Amazon is a crowded marketplace. In order to make as much money as you can and grow your brand, you need to make yourself stand out and rise above all of your competitors. You can use creative copy, descriptive titles, eye-catching images, and listing optimization techniques, but sometimes that might not feel like enough. Fortunately, Amazon has some features in place that can help you create a listing that is both attractive and informative. Amazon’s Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) and A+ Enhanced Marketing Content (A+ EMC) elevate your listings by offering customers a deeper look at your product through additional images and text. It is a great way to increase customer confidence, brand awareness, and your bottom line.
When it comes to choosing between A+ EMC and EBC, the option that is best for you depends on your sales, the type of seller you are, and the type of seller you want to be.
Both can contribute to more sales and higher conversion rates which, in turn, can improve your seller ranking and increase traffic by making you more likely to appear in Amazon search results.
To better understand A+ EMC and EBC, and which is right for you, we need to take a closer look at each one and exactly what they have to offer.
A+ Enhanced Marketing Content
The A+ Enhanced Marketing Content feature is for Vendor Central merchants, meaning that Amazon buys your products and resells it to their customers. This option is primarily used by manufacturers or distributors. Essentially, in this scenario, you are a supplier and Amazon purchases your product in bulk.
Using A+ EMC can definitely give you an advantage over competitors selling similar products. In fact, Amazon claims it can increase your sales anywhere from 3-10%. That’s a pretty significant boost without you having to do much of anything.
With this feature, you can use additional images, creative sales copy, and charts as a means to entice and convince customers to buy from you. Basically, you are given more room to display your product and its features than you would have in a traditional product description. The inclusion of charts gives you opportunity to educate customers so they are able to make informed decisions about your product. Obviously this will make your product listing stand out from those that do not have these additional elements.
Once you have submitted a request to Amazon for promotion, and it has been accepted, A+ EMC allows you to choose between creating the page yourself or allowing Amazon to do it for you.
The self service module allows you to choose the pricing level you would like, basic, silver, gold, or platinum and from there, you can begin to build your listings. The options available in the modules will allow you to build your listing to properly showcase your product. In this scenario, you have the opportunity to choose the layout and arrange the content in that layout to your liking.
If this sounds like too much effort, you could let Amazon build your modules for you. In this instance, you supply Amazon with all the information and they will choose the layout and design that best suits your product.
A+ EMC offers 12 modules that you can choose from and many come with customizable options that can make a real difference in the way customers view and interact with your listing.
Enhanced Brand Content
Enhanced Brand content is available to Seller Central merchants. This means, it is available to brands who are authorized and registered with Amazon’s Brand Registry. In this case, you are the brand owner and are selling the products to Amazon customers yourself.
Like A+ EMC, enhanced brand content allows you the chance to really appeal to potential customers by going deeper with your product descriptions. It allows you to tell your brand story, giving customers a window in to who you are and what you are all about. Providing people with an opportunity to get to know you is the first step in establishing the sort of trust that is at the heart of every good buyer/seller relationship.
When it comes to modules, EBC has fewer options than A+ EMC. EBC offers 5 templates that provide a few different combination possibilities for images and text.
One of the biggest current advantages of EBC is that it is free. There is no risk in giving it a shot. If it does not work for you, or is not giving you the results you expected, you can simply remove your listing and go back to Amazon’s standard settings.
The Down Sides of Enhanced Brand Content and Enhanced Marketing Content
There are, as with most things, a few drawbacks from both types of enhanced settings.
In both cases, it can take up to 7 days to have your enhanced listing approved. When you do a standard listing, it is turned around faster because the approval is all done by computers. Enhanced listings are approved by humans which slows everything down. It is also important to know the EBC listings get turned down often. There are strict content guidelines that need to be followed and when they are not met, you can expect to face a rejection. This means rewriting your copy or adjusting your images to meet the criteria and waiting, potentially, another 7 days for your listing to go up. Sometimes this delay may not be worth it.
The biggest problem with A+ EMC is the price. Depending on the package you choose, it could cost you anywhere from $400-$1200 per listing and those prices could be higher, depending on the options and features you choose when building your listing.
For EBC, there are some real disadvantages. Because this content is only offered to sellers registered with the Brand Registry, it is unavailable to sellers who are exempt from the registry.
There is also a belief that EBC content is not indexed by Amazon. This means that none of the things you put into your listing will have an impact on your search rankings. It can increase traffic and conversion rates, but any additional keywords you include in your EBC listing will have no impact.
While both forms of enhanced content offer more freedoms and creativity than standard Amazon listings, they still limit the seller in a lot of ways. All customizations to the listing are done through settings and options predetermined by Amazon and do not really provide a wide range or variety.
When you decide to upgrade a listing to either A+ EMC or EBC, choose the product carefully. Not every product will benefit from being enhanced.
It is recommended that you choose a premium-priced product or one that you are already attempting to drive traffic towards. It could be your best seller, or simply your “best” product.
Choosing a product that has features that differentiate it from similar products being offered by your competitors is also a smart choice. Highlighting these features through detailed product descriptions and imagery can truly set it apart.
What’s Ahead for Amazon Advertising?
As always, Amazon is striving to improve customer experience by adapting and growing the options available to sellers and vendors.
In the year ahead, it has been rumored that video could be next big thing in enhanced content. It was rolled out on a small scale in 2017 but keep your eye out for more widespread availability.
As of this moment, enhanced content does not translate to mobile. With improvements made to the enhanced content templates, and the ability to customize templates, users may soon be able to optimize their listing for mobile viewing.
Both Enhanced Brand Content and A+ Enhanced Marketing Content can provide significant value to your Amazon listing. The type of enhanced content you choose depends on whether or not you are a first-party or third-party seller but it is clear that when it comes to conversions and customer experience, few things have a bigger impact.
Andrew Maff
Andrew is the Director of Marketing and Operations for Seller’s Choice, a full-service digital marketing agency for e-commerce sellers. Seller’s Choice provides uniquely personalized marketing and managed services for digital marketplace sellers, e-commerce merchants, and brand builders worldwide. You can learn more by emailing team@sellerschoice.agency.