Using Cerebro for Amazon ASIN Research

Are you ready for more answers from the experts? Anthony Lee, Helium 10’s Training and Content Manager, is back with more answers to your most sought-after questions. In this episode Anthony is answering the question, “Why is it recommended that the first product ASIN used in Cerebro be on page two or three, or have low sales?”

The reason we recommend this is because the Cerebro tool uses the first ASIN as an internal benchmark.

For those unfamiliar with Helium 10’s Cerebro tool, we’ll give a more in-depth explanation below. But for now, those actively using Cerebro know that the tool displays valuable data about specific ASINs, such as speculated search volume, the number of competing products (to tell how potentially saturated that product space is), sponsored ASINs (to show how many others are running PPC ads), and much more.

This information is invaluable, so you want to make sure to utilize your ASIN search space in Cerebro. In short, that means not using up the first space in Cerebro on an ASIN you need to research.

Thus why we recommend using that first Cerebro space on a middle-of-the-range ASIN from page 2 or 3, or onwards. Since your search query won’t return data on that ASIN, it won’t affect your research on the ASINs whose data you actually want to mine.

Then, use the rest of the spaces (up to 10 total) to plug in ASINs you want to research more thoroughly.

To learn how to use Cerebro effectively and for more best practices and strategies, check out our pro training videos inside the tool page itself – just go to the Cerebro tool in your Helium 10 account and click the blue “Learn” button at the top of the page.

But for a bit of Cerebro 101:

Helium 10’s Cerebro tool is an ASIN-specific research tool that allows you to cross-examine a specific product to learn in-depth information and therefore allow you to strategize based off of that information.

The most common application of Cerebro is for studying your competitors. After all, if a product similar to yours already exists in the market AND is performing well, why not learn from them? There’s no need to start from scratch.

Entering ASINs into Cerebro provides you with a handy chart of data on longtail keywords that the product is ranking for, as well as other valuable data. If you’ve been exposed to any discourse on keyword research and ranking, you’ll be familiar with longtail keywords and that they’re arguably much more valuable than short tail “common ones” (such as “chicken and grain-free dog chews” vs a short tail, generic “dog treats” keyword).

Cerebro will provide examples of longtail keywords that you may not even have thought of, so that’s a great start! But more importantly, they’ll show search volume for each keyword alongside how many other products are competing for that keyword.

So it may be instinctive to go after keywords with high search volume – but if there are thousands of other competing products on that keyword, such as for “dog treats”, you’re far more likely to just become “white noise” somewhere on page 20 of the search results.

However, if you notice a longtail keyword, for example, our hypothetical “chicken and grain-free dog chews” with an average search volume (say 300 per month) but only 100 competing products, the ratio of searches to actual products is far more favorable for you. That would be a keyword to seriously consider adding.
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