When Traffic and Conversions Collide: Interpreting Amazon Sales

Traffic and conversions are foundational measurements to observe when building your e-commerce or Amazon business. With a firm understanding of traffic, conversion can be the proverbial ace up your sleeve, so let’s dive in. 

Foundation: The Definitions

Until you understand what they mean, these concepts can seem abstract and inaccessible. 

• Traffic is essentially how many clicks your listing receives. Traffic can be a good indication of interest in your product and a fair measure of your performance and marketing and advertising effectiveness, but this isn’t always the case. This term can be further divided into the following categories:
• External traffic refers to shoppers who might search or see an ad for your product outside of Amazon.
• Internal traffic refers to shoppers who find your product by searching on Amazon.
  
  
• Conversions measure how many people are purchasing once they have visited and assessed your listing, i.e. how many clicks turn into buyers. 

Note: Many people want to know what Amazon's average conversion rate is, however, such a wide "average" isn't very helpful with so many factors at play. If you're selling in a highly competitive category, the average conversion rate of that niche is going to be very different compared to a low competition category. Instead, identify who your top competitors are, and put together a strategy to outperform them. 

How to Find Traffic and Conversions on Seller Central 

Performing regular Amazon conversion and traffic analysis is crucial. But, analyzing these metrics on Amazon can look a little different than general eCommerce. To look up your internal traffic data, open the “Detailed Page Sales & Traffic Report” under the “Report” tab on Seller Central, where you can set a specific date range to reveal details. However, as is often the case, Amazon works and words things in mysterious ways:  

• Amazon traffic data for your product listing is referred to as “page views.” This means the total visits to a particular product detail page.

• Amazon conversion rates are labeled “unit session percentage.” This is a calculation that identifies what percentage of views converted into sales.

Be sure to calculate conversion rate trends across time to see how your advertising efforts, seasonality, and competitive landscape may all affect your traffic and conversions.

How to Track Amazon Traffic and Conversions

Amazon now offers a tool called “Amazon Attribution.” This nifty feature allows you to track external data and interest from search engines and ads outside of Amazon. 

Traffic and Conversions at a Glance

Based on these surface definitions, it is easy to come away thinking, “Well, obviously conversions are the most important part.” 

Conversions = a purchase.

A purchase = celebration! 

This might be true, but there is more going on behind the scenes. Conversions don’t always equate to high revenue and traffic doesn’t always spark a purchase. Many make the critical mistake of prioritizing conversions over traffic, when traffic is actually the magical source of your conversions! 

Learn how to take both into account and strike that perfect balance so you maximize your ability to drive the right traffic, and then convert traffic into sales.

Interpreting and Applying the Data 

Let's take some time to break down a few scenarios and assess what your traffic: conversion ratio reveals about your listing:

Traffic and conversion rates and ratios are incredibly valuable. Here are a couple of spins that may feel familiar (and frustrating):

Scenario 1: Traffic > Conversions

This scenario concerns the disconnect when traffic is high and conversion is poor. In other words you're getting traffic but no sales.

Imagine you are selling teacups and you have 1,000 views a day. Starting out, that may seem positive, but you realize only 10 of those 1,000 clicks turned into a purchase. This is a 1% conversion rate. 

What might be clogging the funnel from traffic to conversions: 

• Your keywords aren’t relevant to your product. Improve the quality of your SEO to get traffic that converts. In other words, you could drive traffic to Amazon listing pages, but the traffic may not be people who are actually interested in buying that product. If you feel like you're trying to trick people into landing on your page, then your likelihood of converting that traffic is likely going to be low.
• Do an Amazon web traffic analysis through your search query performance dashboard to gain more insights about the keywords you've selected and whether they're relevant to your target customers.
• A clunky listing. You have a lot of keywords but haven't spent time crafting effective copy, so traffic stalls out before reaching its ultimate destination, the Amazon cart.  Amazon isn't like other websites. There are very specific ways of formatting and optimizing your Amazon listing.
• If you keyword stuffed or failed to describe your product accurately, consumers may visit your listing only to find it wasn’t what they were searching for after all.
• Poorly managed advertising strategy. You may be sending the wrong kind of traffic to your listing. It's imperative that if you're paying for traffic, that you buy high converting traffic.

Scenario 2: Amazon Search Traffic and Conversions are Both Lacking

Clicks are sparse and revenue is dwindling. Need I say more? This is far from what you hope to see, and there are a variety of reasons why you might find yourself at this lonely crossroads:

• You aren’t using every element of your Amazon landing page to its full potential. high quality Images, videos, descriptions, and A+ content all play a major role. Don’t underestimate their importance and be sure to make them attention-grabbing, relatable, and honest. 
• Reviews are bringing traffic to a halt.  
• You haven't optimized for desktop and mobile devices. You must consider both types of customers when creating your content strategy.
• You use minimal keywords.
• Your Amazon listing is sparse, or not enough care and attention have been given to certain key aspects.
• Nothing sets you apart from the slew of similar products.

Scenario 3: Conversion may appear high, but take a closer look.

If your conversion rate is 75%, but you’ve only had 4 views, there is more going on than meets the eye. Your conversion rate seems high, but ultimately only 3 people have purchased. Again, not ideal. Here’s a quick checklist of points that might need your attention:

• Make sure each element of your listing speaks to a certain area, including indexing, visual appeal, and how it makes the customer feel.
• Read through your reviews, and address buyer concerns.
• Check that you’re using a number of relevant keywords.

Quality over Quantity: Marketing is Marvelous

The most efficient way to improve the quality of your traffic and bulk-up conversion is with concentrated and intentional marketing. In other words, know your audience.

A strong understanding of your market audience will usher in quality traffic. Not only will traffic increase, but you’ll also attract the CORRECT traffic for your product, thereby avoiding fruitless clicks. 

When it comes down to it, the most effective interpretation of your traffic and conversion data is that both measurements are high-priority ingredients to selling on Amazon. 

They equally relay game-changing information about what is happening in the mind of the Amazon consumer. Consider both traffic and conversions to be road markers outlining the path to your dream buyer.

Discover How to Increase Amazon Traffic and Boost Conversions

There is so much to consider when listing and selling on Amazon! The Amazon conversion rate is at the top of most eCommerce platforms, so let us help you make the most of every opportunity! If you find that traffic and conversions aren’t computing, send us your listing for a free Amazon listing analysis! We can tell you where we see weak points that may impact your traffic and conversions negatively and help you get back on the road to success, full of high converting traffic!