Amazon image and video optimization isn’t just about how you put your pictures and videos on your listing. It’s also about building and establishing your brand, and in this episode we discover techniques on how to do just that. With the right assets, you can show potential customers what makes your product unique. When you take the time to ensure that your pictures and videos are high-quality and consistent with your brand identity, you’re creating a stronger overall presence on Amazon. This can help you attract more customers, build customer loyalty, and eventually make more sales. Let’s tune in!


Topics Covered in This Episode

  • Product images requirements
  • EBC and Brand Story
  • AB Testing
  • Image auditing & heat mapping
  • 3D rendering vs. conventional product photography
  • Optimizing your listing for the Amazon algorithm

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Podcast Transcription

[00:00:00] Do you want your product seen by more buyers on Amazon, Etsy and other marketplaces? Do you want to get more traffic, make more sales and scale your brand? Welcome to the Signalytics podcast. Signal code unlocked, where we discuss what signals are needed to send to your customers, to the algorithms, to the ad platforms in order to get your product seen converting and profiting fast with your host former top 50 seller on all of Amazon, the [00:00:30] professor Howard Thai.

[00:00:32] This is the Signalytics podcast signal code unlocked.

[00:00:40] Hello everyone. Welcome back to the levelup Amazon sessions. And thank you for joining us today. And today we have again, Baldwin Thai with us. Thank you, Baldwin for joining us today as well. Yeah. Great to be here. Awesome. All right. So today topic [00:01:00] is image and video optimization and over to you, Baldwin. Okay. Let me share my slides.

[00:01:07] Yeah.

[00:01:10] Okay. Here we go. So image optimization. Let me add, let me add. Okay. All right, here you go. Okay. So image optimization. When we think about image optimization, we think of just [00:01:30] how to do your pictures and how to put your, your seven pictures on your, your listing and your EBC content. But it’s actually much more than.

[00:01:41] And I’ll explain a little bit later, but for those who don’t, uh, are new to the Amazon space or don’t know how to really do their pictures, uh, I’ll start with the basics first. So for the product pictures, we should have at least seven images [00:02:00] for our images, uh, including the main picture. The main picture should be white with a white background and clear and make sure that.

[00:02:09] When you do do your pictures. Um, the top part of the picture touches the, the borders. So you should not have any dead white space around your pictures. This will allow Amazon well, Amazon’s out, out, um, I’ll I’ll, [00:02:30] um, format. I don’t know if it’s algorithm, but it’s there whenever you upload pictures it shrinks the image if you have any dead white space.

[00:02:41] So your image may look is altered when you upload it. Um, we can add up to nine images, but seven are shown on, uh, mobile devices. And when you zoom into the pictures, then eight to nine show up. Ideally [00:03:00] images should be. 2000 by 2000 pixels with a 300 DPI, but lately people have been changing it for mobile devices, optimizing for mobile devices to make it actually taller and skinnier.

[00:03:17] So that on mobile devices, it takes up more space when you scroll. So this is one I would say hack or trick that people have been using lately, but the traditional sense [00:03:30] was 2000 by 2000 pixels. So your main image again, white background. Um, and it has to be more than 85% of the screen. Like I said, it should be touching all sides.

[00:03:46] I guess this image. Uh, well, this is Photoshop. So the image isn’t really, it should be touching all SI all corners to maximize space. You can also, [00:04:00] if you have different images, you can also do AB split testings to figure out which image is the best one for you, but you can only do AB split testing. If on Amazon, if you have enough traffic, Not, not fails, but just traffic.

[00:04:19] Um, so if you’re getting a lot of impressions or getting a lot of session views, then that’s when Amazon starts recommending your product for AB testing, [00:04:30] it should not contain any texts or, uh, right here, it does say props or accessories. Um, I, this could be. Old, but certain categories, they do use display all their accessories on top of the main image.

[00:04:55] But in terms of looking at it visually, [00:05:00] you should actually have a clean image so that people are attracted to the image and not be distracted by clutter. This will get your click through rate through and higher than what it would be. If people are not attracted to your image, look at your competitors, see what they do.

[00:05:22] If they do cluttered images, always AB test. Even if you’re going against what everyone else is doing, maybe that’s [00:05:30] actually a benefit. Okay, images must be larger than a thousand pixels in length than width. This is the minimum criteria for Amazon and ideally should be through 2000 by 2000. Infographs.

[00:05:43] These are the other pictures in the seven images that you would put up on Amazon. These actually describe what the product is. The different functions you can see on this organizer. It, there really isn’t [00:06:00] much. You can say about an organizer, but. there, there is things that can stand out about the organizer that you can highlight.

[00:06:11] You can see in the picture. There’s, there’s a bunch of features that people may look at. This can make you stand out against your competition. If people are looking at these pictures in this picture for the salty sweetie pin tin, um, [00:06:30] it’s also making. Uh, stylish like a versatile photo of just happy people eating cookies.

[00:06:39] It, it gives a sense of joy in using the product. So. Take also note that when you do your pictures, you’re also building your brand. So you can also add your logos and your slogans into your infographs and [00:07:00] not just a plain picture, but take advantage of people, looking at your product as long as your logo, isn’t, uh, taking all of the attention.

[00:07:13] I don’t suggest putting a smack in the middle, but put it off to the side so that people know your product when they associate your, when they look at your products, because when they. Uh, compare different products. Maybe they’re looking at [00:07:30] a different salty and sweet bin. They’re trying to remember which one was that one that I saw and then they’ll remember.

[00:07:37] Oh yeah. Out shine is the brand that I was looking at because your brand is actually there. Um, okay. So you wanna zoom in onto the product details, showing the unique features and benefits of using your products, all the different angles. You know, you just want a pleasant atmosphere, pleasant, [00:08:00] emotion. So pictures are supposed to have emotions for customers.

[00:08:05] When they want to look at a product, they want to know that the they’ll enjoy using the product, or it is something that they. Have a positive feeling about this. Isn’t always the case. However, like if you’re selling disaster kits or something that is, uh, you know, kind [00:08:30] of there for your protection, you wanna rile emotions up.

[00:08:36] So maybe like imagerial of fear or whatever it is, but they want to have that positive emotion. When they want to feel when they buy your product. So if you have a disaster kit or, or something like that, also show a positive feeling when they’re holding the product or using the [00:09:00] product that will be really helpful in when you carry your images.

[00:09:08] So for the main picture, you should always use the original packaging. So this is a very clean look, very, this might, this, it is a, could be a 3D rendering or product photo. It’s. It looks really real. So even I’m [00:09:30] tricked, I I’m, I may not know what is it? 3D rendering pictures are always really realistic. And, uh, the uplift for 3D rendering pic 3D render pictures are something like times six of normal photographed pictures.

[00:09:50] So if you have the ability to use 3D rendering, I would suggest always going for 3D render. Also for the size, make sure [00:10:00] you highlight these features, and put them in your pictures if your product is. Um, if this is a, a feature that your product can benefit from certain products, you may not need to demonstrate the sizes like a toy binocular or toy.

[00:10:21] Something that I don’t really care about the size then. You can skip this part, but for most products, if [00:10:30] people are doing household items, they wanna know, will this fit in my kitchen counter, will this fit in my pantry? So sizes can illustrate a good let the consumer know what they’re getting so that they can prepare and know exactly what the choices are when they’re when they’re choosing their product.

[00:10:52] You can also add testimonials. So for testimonials, it can be just like a short type [00:11:00] of highlight or quote from even someone that has been has used your product in the Amazon reviews. You can actually redo your pictures and add testimonials of people who, who gave you five star reviews. Those actually, uh, do is social proof so that you can validate your product.

[00:11:24] For dietary supplements product should have the image of the back labels and ingredients [00:11:30] supplement facts. This is important because when people look at dietary supplements or things that needs ingredients, people look at this really carefully, like the amount of servings and the cap, the capsules per serving and what they’re actually getting in their product.

[00:11:49] Disclaimer for dietary supplements is if it’s not FDA certified to, you have to add a disclaimer. [00:12:00] Uh, these statements are, you can see on the bottom. This is not FDA certified. Make sure you have these. If, if you guys aren’t certifying your, your product with the FDA,

[00:12:15] we’ll move on to the EBC and a plus context. Content. So as we discussed last week, there’s a plus content. You have your brand story and you [00:12:30] have your basic modules for your, a plus or UVC. This is also a perfect place to put your keywords. But for this week, we’re, we’re focusing on how to organize your pictures in a way where.

[00:12:45] It will help compel your audience to be more informed about your product and stand out of, of stand out against your competition. So EBC is an exclusive feature that [00:13:00] registered brands on Amazon can help their conversions by three to 10%. This is according to Amazon, when they throw out their statistics, they say that any listing that has EBC contents will have an uplift three or three to 10%.

[00:13:15] A, the a plus section is where you can combine text and images and create a compelling, just story about your brand and more information. So there’s the EBC brand [00:13:30] carousel shows up on the bottom, middle, bottom of your page, where your product description is supposed to be. The brand story shows up right above it.

[00:13:40] So it actually takes up a lot of space on your page so that you always want to have a lot of content, one to highlight different features, to have different options for your product to upsell and to fend [00:14:00] against leakage in your page. So when people go into your page, they’re always scrolling, looking at your product, least likely to, or less likely to go to another product.

[00:14:14] Although Amazon tries to make it hard by putting ads everywhere in your page. You can’t stop that unless you wanna do PPC defense, which we will talk about next time. But for. For putting a lot of EBC [00:14:30] content, you can fill up a lot of your, your page so that people will stay on your page. So you have four different modules modules.

[00:14:40] So that appears on the EBC content module. One is brand focus, image, single image with text module two is logo and description, model three. You can highlight your store, sorry. This is for the brand story. And you can also put all of these images together and layer [00:15:00] them. Instead of having multiple pictures scattered, it makes it into where you’re like using Photoshop, but this is Amazon’s way of putting together your picture.

[00:15:14] You can see here, we have a picture of a thermometer. You can upsell, you can highlight your different products. If you have a, a bunch of different lines or, or set of products that you’re going to launch, [00:15:30] you can tell about your story, add more compelling imagery into your pictures. EBC product descriptions.

[00:15:41] You wanna stand out in terms of competing against other people who may not have EBC, EBC gives more insight about your product. Just this is a place where you put, um, All of the information that you can’t put in the bullets or the, [00:16:00] uh, the seven pictures, the seven pictures in the beginning should be your pictures that captivates your audience.

[00:16:08] This one, it should be more informational, more about the product and upselling customers, your different types. If you go into ’em. Uh, this one is for this, this one’s important that I think everyone should use. If they have multiple products that they’re selling, [00:16:30] this module usually goes right above Amazon’s recommended comparisons.

[00:16:37] So that. In the past, when this came out, people would always click on this thinking that this is Amazon’s comparison chart. So it tricks them into going into your own products. Instead of leaking out into competitor’s products. This will also highlight the different products that you have and, uh, gives them just more information on [00:17:00] it.

[00:17:00] It looks like a real, like a comparison shopping module. So that that’s all for the EB for the EBC content. We’ll move on to the AB testing. So AB testing, you can compare two different versions of your title, your main image or your EBC. So these are the only things that you can really AB test.

[00:17:25] Unfortunately, I wish they can do more images like the other seven [00:17:30] images besides your main image, but Amazon’s only allowing title main image at. What the criterias your ASINs must be eligible for the AB or split testing, a AB testing brand registered. And there’s, you can only do one experiment per ASIN, which you should never run multiple experiments because you will never know what is affecting [00:18:00] what at any given time when you’re doing AB.

[00:18:03] So ASIN eligibility, like I said, it’s about your sessions, how many sessions you’re getting into your page? You can inflate this by driving a lot of traffic into it, whether it’s DSP or PPC, this will help you have this option. If you wanted to. The experiments. I think this is an old infograph. They changed the [00:18:30] way they used to do it or did it in the past.

[00:18:34] But Amazon will actually tell you. Which version is better and switches your image automatically. And they’ll tell you this product during the AB testing, how many units sold for this? How many units sold for that? And it actually gives you a, the new version actually gives you how much revenue you make, more from one image over the other one.[00:19:00] 

[00:19:00] So it’s actually a pretty good tool. However, it does take a long time to do I believe. To start, it takes about a week to even, uh, get ready for the AB testing. And then you don’t get any data for at least two weeks. And then the, the experiment runs for a long period of time.

[00:19:24] There’s a picture of just what it looks like in the module, in the dashboard. [00:19:30] So you can also split test your a plus content. Again, we kind of highlighted this, uh, a little earlier. This is another picture of when, how you AB tested. So how do you tell whether or not your pictures are actually good? So a lot of people, they put up their seven image and they just leave it.

[00:19:56] They’ve never revisited. They don’t go back and [00:20:00] say, are my pictures good? Or even when you have, when you hire a graphic designer or someone that does your images, how do you even know that the pictures that they produce is good. You have your own eyes, I guess, but. Is that backed up by science or data.

[00:20:19] It’s just a feeling that you get on how your images are doing. So at signal Lytics, we use a system for us and our clients for [00:20:30] key mapping key mapping is when you, we use artificial intelligence to figure out what the customers are looking at when they’re looking at your images. If they are being distracted or they’re being pulled away by irrelevant images that may cause them not to focus on your product or your, your brand.[00:21:00] 

[00:21:00] So there’s always three questions we ask ourselves when we’re auditing pictures, is, are people seeing important content? Are people being distracted by URL irrelevant content, and are they seeing the solution to their problems? So when you’re writing your listings and you are creating your, your listing, you always want to not sell a product, but you want to sell the [00:21:30] solution to the customer’s problem.

[00:21:32] If they’re looking for a certain device, you want to be able to highlight the device, solving their problem that they’re having and not highlighting just the product. This it it’s you’re, you’re always selling the emotion of when people are shopping, that your product will guarantee that it’ll solve the problem.

[00:21:56] And you know what the problems are, so that you’re [00:22:00] ahead of the game. So for this product, We did a heat mapping of the Amazon page. And you can see what it looks like. People are mainly focused on the main image. This is called a vision arc. Where, where do people look at first and where do they land? So you can see that they they’re going to the product.

[00:22:24] Then they’re slowly going over to the title, reading what the product is. They, they [00:22:30] see the price down here and then they head towards the buy now button. This is natural. I mean, Amazon designed their webpage perfectly over time. They have all the science to design all of this to make the perfect landing.

[00:22:51] So you can see when we black out any images that that is not highlighted in the key maps, you can see what they’re focused on most [00:23:00] and it’s the product image and then the title or the yeah, the title. So for your EBC or your seven images, are they conveying, are they distracting or are they not distracting?

[00:23:15] You can see. Most of the concentration is up here. Organizer drawers in style and down here where the, the three points is. And [00:23:30] then there’s some shading in here. I’ll show you what the blackout looks like. Blackout looks like this. The main draw is that top image, the three bullets and the main image of the person using the product.

[00:23:48] Here’s an example of something we tell our clients not to do is clutter their image. This is, uh, basically a image of just [00:24:00] there’s a lot going on a lot of different colors, a lot of different backgrounds. It’s kind of distracting. I don’t know where to focus on and I don’t really know where to start when I look at this picture, so you can see the key mapping, there is some up here, but that’s not even that mainly it’s right here and right here.

[00:24:21] So it’s looking at this woman’s face and it’s looking at, uh, the computer screen for this virtual learning [00:24:30] infograph. All the other ones is very lightly highlighted. Remember when you use faces, faces are powerful tools. When you are, um, doing images because faces, people are attracted to faces. That’s why, you know, all of the industries always have pretty faces as they’re, as they’re doing their, their images.

[00:24:58] So make sure [00:25:00] if you do have faces, they’re not too distracting where it’s all that people are concentrating. You can see the focus barely on multiple is barely on multiple uses of the products. There were six images, but even this one image was solely ignored. This one is very lightly highlighted and this one’s highly lightly highlighted too.

[00:25:26] The image is. The image was stuffed [00:25:30] unnecessarily. All six images have a laptop and a person. It would, would probably be better if you only had a one single image of a laptop and maybe did like highlight of the different uses of the product. For example, this is another, this is a. Perfect example of what we’re talking about.

[00:25:51] You have your, this is the, the original image. This is the heat mapping where you have the main image in the middle, and [00:26:00] then they have the different uses of the images you can see in the heat mapping. This is what people work are concentrated on. There’s no unnecessary clutter or colors that may distract them from what the product actually is.

[00:26:18] Here’s also an example of people using this for the webcam of a bad image, because the highlighted portions, [00:26:30] all the main focus is on the laptop on this woman’s face, which is fine to have faces again, that you want to stir up the emotion of also happy people using the product, but also you want them to concentrate.

[00:26:48] Other things in your, in your listing. You can see that when I black out the picture, it’s only gonna show this and this, this may not even show up in the blackout. [00:27:00] So usually when phases are involved, it grabs attention of the pictures. Try adding a bigger text folder, boulder writing, boulder folder, and in the infographs I’m gonna go back really quick.

[00:27:15] You can see. Just the color scheme could deter you from reading this cuz it’s on the very top. It’s very cramped up on the top. And this one it’s like, it’s like a block of text, block, block of text [00:27:30] could get people’s attention. But if there’s a face involved, it’s not. And people want to know when they’re reading, when they’re looking at images, they, they wanna know snapshot.

[00:27:44] Just tell me the highlights. You can use your EBC content to write blocks of text, but for your seven images, it should be your, like your, your quick, what, what am I knowing in split second? What can I [00:28:00] see in the pictures? This is an example of how to do it correctly is you have. It’s the same image of the woman and the picture.

[00:28:13] But now we put half block of infographs of the different uses on the side to stand out more and you can see the vision arc. It probably starts from here, goes down [00:28:30] and goes over, or it starts from this woman’s face and goes over this way. And now the, the least focus part is on the women’s picture right here, the, on the laptop from before it was, that was the main, main focus of the picture.

[00:28:50] You can see it’s it was the women’s head. And then they, they read the, the banner and the different ways of using the product or [00:29:00] the, just the features of the product. So that’s what we usually do for our clients. We, we go through with them for the, key mapping and telling ’em in your listing. What are you doing that is bad in your images?

[00:29:16] What is being distracted and so on? So next we go into 3D rendering, 3D rendering. The, the conve, the way people used to do photography for Amazon listing [00:29:30] is just photography. And then you crop out the image, do some Photoshop, adjust lighting. But with 3D renderings, we can show a comparison. This is what the, the photography looks like.

[00:29:45] And unless you’re a really good photographer and no lighting and know how to do Photoshop really well. This is the result that you get when you do your photography and [00:30:00] Photoshop, but this is what it looks like when someone 3D renders the. It looks so much more different. It stands out and it just, you can add more things into the picture to make it more realistic.

[00:30:16] And it just, it just sells the product a lot better than this given. This is somewhat blurry and this is what you get with from photography. [00:30:30] Sometimes you get blurry pictures and sometimes people work on blurry picture. And it’s not sharp, not clean. The colors are very dull unless you have the perfect lighting it.

[00:30:40] So it’s, this is what you get. I believe that’s it for my presentation. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Um, okay. Awesome. Yeah. Great. Thank you for, for the great presentation guys. If you have any questions, please comment on [00:31:00] this, uh, live session. And, uh, I would like to add one thing here. The about the main image as Baldwin.

[00:31:06] You said that, uh, if you have the white space, Amazon compresses your main image. So I have seen few what few people are doing, few sellers are doing. And I won’t recommend doing that. They are like P shopping it and they are adding additional layer with the transparent or white. [00:31:30] You can say background and they are putting.

[00:31:33] The text inside that in the white. So it doesn’t show up actually, when you see the picture, but at the back end, it covers up the white space. So that’s what I have seen. Some sellers are doing it, but I won’t recommend that I will, I would, I will recommend, but you have said to keep the product larger and cover up the right space with the product instead of [00:32:00] putting the, some content behind.

[00:32:02] Yeah, you got, yeah. So we have one question here. Is it good to design our main image with packaging box? Yeah. People do like to see the, what they’re getting in the begin in. Oh, if there’s a lot of different products that comes in your, your bundle or your kit or whatever it is, that is [00:32:30] probably. People used to do where they just it’s like a, they scatter all the images across all the different parts to showcase all the products, but honestly, nothing beats we’ve done AB testing a lot, and it shows that most people prefer the box with the image being a preferred, main image.

[00:32:55] Okay.

[00:32:59] And what [00:33:00] do you say about the Picfu and some other AB testing tools? so with Picfu, uh, we, we are friends with Picfu. We love Picfu, but with our tool, with the, key mapping, it costs significantly less to use key mapping because it uses our AI technology and. It takes so much longer to do Picfu as to with the AI. It’s, it’s [00:33:30] more, I don’t wanna say more accurate, but it’s in accurate, in a different sense in order to get a really accurate result with Picfu.

[00:33:39] You need a lot of different audiences to look at your, and to test it out, to get, to get a crowdsourced, a collection of what images they want, but. Also it’s it’s expensive. Yeah. Yeah. So correct. I was [00:34:00] actually looking at a presentation in, in, uh, closed group. And it was presented by Anthony, who, who is in the PicFu and they are doing an experiment with, with the dog grooming grooming kit with machine, with the shaver machine.

[00:34:18] And it has some additional, uh, props. You can say the, the Caesar and few other stuff. And on the main image they have done around six to [00:34:30] seven pole. To get the main image to get the right main image. And what they they have done is the very first pole was how to place your product. So this is the, this is, this was the very first, uh, main image pole.

[00:34:46] Then they pulled all on, on the color, the machine color. Then they added a dog in the image and based on the commences, they changed the [00:35:00] doc and then, then ran the poll again. So they have decided to use the dog with two poll tests, what doc should be there. And then they added the box and then they changed the logo.

[00:35:14] So this is, was their main image Picfu test to, to get the best picture they did around six to seven polls, just on the main. Yeah. So you are already, yeah. So you are already right. It costs a lot, uh, to do pick food. There are some other [00:35:30] options he’ll give to an audience as well. And there is product opinion.com that is same kind of, uh, tool to do the AB testing.

[00:35:41] So, uh, guys, if you have any comments please, down in the comment section so we can answer, otherwise we will be concluding this session today. Baldwin anything to add on the video optimization? How do you see video? Oh, yeah, video. Uh, we do [00:36:00] key mapping for videos also, so we can concentrate or we can see what’s being concentrated on the videos.

[00:36:06] Video is a different, I guess, uh, S uh, monster because a lot of people don’t have that video or artistic. Vision of what video should be. Sorry. I didn’t have time to really put it into my presentation. It, I can go into a full presentation on just video alone, [00:36:30] but for video optimization, it, it, you need a lot of.

[00:36:36] you need someone who knows how to do the videos in order to create a good video, someone to emotionally tell a story about your product. And though the best ones are usually, you know, you, you wanna have multiple videos too. And in your listing, you can actually have like UGC of UGC is user generated content.[00:37:00] 

[00:37:00] And in the bottom, there’s the video section of influencers or whatever you can upload videos. You wanna fill those spots with people, using your product, having a, a good experience using your product that will sell your product a lot when you’re trying to get your listing listed optimized. All right, great.

[00:37:25] So I believe there are no questions from, from, from the people. [00:37:30] So let’s, uh, wrap it up and thank you guys for joining us and thank you Baldwin for the great presentation today as well. And I hope to see you soon again. Yep. Always glad to be here. All right. Awesome. Thank you guys. Take care. And bye. Do you want your products seen by more buyers on Amazon, Etzy and other marketplaces?

[00:37:54] Do you want to get more traffic? Make more sales and scale your brand? [00:38:00] Welcome to the Signalytics podcast. Signal code unlocked, where we discuss what signals are needed to send to your customers, to the algorithms, to the ad platforms in order to get your product seen converting and profiting fast with your host former top 50 seller on all of Amazon, [00:38:18] the professor Howard Thai. This is the Signalytics podcast signal code unlocked.

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