Amazon Bestseller Defense Badge - Obtaining, Defending and Impact

Best seller badges: the best of the badges

Amazon badging - a special flag that appears next to the product as it is merchandised around the site - is one of the few "free" merchandising offerings available on the Amazon platform. Badges are valuable because they live with the product in all merchandising options across the site, including ads, and can greatly improve performance.

These badges can be obtained/awarded by running coupons and deals, being part of specialized programs, being the 'best match' on a keyword (Amazon's Choice) and having the highest velocity in a category (Best Seller Badge).

Over the last year, we have developed an approach for obtaining and holding the Best Seller Badge. Holding the Best Seller Badge generally can increase daily sales by 15-25% as well as improve ad click through and conversion rates. This means brands should treat these badges differently, as they introduce a performance cliff: often, a brand should be willing to invest in order to keep the badge. In this document, we're sharing our approach on how to obtain and protect the badge, as well as some detail on the impact the badges can have.

Amazon Browse Nodes Brief

To understand Best Seller Badges, we first must understand Amazon Browse Nodes. Amazon organizes all 12+ million products for sale on the site into a hierarchical tree that groups similar products. Amazon calls the "nodes" of this tree Roots, Branches, and Leaves. In the example below, the Root Node is "Grocery and Gourmet Food:, Branch Node "Candy and Chocolate", Leaf Nodes is "Candy & Chocolate Assortments & Samplers. In the world of consumables, the most common Root nodes include Grocery and Gourmet Food, Health and Household, and Beauty and Personal Care.

So...could this be our badge?

The first step to winning a Best Seller is determining if it is even possible. Start with your top selling item. Where do you currently rank? We have found the most success when we are starting with products that are already a top 5-10 seller. Use a tool like Junglescout to estimate the gap in sales: that's how many more units per day you'd need to sell.

Next, if it's is possible, is it financially sustainable? You could add 30 daily units once, but could you do this everyday, long term? Or will you be priced out? How much do marginal ad-driven sales cost? Once we've determined the viability and see the opportunity, it's time to act.

Why make the push? Daily sales lift

Sales. It's the end goal of every strategy on Amazon. While it can vary between clients, we have consistently seen daily sales lift from 15-25% while we have the best seller badge.

Though it's harder to measure, there is a clear assumed ad efficiently with higher click-thru and conversion rates, as your "creative" improves with the badge appearing on your ads. Furthermore, Amazon awards top seller by pushing additional organic traffic that will also convert better as it is exposed to your products.

Defense: Protecting your best seller badge

Given the value of the Badge, it's not surprising that defending our Best Seller Badges is an everyday task. The first task for any best seller should be monitoring the Badge. Brands should keep a regular pulse on velocity and knowing the gap in daily sales from their product and 2nd place and 3rd place. Our favorite tool for this is the Jungle Scout extension.

If you are in active competition for the Badge, the best approach is to review your variation strategy.

Twisting together products variants onto one page is the most sustainable to set a higher baseline - Amazon looks at the Parent ASIN (sum of the different variants on a page), not just a single ASIN. In practice, this can mean sacrificing some of your digital shelf that appears when consumers search your brand, so you should measure before and after to determine the total sales impact.

For short term defense - i.e., you've lost the badge but see you are only a few units behind and need some quick velocity, you can use these tools to boost velocity short term:

• Coupons: can be activated nearly instantly and boost conversion
• Deals: sometimes have longer lead time, but can give a multi-day boost in traffic and unit sales
• Push external traffic: email, SMS, even directing other digital ads to Amazon - note you should use Attribution for your Brand Referral Bonus
• Increase spend on category keywords: look at brand analytics to see how many units you could get from a larger % share of a given search term. Ads is actually a tricky way to push additional units short term as marginal acquisitions usually are expensive

Inevitably, brands will run into fast-scaling product swooping in and claimg the badge. This is usually when we turn to (https://www.browsenodes.com/amazon.com) Browse Node Hacking: switching to a less saturated category. Go online and sift through Amazons node tree (https://www.browsenodes.com/amazon.com). Sometimes, brands can drill down a level further to a more specific sub-category. The benefits of the badge often outweigh the cons of a smaller category. Keep in mind that your browse node will impact your auto ad campaigns and your organic traffic. Have a look at the other top ranked products in the new category - that is where you'll be merchandised, next to those product and on their detail pages. If it's not relevant, you may have lower organic traffic conversion.

How to create a "moat" for your badge: subscriptions and reviews

Subscriptions, known on Amazon as Subscribe and Save, are the strongest "moat" of defense of a Best Seller Badge. Most category leaders have a significant subscription base creating a moat (often 30%+ in consumables). Sometimes there can be more subscribers than active monthly shoppers, which makes it hard to attack even with aggressive ads. Because of this, we almost always recommend fully funding S&S discounts on Amazon - the brand can fund up to 10%. In addition to the moat you create, the strong economics on a unit basis vs. most branded ad click costs make funding 10% a no-brainer.

The other moat on Amazon is reviews. Over time, review volume drives click share on category terms, and is a major driver of conversion on organic traffic. These clicks and conversions are what makes your sales rank "stick" - if another brand were to send a large volume of off-Amazon traffic to steal the Badge in the short term, their rank would decay resulting in a lost badge over time if you have better reviews.

It's also worth considering the seasonality and promo periods of your competitors, as these are times where getting or keeping the Best Seller Badge will be most difficult. Using a tool like Keepa shows us historical pricing to see when these times come about. High sales seasons are most important to hold the badge: you want the largest possible share of increases in traffic. We often create run-up deals to promotional or holiday periods.

Note that we are not talking about the Amazon's Choice badge, a black badge that is often merchandised in search or on detail pages. This is a separate badge that Amazon awards for being a 'best match' on a certain keyword. While quite valuable, it's merchandised around the site significantly less (seldom in ads) and a lot harder to control or defend.

About Cartograph

Cartograph is an eCommerce focused agency that helps food brands sell their products on Amazon. Their mission is to help brands grow products that are better for people and the planet. They support brands with strategy, pricing, SEO, advertising, and operations and logistics. Cartograph is based in Austin, TX.

If you’d like more information, please reach out at contact@gocartograph.com