Whether it’s marketing, pricing, quality, or customer service, the competitive environment on Amazon requires sellers to put in the extra effort in everything they do.

For example, when increasing the reach of your listing, you shouldn’t just focus on shoppers who are already roaming the Amazon marketplace. You also have to go after potential customers beyond it. This is only possible by driving external traffic to your Amazon listing.

Nearly a third of Amazon shoppers don't use the Amazon search bar to find the products they need, according to a survey . They end up in listings other than Amazon.

Keeping this in mind, devising a smart external marketing strategy can turn around your Amazon business by attracting new customers.

Therefore, in this post, we will discuss in detail how to do the basics of driving external traffic and the measures that can bring customers outside of Amazon.

Without further ado, let's jump right into the discussion.

Why do you need to drive external traffic to your Amazon listings?

The main goal of a seller as an entrepreneur is to increase sales. Just as important as promoting your business under the Amazon umbrella, you should also find customers outside of Amazon.

Here are some reasons why you must drive external traffic to your Amazon listings:

Improve your listing ranking

All the external traffic that ends up on your listing may not convert into a purchase. However, increased traffic on listings sends a strong signal to the Amazon search algorithm to improve rankings for relevant keywords. Having top rankings for relevant product keywords can help you attract more potential buyers.

Here's how it works: stay ahead of the competition

Generally, if you sell a product with high search volume on Amazon, you will be competing with a large number of sellers. The competition is fierce, with every brand trying to climb to the top of the bestseller list. Therefore, you need to think creatively to stay ahead of the competition.

Remember, your competitors are not only actively competing against you organically, but they are also running advertising campaigns and creating engaging content to attract more customers. Therefore, the most effective way to maintain competitiveness is to pull external traffic.

Find new audiences with more promotional freedom

When selling on Amazon, there is a sense of unity between similar listings. If 8-10 sellers are promoting their own brand of (say) power banks, the challenge for sellers is how to stand out from the crowd.

While Amazon’s strict policies ensure high-quality products and customer service, it also greatly reduces the marketing creativity of sellers. With external promotion, you have the freedom to promote your brand however you like.

This kind of external promotion with more creativity and freedom can reach new demographics and discover new audiences who may become loyal customers in the future.

Is your listing ready for external traffic?

Before taking steps to drive external traffic to your listing, make sure you are on top of your list optimization. The whole process of driving external traffic will only pay off if you have the perfect list to convert prospects into buyers and boast about your brand.

To create a best-in-class Amazon listing that helps shoppers make quick purchasing decisions, follow these tips.

Writing SEO Optimized Listing Titles

To adequately describe your product, make sure you use the maximum number of characters allowed in an Amazon listing title for a given product category. Title limits vary by category, with an absolute maximum limit of 200 characters.

Include relevant keywords in your titles to ensure your product listings rank in popular searches. Avoid making titles that are too long. Amazon usually cuts off remaining characters beyond the limit, or does not allow such updates. In rare cases, the platform also suppresses listings that exceed the character limit. Make your title as compelling as possible using keywords to encourage readers to explore your listing further.

include a descriptive image

For Amazon customers, pictures speak louder than words. A customer's decision to click on a product or scroll through a list is based on its image in search results.

Image quality is very important when it comes to your product images. Product listings on Amazon are allowed seven photo slots (main image plus six additional images). Include a great product photo to take advantage of this opportunity.

In the images section of Amazon, sellers must adhere to certain guidelines.

It must be a real photo, not a sketch or drawing of the product.

The background should be pure white.

Products must cover at least 80% of the image.

The image must be 1000 pixels on the longest side and 500 pixels on the shortest side. This is done as a convenience to the client in case they wish to zoom in.

No watermarks, logos, promotional text, or other embellishments may appear in the image.

Violation of these guidelines may result in a quality warning from Amazon. Your product photos should be professionally shot in a well-lit environment.

You can make your listing more engaging by creating an infographic for the images section. Infographics combine text and photos to convey information that is often more popular than textual descriptions. A well-designed infographic can be an effective tool for grabbing your customers' attention.

get the most out of the essentials

Bullet points on your listing communicate specifications, features, and other pertinent information about your product (size, pack quantity, etc.) to buyers. In other words, this is your chance to provide a full description to individuals who wouldn't scroll down to read a product description. You can do the following:

Make sure your point is easy to understand at first glance. Instead of using complete sentences, use snippets and pieces of information separated by semicolons.

Use the keywords in the title and add new ones.

Include the benefits and features of the product.

If you want your bullet points to make an impact, keep them simple and informative.

Add a well-written product description

The product description section has a maximum of 2000 characters. Don't waste any of them.

Although the word count may seem limited at times, you should include as many product details as possible when writing your description. Make sure your product descriptions contain all the information customers need about your product in a concise, descriptive, and compelling manner.

To minimize the risk of miscommunication, pay special attention to spelling and grammar.

choose keywords wisely

Keyword research and optimization play a vital role in improving your listing ranking. Ideally, you should use relevant keywords with high search volume for maximum visibility in search results. Often, most sellers only focus on the high search volume of a keyword, ignoring its exact relevance to the product.

Let’s take a look at some common mistakes most sellers make when optimizing their listings:

Use Less Relevant, High Volume Keywords : Sellers tend to use keywords with high search volume regardless of their relevance. Ranking for a high-volume keyword that doesn't fully define your product will still yield a lower conversion rate.

Try to use keywords that are highly relevant to your product, as they will bring you actual customers interested in making a purchase.

Use Overcompetitive Keywords: Everyone wants to rank for high traffic keywords. This means competing with well-known brands with solid rankings and great reviews.

Focus on prioritizing variations of high-volume keywords that may have less search volume and less competition.

Ignore long-tail keywords : Long-tail keywords usually have low search volume but are highly relevant to your product. They also have low competition as sellers tend to largely ignore their importance.

Include long tail keywords in your product listings to have a good impact on your sales. For example, if someone searches for "women's waterproof jacket," they are likely to buy it as long as it is of good quality.

No use of backend keywords: Backend keywords are not visible to customers, but they help the Amazon algorithm to rank your products.

Use spelling variations, synonyms, abbreviations, and alternate names as backend keywords for better rankings. For example, someone searching for "blender" might be interested in "food processor." Therefore, integrate as many backend keywords as possible.

You can use any powerful keyword research tool to handle all of the above keyword research considerations .

10 Ways to Drive External Traffic to Your Amazon Listing

There is definitely more than one way to bring people outside of Amazon to your listing. For convenience, we broadly divide external traffic into three categories:

Social media is the largest marketing platform available for all digital and non-digital businesses. They can be used to promote and drive a lot of traffic to your listing. Then we have search engine driven traffic. This traffic comes from people browsing Google or various third-party websites.

Then, the last category is mostly getting clicks through endorsements from affiliate marketers and social media influencers. This endorsement environment is now also integral to promoting business, especially on Amazon.

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facebook ads

With over 2.8 billion users, Facebook has a broad audience that can become potential customers for your products. Narrow down your target audience by considering who might be interested in your product. Keeping in mind the features and benefits of your product, design your ad specifically for the audience (gender, age group, etc.) you want to engage with your brand.

By advertising with a Facebook business account, you can reduce the time it usually takes to build an authentic brand reputation.

An apparel brand advertises on Facebook to target people based on gender, age, location, and interests. The brand used video and detailed text in the ad to make it easy for viewers to evaluate the product. The ad has an embedded link that can redirect the user to a listing or an intermediate landing page.

You can use these four formats to promote your Amazon business on Facebook.

Images: These are regular image posts with clickable buttons.

Video: You can use Facebook video ads to showcase your products in better light and with more detail.

Carousel: More than one product or variation to promote? With carousel ads, you can use up to ten images or videos in one slideshow to showcase your brand and products.

Instant Experience: An Instant Experience is an immersive ad that opens full-screen on a mobile device. It can include videos and images in the carousel, labeled products, and clickable buttons that direct users to other web pages. You can also use the same advertising feature on Instagram.

Facebook Advertising Costs to Drive Traffic to Amazon Listings

Facebook has become a very sought-after platform for business promotion. On average, you'll likely need to use at least $0.95 CPC (cost per click) on the platform. For 1000 impressions (CPM), the ad cost is approximately $12.

It’s worth mentioning here that Facebook’s higher advertising costs are worth it because of its higher conversion rates. The average conversion rate on Facebook is between 9-10%, which is certainly higher than the average yield of Google ads.

instagram ads

Instagram lets you reach its 2 billion users, expanding your customer base. Make sure to use attractive and good-looking product images, as this is the "vibe" of the platform and users are used to it.

Instagram also offers all of Facebook's ad types. However, make sure your ad on Instagram stands out among all the high-quality visual content presented on the platform.

A carousel Instagram ad from an apparel brand targeting users based on gender, age, location and interests. Just like Facebook, the ad has an embedded link that redirects the user to a listing or an intermediate landing page.

Instagram Advertising Costs to Drive Traffic to Amazon Listings

As with Facebook, the cost of advertising on Instagram depends heavily on the segment, ad type, and demographics. Depending on these factors, you can expect to pay anywhere from $0.20 to $2 per click. So, a decent campaign to drive traffic from Instagram to your Amazon listing could cost you anywhere between $200-$400.

You can easily recoup this fee if you offer a quality product and have optimized your listings as described above. Users from Instagram are usually qualified leads and therefore highly likely to become customers.

Pinterest ads

Pinterest is a pure media platform that attracts a large audience with a solid aesthetic sense. This is quite possibly your best chance to win customers with great product images. You can also include links to your product pages in your Pinterest posts.

For sellers of clothing, home decor, beauty and personal care products, Pinterest posts can be a significant source of external traffic. Likewise, if you sell holiday-related items, Pinterest can also be a great option for generating traffic and leads to your Amazon listings.

A standard casual socks Pin ad appears for the search query "statement socks"

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You can use these three types of Pinterest ads to drive external traffic to your Amazon listings.

1. Standard Pin Ads: Ads formatted like any standard/Pinterest post.

2. Video Pin Ads: You can promote video Pins of your products through this ad placement.

3. Carousel Ads: Just like carousel ads on Facebook, you can create ads with multiple photos and videos in a horizontal slideshow.

The Cost of Pinterest Ads to Drive Traffic to Amazon Listings

Depending on your niche and ad type, you could spend anywhere between $2-5 per 100 impressions and $0.10-1.50 per click. In other words, you can drive a decent amount of traffic to your Amazon listing from Pinterest for just $200-300.

Douyin ads

TikTok is probably the most popular platform when it comes to video content on social media. You can use TikTok to make promotional videos or hire influencers to promote your products!

In addition to shout-outs, you can add clickable links to your list to the TikTok stories of influencers with over 10,000 followers. You can also do this with your own account if you already have over 10,000 TikTok followers.

There are three main types of TikTok ads you can use to drive traffic to your Amazon listings.

1. In-feed Ads: These ads appear in front of any user as they scroll down their feed.

2. Brand takeover ads: These ads will appear as soon as the user opens the TikTok app.

3. TopView Ads: This is the extended version of brand takeover ads.

You can add call-to-action buttons for all of these ad types.

The Cost of TikTok Ads to Drive Traffic to Amazon Listings

Paid promotion on TikTok is relatively new compared to meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) and very expensive. You'll probably pay around $10 per 1000 impressions, and your campaign will cost at least $500.

If you don't have a large marketing budget to boost your private label Amazon brand, then TikTok might not be the platform for you.

YouTube Channels and Ads

You can advertise your products on YouTube by setting up a channel. Create short, engaging and clear videos about your product, covering its features, benefits and uses. Make sure to include keywords in the title and description of your video so the content can reach your target audience quickly.

If your operation does not have any budget constraints, then you can also opt for YouTube advertising. However, you must create a very compelling video ad (at least the first five seconds) to ensure that a significant number of viewers watch your ad rather than skip it. You can also choose non-skippable bumper ads.

YouTube Advertising Costs to Drive Traffic to Amazon Listings

YouTube ads have a lower conversion rate than the aforementioned platforms. Therefore, its cost per view is also lower. You may need to save $0.030-$0.30 per view depending on ad type, demographics, quality score and bid type (cost per view or cost per 1000).

Promotional Email Campaigns

Promotional emails are a great way to generate leads. You target email users who could become your potential customers and send them emails related to your business offers.

More recently, promotional emails have focused on personalized content with narrower topics. They have a clear CTA to convince the customer to make a favorable decision for the seller. Sending multiple emails during special offers (Black Friday, other sales, etc.) and just a few emails on normal days should be your go-to strategy.

You can collect customer data in the following ways:

1. Run surveys and contests on your promotion page

2. Provide information relevant to your target audience (e.g. articles/videos about skin care for women).If they find the information useful, they will sign up for more information

3. Track purchase history and send emails to previous customers

4. Harvest email addresses through landing pages

5. Hire an email marketing company to help your target audience

Email Marketing Costs to Drive Traffic to Amazon Listings

If you collect email IDs yourself and want to run a very customized and targeted campaign, you can do it yourself without spending a dime. However, you may need a professional marketing firm to run an extensive, multifaceted email campaign to promote your Amazon listing.

Expect to pay anywhere between $300-$1000 to execute a robust email marketing campaign, depending on outreach reach and repetition rate.

influencer marketing

Influencers are taking over the marketing world through their fan following. Influencers have such a hold on their audiences that four in 10 millennials say their favorite influencers know them better than their friends. Likewise, the same study showed that around 70% of teenage YouTube subscribers expressed more trust in YouTube influencers compared to traditional celebrities. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

With tons of engaged influencers on different social media platforms besides YouTube, your product can get the exact exposure you need.

Influencer Marketing Costs to Drive Traffic to Amazon Listings

If you choose a personal influencer to support your product, there is no limit to the payout. A small influencer (less than 10,000 followers) can charge you around $50-$100 for a post. Then there are the millionaire influencers (with over 1 million followers) who might make promotional posts for around $7,000-$10,000.

Instagram and YouTube based influencers usually charge more than Facebook or TikTok based influencers.

affiliate marketing

You can work with different marketers affiliated with Amazon through the Amazon Affiliate Program . Amazon Associate Influencers create an affiliate link to your listing within their content, and you pay them a commission every time someone buys something from your listing through their shared link.

Affiliate Marketing Costs to Drive Traffic to Amazon Listings

Affiliate marketing is based on commissions on sales. You pay affiliate marketers anywhere between 1-10% of sales, depending on their reach and product category. Affiliate marketers who promise to attract more eyeballs will definitely charge higher commissions. Likewise, if your product falls into a highly competitive niche, expect to pay higher commissions.

google ads

Google gives you direct access to the largest audience in the world through its advertising. There are different types of Google ads, such as

google search ads

google display ads

Google Shopping Ads

Google Video Ads

Google Smart Ads

google discovery ads

Search ads and display ads are the most common types of ads used to promote Amazon products.

With Google Search Ads, you can target specific keywords and bid to have your ad appear on search pages. Several factors determine whether your ad will show, including the relevance of your ad, your account's performance history, and your ad group and landing page.

Google Ads can greatly impact your Amazon business if you are willing to invest.

Google Ads Cost to Drive Traffic to Amazon Listings

You pay $1-2 to have your ad appear in search results for relevant queries. On the other hand, if you opt for the Google Display Network (which displays ads on third-party sites), your average CPC will stay below $1.

Amazon Sponsored Display Ads

Amazon Sponsored Ads can give your brand great exposure both on and off Amazon. It helps grab the attention of those Amazon visitors who only browse the first page. Amazon displays your ad on its various pages as well as on third-party websites.

To get started, all you need to do is log into your ad account > start a campaign > enter your campaign name and duration > determine your budget and submit your ad for review. It’s worth mentioning that you must be part of the Amazon Brand Registry to run Sponsored Display ads.

Once Amazon reviews the submission and is approved, your ad will be shown based on budget and campaign duration.

The Cost of Sponsored Ads to Drive Traffic to Amazon Listings

You'll save $0.80-$1.00 for every click on Sponsored Display ads for your Amazon listings on other sites.

Pro Tip: Create Landing Pages to Streamline External Traffic

Whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or email, you should always direct users to the landing page first for better conversions.

As the name suggests, a landing page is a single web page dedicated to convincing customers to buy from a business.

It also allows you to assess the gender, shopping preferences and age group of your target audience. This assessment will help you refine your promotional strategies by helping you filter out consumers who are unlikely to buy your product.

Whenever you're driving traffic to your listing from social media, here are the steps you should take to drive the traffic to better understand your customers and increase conversions.

A landing page can help you:

Describe your offer in a more persuasive and convincing manner

Increase conversions by narrowing shoppers' choices

Gather customer data through feedback, subscription forms, and more to better understand your customer base.

Frequently Asked Questions about Amazon Listing Traffic

Before wrapping up this post, let’s answer some common questions about Amazon listing traffic.

Why isn't my listing getting a view?

The main reasons for low listing views are poor optimization and wrong keyword selection. You cannot increase your organic presence on Amazon SERP by integrating highly competitive and least relevant keywords.

How can I get more views on my Amazon listing?

You can increase the views of your Amazon listings by using relevant, low-competition keywords in your listing titles, bullet points, and product descriptions. Promoting your brand on and off Amazon can also help drive traffic.

How do I drive traffic to my Amazon books?

Advertise your books on and off Amazon to reach a larger audience and drive targeted traffic to your books. Promotional pages on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, as well as hiring book review bloggers/influencers are all good options.

How to check the traffic of Amazon Listing?

To check the view of your Amazon listing, log in to your Amazon account > Reports > Business Reports > Detail Page Sales and Traffic. It will show you a view of each product in the list.

final words

You can rely on Amazon to some extent to get organic customers, but waiting for customers is not a smart way to do business. Instead, hold yourself accountable to your audience by driving external traffic through social media ads, search engine ads, and getting promotions from influencers. If you strategically promote your business outside of Amazon, you will be able to dramatically increase your rankings and sales.

This influx of external traffic isn’t just necessary for sales. It also pays off in the long run when you want to take your Amazon gig to the next level and turn it into a D2C brand.