This article was written in collaboration with Greg from LevelFour.
The following is a case study that occurred in the Jul-Oct 2020 timeframe for PetPeppy, a durable goods company in the Pet Category that has been selling on Amazon for over 3 years.
If you are managing an Amazon business, there are three questions that you want to solve for:
- How do I spend less time managing the business?
- How do I increase conversions?
- How do I reduce ACOS without it affecting revenue?
This case study will outline how all three questions can be addressed. To put it simply, focus on doing #1 and #2 well, and #3 will follow
- Reducing time without sacrificing quality.
Whether you are managing 5 SKU’s or 1000 SKU’s, if you are spending many hours/week managing Amazon, you will be excited to hear that it is possible to reduce this by ~80% with an improvement in marketplace performance.
With the advances in AI and Automation creating and managing Amazon PPC ads has never been easier. The Trellis software is super simple. By simply specifying the following 5 parameters:
- Product(s) to advertise
- Advertising Goal
- Advertisement Type {Sponsored Product, Brand Banner, Brand Video, Display)
- Target ACoS
- Daily Budget

How did we increase conversion without increasing merchandising support or reducing price?
1. Make sure to identify the keywords that convert best for your product at your required ACoS
Targeting the full-funnel and converging on a set of keywords that convert within the target ACoS is the first step to improving your overall conversion. Using the Trellis platform to automatically determine what keywords to bid on, adjust bids daily, making decisions purely based on what the data is telling us, not human bias. This machine driven automated approach to managing the PPC campaign, the client was able to see an improvement in ACoS of 30% over a 12 week period.
Driving the right traffic to your listings is important, however, if you don’t invest in the proper content to drive conversions you will end up with a higher ACoS. This is where shopper psychology comes into play.
2. Apply Shopper Psychology principles
Understanding subconscious triggers to purchase is a major opportunity for E-Comm players. While how we shop has changed dramatically in the past five years, how our brains work has not changed. LevelFour completed an 18pt Assessment and three areas were identified to improve the site’s shopping experience:
i) matching the purchase decision to the shopper’s hierarchy of needs
ii) overcoming the primary and secondary purchase barriers and
iii) leveraging existing pathways in the category to make the shopping experience easier
Results of Trellis Automated Amazon ads
Results were measured before these changes were applied and compared to an identical time frame afterward:
Metrics |
% change |
Clicks | +3.9% |
Sales | +147.2% |
Ad Spend | -12.2% |
ACoS | -65.0% |
Key Takeaways
Here are three key shopper psychology takeaways to consider to increase the conversion rate of your listing:
- Understand what your consumer’s needs are, in order of priority
- Visuals should be understood in under one second
- Address the barriers to purchase with proper claims development
Summary
Top of mind for more merchants is increasing sales and reducing ACoS. By combining an intelligent approach to ad automation and applying shopper design methodology to your content, a durable goods company was able to take an initial ACoS of 30% down to 7% by simply using automation and applying shopper design principles.
Contact us today to schedule your free consultation.