For anyone selling on Amazon, the process of setting up a store can be daunting. Once you’ve achieved your goal, however, the pressure to grow and maximize sales is on— and marketing strategies and tools that work fast are the most useful. Those strategies include social media influencers.
YouTube product influencers are now a strategic part of growth marketplace selling. As you get your influencers in place and ready to sell, the question becomes: How do you make them even more successful? Well, there is a secret that many people are just now catching on to that helps sellers, influencers, and associates link from app-to-app (i.e. from YouTube to Amazon) that can dramatically increase conversion. No worries, we’ll tell you all about that in just a moment.
First, consider the incredible growth of social media influencers, and how they are fundamentally changing the e-commerce landscape when it comes to product trial, discovery, and consideration. E-commerce teams are now leveraging influencers up and down the funnel with specific videos that advertise brands, products, features, and promotions— without feeling like an advertisement. For most brands, the simplest way to tap into this mode of advertising is through an established and trusted influencer with thousands or millions of followers.
Additionally, let’s consider these incredible influencer statistics:
Influencers are using a number of different outlets to recommend products, platforms which include Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and even Amazon itself (with their Amazon Associates platform).
YouTube, however, is still the top dog for product information.
If you’re just getting started with influencer marketing, and are in doubt about YouTube’s relevance (especially since TikTok seems to be the most popular video platform of the moment), here’s a statistic for you— YouTube has over 2 billion users who watch upward of 5 billion videos a day. We rest our case.
Most YouTube videos, of course, are viewed with a smartphone. It follows then that after watching an influencer sing the praises of your brand, that the consumer— wanting to learn more or make a purchase at that very moment— clicks on the Amazon link for your product or store found in the description of the video.
So, what happens next?
Instead of opening the Amazon app to the screen where a purchase can be made with one click, they’re sent to the Amazon web login within the YouTube embedded web browser. And guess what— most people abandon their shopping journey.
This phenemenon is called the walled garden effect.
Picture this: an influencer is promoting a pair of shoes that you’re interested in via a YouTube video that has been featured on your YouTube home page because the algorithm has deemed it relevant to you and your shopping habits.
Awesome! You tap on the video, and yup— you’re impressed and ready to purchase a pair of these amazing shoes. They’re being sold on amazon, and the link is in the video description as indicated by the influencer. You tap on the Amazon link and you’re sent to— oh no. You’ve been sent to the Amazon login page.
Shoot. What’s my Amazon password again? Is it click clack this? No. Okay, how about clickity clack? Dang! No. Ugh never mind, I’ll figure it out later.
See how you abandoned your shopping journey so quickly? That’s exactly what happens when customers hit that walled garden. And ultimately, your conversion rates take a major hit. It gets worse.
In fact, there are three ways the walled garden hurts your Amazon sales:
1. Lower conversion: Losing the sale from anyone that wanted to buy your product at that moment or even if your shopper jumped over to the Amazon app themselves and try to find your product your campaign would not get credit.
2. Lower funnel contribution: Let’s say someone did click and hit the login button and decided to buy. Great, no loss right? Wrong. If the link opened the app to the right screen and passed Amazon Attribution measurement tags, Amazon could have put that shopper in your marketing funnel, in addition to notifying you things like how many people viewed certain products or number of times certain products were added to their shopping cart.
3. Lower product rankings: Hitting the Amazon web login also decrease your sales velocity and engagement. This is not viewed favorably by the Amazon algorithm, so your product rankings will ultimately be suppressed!
It’s a triple whammy! The good news is that URLgenius has the solution for you.
So, how do you securely jump over that walled garden with a link that takes you from the YouTube app to the correct screen in the Amazon app? Even more, how do you measure the increase in sales and the growth of your influencer program at the link and influencer level?
You simply need to add some additional app deep linking functionality to the Amazon link by updating it with URLgenius, and you can include your Amazon Attribution or Amazon Associate measurement tags. URLgenius is the Amazon deep linking option for marketers and the best alternative to app deep linking via SDKs.
Amazon sellers and affiliates are seeing 2x, 3x, and even 4x increases in sales. Plus, not only will you see an immediate spike in revenue from your YouTube influencers, but anyone who clicks on your Amazon links and doesn’t purchase in that session is automatically added to your Amazon funnel for remarketing. This boost in ‘off-Amazon’ sales velocity will also increase your product rankings!
Pro tip: Use your brand’s domain for your URLgenius deep links for Amazon. When deep linking from YouTube directly to the Amazon app using your brand’s domain, it allows you to extend your brand to the app deep link when sending your customers from app-to-app creating higher click confidence.
Beyond that, do you know what the best part is? There is no SDK or any technical resources involved (one less thing your technical team needs to worrry about!). Here’s how to quickly create an Amazon app deep link for your campaign.
The beauty of the URLgenius deep linking platform is how easy we make it for you— the seller, affiliate, influencer, or content producer (anyone!) to create app deep links to marketplaces to place in any marketing channel or campaign. Direct your audience to exactly where you want them to be in the app for iOS or Android depending on the device clicking— in this case, your brand’s store or product in the Amazon app.
URLgenius is the only verified Amazon Ads partner that can pass Amazon Attribution measurement tags without SDKs. Follow these steps and update your campaign links today.
Pro tip: These are the steps to create a single link. If you need to create links programmatically for an advertising data feed, URLgenius offers access to an API.
Notice that there are advanced features on the settings page— this is also where you can see clicks and the number of app-opens. You can also enable Amazon Attribution tags on the link so you can measure how much revenue is being driven by your YouTube campaign and your URLgenius app deep link.
Measurement pro tip for Amazon sellers: If you are already enrolled in the Amazon Attribution program, you can authenticate your Amazon account in the settings for your URLgenius account. Once you do that, URLgenius can automatically append Amazon Attribution measurement tags! Currently, this feature is supported for store and product details pages. For other types of pages, include create your Amazon link in the Amazon Ads console and include the measurement tags when you create your URLgenius link.
Measurement pro tip for Amazon Associates and Influencers: Amazon provides a link generator for Amazon Associates that lets them update links and append their affiliate tags which enable tracking for commissions. Generate your affiliate link in the Amazon affiliate system then update that link with URLgenius. You do not need to include navigational tags or search tags. Check out this URLgenius case study where the Affiliate tripled sales compared to regular Amazon product links. Always use URLgenius when promoting affiliate links in non-Amazon channels.
Contact us if you need help setting up your Amazon links.
Doing a multi-channel campaign in coordination with your Instagram ad? Lucky for you, every URLgenius app deep link also has a corresponding QR code.
Create a branded app deep link and custom QR code to use online or offline to promote your Amazon store and product listings. Use them in posters, retail displays, tradeshows, and giveaway promotions. Just click on ‘QR Settings’ to find and download your code.
URLgenius will track scans and clicks separately and you can append tags for tracking in ways that won’t disrupt scanning (including too many tags and appending them the wrong way is a common ‘QR code fail!’). Make sure to contact us for expert QR code guidance. We can even create an unlimited number of personalized QR codes and send them directly to your printer!
If you’re an Amazon Seller, Influencer, or Associate; and you’re not selling via YouTube videos with Amazon app deep links, we urge you to start today— you could be missing a significant number of sales and remarketing opportunities!
If you’re an influencer, and the brands you’re working with are not using URLgenius, send them this post and tell them they could increase sales by 2x, 3x, or even 4x!
We are always here to help you with your campaigns! Contact us with questions at info@urlgeni.us about Amazon marketing and deep links.
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