Guide
Help increase the reach and engagement of your posts with these tips
Posts help brands inspire shoppers through high-quality lifestyle images that show products in relatable and realistic settings. Shoppers can engage with posts across their journey, from discovering new products when they’re casually browsing for ideas to considering a brand when they’re looking for a product. An inspiring post reaching the right audience at the right time can be an effective way for brands to connect with in-market shoppers. Your content should engage and inspire shoppers, but determining how to increase the opportunities for your posts to reach more shoppers may not be easy. To help improve the performance of your posts and drive more awareness of your brand, we’ve put together a few tips.
How do I create engaging images?
The image is the most eye-catching part of your post, and provides the best opportunity to differentiate your content. The purpose of the image is to help shoppers imagine how your brand and product can fit into their desired lifestyle. Expensive equipment isn’t necessary to create inspiring images; taking realistic photos using a mobile phone can work as well. Below are guidelines you can follow to help create an inspiring image.
What makes an image inspiring?
- Images are inspiring when they represent your product in context and in a realistic setting. Demonstrate how your product fits within a lifestyle or how it can be used for a specific use case. Make it easy for customers to imagine life with your product and brand.
- More than 90% of shoppers that view posts do so on a mobile device.1 Use a mobile-friendly aspect ratio that is either square or vertical (9x16, 4x5, 1x1) to have a more engaging mobile experience.
- Follow lifestyle photography best practices, including the rule of thirds to position subjects. Artists use the rule of thirds to help create well-balanced compositions. It’s also helpful to determine where to place the focus of your image—in this case, on your product. The goal is to have your product positioned along the lines, ideally, at the point where two lines intersect.
Inspiring images
Product is the silicone baking cups illustrated contextually.
Product is the sectional couch shown in a realistic setting.
Product is the first aid spray being used in a specific use case.
What should you avoid?
- Avoid adding too much overlay text, which can distract shoppers from the lifestyle image or be cut off in certain experiences. Any text should be complementary to the image and not a primary subject. As a general recommendation, overlay text should not cover 25% or more of the image, and it should not be larger than the primary subjects.
- Collages that contain two or more distinct images take more effort for customers to comprehend and can be difficult to view in certain experiences. As a best practice, we recommend avoiding before/after images and multistep instructions, and instead create separate posts for different use cases.
- Packshot images (also known as product images) are not allowed on Posts. These types of images are duplicative of content that shoppers may already see in shopping results and product detail pages.
- Avoid images that look fake or unrealistic, as this risks a loss of trust with shoppers. If combining images, ensure that lighting and shadows are consistent so that the images look fully integrated and realistic.
Not for Posts
Excessive text for a smart plug
Collage of whitening strips
Unrealistic image of coffee
Packshot image of mouthwash
*Note: While these images don’t work for Posts, they can be effectively used on your detail pages or in other Amazon placements.
Which products and how many products should I tag in my posts?
When planning your posts, set aside time to consider the products you want to highlight. While you have the option to create multiple posts using the same products, tagging new and different products will improve your content’s ability to reach additional shoppers across our placements. Within a given post, tag complementary products or products from a specific collection. Make sure each product you tag is featured in the image or is similar to the product(s) featured in the image, so that it will not confuse the shopper as to why it’s tagged. As a best practice, we recommend tagging three to five products so that you are showcasing collections while keeping your post focused on your content.
On average, we’ve seen that brands that tag three to five products in their posts see 37% more clicks compared to brands that tag only one or two products.2
Post with multiple complementary products tagged
Lastly, prioritize highlighting your best-selling products and your products with good reviews since these products tend to be more engaging to shoppers. Posts featuring top-selling products have 95% more viewable impressions and 82% more clicks on average compared to posts featuring other products.3
How often should I post?
We realize that investing in high-quality creative can be expensive and that you may still be building your asset library. But creating quality posts regularly will help increase the opportunities your brand’s content can appear to shoppers, which can help grow your brand presence on Amazon. We recommend posting three to five times per week to keep a consistent, engaging presence. Use the scheduling feature in Posts publisher to create a batch of posts at once and set them to go live at a later date.
Additionally, to qualify for your posts to appear on your product detail pages in a placement dedicated to your brand’s posts, you will need at least 10 live posts that follow our content quality guidelines. Use this as a starting goal, to create 10 high-quality posts, and continue to expand your posting from there.
How do I know if my posts are performing well?
It’s important to track your posts’ performance and iterate based on what’s resonating with your customer segment and goals. For example, if growing a loyal customer base on Amazon is a priority, you should analyze your Follow clicks per posts. If your goal is to drive organic traffic, then track product clicks and Store clicks. If your priority is growing general brand awareness or discovery, then reviewing your impressions and reach will help show you how often shoppers view your branded content. Use these metrics to help you identify the type of content and voice shoppers engage with most. See below for a benchmark you can reference to see how your posts compare to other brands using posts on Amazon.
On average, within 14 days of launching a post, advertisers observed around 615 viewable impressions for their post.4 If you’re seeing below this number of viewable impressions, you should check for the following conditions:
- Visit Posts publisher to verify there are no warning flags for the post indicating a quality issue. When posts have a quality issue, they are deprioritized in favor of posts that don’t have quality issues. If there is a warning flag, review the feedback and update the image with that feedback. Check back after the post has been reviewed to confirm the flag is no longer there.
- Ensure that your post is mobile-friendly by checking that the aspect ratio is optimized (0.5 to 1.05).
- See if you have a minimum of 10 live posts that don’t have any quality issues.
- Make sure that the ASINs associated with your posts are not out of stock.
1 Amazon internal data, US, June–August 2022
2 Amazon internal data, US, May–June 2022
3 Amazon internal data, US, January–October 2021. Top-selling products are products above the 80th percentile in terms of monthly gross merchandise sales (GMS) within advertisers’ catalogs.
4 Amazon internal data, US, January–August 2022