As the competition between sellers increases each year, finding a new way to stay ahead of the game is an ongoing task for all serious brands wanting to appear on the first Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for their category.
One of the best ways to drive incremental sales growth and improve organic rank is to take advantage of Amazon’s Editorial Recommendations Program.
What is Amazon’s Editorial Recommendations Program?
Designed to bring product-related content from third-parties onto Amazon to help customers research and discover products they might be interested in, Editorial Recommendations are shown as a short article penned by a professional publisher about your product that shows on Amazon’s first page of search results when one of your product’s keywords is searched.
They are distinct from organic listings and PPC sponsored listings and usually appear below the sponsored ads and above or below Amazon’s Choice products.
How can you recognize these articles?
As mentioned before, Amazon Editorials appear on page 1 of search results which makes them hard to miss.
Example: On the image below you can see the article from publisher Byrdie about the best facial cleansing brushes. On the left-hand side, you can click for the full-length article and on the right, you have three sections displaying best in each category: Best Overall, Best Budget, and Best Manual.
The main goal of these recommendations is to enhance customer experience and simplify the decision-making process. Instead of scrolling through multiple pages of similarly-rated products before making a final decision, customers can now use Editorial Recommendations as support before deciding which product to choose.
How to get your product published in Editorial Recommendations
Editorial Recommendations is a product of the Amazon Onsite Associates Program to which only the best and most prominent publishers are invited.
Usually, publishers would write articles on their websites and now they have the opportunity to recommend products directly on Amazon. If the customer buys a product, they will receive a commission for each product being sold. It’s good to know that the selection is not influenced by Amazon at all – all the recommendations were chosen by the publisher.
Once it’s published, you cannot know how long the recommendation will stay live. Amazon wants the article to perform well so the number of days your article stays live will be closely related to the volume of conversions.
To qualify a product for an Editorial you need to be a well-established seller with good reviews, great sales, and inventory. If you are a beginner and launching your first product, you will not be able to take advantage of this program.
All requirements your products must meet:
- Minimum of 100 reviews with at least a 4-star rating
- Your product is in the top 20% of Best Seller Ranking for its category
- High levels of inventory
- No medical claims on listings
- No relation to religion, sex or drugs
What are the benefits?
- Visibility boost – Your product can appear up to four times in a single Amazon search: Editorial Recommendations, Organic Listing, Sponsored Listing, and Brand Ad
- Increased customer trust – When you’re a shopper who cares about reviews, the Editorial Recommendations immediately seem a lot more dependable. This creates trust, which for some consumers can make the difference between buying a product or not
- Better organic ranking – Along with PPC, participating in the program will improve your ranking significantly
- Usually result in an ACoS of 10% – You pay only when a purchase is made. Also the Editorials fee is consistent and predictable unlike PPC fees
- Boost performance through Share of Voice – It will help you dominate the Share of Voice on SERP using strategic keywords
- Overall conversions increase – Driving high intent shoppers to your Amazon listing will highly increase chances of sales
A huge benefit of having your product featured in Editorial Recommendations is an overall improvement of your existing advertising and SEO efforts, which consequently affects the increase in sales results.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Amazon’s Editorial Recommendations are a highly effective way to get ahead of your competition. Any reputable Amazon seller should aspire to have their product featured in an Editorial Recommendation as it is sure to make a huge impact on overall Amazon performance.
