Amazon Prime is one of the greatest and most dangerous innovations of our lifetime. We can essentially order any good we could ever want and have it to on our doorstep in just two days. Amazon took things to an even greater level with one hour delivery in some markets.
Amazon is one of, if not the, biggest online retailers with 304 million active users as of 2016. Amazon came on to the ecommerce scene and really helped it grow, but it isn’t the only dog in that fight.
Amazon is a top 10 ranked page according to Alexa. It is ranked fourth in the United States and sixth internationally. Amazon tracks all of it’s traffic data and other web metrics. The company even offers ecommerce applications to help other online retailers track and store visitor data on a cloud server.
When tracking visitors, Amazon likely looks at many of the things that would interest all online retailers: how much traffic there is, where it is coming from, who it is, and what they do while they are there. Amazon sees roughly 6.2 million visitors a day (Statistica, 2015). That is a great deal of data to track. Therefore, they must use very robust tools. The more expansive the tool, the more data Amazon can examine about it’s customer base.
Amazon is pretty much the go-to site for buying an array of products online, especially for Prime members, but that doesn’t mean they can neglect digital marketing. Amazon uses many web marketing techniques to attract new users and to bring existing users back. SEO and Google AdWords are among some of these techniques. “Amazon’s initial business growth based on detailed approach to SEO and AdWords targeting millions of key words." Even though they are a powerhouse, Amazon still uses keywords to keep themselves high in Google, Bing, and other search engine results. Some of the top searches that drive to Amazon’s homepage are “Amazon”, “Amazon Prime”, and “Amazon Smile."
One advantage that Amazon has over other online retailers is its seller network. Over two million people sell products on Amazon. 40% of the companies sales come from third party sellers. These sellers have one billion products listed on the site (Martin, 2015). Not only do these sellers add traffic to the site personally as well as through people looking to buy their products, but they also may add paid advertising. Not only are there tools that help sellers increase their sales results, but sellers may be using social media ads and other digital advertising to drive sales to their personal Amazon pages.
It may not seem like that would help Amazon too much as they aren’t making as much as they might from their own product sales, but with all the add placement on Amazon, people ore often than not explore further than just one product. The averagetime spent per user on Amazon is just over 11 minutes 30 seconds. These users also visit about 12 pages each per visit. I know I am guilty of adding a few extra things to my cart. I’m a sucker for a deal.
Those ads Amazon serves up on its own site is another great digital marketing tactic. These personalized ads use data collected from users searches, viewed products, and other interests. “Using personalisation to make relevant recommendations and a clear check out process that many now imitate." Like ads through Google AdWords, Amazon looks into your cookies to see what other products you may be interested in. They also pair up products that compliment each other or may work together.
Though they maybe using social media, Google AdWords and other tools to boost online sales, Amazon sellers can also utilize ad portals within the website. These likely attribute to the high page views per visitor scale.
Another SEO and online benefit Amazon reaps is being linked to from other sites. Almost 1.1 million websites link to Amazon (Alexa). Amazon may receive more free advertising and marketing benefits than any other ecommerce site out there.
According to SEC filings, Amazon has five main marketing goals. To increase customer traffic to Amazon, to create awareness of Amazon products and services, to promote repeat purchases, to develop incremental product and service revenue opportunities and to strengethen/broaden the Amazon.com brand name. This post has already addressed how Amazon increases web traffics and increases awareness of products and services. Their third goal is one that uses a little more data than the previous two: increase repeat purchases.
As we buy more and more things online, it makes sense that many of these purchases would need to be repeated. Amazon created the Dash buttons to help with just that. With the press of a single button, you can reorder certain goods like laundry detergent, diapers, razors, etc. (Thank goodness there isn’t a blue jolly ranch button to keep refilling the bowl on my desk.) There are other, online, techniques that Amazon can and does use to meet this marketing goal.
One of the first and most common is email marketing. Amazon sends out emails promoting similar products and deals on products that may be a reccuring purchase. People often do not buy products until they run out. This usually means an instant purchase may need to be made. However, if reminders are sent to people via email they may be more likely to make that purchase in advance.
This is an area where I think Amazon has room for improvement. People like to opt into things that are easy for them, things that take minimal effort. We autopay bills, have certain services deliver products like contacts and medicines delivered to them monthly, why not allow people to auto-enroll to have specific products delivered to their door. This is a service many busy professional would opt in for. It could be for all kinds of products from dog clean up bags to protien powder.
At the end of the day Amazon knows how to put themselves out there and how to capitalize on the work of others. I give the brand major props for using their network the way that they do. They also create revenue within their own site through advertising. However, this advertising also creates a site that is dynamic and encourages visitors to explore which may be why their bounce rate is only 22%. Amazon is a powerhouse, but still has areas where it can improve and better reach it’s marketing goals. As ecommerce booms in the next five years, I expect Amazon to do the same.
The state as ecommerce is only projected to grow. This gives online retailers chances to use data on customers they aren’t able to capture in person and to make shopping experiences more efficient and personalized, leading to high success and even more billions in sales.
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