Unlocking Growth Through Optimisation-Led Creative on Amazon

Ads drive traffic. Creative converts it.

Ten years ago, an Amazon listing could get away with a product shot, a title and a few bullets. Competition was low and shoppers expected little. That's over. Today the brands that win treat their listings as conversion assets: rich visuals, infographics, lifestyle imagery and clear messaging, all designed to remove friction and guide the shopper to purchase. Content isn't there to inform any more. It's there to convert.

This session, led by Toucan's Creative Director. Ben Levart made the case for optimisation-led creative: designing Amazon content using real performance data rather than subjective taste. The single line to take away is this: ads drive traffic, but creative converts it. Here's what that looks like in practice.

Watch the full session (34 mins)

The growth ceiling problem

Most brands hit the same wall. At first everything works: you raise ad spend, traffic climbs, revenue follows. Then something breaks. Traffic keeps rising but conversion plateaus. Ad costs climb but efficiency drops. You spend more, yet the listings don't actually improve. Meanwhile competitors with stronger content, better images, messaging and positioning, start taking share.

That gap between rising traffic and flat conversion is where growth stalls. And the fix isn't more spend. If ads drive the traffic and creative converts it, the leverage point is the creative.

What optimisation-led creative actually means

Optimisation-led creative designs Amazon content around real performance data, testing insights and shopper behaviour, with one goal: maximising conversion. Simplify the system and it's traffic in, content, conversion, revenue. Most brands over-focus on the traffic. The real leverage is the content in the middle.

Doing it well comes down to four things: making data-driven creative decisions, continuously testing and iterating, aligning every touchpoint, and designing for how Amazon shoppers actually behave. Creative stops being subjective and becomes a performance system.

Conversion is built across touchpoints, not one asset

On Amazon, no single asset drives the sale. It's a sequence, and if one link breaks you often lose the sale. The main image wins the click. Listing images then explain and persuade. The brand store builds trust and allows deeper exploration. And A+ content reinforces value and removes remaining doubt. Each plays a different role; together they convert.

The main image: win the click or nothing else matters

The main image is the first thing a shopper sees in search, competing against 20 or more products at once. It directly influences click-through rate and sets expectations before the shopper even lands on your page. Win the click, or nothing downstream matters.

A common set of problems: the product sits too small, lacking presence on mobile; the image is less vibrant and sharp than the product looks in real life; it floats with no shadow or grounding; and the angle looks slightly down, as if viewed on a lower shelf. The fixes are deliberate: increase product size to the maximum Amazon allows, boost vibrancy and sharpness to match reality, and adjust shadowing and angle to a more premium "top shelf" view that gives the product presence and confidence.

The result of exactly those changes on one product: a 124% uplift in glance views (the number of times shoppers land on the detail page, a direct measure of how well the main image wins the click). Crucially, that came from improving the creative fundamentals, not from spending more on media. And the levers, scale, clarity, vibrancy, visual grounding and angle, transfer across SKUs, categories and brands, so it becomes a repeatable framework rather than a one-off.

Listing images: answer the right question in the right order

Once you've won the click, listing images help the shopper understand and decide. The highest-performing sets aren't random; they follow a clear structure, where each image answers a specific shopper question and moves them towards purchase. A repeatable sequence: main image (stop the scroll), key visual, key features, in-use image, range image (expand choice and cross-sell), then guidelines and trust-building content.

The power is speed. Instead of forcing shoppers to hunt through bullets, the sequence answers every key question visually, in order, before doubt can build. Applied to a Felix (cat food) listing, that meant a main image with a prominent "120 pack" call-out anchoring bulk value, then flavour variety (with scannable circular icons for mobile), then nutritional reassurance ("is this good for my cat?"), then deeper nutrients, then the wider Felix range for cross-sell, and finally feeding guidelines to remove the last hesitation. The order mirrors the pet owner's natural questions: what is it, what flavours, is it healthy, how much do I feed, what else is available.

The commercial result: a £250 investment in the listing image set drove a 1,540% return on investment, equating to a 4.3% uplift in weekly sales over five weeks, purely from restructuring content, storytelling and image sequencing, with no increase in ad spend. The same assets simply became far more effective through a better story and sequence.

From standard A+ to Premium A+

Standard A+ is a solid baseline: up to five modules to communicate benefits and add storytelling beyond the listing images. But it's static, the module count is capped, and there's no video, hotspots or richer comparison experiences.

Premium A+ is where the experience becomes powerful: more modules, flexible layouts, interactive formats, video, hotspots, richer comparisons, and separate desktop and mobile designs. It turns the page from something you read into a branded experience you explore. For an emotionally driven brand like Quality Street, that richer storytelling matters as much as the functional information.

Applied to Quality Street, the move to Premium A+ brought an expanded key visual across two larger banners for a stronger emotional brand moment, scrollable modules for more content without overwhelm, on-hover hotspots to explore specific packs and hero products, and comparison charts pulling together pricing, reviews, attributes and calls to action, so shoppers quickly find the right format for gifting, sharing or a personal treat. The extra modules let the page feature multiple products, pack formats and sub-ranges within a single brand-led story, driving cross-sell, trade-up and basket expansion. It feels less like a product page and more like browsing the brand itself.

Designing for mobile and desktop, not one-size-fits-all

Mobile and desktop are fundamentally different environments, and Premium A+ lets you optimise for both. On mobile, where most Amazon browsing happens, design for speed of understanding: larger, bolder typography, the hero visual prioritised early, key claims landing in the first few seconds of scroll. On desktop, lean into larger hero storytelling and wider compositions for richer immersion and stronger brand moments, especially effective for occasion and gifting brands. The point is removing the compromise of forcing one creative across every screen: less pinching, zooming and mis-messaging, and less friction. Easier to consume means easier to trust and faster to buy.

The brand store: a conversion environment, not a catalogue

The brand store is where shoppers explore, compare and build confidence. A strong one builds trust, shows how products fit together, supports ad traffic and lifts average order value. Many brands get this wrong, treating it as a grid of products with no structure or story. The best treat it as a guided experience designed to help shoppers navigate, understand and choose.

Toucan follows a repeatable five-step process that turns creative into a continuous optimisation loop rather than guesswork: audit (analyse what's holding conversion back), insights (use CTR, conversion and shopper behaviour to understand what drives performance), create (build new assets from those insights), test (validate through AB testing and iteration), and scale (roll out what works).

Underneath that sits a research and discovery foundation: competitive research to find best practice and white space, a review of current live content to find reusable assets and quick wins, and discovery beyond Amazon (D2C sites, landing pages, campaign creative and social) to bring the brand's strongest existing moments into a cohesive store experience. From there the process moves through wireframing (mapping hierarchy, flow and commercial intent before visual design), implementation (introducing brand identity purposefully so every asset works towards recognition and conversion), and data analysis (turning the live store into a continuously improving asset). As with Premium A+, mobile and desktop are designed for from the very start rather than adapted later.

Key takeaways

Across the whole journey the roles are clear: the main image wins the click, listing imagery explains and persuades, A+ reinforces value, and the brand store deepens consideration and intent. The principles that drive conversion are simple and proven: lead with benefits, design mobile-first, always champion storytelling, and make the product dominant. And the one line to hold onto: creative is never cosmetic. It's one of the most powerful drivers of performance on Amazon today.

Frequently asked questions

• What role does AI play in optimisation-led creative? Beyond the visual side, AI helps understand shopper intent and the questions shoppers have across different categories. In the Felix example, AI functionality helped identify the questions consumers ask when browsing that category, which informed both individual image design and the overall order of the listing images, so purchase intent could build rather than shoppers dropping off midway.
• If a brand can only optimise one thing first, where should they start? The main image. It's the first touchpoint a shopper sees, whether in search results or when arriving on the detail page via an ad, so optimising it first sets the whole journey up well before any other content comes into play.

Ben Levart is a Creative Director at Toucan, an Amazon Ads Advanced Partner, and leads conversion-focused creative for consumer brands on Amazon. To talk through optimising your creative, get in touch at ben@toucanecommerce.com.