Guide
Amazon Ads ASIN selection and promotion strategies
It is important to know how your ASINs are classified within Amazon’s product catalogue and which audience you want to reach. Focus your inventory on products that are suitable for advertising based on their attributes and performance, and target those products for better advertising performance.
So how do you identify products with high potential and make them the next best seller? Let's take a look at selection ideas and strategies.
ASIN matrix video guide
1. What is the ASIN matrix?
2. Advantages of the ASIN matrix
3. Advice for advertisers
ASIN selection
Preliminary preparation
Optimise for clicks and conversion:
- Improve the product detail page
- Offer Prime Delivery
- Set competitive prices for your products
- Provide professional customer service
Optimise ad eligibility and impressions:
- Have an active professional seller account
- Be able to deliver goods into the country where you are advertising
- Confirm the product belongs to one or more eligible categories
- Ensure that you have sufficient inventory
Step 1:
You can classify ASINs according to the product life cycle and sales, compare the product life cycle and sales with the average, and place them in the four quadrants of emerging, flagship, potential and long-tail to form a four-quadrant matrix of ASINs.
Emerging products: Products with new and rising sales, e.g., LED lights
Flagship products: Mainstay products with stable sales over a longer period, e.g., socks or pasta
Potential products: Newer products with lower sales that have the potential to improve, e.g., Asian snacks
Longtail products: Low-cost and hard-to-find products with stable, long-term demand, e.g., portable retail POS with sensor
1. Download inventory reports: View and calculate product life cycles by navigating to
”Seller Central” > “Inventory Reports” > Download the “Available Listings Report” or “All Listings Report” and view the “Open Date”
2. Calculate the life cycle of an ASIN
Days active = Today's date – Date of listing
Calculate the average days active as the average lifetime of the ASIN
| item_name | item-description | listing-id | seller-sku | price | quantity | open-date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASIN A | xx | xx | xx | xx | xx | 22-3-2019 22:44:16 PDT |
| ASIN B | xx | xx | xx | xx | xx | 03-11-2020 06:27:04 PST |
| ASIN C | xx | xx | xx | xx | xx | 13-05-2018 23:07:01 PDT |
Download sales reports: View product sales by navigating to “Seller Central” > “Business Reports” > Download “Sales Report” by ASIN, and view historical records according to the “Ordered Product Sales”
1. In order to categorise your ASINs into the four quadrants and calculate the average split point, you need to calculate life cycle and sales averages. You can do this by aggregating the Inventory and Sales reports into ASIN-level Sales and Time to Market reports. The specific methods are as follows:
- Select the SKU and ASIN life cycle columns from the Inventory report you calculated previously, and select the de-duped SKU and sales columns from the Sales report;
- Merge the two reports using the SKU as the common item.
2. Use the average ASIN life cycle and sales as the dividing point, and place your product data in the four quadrants.
Step 2:
Develop appropriate advertising strategies for ASINs in different categories. Once you classify your ASINs, create your advertising strategy based on the various stages of consumer shopping decisions. ASINs in different categories will assume different strategic roles: Flagship and emerging ASINs can help drive store-wide sales, while potential ASINs and long-tail ASINs can help promote more customer reviews and word of mouth.
Flagship and emerging ASINs are the main ones that help you increase impressions and sales, so we tend to carry out multiple sponsored ads campaigns on these products. Potential ASINs can rely on the flagship and emerging ASINs to drive higher exposure and sales, while you gradually look for opportunities to move to the flagship and emerging ASINs. If you still have the resources to spare and have good long-tail ASINs, you can also try using Sponsored Products for long-tail ASINs.
Promotion strategy
Allocate advertising resources and develop promotion strategies according to ASIN attributes.
| ASIN type | Objective | Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Emerging | Product and brand promotion | Gain brand protection and competitive edge through Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands. |
| Flagship | Product and brand promotion | Gain brand protection and competitive edge through Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display. Focus on category and product keywords. |
| Potential | Brand promotion | Drive awareness for potential ASIN through Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products. Focus on branded keywords. |
| Longtail | Product promotion | Increase impressions through Sponsored Products. |