Key Takeaways from a Webinar on Amazon Brand Registry

Amazon Brand Registry is a program that allows businesses to protect and manage their brand on Amazon. It is designed to help businesses ensure that their products are accurately represented on the platform and that customers are not confused or misled by counterfeit or unauthorized products.

That said, Brand Registry can be challenging to understand and utilize. There are lots of nuances to the program, which can make it difficult for brands to reach their growth potential on the Amazon marketplace.

With that reality in mind, Netrush hosted a webinar last week with the aim of giving Brandrunners all the information and tools they need to make the platform work better for their brands.

The event featured Netrush’s own Brand Registry expert, Jeni Malone, who talked about everything from how Brand Registry started and how it has evolved to what roles exist within the platform and what kind of “switches” can be turned on once you become more familiar with all of its capabilities.

Jeni also shared findings from a Brand Registry survey that many attendees filled out prior to the event, and articulately answered all the questions that poured in during the event.

If you missed “An Expert’s Guide to Amazon Brand Registry”, here are Jeni’s seven must-dos when it comes to Brand Registry. You can also watch the webinar in full, on demand.

1 - manage access, and plan for succession

“One of the biggest difficulties with Brand Registry has to do with access,” Jeni said. “If you lose your Administrator credentials, it can be a hassle to regain them. So, make sure that you keep the Administrator role internal, and that you keep those credentials in a safe location that’s easy to access.

“What’s more, if there’s a role shift—either internally, or with a third party that is associated with your Brand Registry—you’ll be well equipped to address that shift quickly.”

2 - keep a clean user roster

“The more people that you assign to a particular role, the more opportunity there is to create friction for your content on the front side of your listings,” Jeni said. “Keep the noise down in this regard by keeping a clean roster.

“Listing contributions (e.g., copy, images, etc.) all have a ‘weight’ assigned to them that is informed by the Brand Registry roles the seller holds. Minimize the opportunity for content competition from unauthorized sources by being tight with who manages your listings.”

3 - give the right users the right roles

“There are all kinds of roles within Brand Registry—both official and unofficial,” Jeni said. “The official ones are Administrator, Rights Owner and Registered Agent, and the unofficial ones are Brand Owner and Authorized Reseller.

“Align the way you assign your roles with how the roles are defined by Amazon. Really consider what each role’s actual function is, and then give those roles to the right users. For instance, does a potential user really need to be in a brand protection role, like Rights Owner? Or do they need a selling role, like Brand Owner, to be effective in supporting your listing content?”

4 - Review your access to ‘brand owner’ tools

“There are the foundational aspects of Brand Registry—trademark enrollment, role assignment, catalog management—but for a seller recognized as a Brand Owner, there is so much more,” Jeni said before pointing to and touching on additional growth levers such as Manage Your Experiments (A/B testing), Brand Analytics, and Premium A+ Content.

“Generally speaking, Amazon’s role assignment mechanism should operate as an automated switch to turn on access to all of the different tools, data, and programs in Seller Central. But you might be missing some. So, go in, review your access, and if you're not seeing them, work with Seller Support, make sure that you're identified accurately, and make sure that you're getting access to all of those tools.”

5 - enroll your trademarks

“Enrolling all of your trademarks enables access to Amazon's growing brand protection program roster including Transparency, Project Zero, IP Accelerator, Amazon APEX, and the Impact Dashboard,” Jeni said. “These programs help you do a number of things, including prevent counterfeiting efforts, resolve patent disputes fast and inexpensively, and gain insight into the actions that Amazon takes on behalf of your trademarks.

“And even if you're not active in a foreign marketplace, enroll your trademarks there too, because Amazon is still doing actions in the back end.”

6 - regularly audit permissions and trademarks

“Nobody’s going to do this for you, and neither is Amazon,” Jeni said. “So, as with managing access, it’s important to regularly audit permissions and trademarks within Brand Registry.

“Auditing permissions isn’t difficult, either—especially if you’re an Administrator, because they’re the ones who will be notified if there’s a permission request. Anybody can ask to be associated with your Brand Registry. When that happens, the Administrator will receive an email that basically says, ‘So-and-so is requesting to be associated with your Brand Registry.’ Then it’ll prompt you to go into Brand Registry to review the request, and either approve or deny that request.”

7 - stay educated on changes to brand registry

“Whether you’re a Netrush partner or not, it’s important—and easy—to stay educated on any changes to Brand Registry,” Jeni said. “If you’re a partner, you can engage your Brand Manager to inquire about what is changing or has changed, and ask how Netrush is leveraging the changes on your behalf.

“If you’re not a Netrush partner, you can still stay up to date by checking in on your Brand Registry. Look in there and see what's happening. If you have a strategic account manager or a vendor manager, use them as a resource. You want to make sure that you're staying current. You don't want to get left behind. You don't want to miss out on some of the things that Amazon is dropping. So, just stay on top of it.”

want to learn more about brand registry?

We recorded the webinar. Watch it on-demand, in its entirety. If you have questions or want to learn more about Netrush, contact us.