There’s no doubt about it: Amazon Premium A+ content can look beautiful. With large images, the option for videos, and interactive content, Premium A+ can provide a rich and attractive shopping experience. But, it comes with a steep price tag. Is it a good idea for your brand?
In this article, we’ll walk through some of the details to help you decide. But before we get lost in the nitty-gritty, let’s establish our guiding principle: closing the sale. No matter which type of content you choose, remember that your goal is to drive consumers to click the buy button.
What is Amazon Premium A+ Content?
Similar to basic A+ content, Amazon Premium A+ content goes beyond the above-the-fold overview to showcase a product’s features and benefits with more visuals and details. It is comprised of modules that are stacked together. Although it depends on the page, the content generally sits a few widgets below the above-the-fold content, following the “Frequently Bought Together” and “Customers who bought this item also bought” widgets.
Unlike Basic A+, Premium A+ content relies much more heavily on visual appeal and offers more interactive options. Premium A+ allows for seven modules while basic A+ is limited to five modules.
Though Amazon has not made conversion info available for Premium A+ pages, the company reports that brands can expect up to a 10% increase in sales with basic A+ content. Premium A+ is reserved for brands using Vendor Central.
How are Premium A+ Pages Different from Basic A+ Pages?
Superior Imagery
Premium A+ modules have spots for full images that maximize more space on the page and appear more ad-like. The typical sizes are 800 x 600 pixels or 1464 x 600 pixels, allowing for images that stretch across the whole Amazon page. Basic A+ pages have much smaller images as the content does not stretch as wide. The widest module for basic A+ content is 970 pixels wide.
Basic A+ Module:
Premium A+ Module:
Integrated Video
While basic A+ content does not have a space for video in the content, Premium A+ offers a full-screen video module or one that can play alongside text. It should be noted that pages with basic A+ or even no A+ can still load videos to the product image carousel at the top of the page.
Limited Opportunity for Text
With many of the modules offering very short character limits for titles and paragraphs alike, there is not much space for descriptive text in Premium A+. For some types of products, this will work just fine, as the more visual feel will be enough. For others, using Premium A+ will require carefully pairing visual and written assets in order to overcome consumers’ barriers to purchase.
Technical products, for example, need enough space to explain how a product works or what it is meant to be used with. While Premium A+ originally did not allow much space to discuss specs and benefits, Amazon recently added a module with a table that can be used to list out specifications. Lifestyle products, on the other hand, like apparel, do well with a primarily visual format.
Depending on the module, a typical paragraph has a maximum character limit between 100-500, which is roughly 4-5 sentences. Amazon has also made it possible to format text with bulleted lists, and bold, italicized, or underlined texts. Amazon also allows up to 5 line breaks for most modules and added a text-only module with up to 10 line breaks. Additionally, the more text you want to include, the more images and videos you will need to have prepared to accompany it.
New Interactive Modules
Amazon Premium A+ modules contain a wide variety of feature options not found in basic A+, many of which encourage consumer interaction. In addition to video, Premium modules have:
- a clickable Q&A option
- several formats for comparison charts, some of which allow the consumer to compare two products side-by-side
- hotspot modules that respond to consumers hovering over features
- carousel modules for consumers to scroll through
Here is a screenshot of a hotspot module:
Mobile-Friendly
All Premium A+ modules have clearly been designed to look great on mobile devices. They use the provided images and scale to the correct size while re-organizing the content to fit smoothly into the smaller screen. Interactive modules adjust so consumers can still interact with the content on small devices. Most basic A+ modules adapt in some way to mobile (although the comparison chart does not).
In this mobile screenshot, the Q&A still allows consumers to click and the comparison chart scrolls the TVs to the right to compare with the selected TV.
Voice-Friendly
As the future trends toward voice-enabled devices, such as those with Amazon’s Alexa system, shorter text snippets will become more user-friendly. Premium A+ content fits nicely into this vocal world because it will not require devices to read as much content out loud.
Is Premium A+ Right for Your Product Page?
With so many products available on Amazon, it is imperative for brands to stand out. Premium A+ does just that with a high visual impact and interactive options. However, it is a financial investment. Vendors negotiate contracts with Amazon to determine their exact slotting fee, and content creation through an agency typically runs 50% to 60% higher than basic A+. In addition, brands need to consider whether they have the resources to make the most of the Premium options, possibly paying for additional images.
Here are some of the main points to consider when it comes to Amazon Premium A+ content.
Budget
In addition to the fee charged by Amazon, creating Premium pages comes with additional costs for creation and assets. Consider whether Amazon is central to your growth strategy, or whether it is a necessary channel, but not a key to growth. Note that Basic A+ content is free to load onto Amazon (although creation still comes with fees and time investment).
Excellent Visual Assets
Whether they are new or existing, you will need large, high-quality images to support the Premium modules.
We recommend at least five large images to make a decent Premium page. This would not include things like logos or icons, which do not work well to fill the space. Product-related videos can stand in for some of these images.
Text Flexibility
Is your product technical in nature and without a lot of rich imagery? If so, it may be better served by basic A+ content. Premium A+ works best as a showcase for your products. If you lack videos and stand-out visuals, consumers might be served better by basic A+ where they can scan through textual information.
Essential Content
How is the rest of your content? If your above-the-fold content is not effectively driving consumers to the page and keeping them there, that is a better place to start. Your essential content should have a solid SEO strategy in place to bring consumers to the page, and should be well-executed.
With either type of enhanced A+ content, it is important to remember the goal: closing the sale. A/B testing is available for both types of A+ content, and is a great tool to evaluate whether your content is making a difference.
Need help with content? Contact us at info@content26.com.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published on 11/8/2017. We made minor updates to text to reflect Amazon changes and added a link or two.
