Amazon A+ Content – With Enhanced Brand Content Examples

Amazon A+ content vs Amazon Enhanced Brand Content? Why not both!? Up until July 2019, Amazon A+ Content was only available to vendors, whereas sellers were restricted to using Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon. This is no longer the case. Vendors – these are the sellers who sell directly to Amazon – and regular sellers – meaning those who trade on the marketplace – now both have access to A+ Content on Amazon. And not only that, the access to the content manager is also free of charge!

Here’s the bottom line: you can make good use of this development if you are a seller and manage a listing on Amazon. A big plus regarding the content on your product page is of course that you can now promote it in a more prominent fashion than you were able to before. However, you have to keep in mind that this may involve a not insignificant workload which may not be worth your while for every type of product you sell. With this in mind, we took a closer look at what Amazon A+ content has to offer and for whom, so that at the end of the day, you can effectively increase your conversion rate. 

What Is Amazon A+ Content?

Amazon A+ Content is, by definition, a program with which you can manage the enhancement of your product page on Amazon through visuals and other content. Why would you want to do that? Well, for some products, higher quality content leads to more engagement, which, in turn, leads to higher chances of your potential customers clicking on the coveted yellow button labeled “Add to Cart”.

Every product on Amazon has its own ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), a unique product identifier to keep the catalog free of duplicates of the same product. Any seller offering the identical product is merged onto the same product page. But only one seller – mostly the holder of the buy box and/or the brand owner – is allowed to manage the content of this product detail page.

When it comes to private-label goods, it’s a different story. Since these products are only offered by one seller – the owner of the private label – this particular seller is also eligible to edit the product detail page. Besides the title, bullet points, pictures, and a lot of attributes, the product detail page also contains a text-only description of 2,000 characters length.

Amazon A+ Content allows you to expand this product description by an additional 5,000 characters, to a total of 7,000 characters. This allows sellers to present their items in more detail and/or more appealingly. In addition to this, you can add product images, graphics, Amazon A+ Content even allows video on your product page to help you nudge your potential customers into the direction of the buy button.

A+ Content and Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon are now used synonymously, but there is still a way for vendors to go one step further and possibly stand out. If you’re selling your products directly to Amazon for further distribution, you may be able to profit from Amazon A+ Premium Content. This premium service allows you to include video loops, interactive content, or FAQs onto your product page. Question is, even as a vendor, are these services necessary for your product and will your profits outweigh the costs?

Whether you as a seller can use the former EBC for your product depends on the following conditions:

The Basics: Target Group, Pictures and Texts

Let’s start with the basics: When preparing your product page with Amazon A+ Content, be sure that all your pictures are in high resolution. Your copy must be error-free. You should also see to it that your sentences are not long and interlaced, but rather short, to the point, and easy for the customer to understand. When it comes to the important info, try to be concise but appealing at the same time. 

What is even more important than this: remember to keep your target group in mind. Sellers of wellness products obviously address a different crowd than, let’s say, sellers of model kits for robot arms. Naturally, this also applies if you use the Amazon A+ Content because this is ultimately also a part of your marketing. 

A Picture Says More than a Thousand Words!

When you’re preparing the images you want to upload to your product page, be sure to take into account what the customers you talk to through your Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon and try to strike the right note. This right note should naturally cover the written, as well as the visual language. The construction kit that was photographed in a cosy candlelight atmosphere will probably not convince a lot of mechanics to buy from you, no matter how romantic they are. 

When talking about images on Amazon A+ Content, there are guidelines stating that you should pay equally as much attention to resolution as you do to presentation. Follow these guidelines. The product you are selling should naturally always be the main focus of the picture. Other items in the image, if there even are any, should only be there to draw attention to your main product. Watch out especially for energy sockets or doors in the background, unless you are selling products for a house. Also, make sure that the picture is not overloaded with elements because you want to show all the functions of your article at the same time. Getting a professional to look at your work at this point is definitely a worthwhile investment.

Amazon A+ Content on Foreign-Language Marketplaces 

If you sell on several marketplaces, you will probably want to use Amazon’s A+ Content on these as well. When you translate them into a different language, pay attention to the quality of the translation. See to it that the text is grammatically correct and has the right spelling. Check if you also reflect the meaning of the text correctly in the translation. Idioms, for example, can have a positive meaning in one country but are an absolute no-go in the next! 

Therefore, only take translations into your own hands if you have excellent language skills. If you don’t, contact professional translators for your Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon.

What Goals Can I Pursue With Amazon A+ Content?

The primary goal is to demonstrate to potential customers that buying your product is the best choice they can make. Once you’ve managed to do this, you can sit back and watch your conversion rates go up. Depending on the product though, different approaches might make more sense for different scenarios.

Communicating Information

For example, do you have a product that requires a lot of explanation? Then you should use the additional space to explain your product with Amazon enhanced brand content. Good examples for this are smartphones or tablets. 

In the A+ content example above, three features of the smartphone are displayed attractively in order to describe them in more detail: the dual SIM function, the good battery life, and the unlocking via face recognition. Each function is visualised with an image that gets the attention of the reader first and is then explained with a short text. In this way, customers receive the relevant information in a short, concise, but still appealing way. Let’s face it, no one wants to compare products to each other by having to read a novel about each product and its “unique” features. It’s better to keep sentences short, maybe even use bullet points if they suffice to get the point across. Put your main effort into awesome pictures, they will convince your buyers more. You can use Amazon A+ Content in this regard to skilfully stand out from the competition by designing your enhanced brand content on Amazon to suit the target group.

Identifying the USP

It’s important to highlight your product’s unique selling points, i. e. the function and features which make the product special. If your product is different from those of your competitors, you can use text and images to draw attention to these factors in order to convince customers to buy from you. You can do this well with Amazon A+ Content. Good examples are shown here:  

This is a good example for Amazon A+ content best practices. The seller clearly shows that his protein powder is vegan, has high-quality ingredients, and also gives a quality promise. These points set him apart from other protein powders that are made of animal ingredients or have ingredients of lesser quality. The three unique selling points are recognisable to the shopper at first glance. In this manner, enhanced brand content on Amazon will influence the customer’s purchasing decision. 

Creating a Virtual Customer Experience

The online shopping experience is completely different from the one your customers make when they physically go out of the house to shop. In a brick-and-mortar store, customers can try out or try on the products, touch them, look at them from all sides. They can also consult a salesperson who will answer questions and shows alternatives. To put it in general terms: they are able to get a look and feel for the product and are thereby closer to it.

All of this is not the case when shopping on Amazon. As a seller, you should therefore make the customer journey on your product page as identical as possible to the in-store experience. Use Amazon A+ Content for this and show your product from every angle possible. If you are selling handbags, for example, be sure to also include pictures that show the inner compartments and give the buyers a close up view of how your bags look from the inside. Upload pictures of your product with everyday objects everyone knows, so your customers have a visual comparison regarding the size of your product (bananas are popular objects used for scale in the meme world). This way, people can estimate the size of your product more accurately than if they only read abstract measurements in the product description. How tall is 23 inches again? 

Amazon does not support the option of setting up a virtual shop assistant, but with Amazon A+ Content, the FAQ option allows you to at least answer the most frequently asked questions of the customers and advise them on functions or similar things. 

Cross-Selling Through Amazon’s A+ Content

With Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon, there is also the possibility to insert a comparison chart on the product detail page. This allows you to compare the listed article with other products in your range. Let’s take the handbag example one more time. Imagine the bag is, even after uploading a picture with a banana for scale, not the right size for the customer. The specific reason for this is because it is supposed to be used as an office bag and laptop compartment is too small. If you now also offer a handbag with larger laptop compartments, these are only one convenient click away. The customer can see from your comparison chart that you have it on offer and will probably click on it. 

By inserting a comparison chart, you will also draw the customer’s attention to your own products instead of those of your competitors.

Storytelling by Amazon’s A+ Content

Perhaps it is not only your product that is special but your whole company? Are you particularly sustainable or socially committed? Then show it in your Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon and make it your unique selling point! 

In this example on the right, the company sells organic cacao powder. Differentiation of the product in this area is difficult. Therefore, it is a good idea to emphasise the uniqueness of the company. Buyers of cacao powder are likely to be more conscious regarding the environment and are willing to support a company that is committed to environmental protection. This way, customers know that they have made a further contribution to environmental protection and will prefer to purchase from this company. The photo, highlights, and short texts tell the story very clearly and are easy to “digest” for the reader. 

How do I create Amazon A+ Content? 

With this modular system that Amazon created, the Enhanced Brand Content design can be chosen individually without any special graphic knowledge!

Need more information? Check out what Amazon provides for A+ Content users: Amazon guidelines on creating A+ Content (Seller Central).

And if you want to find out how other Amazon sellers use Enhanced Brand Content templates: Examples of great A+ content templates.

For Whom Is Amazon A+ Content Worthwhile and How Does It Push the Conversion Rate?

Normally, professional Amazon sellers do not trade only with the article of a single ASIN. Instead, their catalog contains several hundred or thousand products. Even if not every listing is managed by this particular seller, because they are trading goods: if every description were to be extended from 2,000 to 7,000 characters, this would mean an immense investment of time and personnel, but also money. And let’s face it, at the end of the day, very few sellers are gifted photographers or graphic artists. This investment must therefore pay off by bringing you higher sales. So don’t use Amazon A+ Content as a last resort to save a product that does not sell well in the first place. 

Therefore you should only take the trouble to create Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon for those products that actually benefit from it and convert better. The big change here is with products that are not self-explanatory, that have special features or functions or for which the salesperson should otherwise name further information in order to enable the customer to understand it better. This is why A+ content can, for example, provide good service for products that have many views, but whose conversion rate is lagging.

A simple t-shirt certainly does not need any extensions such as graphics for an explanation. On the other hand, Amazon A+ Content can make the difference for an expensive washing machine, which also has a tumble-dryer function or special filters to reduce allergenic substances in textiles. The better the potential customer’s understanding of a product, the greater the likelihood that they will press the “Add to Cart” button. 

How Good Is My Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon Really?

There is a very clear indicator for this: the conversion rate. If this KPI has improved after the A+ Content was introduced, it can be assumed that the increase is due to this. 

More reliable in this matter, however, is the tool “Manage Your Experiments“ (MYE) from Amazon, with which A/B tests can be carried out. This allows you to test different formats against each other and Amazon will report on the success of the formats. For this purpose, users create another version of the extra content with exactly the same ASINs in the A+ Content Manager. Once the content has been tested, the experiment can be started via the MYE tool. This allows you to approach your target group carefully and also find out what appeals to them and what doesn’t. You can set a period of 4 to 10 weeks for the test.

If you’re into analytics, check out our blogpost about the best analytics tools: Save time and money with an Amazon Analytics Tool: 5 Applications for Marketplace Sellers.

The Extra Content Doesn’t Get Crawled – And Still Increases Conversion!

Unlike keywords in the title or bullet points, the Amazon A+ Content page is not crawled. This means that Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon does not play a direct role in the algorithm’s decision on how high the product page ranks for a keyword. Nevertheless, it is still very important to continuously optimise the listing and carry out a thorough keyword research. 

According to Amazon, however, A+ content indirectly increases the conversion by about three to ten percent. This is due to different effects and advantages of the extra content: 

Conclusion: A Piece of the Puzzle

Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon can turn an indecisive customer into a convinced buyer who receives exactly the product they wanted, is satisfied with the product and seller and does not arrange a return. Ideally, the customer will even leave a positive review and buy again soon. 

If you sell more, the conversion rate also improves due to the program formerly known as Amazon Enhanced Brand Content, which is why the product will rank better in the search results. In the long run, the creation of enhanced content pays off for the seller. 

There is no such thing as a free meal! Amazon A+ Content might be cost-free for sellers and vendors, but good content requires high maintenance. It is important that you match the language of the target group and direct them to the buy button as quickly and cleverly as possible. Show customers why your product is the best choice for them and distract them from ads about competing products. 

Amazon’s content manager is very intuitive to use and does not require any special graphic skills – but you will have to show creativity if you want to create content capable of captivating the customer’s attention. The ready-made Amazon A+ content modules help you to structure the site and make it attractive.

Like every marketing action, the Enhanced Brand Content on Amazon also requires a performance evaluation. Check the conversion rate or use Amazon’s own analysis tool for A/B tests. However, it would be wrong to think that Amazon A+ content can function as a band-aid for products that sell less. On the contrary: the content is another piece in the big Amazon puzzle and is worthwhile for products that are already strong sellers or even bestsellers

Image credits in order of appearance: © Love the wind – stock.adobe.com / © oatawa – shutterstock.com / © screenshot @ amazon / © screenshot @ amazon / © screenshot @ amazon / © yoshitaka – stock.adobe.com