amazon. Your brand stands to gain a great deal from using the feature.
Above: sample page from AmazonBasics, one of Amazon’s private label brands, shows what a brand page looks like.
Why do vendors use it?
It’s common for a brand page to act as a gateway to a brand, enabling a small business to look just as savvy or sophisticated as a big-name company. The feature allows brands to have all the image-centric power of Pinterest with all the backend support and logistical prowess of Amazon. In addition, Brand Pages allows you to add several social media buttons, so you can post on social media, market across different platforms, and verify quality with reviews.
Within Brand Pages, you also receive access to Amazon Analytics. This lets you collect data for your brand such as audience demographics and information about what visitors do as they navigate to or from your brand page. Normally, Amazon isn’t so forthcoming with insight into shoppers’ behavior or data about visitors to the site, so this information is worth taking advantage of.
How it works
Brand Pages is a free self-service program that is fairly straightforward to set up and use. You can set up a single- or multi-page brand page within AMS. Each page will have typical header and footer sections, as well as empty content tiles for things like product photos, other images, or text. For each page, there are three templates to choose from. Amazon Brand Pages also allows you to create a custom URL for your brand (i.e., amazon.com/brand-name) and drive traffic to it.
How did it work before now?
Before now, brands were limited in the way they could customize their pages. With only a few templates and design options, brands didn’t have much of a chance to engage customers’ interest. Not only that, but Amazon does not seem to have prioritized publicity about Brand Pages, so many brands have not taken full advantage of features like creating a unique URL for their brand.
The program has undergone several iterations and made a lot of worthwhile progress since its first release in 2012. For one thing, there’s now a much more robust and user-friendly video option, allowing you to make the case for your brand value in a way previously unavailable on Amazon. With video quickly becoming the number one online marketing tool and consumers having such positive reactions to videos in e-commerce and elsewhere, this is a truly valuable update.
A Similar Feature for Sellers
Currently Brand Pages is only available to AMS vendors—the feature doesn’t exist in Seller Central—which means third-party sellers haven’t been able to use brand pages in Headline Search Ads or receive the other advantages outlined above. However, Amazon is now offering a feature that will effectively level the playing field and give any seller the same capabilities vendors have enjoyed.
The new feature is called Amazon Stores, and it’s basically a new and improved version of Brand Pages. Amazon Stores pages are free and simple enough to create. Once created, your Stores page will be the only place in Amazon where you can direct external traffic to a landing page and collect conversion rates and other data from these external sources, as discussed in a recent Seller Sessions interview. If your brand is part of Amazon’s new Brand Registry, then an Amazon Stores page is almost certainly the next step for you.
Unlike with Brand Pages, Amazon is likely to put a good deal of effort into promoting Amazon Stores and encouraging brands to use it. In fact, it looks like Amazon might be shifting its focus to this new feature instead of devoting effort and resources to continually updating Brand Pages. Amazon Stores pages are a natural next step for the platform because they offer even more customization potential, whether you’re operating in Seller Central or as a vendor in AMS. They have the greatest potential to let you function like an e-commerce website within Amazon, and many expect Amazon Stores pages to exceed Brand Pages in terms of actual usage as well as impact on brands’ bottom lines. Of course, this is only speculation since there’s no way to know precisely what Amazon’s plans are.
The Big Picture
Brand Pages allows vendors who use AMS to market their brand in compelling ways, giving these vendors an edge in attracting traffic and landing sales. With increased personalization and branded URLs, Brand Pages offers all the behind-the-scenes administrative advantages of Amazon while your brand enjoys the limelight.
Amazon Stores, newly available in Seller Central as of July 2017, builds upon this idea of creating a unique storefront within the structure of Amazon. With this feature, sellers can create a less generic and more welcoming brand presence. Be sure to subscribe to our mailing list, so you know when we post our follow-up article about Amazon Stores and how brands on Seller Central can use it.
If you’re a vendor using AMS, you should try Brand Pages. Both your visibility and sales should increase. If you’re unsure how to proceed with Brand Pages, our team of AMS experts can quickly fill in any knowledge gaps and ensure your brand gets every possible advantage from this program. To learn more, contact the Bobsled team here.
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