Five steps to a full-funnel Amazon strategy

Amazon began as a retail store and is now something much larger to its customers: a place to read reviews, watch, listen, and ask a voice assistant to add things to a shopping list.

That breadth is why full-funnel strategy on Amazon is possible at all. It is also why it is hard to know where to begin. Here is the sequence we use.

1. Make sure the products are ready to sell

Start at the bottom of the funnel and work upward. Before paying to promote anything, make sure the listing converts the traffic it already receives.

Paying to send buyers to a page that does not convert raises spend without raising profit. It is the most common way to waste an advertising budget.

Amazon's free branded content, including Stores and Posts, improves readiness at no media cost. A Store extends the brand; Posts show the product in lifestyle context.

2. Reach the customers closest to buying

Once listings convert, target the shoppers most likely to purchase. Sponsored Products reaching shoppers with buying intent is the usual starting point, because the feedback loop is short enough to learn from quickly.

3. Bring back the ones who did not convert

Remarketing reaches people who engaged but did not buy, on and beyond Amazon.

This is normally the cheapest incremental sale available, and it is frequently skipped in favour of finding new audiences.

4. Build awareness above the funnel

Only once the lower funnel works does awareness spending make sense.

Awareness delivered into a funnel that does not convert is money spent teaching people about a product they will not buy.

5. Measure each stage against its own job

Judge every stage by what it is supposed to do. Awareness campaigns should not be measured on last-click sales, and Sponsored Products should not be credited with demand that awareness created.

Getting this wrong is how well-performing upper-funnel work gets cut for looking unprofitable.