Amazon released its 2024 Ultimate Brand Guide — 60 pages worth! The brand guide Includes a comprehensive list of brand-building programs and tools, eligibility criteria for each, case studies, and links to additional resources, guides and how-to videos. If you’re wondering whether this lengthy read is worth your time, we’ll give you the key takeaways and let you decide. You can always download the complete guide if you want to dive deeper.

For Brand Owners Only

Amazon’s Ultimate Brand Guide and the programs within it are available to selling partners who are brand owners that have registered with Amazon Brand Registry. In order to enroll in Amazon Brand Registry, you must have a pending or registered and active text-based or image-based trademark. Third-party sellers of your brand are not eligible for these programs, however, as a verified brand owner you can use these tools to build your brand no matter who is selling it on Amazon.

The first several pages cover the requirements for eligibility, where each program is offered, how to enroll, and how to use “build-your-brand page” to get started and track your performance. 

Helping Brands Meet Core Objectives

The bulk of the guide covers the brand-building programs and tools available, divided into five sections based on these core brand objectives: grow brand awareness, improve consideration, increase conversion rates, build brand loyalty and protect your brand. Because there is plenty of overlap between the objectives and the tools used to achieve them, we’ll just cover the main programs and tools.

• A+ Content tools can be used to enhance product descriptions, improve search results, and build awareness and trust in your brand. Options include Basic or Premium A+ Content modules for use on product detail pages and a dedicated space for a Brand Story. Once created, you can associate the content with any or all ASINs within your brand catalog, and it will automatically appear in the details for those ASINs, or in a section entitled “From the Manufacturer” on detail pages for retail vendors.

• Brand Store lets you showcase your product catalog and tell your brand story in one place within the Amazon store. Brand stores with three or more pages have 83% higher shopper dwell time and 32% higher attributed sales per visitor.
• Posts is a tool that lets you creatively show your products in action elsewhere in the Amazon Store. You create the post and Amazon automatically places it in content feeds for related products and categories, based on relevance.
• Amazon Livestream lets you livestream events such as product launches and promotions from your Amazon store.
• Amazon Vine is available for products with fewer than 30 reviews to improve discoverability within the store. You send products to independent reviewers and they publish honest, high-quality reviews.
• Sponsored ads get prominent placement in highly visible spots within search results and product pages. These pay-per-click ad options include Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Products, and Sponsored Display Ads.
• Brand-tailored promotions let you target past and prospective customers, identified by their purchase history and brand engagement, with discounts on your entire catalog or coupons for specific ASINs. See the Brand Guide for rules and exceptions.
• Manage your Experiments allows you to A/B test messaging within the Amazon store and gain insights which you can then use to optimize marketing and merchandising tactics across all sales channels.
• Subscribe & Save is Amazon’s subscription fulfillment service designed to drive repeat purchases of everyday essential items in your brand catalog.
• Buy with Prime program allows brands to display the Buy with Prime badge on qualified products on your off-Amazon website or storefront, as long as you can offer 1-2-day shipping and transparent delivery times. You also gain permission to display Amazon reviews on these products.
• Virtual bundles of 2-5 complementary products can be created to enable quick purchase from a single detail page, without having to package items together.
• Brand Referral Bonuses can be earned for Amazon sales attributed to non-Amazon marketing efforts by adding an Amazon Attribution (referral) tag to your marketing campaigns. Bonuses are applied in the form of monthly credits that offset your Amazon referral fees.
• Brand Metrics is a beta program that lets brands measure engagement and monitor performance relative to your category and peers at every stage of the purchase funnel within the Amazon Store.
• Amazon Brand Analytics (ABA) provides access to customer data, sales and performance data in the form of trackable metrics and dashboards. While the metrics may be no different from what you’re tracking off-Amazon, ABA provides insights you might not get elsewhere. For example, the Market Basket Analysis shows what other brands and products are frequently purchased with yours.
• Protect your brand tools include automated protections free to all brand registry members, as well as add-on tools to proactively defend against infringements and hold bad actors accountable.
  • Project Zero is a self-service tool that enables qualified brands to search for counterfeit listings and instantly remove them from the Amazon Store. The tool learns from your actions and proactively blocks counterfeits before they impact your brand.
  • Transparency is a program that enables brands to label their products with serialized, scannable codes. Customers can scan the code to ensure product authenticity.
  • Amazon Counterfeit Crimes Unit works with law enforcement to pursue litigation against bad actors and seize counterfeit products.

Other Services

The remaining pages of Amazon’s 2024 Ultimate Brand Guide are devoted to wooing DTC brands that aren’t currently signed on with Amazon’s FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) program. Recognizing that most brands utilize multiple sales channels, Amazon is now offering multichannel fulfillment capabilities for FBA-enrolled brands. Brands can also subscribe (for a fee) to Amazon’s Strategic Account Services, and receive dedicated help building their Amazon seller account. Lastly, brands enrolled in Amazon’s Product Lifecycle Support portal have more control over product support, thereby reducing negative reviews, returns, and the associated Amazon fees.

Key Takeaways

• The brand guide is directed toward brands that are new to Amazon but also serves as a reference guide for more experienced brands that want a quick look at available benefits, with links to more in-depth content, terms and conditions.
• To enroll in Amazon Brand Registry, you must have a pending or registered and active text-based or image-based trademark, and pass a rigorous verification process to prove you are the rightful owner of the trademark.
• Brands without a trademark can take advantage of Amazon’s IP Accelerator program that connects brands with vetted Intellectual Property law firms to jumpstart the process.
• Eight case studies are included for inspiration on how brands in various categories use the tools.
• Many of Amazon’s brand-building tools are based on the premise that the more traffic you drive toward Amazon, the better off your brand will be. Of course, this means Amazon is going to be doing pretty well, too. Calculating your landed costs will help you decide whether or not this is an acceptable trade-off.
• It’s likely that you are already using similar tools and metrics in your own marketing efforts, although you probably know them by different names. That said, layering Amazon’s programs into your toolkit does provide insights you might not get elsewhere, as well as a convenient testing ground for new ideas — as long as you follow Amazon’s rules.
• Amazon’s counterfeit problem hurts your brand more than it hurts Amazon, and their brand-protection tools can only do so much to curb the tide. We recommend you trademark your brand before you start selling on Amazon, rather than counting on their tools to help you after the fact.

In Closing

You don’t have to put 100% of your brand’s identity and operations in Amazon’s hands to benefit from selling on Amazon. A third-party logistics partner such as ShipMonk can provide enterprise fulfillment and shipping operations without all the strings attached.

ShipMonk offers Buy with Prime capabilities, FBA prep services, 100% owned and operated warehouses, seamless tech integrations, dedicated on-site support, world-class automation, and an award-winning fulfillment software platform. We’d love to show you what we can do for your rapidly growing brand.