It has been a long time since Amazon listings were limited to a simple product description, five bullet points, and eight pictures. As the platform and several sellers have grown, sellers have had to be increasingly strategic and eye-catching to increase traffic and conversions on their listings.
Brands on Amazon have a wide array of exciting options for designing their e-commerce apps, such as Amazon, which are available in two of Amazon’s content tools: A+ Content and Premium A+ Content (or A++ Content).
What is Amazon A+ content?
Amazon A+ content transforms existing Amazon product inventory into a sales-converting powerhouse while increasing visibility in Amazon product searches and reducing ACoS in ads. Previously known as Enhanced Branded Content (EBC), Amazon A+ content acts as a sales page or landing page on your Amazon product description, allowing Amazon sellers and Amazon sellers to sell to you more effectively.
Amazon allows you to add imagery, video, and text content or you can do so with the help of Amazon SEO experts. This Amazon A+ content and Premium A+ content for increased sales that you can use with your product listing. Some of the notable features offered by Amazon A+ are:
- Multiple, Varied Images Of A Product
- Strategic Brief Introduction
- Video
- Bullet Points
- 360° Product View
- Matrix Comparison Chart
- “What’s In The Box” Section
What is Amazon Premium A+ Content?
Amazon Premium A+ content, or Amazon A++ content, is a tool that goes one level beyond native A+ content, allowing brands to showcase most of their product’s features and benefits with a modern, engaging structure. Amazon has announced that premium A+ Seller Central will be available for free during the promotional period. Previously, premium A+ content was available by invitation only to brands using Vendor Central and could cost anywhere from $250K to $500K per product.
In the case of Amazon premium A+ content, the brand communicates visually using imagery and video and relies less on text due to strict character limits for product descriptions. Amazon says implementing premium A+ content can increase sales by up to 20%. The premium A+ has expanded the usable area of the page for the first time, with full-screen width to give it a more modern and refined feel.
Some of the notable features offered by Premium A+ are:
- Video
- Full-Width Imagery
- More Space
- Clickable Q&A
- Interactive Comparison Chart
- Carousel Module
- Mobile-Friendly And Voice-Friendly Product Pages
- Appreciation Letter
Pros and Cons of Amazon A+ Vs Premium A+ Content
Although their objectives are similar, between A+ content and premium A+ content, now we know what Amazon Premium A+ is and what it can do for your brand. Let’s see the pros and cons of each tool.
Pros of Amazon A+ Content
Enhanced Visual Appeal
- Improved Product Presentation: A+ Content enables sellers to display product pictures, graphs, and descriptive text in a contextually rich manner. This may result in more customer attention and possibly more conversions.
- Brand Storytelling: It makes it easier for brands to explain their diversity and share that with their audience.
Increased Conversions
- More Informed Shoppers: Through extensive product information, features, and comparison tables and charts, which are contained in A+ Content, the consumers are assisted in making the right decisions. Shoppers who possess knowledge can purchase until they get the product they want.
- Improved Customer Trust: Having an immaculately presented product description can help in making the buyer trust the seller in making that purchase.
Enhanced Search Visibility
SEO Benefits: As stated earlier, A+ Content does not have any first-level effect on the SEO of Amazon but it serves to bring in low bounce rates thus improving the dwell time hence can help in SEO at the second level.
Competitive Advantage
Stand Out in a Crowded Marketplace: It opens an opportunity for the sellers to provide a distinction from the other sellers who don’t fully utilize it by viewing A+ Content.
Cons of Amazon A+ Content
Cost and Eligibility
- Seller-specific: Standard A+ content is provided to all companies that are registered on the Amazon Brand Registry program. This means that closed shops or sellers or anyone who does not have a registered brand may not have access to it.
- Creation Costs: As we have seen earlier, registration on the platform is free, however creating A+ content can cost as it requires hiring professionals to take great photos, professionally design the space, and write engaging descriptions.
No Direct Impact On SEO
- Limited Text Indexing: Yes, A+ content can be useful for enhancing user experience but Amazon does not consider A+ content when ranking product or service listings. This means that your A+ content will have no direct way to boost your product’s rankings for keyword organic search.
Time-Consuming Setup
- Content Development:  ‘Creating’ high-quality A+ content is a process that takes time. This includes using good and clear images, meaningful descriptions, and most importantly the arrangement of the images.
- Testing and Optimization: A+ content should be tested and experimented with often to find out what might be more effective for the target audience. Optimizing takes time and can sometimes take hours, depending on the different activities being optimized.
Pros of Premium A+ Content
Advanced Features
- Interactive Elements: Premium A+ Content provides multiple formats, including video, carousel, and hover-over. These features can increase shoppers’ engagement and make the experience more comprehensive.
- More Layout Options: In Premium A+ Content sellers are provided with multiple, flexible, and dynamic layouts that can help in presenting different information. This can also lead to a more creative, innovative, and brand-oriented page of the product.
Higher Conversion Potential
- Engaging and Informative: The modality of Premium A+ Content may involve presenting the content in an engaging fashion that can captivate existing or potential customers hence pushing them to buy or participate in conversion.
- Professional Appearance: This makes the product page have a highly professional outlook which could be such an added advantage to brands, especially in a competitive category.
Competitive Differentiation
- Stand out more: With the above freedom of design, your product listing can look very different and premium than what you get with basic A+ content. This is extremely helpful in very competitive categories where even a tenth of a point can mean a lot of difference.
Cons of Premium A+ Content
Cost
- High Production Costs: Writing quality work that can be classified under Premium A+ content can be expensive. This is because high-quality video production, animation, and interactivity on the home page, as well as professional copywriting, are costly to produce.
- Limited Availability: Premium A+ content is not available to any seller and can only be sold by sellers who meet the A+ level requirements. Typically, it is only available to niche providers and high-end items, so local sellers may have to pay for Amazon’s services to be a part of the marketplace environment.
No Direct Impact on Organic Search
- SEO Limitations: Just like basic A+ content, premium A+ content is not optimized for SEO. As a result, it will be beneficial in conversion optimization but will not impact organic search positioning.
Longer Development Time
- Complex Production Process: As mentioned above, premium A+ content features a more detailed and time-consuming production process, from content creation to execution. The problem becomes even more complex and time-consuming for brands managing a large number of SKUs.
