LONDON — Threepipe has branched out again from its PR and digital roots, launching a new division dedicated to helping brands navigate Amazon’s complex selling structure and algorithms.

The new division, Emergent, aims to give brands a commercial competitive advantage, using the agency’s own software and its paid and SEO experience – still relatively unusual in the PR industry – to improve visibility of products in Amazon search and increase conversion to sales, as well as running paid search and display advertising campaigns.

The five-strong team has been running a closed beta period of testing for the past few months, and is now in open beta mode in the run-up to the Christmas shopping period. It is working with Threepipe clients including Tomy Europe, Vtech, Panasonic, Pepsi and Start-Rite across countries including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Threepipe founder Jim Hawker told the Holmes Report that more product searches now start on Amazon instead of Google, with higher purchase intent, and over 60% of all Amazon product clicks happen on the top three listings, so it was increasingly important for brands to have prominent listings to reduce the pressure on paid media budgets, as part of their marketing spend.

He said traditional brands tended to have underinvested in Amazon: “More consumers are going to Amazon, and brands are trying to figure out how to optimise their presence from an organic and paid perspective. We can help brands do both, starting with making sure they are not missing out on traffic. Traditional brands aren’t good at that: while new brands have worked out how to work Amazon’s algorithm, better-known brands just aren’t optimised for the search.”

Hawker added that the agency was working on a revenue-share basis with a number of clients: “We can get so much data and track the revenue impact of the work we’re doing, and what brands are losing to competitors. There are so many consumer touchpoints: we can deliver ads to Kindle based on Amazon search history, for example.”

Emergent is already winning pitches against specialist Amazon marketing agencies such as Germany’s Factor-a, with particular interest from FMCG brands including consumer electronics.