How to Strengthen Your Retail Presence on Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook & Polyvore

This is a report from SMX East 2016. Search Marketing Expo (SMX) features speakers from industry-leading digital marketers and search engine representatives. Subscribe to the BCI Blog to get coverage of key sessions sent to your inbox.

When it comes to driving retail sales online, Google is the biggest game in town but it isn’t the only game in town.

Revenue is revenue and you’re leaving money on the table if you don’t explore possibilities beyond Google — we’re talking major opportunities on Amazon, Polyvore and eBay.

SEM pros Chris Humber and Elizabeth Marsten leverage Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook and more to drive traffic and sales. Read on for their ecommerce expertise.

Strengthening Your Retail Presence on Amazon with Chris Humber

Chris Humber, the head of search at GroupM, starts with a fast tip: within seven to 10 days of optimizing your product database, you will see an increase in visibility.

Where do consumers go when they’re ready to purchase products? Many turn to their local stores. They walk in and get it … it’s immediate gratification. This is traditional shelf space.

But what about digital shelf space?

Amazon plays a key role in the shopping journey. Consumers use Amazon as a top destination for product searches.

• 44% of consumers start their product search with Amazon.
• 39% of consumers say Amazon has better product search capability while 8% say Google does.
• 43% of U.S. shoppers say the main reason they choose Amazon is the ability to intuitively find or predict exactly what they want more quickly.
• 73% of shoppers say they will make a purchase on Amazon at least once during the holiday season.
• 87% of shoppers say they will check Amazon at least once during their shopping process this holiday season.

Here are the leading e-retailers beyond Google:

• Amazon
• Wal-Mart
• Target
• Best Buy
• The Home Depot
• Kohl’s
• Macy’s
• Walgreens
• Sears

What about social shopping? Sites like Pinterest, Polyvore, ModCloth, Wanelo, OpenSky and Fancy are frequented more and more.

Pinterest is where the world’s ideas are catalogued and stored, and it’s also one of the most advanced visual-based search engines that exists today.

On Pinterest, 55% of users shop for products, not to talk with friends or brands. Compare this to 12% on Facebook and 12% on Instagram, according to Forrester research.

Optimizing Your E-Retail Presence

Traditional optimization tactics can help your e-retail efforts in numerous ways:

• Rankings
• Relevancy
• Traffic and conversions
• Version control and syndication
• Organic, traditional search results

To identify keywords, leverage multiple tools. Amazon Retail Analytics (ARA) Premium provides your top 100 search terms each month.

Understand the search landscape beyond Google. Look at organic search results with tools like STAT, BrightEdge, SEMRush, SpyFu, AdGooRoo, Mozenda and Deep Crawl. Determine what has the top share of voice on search (paid and organic) and Amazon (paid and organic) to pinpoint market trends.

Don’t forget to optimize your product pages!

4 Best Practices for Increasing Conversion Rate

1. 21 reviews is the sweet spot. At this point, there is a 3% to 5% increase in conversion rate (depending on the presence of negative reviews); after that the increase drops off.
2. Use 3 or more images.
3. Availability – always have your product in stock.
4. Have at least one piece of supplemental content.

Top 5 Factors that Correlate with a Better Ranking

• Amazon Best Sellers Rank
• Items Sold (fulfilled by Amazon)
• Keywords in product title
• Prime-eligible products
• Discounts

Get Found More, Sell More on Pinterest, Facebook & More with Elizabeth Marsten

Elizabeth Marsten, the director of paid search at CommerceHub, is going to dive into some other platforms. Some of them, like Polyvore, you may have never heard of.

Pinterest

• 100 million active users
• 80% of Pinterest users access the platform via mobile
• Promoted Pins drive 5X more incremental in-store sales per impression
• Retargeted Ads target at act-alike audiences increased CTRs by up to 63% and reach by 30X in early testing
• Pinterest referrals have an average order value of $50
• Rich Pins are free but you need metadata on that page of your site.
• Product Feed needed for Promoted and Buyable pins. You maintain ability to edit or designate which products are promoted. Buyable requires a partner to handle the transaction.
• Retargeting (you need a Marketing Developer Partner)
• Video (you need a Pinterest Account Team and this is not yet available to everyone)

Facebook Dynamic Product Ads

CommerceHub has seen an average return on ad spend (ROAS) among clients at 900-1200%. These clients have product catalogs ranging from 350 to 1,000.

Keep in mind that this is still a remarketing method. You first need engagement channels to create audiences. It cannibalizes other channels with a last-click attribution. Use your revenue numbers, not just Facebook’s.

Yahoo

Some useful things to leverage on Yahoo:

• Custom Audiences for Search Retailer for an unnamed big box store saw:
  • 225% increase in CTR
  • 230% increase in CR
  • 51% reduction in CPA
• Search Retargeting on Native for an unnamed big box store saw:
  • 23% conversions from native
  • 14% lower CPA on native than search (text) ads

Polyvore

This Yahoo-owned social commerce site’s users are 84% female and 50% of those females are millennials under the age of 34. On the site, you make “sets,” which are outfits. More than 3 million sets are created each month.

Marsten said ladies shopping on these sites have money to burn. The average order on Polyvore is $270. Comparatively, the average order value on Instagram is $228, Twitter is $155 and Facebook is $130.

Fast facts about Polyvore:

• 41% increase in clicks YoY
• 27% increase in sales Yoy
• 11% Decrease in cost

Connexity

This marketplace connects retailers and influencers. Note: influencers lift purchase intent by 2X. 49% of users rely on recommendations from influencers.

eBay

They have partnered with Facebook to monetize message apps (i.e. sending auctions through Messenger) and create collections for sharing. They’ve adopted AMP. They’ve adopted ASIN pages, which improve SERPs to be static pages, not auctions that have ended.

Kristi Kellogg is a journalist, news hound, professional copywriter, and social (media) butterfly. Currently, she is a senior SEO content writer for Conde Nast. Her articles appear in newspapers, magazines, across the Internet and in books such as "Content Marketing Strategies for Professionals" and "The Media Relations Guidebook." Formerly, she was the social media editor at Bruce Clay Inc.

See Kristi's author page for links to connect on social media.