BFCM: 6 Ways FBA Sellers Can Optimize in Q4 and Beyond

With many retailers already pushing month-long sales or early Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, it’s time to think about how you will improve your creative for Turkey 5. Making tweaks to your Amazon creative now will put you into a solid position before consumers start the bulk of their holiday shopping. As co-founders of the consumer research platform PickFu, we’ve seen plenty of sellers experience a boost in sales by optimizing their listings in the right spots, at the right time.

Here are six areas on our creative optimization checklist that you can easily investigate for your own listings. 

1. Identify obvious creative gaps
2. Make adjustments to buyer personas 
3. Embrace product seasonality 
4. Pause live testing 
5. Understand the competition 
6. Improve return on ad spend

If you’re worried about making changes this close to the peak sales season, read more about some of the misconceptions around updating listings in Q4 with our Amazon Listing Optimization in Q4: Fact or Fiction blog.

Now read on as we break this checklist down into more manageable and actionable steps to help boost your Q4 success! 

1. Identify obvious creative gaps

Making big changes to your creative might not be the right move to make now, but take a close look at your listings again. Are there any obvious areas that are lacking where you can make a change? If you were slow to update your main image from the original supplier or factory, this is the right time to make that change. 

Using your own unique photography for Amazon creative sets you apart from competing sellers, and not just during the holiday season. If you know your main image is underperforming then it’s still better to make the change than be overly conservative and live with a bad image through the holiday season. 

2. Make adjustments to buyer personas 

Even though the end user is often the same, the customer changes when it comes to gift giving. During Q4 the likelihood of your products being purchased as gifts increases, making it an appropriate time to appeal to the gift giver instead of the product’s target audience. 

Remember that Amazon Wish Lists are easily shareable, meaning your target audience may already be curating their lists. Having your creative optimized as soon as possible will increase your chances of making it onto these lists.

If you have historical data and brand analytics, check to see if your buying persona changes in Q4 and adjust the language and imagery to match it. Using language that speaks to the emotions tied to the giving and receiving of gifts is a simple but effective way to update listing copy: if it makes a great gift, remind the customer!

3. Embrace product seasonality 

Do you know if your product is a popular gift? Read through reviews for your product and competitors to check what people are saying. Search for blog posts or lists that discuss gift ideas, as well as trending or viral products for this year. 

Adjust images by adding seasonal colors or decor, or including graphics of ribbons, holly, etc. to inspire the browsing customer. Editing the description, bullets, or titles to include keywords and phrases around gift giving will help boost your seasonal relevance.

If you haven’t already done so, building a creative optimization calendar for the year to refresh for seasonality and different holidays will help you stay relevant and avoid losing sales. For example, if customers see a listing in July with a holiday ribbon on the images, chances are they’ll be more cautious about adding to cart. Reflecting the correct season and purpose in the Amazon creative will keep you on track all year. 

4. Pause live testing

Amazon has just rolled out the ability to a/b test bullet points and product descriptions, but live tests, by definition, mean a sub-optimal version is being shown, leading to lost sales. Pre-testing any adjustments instead of live testing will help you make sure any new change is positive without the loss of sales. 

Using a platform like PickFu, you can run A/B tests with your target audience in a sandbox environment without affecting live listings. You won’t lose sales or rank, and can get fast insights on whether new creative would have the impact you’re looking for. 

5. Check out your competition 

Heading into the biggest sales season of the year, it’s crucial to understand if your competition is doing anything obvious that you aren’t. Carefully evaluate bestsellers in the relevant categories to see if there are any insights that you can adapt to use in your own listing(s). If they are already highly seasonal with language and images, it is a clear indicator that you should be making changes too. We encourage you to closely monitor your competition year round and on a consistent cadence so you can anticipate and beat their moves in bigger sell seasons. 

6. Improve return on ad spend 

Advertising in Q4 is a high-risk, high-reward scenario. Before risking your ad budget, take the time to test your creatives, especially video or custom images, to make sure they’re hitting the mark. 

Asking audiences “What message did this ad convey to you?” will help you track that you have the right creative sending the right message. This is particularly applicable for promotions on non-Amazon channels such as emails and social media. Running pre-tests will minimize the amount of time and money spent optimizing live and increase return on ad spend (ROAS). 

A program such as ZonTools allows you to run pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, which will enable you to better manage your ad spend. The automated systems will also continually monitor the campaign performance, and shift ad spend away from low performers onto high performers. 

Download your interactive Q4 Checklist here to make sure your creative is optimized.