The Brand
A mid-size pet care brand selling on Amazon, doing approximately $500K in annual revenue. They had a strong hero product with solid reviews and brand recognition, but growth had stalled.
The Challenge
Their hero product had dropped from a consistent top-5 BSR position to #11 in their main category. It wasn't a sudden crash — it was a slow slide over three months as newer competitors entered with better-optimized listings and more aggressive advertising.
Organic traffic was declining month over month. Ad costs were rising as they leaned harder on PPC to compensate for lost organic visibility. ACOS had crept up to 38%, eating into margins on a product that used to be highly profitable on organic sales alone.
The listing itself hadn't been meaningfully updated in over a year. The backend search terms were filled with irrelevant keywords from a previous agency. The A+ Content was a wall of text with no visual hierarchy. The bullet points were feature-focused instead of benefit-driven.
What I Did
Week 1-2: Full Listing Audit
I ran a complete keyword indexing audit using Helium 10 and Brand Analytics. Found that the listing was indexed for only 60% of the relevant search terms in the category — competitors were indexed for 85%+. Backend search terms were wasting character limits on branded terms and irrelevant phrases. I also audited the A+ Content, images, and bullet points against the top 5 competitors in the category.
Week 3-4: Listing Rewrites
Rewrote the title, bullet points, and backend search terms from scratch. Shifted from feature-heavy copy to benefit-driven language that matched how customers actually search. Rebuilt the A+ Content with comparison charts, use-case scenarios, and lifestyle imagery. Every change was designed to improve both conversion rate and keyword indexing.
Week 5-8: PPC Restructure
Restructured their PPC campaigns to align with the new keyword strategy. Created dedicated campaigns for the mid-tail terms where I saw the biggest organic ranking opportunity. Used aggressive exact-match bids on these terms to build velocity and relevance signals. Set up a tagging system to track which keyword gains were organic vs. paid.
Week 9-12: Monitor & Optimize
Monitored BSR, keyword rankings, and organic traffic daily. Made incremental adjustments to bids and budgets based on which terms were gaining organic traction. As organic rankings climbed, I gradually reduced PPC spend on those terms and shifted budget to the next tier of opportunity keywords. ACOS dropped from 38% to 24% as organic took over.
The Results
“Rankings aren't just about ads. The brands that win long-term are the ones that treat listing optimization as a continuous discipline, not a one-time project. Strategic content changes create compounding organic visibility that reduces your dependency on paid traffic.”