Marketing your products on Amazon FBA makes a massive difference to your brand awareness and sales. Potential customers searching for the perfect product quickly critique everything from your product image, the title, and price when deciding whether or not to click through to make a purchase. It is so important to get these elements right.
The best way to do this is to split test each of these elements to make sure you present the best version of your Amazon listing. So what is split testing, and how do you do it effectively? Let’s take a look at the best ways to split test your Amazon listing.
What is Split Testing?
Split testing is simply testing different aspects of your Amazon listings in a specific and scientific way. This can be done in three different ways; manually, using software-based tools, or through social media. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each of these methods.
Manual Split Testing is a Great Way to Begin
Manual split testing is when you, the seller, make changes, record the data, and analyze the results within your Amazon listing. For instance, if you aren’t 100% confident in your choice of the product image, you can try out one image for two weeks and then try out a different image for the next two weeks. At the end of both trials, you would compare the Amazon product sales you make during each of those periods and choose the photo with the most success. You can run as many different photos as you like and decide when you find one that works best.
As you might guess, manual split testing can be very time-intensive. You can only test one element at a time, and you need at least two weeks to get a clear idea of when an aspect is working. Suppose you try to test two different elements simultaneously, in that case, you’ll run into the problem of not being able to tell which of the elements was successful, and your data will be useless. What this means is you might be continually split testing different aspects of your Amazon listings. This is normal, and to optimize your Amazon list, you should always consider it a work in progress.
Another essential aspect to note about manual split testing is that you need to pay attention to natural buying cycles in the region you’re selling in. For instance, the information you gather about product sales in the USA over the two weeks, including Black Friday, is likely skewed. Try to compare weeks that traditionally have similar sales for best results.
Tools and Software to Help you Optimize Your Amazon Listings
Another way to split test your Amazon listing is to use software products to help you out. Several companies specialize in split testing your product for you, and a cursory google search will help you find them, but Amazon itself also offers split testing management for its Brand Registered Sellers. This program is called ‘Manage your Experiments” and can be found by clicking ‘Manage Experiments’ under the Brand Tab in Seller Central.
A great feature of Amazon’s split testing tool is you can actually run an A/B split test simultaneously. What this means concerning the product image experiment we talked about before is you can upload two different images of your product. Amazon will send half of your potential customers a listing with one of your images while the other half receive listings with the alternative image. It’s a great approach to split testing because it’s much more efficient than manual split testing but also because you’re able to compare the images throughout the same two-week period. This eliminates the concern that your sales are due to other outside factors.
The Amazon tool allows sellers to create split tests for listing content, title, and the main image. Remember that, like with manual split testing, you’ll only want to test one of these elements at a time.
Split Testing & Marketing Through Social Media
Finally, you can split test by asking the people who matter most, your customers and audience. If you have a decent social media following on one of the powerful platforms, then you’ll be able to put out a survey to your followers. Social sites like Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok can be a great place to reach potential customers.
Let’s look at social media split testing by using our product listing image example again. In this case, you would simply post both (or even multiple) images on your account and ask followers to reply with their favorite. Social media split testing is a great option because it does the dual work of learning about your customer’s preferences and keeping them engaged with your brand and content. The more touchpoints you have with your customers, the better your overall marketing strategy will be.
This is the quickest way to split test as you can start to see the results almost instantly. One thing to remember when using social media to split test, you are only going to be engaging with people who already love your product, so it may not give you as good an idea as other methods when it comes to getting new customers.
Different Amazon Listing for Different Markets
If you are currently selling in multiple markets, you know it is vital to tailor your Amazon product page to each market. Customers from different regions will engage with content differently. This means that you will want to split test separately in each market you’re selling in.
Additionally, if each of your markets has a different regional language or dialect, you may want to hire someone familiar with the language and region to help you with your split testing parameters. Seo amazon listing tiles can be highly varied from region to region. You likely won’t achieve your desired sales without someone who understands the language regardless of how much split-testing you do.
Professional Translation Services and Amazon optimization services like YLT Translations can also help with split testing for listings and keywords. Market-specific testing is paramount to your international marketplace success.
Have you tried split testing before? What do you think? Comment below.