Amazon A+ Content: An Ultimate Guide For Brands To Creating Content That Tells A Story

Rich content with its intuitive media formats, such as videos, images, and sounds, is the new normal when it comes to building an online brand value for any product. With 4.66 billion active Internet users and an information consumption rate growing twice faster as it was before 2020, so rich media needs to be more engaging than ever.

Due to the rapid online media consumption growth, our attention spans are becoming noticeably shorter. This shift in attention makes marketers’ task of raising user engagement seemingly challenging. Making your online shop stand out is what gets eCommerce businesses ahead.

One of the tools that allow this is Amazon A+ content. Let’s get into details and learn more about A+ content as part of rich content, its benefits, types, and, most importantly, pushing it to your Amazon seller account, which is one of the biggest challenges for brands.

A+ Content: Main Goal

For many online retailers, successfully marketing and selling means crafting an individual brand story that customers can relate to on an emotional level. This is often achieved by enhanced images and carefully placed marketing copy.

If there is any company that understands the challenges that eCommerce business owners face when it comes to marketing, it’s Amazon. This is exactly the reason why the company has designed and implemented A+ content.
A tool that allows merchants trading on the marketplace to not just sell a product but to tell a story.

Perhaps the most renowned brand that utilizes the tools that A+ content offers is Columbia. The outerwear, sportswear, and footwear company implements all of the rich media options available on the platform and seamlessly combines them with a smooth shopping experience for store visitors.

Amazon A+ Content: What’s Inside?

Enhanced Product Descriptions

We are all familiar with the traditional product description page that has a few images of a particular item from different angles. Right next to the pictures there will usually be a simple bullet point description with measurements and other important attributes that help a person make a decision whether to buy this item or not. This option is ok but it doesn’t sell the item, it simply acts as a virtual showcase.

Enhanced product description goes beyond a simple list of properties that describe an item, it tells a story with a carefully crafted copy that introduces visitors to the brand in a unique way that forms an emotional and informative connection. All of this is followed by a series of “call to action” messages that prompt users to engage with the product page.

One great example of a company taking advantage of the Amazon A+ content functionalities is Gillette. In their Amazon store, they don’t simply list the razors with their description. Utilizing exceptional copywriting, they dive into every little detail of the features of the razor, demonstrate a variety of comparison charts, reviews, and so on.

Brand Content

Online merchants selling on Amazon have the option to build a branded identity for the products they list with A+ content design features. This can be achieved by implementing banners with slogans and other strong visual hooks in a form of images and videos that are supported with dynamic text. Such branded content helps with the introduction of brand history and its values, all while assisting in marketing the offered product lines.

Black Rifle Coffee, a company jointly owned by former members of the US armed forces, perfectly demonstrates in their Amazon listing how to build an identity around their product using rich media content.

Eligibility Requirements

In order to use the Amazon A+ Content, there are a few requirements that sellers need to meet. The main one is being approved as a brand owner who is a professional seller that followed the Amazon Brand Registry process. Additionally, the actual brand catalog needs to be submitted for Amazon’s approval.

How To Create A+ Content: Best Practices

Use Built-in A+ Content Manager

The eCommerce platform offers a CMS in the Seller Central Amazon section that is used to publish products. Everything from images, videos, descriptions, and other essential information is entered in this section.

Submit Alt-Text Keywords When Working With Images

For Google to run better indexing of your Amazon store and push it higher in search results it’s absolutely crucial to use the best Alt-text keywords for the images that are being uploaded. Due to the fact that Amazon’s algorithm values pages that have high traffic from external sources it’s worth putting extra effort into this process.

Apply ASINs To The Content

Each individual product being sold on the platform is required to have an ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number). In order to obtain the number, the merchant needs to submit the listing with some UPC code and Amazon will generate ASIN automatically. A bulk submission via spreadsheet is also available for this process.

Create Language Variations

With 2.14 billion global digital buyers it’s important to optimize what you publish for different markets. This means all of your brand content has to appear in different languages. Conveniently the eCommerce platform offers its users a solution that implements AI technology and is known as Amazon Translate.

Configure A+ Content Properly To Comply With The Requirements

Just like with any other platform, there are certain requirements for the way you build your Amazon brand page. Before pushing your materials for publication make sure to double-check that it doesn’t have any of the below:

• Low-quality images;
• Sensationalism in headlines;
• Clickbait words;
• Redirection links.

Learn A+ Content Guidelines About The Restrictions

In addition to the requirements that Amazon has there are guidelines that every merchant needs to comply with. The guidelines range from image and text formats to terms and conditions that would contradict those of Amazon.

What Are Some Other Types Of A+ Content?

Product Videos

In today’s advanced online marketing environment one of the most engaging ways to present a product to online shoppers is with a video. Images are great and definitely should be there as well but a video is simply more dynamic and draws more attention. This is exactly why Amazon offers a rich video module that helps with product marketing.

The more dynamic your product is the more important it is to feature a product video that demonstrates its features. One good example of a company showing the multifunctionality of its product is Baby Trend. An innovative manufacturer of nursery centers, strollers, and everything “baby” related.

360 Degrees Images

Just like product videos, 360 degrees images are great at engaging with your visitors. Perhaps even more as there is an element of interaction as visitors have to rotate the images and are able to see all angles of what they are shopping for. All of this leads to a more educated buying decision.

For online shoppers, interacting with 360 degrees images is particularly convenient when buying a handheld product. As an example, Bosch, an engineering and technology company that manufactures a variety of electronic products, successfully implements 360 degrees images of its power drills in its Amazon store.

Audio / Sound

Among the 285 million people that are visually impaired a big percentage of them use screen readers to browse the Internet. Featuring an audio description of your product and presenting your brand is important for both accessibility reasons and market share. This can also be done in an explainer video that features an audio description of a product, like the one that the industrial tool manufacturer DeWalt did for their Oscillating Multi-Tools kit.

GIFs / Emojis / Animations

Adding a quality GIF or any other animation file can be a great alternative for both product videos and A+ images. GIFs are generally lighter than videos, take less broadband to load, and still have the same effect. It takes one GIF file to show different angles of an item whereas 3 to 4 images are needed to do demonstrate the same thing.

A good example of animation used in product presentation is that of the globally known brand Samsung. In its Amazon store, the company displays the resolution of their QLED 8K TV sets in a static picture of a TV with an animated screen.

How To Automate A+ Content Push To Amazon

Owning enhanced rich information such as A+ content is not enough, especially for brands that sell many products and cannot waste valuable time manually pushing the enriched data to Amazon. This time-consuming and error-prone manual process can be automated in a different way, depending on the requirements of brands. Here are some of the most popular requests of brands that want to automate their A+ content push to Amazon.

• Request type 1: Brands have PIM or DAM and want to push the A+ content from there to Amazon.

Solution: Despite the fact that many brands already have a PIM system, very often these solutions do not offer data distribution to different marketplaces. On the contrary, Gepard can be easily connected to your existing ecosystem, PIM or DAM, and automate A+ content push from there to Amazon.

Moreover, with the help of Gepard Syndicator, brands can automate the push of their product listings and other Amazon APIs as well. Then brands will be able to easily manage their product listings and A+ content with the help of Amazon Selling Partner API.

• Request type 2: Sellers have their digital assets in any cloud data storage and want to push their A+ content from there to Amazon.

Solution: Gepard Syndicator can push enriched product data (A+ content) to Amazon even if the digital assets of a brand are located in the cloud. What’s more, Gepard offers a feature of data transformation, adjusting the content of brands to Amazon taxonomy. Your cloud-based content can be automatically structured by Gepard and pushed to Amazon.

• Request type 3: Brands have their rich content in content providers’ databases and want to automate their push to Amazon.

Solution: Many brands have their enriched product descriptions located in content provider catalogs and have an issue with delivering this content to Amazon. Gepard can integrate with numerous content providers including those ones where your product data is located, collect the content from there and turn it into templates that can be used later for automated data push to Amazon. In such a way, brands can nurture their buyers with enriched and, most importantly, validated A+ content.

• Request type 4: Sellers want to use Amazon Premium A+ content and automate its push to Amazon.

Solution: Some brands want to use the benefits of Amazon Premium A+ content which is an advanced version of A+ product content, including more product description opportunities such as full-width HD video, carousels, a clickable Questions & Answers section, and interactive charts for product comparison.

However, Amazon does not offer APIs for the automated push of Amazon Premium A+ content, so this can be done only manually. However, Gepard can help you with automated content creation and enrichment, once your data assets are downloaded to Gepard PIM. Then you can use the automatically created data templates and push them to Amazon with the help of hired specialists or by yourself.

• Request type 5: Brands want to push their Amazon A+ content to this marketplace, but are not sure how to do this, because they still have not moved to Amazon Seller Central.

Solution: The Amazon Vendor Central is outdated and does not have APIs for A+ content, which becomes a challenge for many brands who want to automate their data push, but have not moved to Amazon Seller Central yet. Gepard helps to overcome the migration challenges of moving from Vendor Central to Seller Central with the help of Amazon Selling Partner API integration. A smooth transition to Amazon Seller Central will give brands a guarantee of extensive functionality, enhanced sales, greater exposure, and fewer risks.

But, most importantly, the transition helps brands save their vendor account and preferences, without having to register a new account or switching to new legislative rules.

Rich Content / A+ Content FAQ

Why Is A+ Content Important?

With no strong visual elements to it, users are not as engaged with normal text and plain images. In the majority of cases when an online shop has a low engagement rate, it results in low sales. By implementing A+ content online sellers can grab more user attention, provide a better experience and increase revenue for their eCommerce business all while marketing their brand.

Where Can I Get Rich Content For My Products?

Depending on the scale of your online business there are different ways you can choose for creating rich media content. Among them are employing in-house copywriters, professional photographers, and videographers that will prepare the needed media to make your inventory A+ standard.

If your business doesn’t have the need for full-time professionals in respected fields, collaborating with freelancers or agencies is always a great alternative with fewer long-time commitments.

How To Create A+ Content On Amazon?

Once you are registered on Amazon, proceed to “Advertising” and choose “A+ Content Manager”. There you can choose to create enhanced product descriptions or brand stories. You can choose modules for your A+ content, apply it to your ASINs, submit and wait for approval.

What Is Amazon A+ Content Price?

At the moment, vendors and sellers can add A+ content to their product listings for free. An invite-only Amazon Premium A+ content is quite costly and the price is different from brand to brand.

What’s The Difference Between Amazon A+ And A++ Content?

A++, also known as Amazon Premium A+ Content, allows brands to mostly communicate with customers via videos and images and relies less on plain text than A+ content. In addition to features, offered by Amazon+ content, Amazon Premium A+ content, allows using full-width HD video, and carousels, a clickable Questions & Answers section, interactive charts for product comparison, and testimonials. However, compared to A+ content, Amazon Premium A+ Content is only available per invite, is not for free and the price is agreed upon between a certain brand and Amazon.

Try Out Gepard’s Product Data Management Solution

As selling online becomes more and more competitive so is the difficulty of increasing your brand visibility and driving more sales on different marketplaces, especially big ones, such as Amazon. There are many elements that go into keeping sales of an online shop on top, a dynamic and engaging product experience is one that needs to be prioritized. A+ content definitely simplifies the process.

With unique experience and high-tech solutions, Gepard can help companies manage data more efficiently. For an online business that has a large volume of sales, it is especially crucial to syndicate its enriched product content across different sales channels in a quick manner. With Gepard, this time-consuming task can be automated and your A+ content will be seamlessly distributed to Amazon from any data source: be it your PIM or DAM system, cloud, or even third-party such as content providers.

If you would like to free up your time, forget about tedious manual work with product content and focus on additional business growth tasks, reach out to Gepard for your free demo and learn how we can help you with this.