Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:52 — 70.1MB)
A 10% conversion rate or better is what Brad Moss grades as an A on Amazon, and anything at 4% or 5% needs work. Sales come down to conversion rate multiplied by sessions, so diagnosing a struggling product means figuring out which of those two numbers is broken before changing anything.
Brad ran Seller Central at Amazon, where more than 167 separate systems operated inside the platform he was responsible for. He also built the Amazon Seller mobile app.
He now runs Product Labs, where he audits and operates Amazon channels for sellers. His framework separates inputs you can change from outputs you can only influence.
This episode covers what conversion rate and session benchmarks to target, the four inputs behind each, how parent-child relationships and categorization affect organic ranking, and the signal that tells you to raise your price.
A note on timing: this is a 2017 conversation. Amazon’s review policies, brand registry, and enhanced brand content have all changed since, so treat platform specifics as historical.
Get My Free Mini Course On How To Start A Successful Ecommerce Store
If you are interested in starting an ecommerce business, I put together a comprehensive package of resources that will help you launch your own online store from complete scratch. Be sure to grab it before you leave!
Table of Contents
Key takeaways
- A 10% or higher Amazon conversion rate grades as an A, while 4% to 7% signals a problem worth fixing.
- Roughly 3,000 sessions a month is a general benchmark, though the right figure depends on your category and competitors.
- Sales equal conversion rate times sessions, so diagnose which one is weak before changing your listing.
- Paid traffic above 50% of clicks indicates a broken organic listing rather than a strong ad strategy.
- Bullet points and descriptions are indexed for keywords, while enhanced brand content is not.
- Rewriting description text alone took one client from 4% to 10% conversion, with no image or title changes.
- Fixing parent-child relationships and backend keywords grew one seller’s business 200% in two months.
- A conversion rate around 20% is the signal that you can raise your price, in 50 cent or dollar increments.
How does Amazon decide what to build?
Nearly every decision requires a business case with revenue numbers attached. Brad had to prove the value of each change, then defend it up through a VP or senior vice president for larger ones.
The bar is high enough to kill good ideas. He identified a neglected page worth an estimated $30 million and was turned down, because the threshold was a billion dollars over three years.
A/B testing settles disputes that would otherwise be opinion. The advertising tab is named that rather than marketing because testing showed sellers recognized the word more readily.
Some initiatives skip the math entirely. Strategic direction from Jeff Bezos and his team arrives without dollar figures attached and gets built.
What is a good Amazon conversion rate?
Ten percent or above earns an A in Brad’s grading, and 4% or 5% clearly needs improvement. Even 6% or 7% usually has room.
The range in practice is wide. He has seen listings as high as 60% and plenty of miserable ones.
These figures sit far above standalone ecommerce norms, where roughly 3% is typical. Amazon shoppers arrive much further down the purchase funnel, so a click carries more intent.
Chasing the top spot in every category is the wrong target. Product Labs sets its A threshold at the top quartile of sellers, because being number one everywhere is expensive and unsustainable.
How many sessions should an Amazon listing get?
Around 3,000 sessions a month works as a general benchmark, with far more variation than conversion rate shows. The meaningful comparison is against competitors in your specific category.
Low-volume niches make the raw number meaningless. A product with limited search demand will never reach 3,000 sessions regardless of how good the listing is.
Competitor session estimates come from triangulation. Best seller rank, estimated sales, and an assessment of listing quality together give an approximation, since the real numbers are private.
Top sellers are assumed to convert above 10%. The open question is how far above, which is what the listing analysis estimates.
What percentage of Amazon traffic should come from ads?
Between 30% and 50% paid is healthy, and above 50% means your organic listing has a problem. Heavy ad dependence indicates shoppers are not finding you through normal search.
Short bursts above that range are fine. A deliberate one or two month push will spike the ratio before it settles back.
The diagnostic value is in the split. Analyzing whether sessions come from native Amazon clicks or advertising clicks tells you where to work.
What are the four inputs that drive organic sessions?
Your title, the keywords in your listing content, your backend fields, and your product categorization. Each one affects organic ranking independently.
Content keywords matter more than many sellers assume. Bullet points and descriptions are indexed, while enhanced brand content is not.
Backend fields cover more than keywords. Other attributes in there are frequently left incomplete and may need adjustment.
Categorization can pull you out of the rankings entirely. Sitting in the wrong category damages where you should legitimately appear.
How do you test Amazon backend keywords?
Change several at once and watch results over the following weeks, because true A/B testing is unavailable on Amazon. Sequential change and observation is the only method.
The change is usually additive. Rather than replacing every keyword, the typical adjustment adds a few candidates and removes obvious misses.
Give it real time. Several weeks of data is what shows whether organic ranking improved or declined.
Should you change your Amazon product category?
Treat it as a last resort after other fixes have failed. Moving categories can disturb the historical indexing Amazon has built for your listing.
The right question is not whether you are in the wrong category. It is whether you are in the most effective category for your product, and sometimes the answer is genuinely yes.
Category hopping to chase badges is being cracked down on. Amazon will move you back where you belong.
Do parent-child relationships help Amazon rankings?
Yes, in everything Brad’s team has tested. Properly structured parent-child relationships consistently produced a benefit.
The results can be dramatic on their own. One client’s business grew about 200% in two months from fixing backend categorization, parent-child structure, and a few backend keywords.
The common objection is losing separate search listings. Variations still appear separately in results, sometimes on later pages, and all of them feed the same parent.
That consolidation is the mechanism. A shopper discovering the blue version lifts the parent, which lifts the black version too.
Reversibility makes them low risk. Children are their own ASINs, so you can pull them back out if the structure does not work.
How much to combine is a judgment call. Some successful listings carry 30 styles with five sizes each, and the test is whether shoppers arriving for one would plausibly buy the other.
What are the four inputs that drive conversion rate?
Media, content, price relative to competitors, and customer feedback. Media is where most sellers have the largest gap.
Image changes produce the biggest single swings. Brad has moved conversion rates 10 to 20 points on a main image alone, including one product that went from 3% to 13%.
The failure is often clarity rather than quality. A client’s expensive pillow did not read as a sleeping pillow, and fixing that perception lifted conversion substantially.
Text alone can carry a listing. One supplement client went from 4% to 10% purely by rewriting the description, with no changes to images or titles.
Price works relative to competitors rather than absolutely. Undercutting raises conversion, and being $10 above the next seller with a low conversion rate points at pricing.
Communicating value is the alternative to cutting price. When a seller cannot lower the price, the work shifts to better media, better content, and stronger feedback to justify the premium.
When should you raise your Amazon price?
When your conversion rate reaches about 20%. That level indicates buyers would tolerate more.
Move in small steps. Fifty cent or dollar increments, then watch conversion over the next couple of weeks.
The goal is total profit rather than conversion rate. Cost of goods, returns, and the full cost structure determine whether a higher price is actually better.
Amazon shoppers are more price sensitive than shoppers on your own site. The platform is built around low prices, and there is still some room to move.
How do you improve Amazon customer feedback?
Feedback is an output with four inputs behind it: answering questions, requesting reviews, customer service, and product quality. Product quality is the one that matters most and is hardest to control up the supply chain.
Answer every customer question professionally and concisely. Those answers are public and shape purchase decisions.
Review requests move the number meaningfully. Reviews correlate with roughly 1% to 2% of conversion rate each, and actively requesting them has pushed that toward 5%.
Two emails is the maximum. A three-message chain crosses into pestering.
Ask about the product rather than the seller. Seller feedback carries little weight with customers.
Does Amazon seller feedback matter?
Only to Amazon, not to shoppers. Buyers care about Prime and the delivery promise rather than who the seller is.
A clean rating around 4.7 is sufficient. Beyond that threshold, more seller feedback does nothing for your organic rankings.
Amazon treats it as a checkbox. A decent rating combined with meaningful revenue may earn you more attention or an account manager.
Is enhanced brand content worth adding?
It affects conversion rate and belongs low on your priority list. Enhanced brand content is not indexed for keywords, so it does nothing for sessions.
Prioritize by what is actually broken. Low sessions means working on organic or paid traffic rather than adding rich content.
It displays well on mobile, which matters given that over half of traffic is mobile. If your conversion rate is weak, it is worth examining.
Sellers already converting at 20% or 30% can add it without urgency. Once everything else is handled, more enhanced content is a reasonable use of time.
Video is a genuine addition. Videos sit lower on the page and get clicked when shoppers are scrolling toward reviews looking for more detail.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good conversion rate on Amazon?
Ten percent or higher is strong, and 4% to 7% indicates room for improvement. These run well above the roughly 3% typical of standalone ecommerce sites because Amazon shoppers arrive with higher purchase intent.
How many sessions should an Amazon product get per month?
Roughly 3,000 as a general benchmark, though session volume varies far more by category than conversion rate does. Compare against competitors in your specific niche.
Are Amazon bullet points and descriptions indexed for keywords?
Yes, both are indexed. Enhanced brand content is not, so keywords placed there do nothing for organic ranking.
How much paid traffic is too much on Amazon?
Above 50% of your clicks. That level suggests shoppers are not finding your listing through organic search, which points to a listing problem rather than an ad strategy.
Do parent-child listings help on Amazon?
Yes in Brad’s testing. Variations still appear separately in search results while all of them feed the parent listing, and the structure is easily reversible.
When should you raise your price on Amazon?
When conversion reaches about 20%. Raise in 50 cent or dollar increments and watch conversion over the following weeks.
How many review request emails should you send?
No more than two. A third message crosses into annoying customers without meaningfully improving results.
Does seller feedback affect Amazon rankings?
Not beyond a threshold around 4.7. Customers largely ignore seller identity when Prime delivery is available, and Amazon treats the rating as a checkbox.
