Here at Eboost Consulting, we have a ton of clients looking to run ads on Amazon to increase their product’s visibility and ultimately, their sales. Oftentimes, we work with start-ups who are just launching on Amazon, while other times we have more established businesses looking for us to help move the needle on campaigns that have gone stale.

Since now more than 54 percent of product searches start on Amazon, versus Google, Yahoo! or Bing, we thought this would be a good time to share with you our Amazon Ads Readiness Checklist – for those of you just getting started. So, cozy up and take a look at the below to see how ready you are for Amazon ads. Either way, the Eboost Consulting team is here to help on your journey to increased sales!

• Create an Amazon Seller Account & Work Out Logistics – Before any advertising takes place, you’ll need an Amazon Seller account, where all your business and tax information is accurately uploaded. Your Amazon Seller Account is where you’ll decide all the logistics of how you will be selling on Amazon (and if you’ll participate in FBA, which is Fulfillment by Amazon). Take a look at all of your options and allow Amazon to help guide you through the process of getting your products online.

• List of Competitors & Similar Products – For many reasons, you’ll want to collect a list of competitors and similar products being sold on Amazon. A great idea is to put these in Excel (or similar), with links to their product pages, and notes on what you like or dislike about their product detail pages, imagery, and more. Keep this list handy as it will help you with keyword research and copy for your product detail pages, product imagery selection, and even some targeting within your ad campaigns once they are set up, should you choose to bid on competitive products.

• Strong Product Detail Pages – As you go through the process of setting up your Seller account and getting items ready to be sold on Amazon, product detail pages are a must. The product descriptions you use on these pages are what Amazon internally indexes to match potential buyers to your items – so, this is not something you want to take lightly. To create winning product descriptions, do your keyword research. There are many tools available that can help you uncover all the backend keywords your competitors are using for the same or similar products – and those should absolutely be worked into your copy. Also, when writing your product detail pages, be sure to bullet-point information as much as possible to make it easy for consumers to read and digest. Be sure to include things like item weight, size, color, dimensions, material, and more. But, don’t just be technical – speak in laymen’s terms also to add some color to your listing like “Notebook is 8×11, about the size of a typical laptop.”

• Great Product Imagery – On your product detail pages, you’ll want to make sure you include some top-notch product images since a potential buyer can’t necessarily see your item in-store. A good way to decide what images you need to have are to look at what your competitors are doing and see what strikes you. We always like lifestyle images, which are images that show the product in use or in its natural context. Instead of just showing a water bottle image, show someone holding it, and drinking from it. Have another image with a mock-up of the dimensions against the water bottle. Also, word to the wise: Low-quality images don’t sell products on Amazon – the competition is just too great. Invest in high-quality imagery – it’s important.

• Enhanced Brand Content – In order to create Enhanced Brand Content, you must be a registered brand owner, and you can learn more about what that means, as well as complete the process here. Enhanced Brand Content, or EBC, is an Amazon feature that allows brand owners to modify the product detail pages (yep, the ones we were just talking about), with more visually rich content to better convey a brand story. Think of the times you clicked on an Amazon listing and thought “wow, this page looks different” – it was probably a seller using EBC to add in more images, upload a product demonstration video, create specific areas for text, and more. Some big benefits of EBC are that it reduces bounce rates, boosts conversion rates, isn’t too tricky to use, and is currently F-R-E-E.

• Ratings and Reviews – If you are a registered brand owner and looking to get customer reviews, you can use the Early Reviewer program. This program encourages purchasers to post authentic feedback about the products they receive. Although you have no actual say in the reviews and the ratings on your product, reading reviews often and making adjustments – whether it be to the product, your customer service, or some other aspect of your business – can help improve your rating over time. If you are a very lucky seller, Amazon may invite you to their invite-only program called Amazon Vine, which helps sellers gather legitimate initial product reviews. The caveat to this program is that it comes at a cost, and products must be provided for free.

• Inventory – Before setting up ad campaigns, or in tandem with their strategy and creation, it’s important that you get your inventory in order. In Seller Central, if you are using FBA, you can monitor the stock status. Be sure there is adequate inventory available before launching ads. But, do keep in mind that once stock is depleted, your ad campaigns will automatically be paused by Amazon. This ensures no wasted media dollars and helps improve your potential customer’s experience – since they would be mighty frustrated seeing an ad for an item that’s no longer in stock. Starting and stopping an ad program is never recommended though, so don’t launch without a good supply. You want to be able to get consistent data in order to make meaningful optimizations.

Although we’ve provided this self-serve checklist to get your ducks in a row before starting an Amazon Ads campaign, our team is happy to help you out with any of these steps! If you need help, just drop a comment below or shoot us an email. Once we assess your readiness level for starting an Amazon Ads campaign, we’re happy to share our recommended next steps on your path to sales, which typically includes our team developing an Amazon ads strategy, a real-time report, thorough optimizations and more!