Tom Wang remembers a few years ago when he first started FBA, it was quite easy to launch new products to page one in Amazon’s search results. All you had to do was pick a decent product, use a third party service like Viral Launch, and run a giveaway to build momentum. In fact, back in 2016, you could actually pay for review services and Amazon couldn’t care less. So when Tom launched his Sdara Skincare line, that was his plan: do giveaways and buy reviews.
But that was about the time Amazon started cracking down on all that stuff. “Like Mike Tyson says, ‘Everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face,’” Tom laughs. “So I had to figure out another way to get rankings and reviews. And from 2016 until now, there’s been many different ways to launch a product to page one of Amazon. The problem with us Amazon sellers is that we’re always looking for the next hack, the next shortcut, or the next super URL.”
“However,” Tom continues, “none of these things are sustainable. And Amazon usually catches on, and then you gotta figure out another hack, which might work for another 3–6 months, but what if I showed you a method that is absolutely tried and true? Something that is proven to work until the end of times. And something that might require a little bit more up front work but rankings and reviews will become a thing in the past once you can master this method, all right?”
Sounds good, Tom, so what is this magical formula? Well, you need two things to make it to page one on Amazon: traffic and conversions. Traffic, meaning, how many people you can bring onto your listing; and conversion, meaning, of those visitors, how many of ’em actually buy the product? By the way, you can find both of these metrics under Business Reports in Amazon Seller Central. Anyhoo, if you get more traffic and higher conversions, you generate more sales; and that’s what Amazon wants to see, right?
“If you can outsell your competitors, you can outrank them,” Tom explains. “So let’s focus mostly on getting more traffic. There are two ways you can do this. You can focus on internal traffic (anything on Amazon) or external traffic (anything off of Amazon). Now the secret to launching your product to page one is getting really good at external traffic. Think of it as a battle. And the more weapons you have, the more likely you’ll win this battle. There are so many different ways you can generate external traffic.”
You’ve got Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google PPC ads, Google organic, TikTok, just to name a few. So which one do ya start with? Well, ya gotta know where your customers are hanging out. For example, with Sdara Skincare, Tom and his girlfriend (at the time’s) products focused on preventive aging, right? So their ideal buyers were 25 to 35 year old women. After going over all the available traffic sources, they determined IG was probably gonna be their bread and butter. So they established a strong presence there.
Everything was branded, aesthetically-pleasing, they posted consistently, and built up a respectable following. From there, they got people on an email list and started hyping up their upcoming products, right? That way, when they’d roll out a new wrinkle firming serum or whatever, boom, instant traffic, sky-high conversions, and real reviews trickling in. Amazon sees that, loves it, starts ranking that product on page one when somebody searches for “wrinkle cream” (and other related terms) and now they’re cooking with gas. Nice. I dig it. Good stuff, Tom.
