Marketers' Roundtable: Why Brands Still Rely on Agencies to Optimize Their Amazon Product Pages

The task can overwhelm a brand's marketing department

Melissa Burdick
President
Pacvue
Megan Harbold
Vice President, Ecommerce
The Mars Agency
Daniel Knijnik
CEO
Quartile
Michael Lagoni
CEO
Stackline

Crafting a strong Amazon product detail page requires skills and resources beyond the capabilities of most marketing departments. While brands need someone on the inside who understands the product attributes and value, the heavy lifting—from product selection to SEO to pricing strategies—is often done hand in hand with agencies. eMarketer’s Patricia Orsini spoke with four Amazon-focused agency executives about why many brands need outside help to understand the nuances of the Amazon product detail page, and the challenges their agencies help them solve.

eMarketer:

Do brands typically need the help of an agency to create their Amazon product pages?

Melissa Burdick:

Brands can outsource the work entirely, have a small team internally that works with an agency or bring somebody in-house who understands ecommerce well enough that they can manage a team within the brand.

Daniel Knijnik:

If they haven’t actually been through the process yet, brands will outsource everything. Amazon’s growing so fast and things are constantly changing, and at the same time, it’s a very specific process and most people in a marketing department aren’t familiar with it. Brands will choose a couple of people from the management team to manage the outside agency, at least to start.

Interview conducted on June 28, 2018

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