Amazon Sellers and brands are busy providing gifts and holiday cheers to countless others during this critical Q4 season, but Amazon gifted us all with some important platform updates throughout the year. From new backend features to updates to Amazon badges for shoppers, there has been no shortage of updates on the marketplace. Code3 SEO Strategists are recapping their favorite 2023 updates and new features.
Brand Registry Updates
Brand Registry got a long overdue interface update with new features and updates to existing features. Code3 SEO Strategists specifically loved the new Impact Dashboard, which offers insight into our brands and the amount of ASINs that have previously been removed or protected. This is the first time Amazon’s Brand Registry has proactively offered brand protection; in the past, the brand protection has been typically brand-initiated and a timely, manual process. This helps users of all levels to identify violations as well as take action without much lift and the new tools identify the impact the violations can have on a brand.
Update to the Amazon’s Choice Badging
The conversion-boosting Amazon’s Choice badges got an upgrade also, offering more badge opportunities, increasing click through and conversion rate opportunities. Previously, there was only one product rewarded per search query with the badge, but now Amazon has three new classifications of the badge that all can display in the same SERP. They are:
- Overall Pick: This product is highly rated, well-priced, and available to ship immediately.
- Popular Brand Pick: This brand is popular with other customers and this product is highly rated, well-priced, and available to ship immediately.
- New Arrival Pick: This product was added to Amazon in the last 90 days and is highly rated, well-priced, and available to ship immediately.
Previews of NIS Sheets
Even the best sellers make formatting mistakes from time to time on NIS sheets, and now both Seller and Vendor Central are allowing brands to preview them to fix errors before submitting. This feature was already in Seller Central but recently has been rolled out to Vendor Central as well. This helps cut down how many times a NIS form or flat file is submitted before being 100% approved, and saves brands time by checking for formatting errors prior to submission.
New Version of Search Terms Dashboard in Seller Central
Any time Amazon provides more data, we call it a win at Code3, especially around search terms. In 2023, a new version of Search Terms dashboard rolled out in Seller Central, providing SEO Strategists good intel when we gather brands and ASINs for keyword analysis. Additionally, Vendor Central added a “Top Clicked Brands" metric to their Search Term Report, offering valuable data for competitive analysis.
Upgraded Seller Central Product Opportunity Explorer
Arguably our SEO team's favorite update in 2023 is the massive upgrade to Seller Central’s Product Opportunity Explorer. The update offers marketers the option to search for keywords OR ASINs, including:
- high level ASIN metrics (including click count) alongside similar competitor ASINs (downloadable)
- specific ASIN level metrics, including click count and BSR trends
- any ASIN’s specific review insights (previously the ASIN-specific review insights were only given to the top performing ASINs in the niche)
While much of this data is already available from a 3P tool, we always prefer 1st party data actuals from Amazon directly. We use this to explore niches and gain category specific insights and a look into what shoppers are looking for.
New Feature in Search Query Performance Dashboard
The Search Query Performance Dashboard on Seller Central now provides visibility into the performance of up to the top 10 ASINs for the selected search query from the Search Query Performance dashboard in comparison to a selected ASIN. The top performance is selected based on the Query ASIN score, calculated using a combination of search funnel impressions, clicks, cart adds, and purchases. This new feature offers brands visibility into how their ASIN’s share stacks up compared to the top 10 performing ASINs on a given keyword. Brands can leverage the extremely relevant key competitors and ASINs to benchmark against or target and conquest against.
If 2023 is any indication of what’s to come from Amazon, we’re excited for more! What was your favorite platform update this year? Share below.
