There’s been a LOT of buzz going around about Amazon’s roll out of “A+ Premium” or “A++” content. As anyone seasoned in the space will recognize, any “new” Amazon feature always invites a torrent of click-bait articles.
Be that as it may, it’s important for sellers to know what this feature is, and who has access to it. If you are familiar with the Signalytics format, we certainly aren’t going to stop at just telling you about the feature.
However, that’s still a good starting point…
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What IS A+ Premium?
A+ Premium content is an upgraded template for brand detail pages. Additional content is available where the “product description” on a listing is found. That additional content is designed to tell the brand’s story.
History of A+
In the olden days of Amazon, A+ was exclusively a feature for vendors. In those days, third party sellers hadn’t yet proven to be the force to be reckoned with as we are today. As such, most enhanced features went to vendors, who were large sellers that sold their inventory directly to the Amazon platform. This often included big global brands.
Around 2014 and 2015 is when there was an influx of enterprising third-party sellers who chose to create and sell their own brand of products. These enterprising sellers would not be out-done by large brands, so in those days we would inject imagery into our product descriptions using HTML.
Shortly thereafter Amazon banned the use of most HTML tags in product descriptions, but understanding the growing need for enhanced features they also began to experiment with programs such as Brand Registry.
Amazon experiments with new programs regularly and many have failed, but Brand Registry was a huge success. With the growing trend of small but legitimate brands coming to sell on Amazon’s platform, they decided to extend a version of A+ to these brands called EBC (Enhanced Brand Content).
Later on Amazon merged the templates for EBC and A+ and made A+ a uniform feature for all brands (not just vendors). A+ content gave detail pages extra “modules’ where images and text could be added that told more of the brand story than was allowed by the limited space in Bullets, Images and Title.
A+ Premium has more features
Where A+ content allows five modules to be added to a detail page, A+ Premium allows for seven. Furthermore, A+ Premium has widened the display area of those modules, and added extra functionality to them as well, including but not limited to:
- Full width video
- Video with text
- Carousels (both image and video)
- Images with background text (more infographic style)
- Interactive comparison charts
Notice how Amazon is adhering to the psychological principles of behavioral economics. The most impactful way to persuade a buyer is through rich media (video), being personal (brand story) and displaying functional superiority (comparison charts).
A+ Premium content will undoubtedly be a valuable asset to brands moving forward.
Examples of A+ Premium
First, let’s show an example of basic A+ content so that we can establish a basis.
Note: lot’s of text. Extra space for a few images and a lot more room to explain with words what the product and brand are about.
Next we have A+ Premium content. Here you can see the extended width of the imagery as well as added video modules.
Note: there’s a clear difference in quality here. Instead of walls of text, this space allows for beautiful imagery and video to connect emotionally. MUCH more effective than text.
All available modules for A+ Premium
Here’s what setting up A+ Premium content looks like…
Who can get A+ Premium?
According to Amazon, A+ Premium is now available to all Brand Registered brands that fit within the criteria.
The criteria includes having ALL listings in your catalog with A+ content and at least 15 listings with approved A+ content on the detail page. Basically, brands that have a well established presence and that are totally committed to only representing a brand on Amazon.
Potential Impact of A+ Premium
Ok, now we get to the meat and potatoes of the topic. Yes, A+ Premium content seems amazing, but what does it mean for brands that can take advantage of it?
If you do some Google deep-dive research on the topic, you’ll see some articles vaguely mention that A+ content tends to help increase conversions on a detail page by up to 10%, whereas A+ Premium boasts 15% lifts.
We believe these are made up numbers, as they do not coincide with information given by Amazon personnel.
For brand owners and sellers that are engaged in audience building, you may recall a time when there was a fairly active Amazon seller group on the audio social media app called Clubhouse. During those sessions there was a regular participant who was not just an Amazon employee, but an integral member of the “Amazon Launchpad” team.
Through that employee we learned that A+ Premium was not just available to vendors, but to brands using Launchpad. We also learned, according to their research (internal Amazon data) basic A+ content could be attributed to an average lift of 5% on unit-session percentage (conversion rate).
HOWEVER, this employee had some astounding stats for A+ Premium, claiming that the average lift was closer to 20%, with many instances being closer to 30%! This was across all categories on the platform, with some being more impacted by the content than others.
Why is A+ Premium content so effective?
This is an incredibly valid question; why is A+ Premium content so much more effective than basic A+ content?
According to our Amazon Launchpad “inside source” the reason the premium content is so much more effective was because of video content. Specifically, what made some brands maximize their conversion lift with their new video listing space was telling their brand’s story.
Brands that opened up about their origins, values, founders, etc through video saw the largest increase in conversion rates.
What does this mean for you?
Now that we have some reliable stats directly from Amazon data you can use behavioral insights to ensure your A+ Premium content has the maximum result on your conversion rates.
Here are some tips:
- Use video to tell the story of your brand. Get personal and specific about who you are serving. The more a potential customer feels they are being spoken to, the more likely they will buy from you.
- Utilize the greater image width to display your products from every angle. Show them in use and depict your target audience. This helps them imagine using your product. If you can get potential buyers to do this, you can win the sale.
- Have three to four options to use in your comparison chart. Have a more affordable option, a premium option, and “decoy” option, which would be a less attractive option (less feature rich for the same price). This decoy option will push people to choose the better value options.
Of course you don’t have to take on the challenge of creating A+ Premium content on your own. Our experienced team at Signalytics offers top-tier video and image services. We also have the ability to heatmap test your A+ content (for guaranteed higher conversions).
However you choose to move forward, please consider what A+ Premium content can do to help your brand scale.