348 : Edward Ruffin – Sellerlabs – Let’s talk evolution of Advertising on Amazon and more importantly increasing sales!
Smart guy with a lot of experience. Real everyday experience. Running advertising on Amazon you can almost use the “Dog year” conversion formula. 3 years managing ads on Amazon equals 21 years of effort! PPC Ed as he is often called really breaks down the types (Yes there is more than one way ) of ads, best practices and really the right questions to ask your team or agency to see if they are doing the best for you. Learn all you can and take action! The key is : Do not set it and forget it! Reach out and see if they can help here: I want to find out about managing my ads.
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Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
Edward: [00:00:00] But auto targeting campaigns or a gold mine like they are so awesome because first of all, they wanted to talk a few moments about some sponsors scope from seller labs. Um, when’s the last time you created a listing? Right? And when you create that listing, you’ve got to come up with the keywords, right? It’s all key word dependent. I don’t care if it’s a private label or wholesale. You’ve got to get it right. Well, what’s the best way to get around if you’re selling a similar product that’s really successful, you go and you take and use their keywords and that’s what sculpt does for you. So phenomenal tool brought to you again by sellerlabs. The leaders in technology when it comes to Amazon, right now, they are just crushing it with all their products, but scope allows you to get that listing right. Get ranked for those key words as fast as possible.
Stephen: [00:00:51] Therefore you get the sales. So go to [inaudible] dot com, forward slash scope. Use the code word momentum. Save a little bit of money, get some free key words to test, try it out and see if you see an improvement. If you don’t adjust, what’s cool about what I love about a seller labs is that you then message and say, Hey, I didn’t get this right tyler. Hey Jeff, this isn’t working right. What am I doing wrong? And Boom, you’re going to get the help you need and that’s what you’re going to get from solar lamps. And, and it’s a very special group. Had been very. I’ve been very fortunate to be connected with them. And again, I look over time they’ve delivered every single time, you know, same thing I can say for Karen from solutions for ecommerce. I mean, she’s been carrying my account for a couple of years now.
Stephen: [00:01:33] Um, and our account, my wife and I, and she really does handle things for us. Um, I mentioned, uh, just last week we created a new listing with, I forget how many variations, but again, all the flat files uploaded done as I needed. I pop in, so she’ll send me a template, I pop in some information and then boom, it’s handled await. These pictures weren’t done right, blah, blah blah. This upc needs poom modified adjusted. And again, the communication has been phenomenal too. I get an email back saying, hey, this was done or this, you’re missing this Steve. Hey, you got to do this. So you know, we have those challenges too. And that’s why I like working with somebody who’s been doing it. I’ve been doing it for a long time to do, you know Karen also does listings for Ebay. Yep. Lots of them. So if you want to build out that channel, which of course you should skew for, you should be selling everywhere.
Stephen: [00:02:21] You can, um, Karen can help you with that too. So you gotTa tell her I’ve sent you. So you’re going to go to solutions four ecommerce forward slash momentum. You’re going to save 50 bucks every single month. You gotta save that $50, but more importantly you’re going to get an inventory health report. Um, did you just get hit with monthly longterm storage fees? Well guess what? If you haven’t, they’re coming. You want to get that inventory right and she can help you with that. You gotta tell her I sent you again, solutions, the number for ecommerce forward slash momentum will get you into that. Save the 50 bucks. Get that inventory health report though. That’s really, really important. Get that going right away and I don’t want to miss my coach when it comes to retail or online or when I have a question and I do not that we don’t, we don’t really do much of it anymore, but when I do have a question, I go to gay lesbian because why?
Stephen: [00:03:07] Because she’s really. She is a coach. I mean she’s really phenomenal, but she also puts out a daily list and you’re going to get that list five days a week. You’re going to get tons of leads. The number of, uh, agreed to amount that you’re supposed to get. She, she usually gets to those in the four days and then the fifth day seems to be a bonus most of the time. Phenomenal Group, small amount of buyers where this list is going to. And the best thing is the nuggets that you learn. Hey, why is the red one better than the blue? One? Gaye can help you with those questions. I saw. Hey, I got, um, I got to the dreaded letter about a brand. Here’s the, here’s the way you approach it. Hey receipts. How do you, what’s the best practice? I saw her leaving instructions, teaching me the accountant how to do a better job with it.
Stephen: [00:03:52] And it’s phenomenal. So it’s Gaye Lisby made a million dollars selling. Um, I’ll have the link in here. You’ve got to use the my link and it does help me. I don’t want to say it that way, but um, it’s part of amazing freedom with Andy Slam into Iran, Hirsch corn. And Nate’s layman’s. So you know, you can trust. Okay? So come back to the website, take a look at it, and you will get a savings. And you can get two weeks free right now. Only through my link. You get two weeks free, try it. You don’t like it? I get it back off. But right now is the time to make money. Get cash flow going right now and so join you. Get two weeks free. The only way you’re gonna get the two weeks for these. If you use my link, it’s on this episode. Come on out and give it a try.
Stephen: [00:04:33] You will not be disappointed. Again, you’re going to see me in there, so reach out if I can help you too. Let’s get into the podcast. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode 348, Edward Ruffin. Most people won’t know him by that name that you might know him by Ppcn or a Ed from a seller labs, and this is all going to be about advertising, so if you’re bored to death listening to advertising stuff, I’m going to bore you some more, but what I’ve asked them to do is to really go through and talk about it. I think in a way that I understood and I. that’s my frame of reference. If I can understand it, I’m sure every single person listening to this can understand it, and so that’s. I try to break things down to make sure that I got every single word that he didn’t go glossing over me and I don’t feel like he did.
Stephen: [00:05:19] I think he did a really, really strong job. Um, what’s cool to me is that he’s been there three years and you’d be like, oh, he’s a young guy, but three years in advertising on Amazon means that you’re a warrior because some of this stuff is only been started in the last year to a whole bunch of it, a whole bunch of what’s working is really been started within the last year or two. And so we’re getting an expert who’s been doing it. The other thing to understand about Edward is a, he runs a whole bunch of campaigns, like a lot of campaigns for some very large sizable companies. You want to go check out several labs.com forward slash ignite and you’ll see a couple of companies in their wish coffee, Vermont, Teddy Bear. And there’s other ones you know. So these campaigns are run by these guys and they know they’re doing it right, right.
Stephen: [00:06:06] And so what you get the benefit of is you get to hear what’s working, right? I asked for best practices, so he’s going to talk about what’s working now we don’t get into specific client stuff, but it, you know, the inferences. This is what’s working. And I just think that that’s powerful. I’m always saying go best practice, you know, if you’re going to do it, might as well do it right. So really, really strong. Let’s get into the podcast. Alright, welcome back to the commerce momentum podcast. We’re excited about today’s guest because it’s the time of year that I think we need to not really get back to basics because this is definitely gonna be a little more advanced, but it’s definitely how you can take what you’re doing. So let’s assume you’ve already sourced your product. Hopefully by now you’ve got your product in where you’re getting your product and you have a plan to get that product into Amazon.
Stephen: [00:06:50] Right? And we’re specifically going to talk about Amazon, but I imagine these would apply semis to like an Ebay or your own website especially, uh, especially a shopify store. But you’ve got your product in and now you’re sitting there saying, okay, how do I maximize my sales versus my competitor sales? How do I get found when I’m in a broad category? I still want a gift category, for example, how do I get found in there when I’m selling against all these other types of gifts? And so we decided to bring in an expert, um, they call them PPC at Edward Ruffin from sellerlabs good friends and they are sponsors on my show. I understand that, but this approach is really to help you. I’m really benefit this, that effort. You’ve done all the work you’ve gotten it in and again, we’re now ready to take it to that next level.
Stephen: [00:07:35] And so I’ve asked a seller labs to send their expert, Edward. It’s Edward Ruffin. Um, and I’m very, very excited, very fortunate to have him here. Welcome Edward. Yeah, thank you very much. Very excited to be here. Really excited to talk about advertising. That’s definitely what I do all day everyday. And I love every second of it. Hands down. Well, I’m all about best practice, um, because you know, somebody else at. Well, first off we all, we would all agree and quite frankly, everybody in my life would agree there are a lot smarter people than me. Right? And so for me, I hate reinventing the wheel because I want to tweak, I don’t want to have to start fresh all the time because it just takes so long to get caught up. And in today’s Day and age, um, I think, I think that’s why I like your company and I like what you guys do because it’s, again, it’s that best practice thing.
Stephen: [00:08:22] I’m always looking for somebody who’s doing it. And so you’re running a lot of campaigns for a lot of people and you’ve been doing it for several years and you know, I was thinking about this, um, you’ve been, you’ve been three years there, correct? Yeah. Coming up on three years. Okay. So three years, 100 percent of your job. Your job is this and Amazon advertising that’s been around a little bit longer than that, but there have been new ones that have been introduced in your timeframe. Correct? Right, yeah, there’s been some, you know, newer methods that have come down the pipeline or ones that have become more accessible to people, uh, such as, you know, the headline ads and you know,
Edward: [00:08:56] of course ams has been there, but there’s just different methods and the way it looks now is a little different too, so it’s always developing and changing sometimes month by month and you have to be ready to kind of, you know, just roll with the changes and learn them as fast as possible and learn how to use them effectively for all your products that you’re offering. It’s, it’s like an Abbott Adaptation. So you’re like a pioneer to be honest. No, it’s just because you’ve been in it and you know, all of us who do it and we, I run edge but we give it x percent of our time. I mean that’s to be fair, that’s true, you know, because I’ve got to source products or in my case I’ve got wholesale coming in or I’ve got bundles or I got some private label, I’ve got to do all those things.
Edward: [00:09:32] Plus we have a big merchant fulfilled. So I only have so much time to give it where you’re 100 percent, so I just want to make sure that we understand that he’s an expert at it because for three years he’s done nothing put. So let’s first, let’s first get a little bit of background, how you got to sell our labs. Yeah. So I actually, uh, I, I worked in retail for quite some time. Um, I’ve really enjoyed cells. I’ve enjoyed, you know, talking with people and I worked in technology for awhile, you know, selling computers, working on computers and I know 100 percent. I am 100 percent guilty of being a nerd a. But it got to a point where I just, um, I was kind of getting tired of the actual, just selling the product and just, you know, working on it. And I wanted to learn more about software because software is such a different field, you know, it’s way different from just selling something that you can actually hold.
Edward: [00:10:16] And I was really attracted to sellerlabs because it’s actually here in the town that I live in Athens, Georgia. And I actually had someone else who was working here and I was able to actually get an interview and right away I was blown away with the culture of the company and really just, you know, how everybody else here is kind of a nerd too. And I fit right in and I moved over to software. I started working with our labs and eventually I really worked my way into the advertising ecosystem as we launched one of our newer tools ignites and I was kind of on the Beta team for that and that was working with the kind of, the development team for building on ignite and that just really threw me right into the fire really, uh, to learn all about, you know, advertising on Amazon.
Edward: [00:10:57] And I had to take it and learn it as fast as I could and I would never have done anything different. I definitely do not regret anything that I’ve done with seller labs or what I’m doing in the future. I’m very excited to be here. What was attractive to you about the advertising? Is it the fast pace or the ability to. Maybe it’s this way. If I say it this way, the ability to actually affect change and see it. Yeah, I mean honestly like so the fast paced like aspect of it is definitely something that’s always been really attractive because it’s always changing and you have to constantly learn and understand the new advancements in it and I love that. And then also just yeah, like the way that you can really in some theory like control what people see and it’s like a way to really influence like you know, shoppers on Amazon and I’ve always been attracted by that because I’m actually like really ends of science fiction and it’s just really cool to see how like all these ideas of advertising that you’ve seen these older films and movies and books, they are kind of taking place today where like you can actually make sure that you’re targeting people that are looking for a similar product to.
Edward: [00:12:00] They’re trying to find something that you may be selling on Amazon and you have that. I like a good guy just because he had that influence on them to control what they see, how they see it and where they even see it as well on Amazon. We can. Can you give me an example because I’m sitting here thinking about that, you know, the old days, you know, how do you get. And it was general merchandise, right? So they had this giant store and everybody would walk through and. Or the checkout lane is a good example where they put those crappy magazines, right? Those impulse buys, right? That’s done intentionally, right? Because they realize that if they can hook you with that headline, that title, they can pull you in and make a sale, make a high. And those are high margin items at that end. Can you give an example of what I’m in the Amazon world of what you’re talking about?
Edward: [00:12:43] Yeah, exactly. I mean, so like when it comes to advertising, you have to be competitive for that reason. So it’s the same way at looking at like, you know, a space at a, just a really regular brick and mortar store. People like in companies pay more to have their products more in front of consumers and it’s the same way with advertising on Amazon, like you have to did more. You have to be willing to spend more to get like that top placement on the search result or to get your headline search ad banner to be the one that shows when someone searches a particular keyword. So it does become really competitive because you’re trying to outbid others that are also bidding on those same keywords and you want to get that top placement because most of the time that top placement converts better because it has more people looking at it and it’s getting more traffic just like, you know, like uh, those, those impulse buys, as you call them at the convenience stores.
Edward: [00:13:32] Those are right there. And we checking out, you’re already spending money or you know what you’re getting, but you see this and you want to buy more. And it’s kind of the same idea. It’s just digital as opposed to having like, you know, a candy bar at a checkout line at your local grocery store. I don’t think people realized that that model has changed, um, about retail that you have to buy the space that was not the way I’ve been in the newspaper business for ever worked for so many different companies and in the last few years it was these larger, um, convenience stores. Eventually you had to buy the space and you know, and, and so you didn’t think about it, but that top shelf premium placement was worth x and it was such a great revenue stream for them. Um, and you don’t think about competing against that now in the retail world, so that see that advertising costs, which we really didn’t count as advertising costs, it was just a, we’d give them a better rate is what you paid for.
Edward: [00:14:23] It’s real and it’s real right now. And so when you’re competing against a retail or these things are things you got to start thinking about, things to consider. Right? And so when you’re spending adverti heard Ezra firestone say you should be spending about 25 percent of in this private label, he was what he was specifically talking about 25 percent of your costs should be in advertising if you really want to be effective. Is that still ring true? Yeah, I mean it definitely does, of course want to keep in mind your own personal goals because 25 percent is a good measure. But then of course like if you’re launching a product and you’re trying to get as much traffic as possible right off the bat, he may be willing to spend more. But yeah, even 100 percent because even in some marketplaces such as, you know, supplements in their case, if you’re selling supplements on Amazon, first of all, it’s extremely competitive and there’s a lot of other people, they are kind of selling similar products, but most of the time they’re okay with spending 100 percent because a lot of times those people that have bought your product will come back and buy it again in the future.
Edward: [00:15:27] And that’s just that really that return investment that you’re getting. And that plays into their model a little differently. Where as if I am, you know, doing private label and I have a product that’s not too competitive in the category that I’m looking at, I would be more likely to do like, you know, 25 or 30 percent because I want to be competitive, but I still want to come out profitable and if that means I’m spending more to begin with just to get some traffic than I taper it back down once I do have some, you know, a velocity on Amazon than I may be the case instead. So it’s almost like a subscription model. Right? So that cost to acquire the customer was worth 100 percent because the second time they buy, right when they are likely to be repeat customers. And a supplement example, I’m there.
Edward: [00:16:08] You’re going to make your margin back over time. Right? That’s exactly the courses. Like if you’re selling an xbox, that’s not as much of the idea that you know, because they’re not going to. I think this is important to distinguish it because I think there are people who think, you know, average cost of sales. Well you got to do whatever it takes. Well, but you do have to realize that these are one off customer generally. Right. And supplements is a good one. That would be a normal repeat customer. Probably food, grocery generally could be one of those categories. Not always. Right. I guess if, you know, there’s certain things that you wouldn’t want to keep selling, right? But, but what other categories would, would you break down that way that would fit into that where it’s worth getting them quick without a better phrase. Getting them hooked on my product.
Edward: [00:16:52] So they only want my product. What’s another category that you would think would fit in there? Yes. I mean like most of the products that have like the option to do subscribe and save, um, a really good option because then that way like, you know, they can purchase the product but then they may go ahead and do the subscribe and save so they can save money initially and then they’re already hooked. But just like other products as well, like, you know, like if you’re doing things like in a shampoo or things for like, you know, just health and not necessarily supplements. Um, I know that can sound like, you know, the tea or coffee or things like that, things that will run out and they have to be bought again. And if you have a great product then people want to buy your product again. And especially something like toilet paper or stuff like that. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Alright, that makes sense. So what do you, like you said it, they’re gonna run out and they’re going to need to replace it. Okay. That makes perfect sense to me. God, you’re so smart. Okay. Alright. So let’s just do this and I’m going to roll through. I put a bunch of questions down and I’m not feeding them because they’re a sponsor. I want to again, make sure that people understand that this is a chance to get value, right? This
Stephen: [00:17:50] dude knows his stuff and he’s going to help you figure this stuff out. So please take notes. All right, this is, this is good. Free advice coming to us in a very fortunate to get it. All right, so let’s talk about the basics of advertising. I originally wrote down. It’s so funny. I wrote down the basics of PPC. That’s how old I am at work is because, you know, not that long ago, that was, that was the majority of advertising, right? I mean that was, that was pretty much it. Now. Not, not pretty much. I mean it was a little bit, but now it’s expanded into a couple different places. So let’s talk about the basics of advertising in general.
New Speaker: [00:18:24] Yes. I mean, advertising itself has evolved so much, I’d say even in the past year. It has grown leaps and bounds from what it was before. And this isn’t just Amazon, uh, like there is no other off Amazon advertising such as, you know, facebook, instagram, or even twitter, all social media sites. They’re really capitalizing on the fact that ads are worth a lot of money and they’re getting it in front of thousands and millions of people really just in one day sometimes. And that’s just a great way for companies to put their product. But their new product or they’re really established product in front of potential buyers based on their likes, their interests, and really what they want in life. And Really Amazon has really shifted their focus to go more towards this market share. They’re looking to expand their advertising, they’re looking to get more out of it and they’re adjusting things inside their advertising platform to where they’re looking to do all the Amazon advertising.
New Speaker: [00:19:17] They’re actually doing it right now. And then they’re also doing headline search ads, which is, you know, another great way to get more traffic and more impressions. Those are actually called sponsored brand ads now. And those are really different from just a normal sponsored product ad because they were actually a banner ad that allows you to be creative. You can insert a, like a lifestyle image of your product and you can have a headline that’s catchy that really draws people in to look at your product. And then also on top of that, if you’re a vendor, you can go through ams and you can actually take advantage of something, uh, the, uh, the product display ads. And these are so competitive because they allow you to target specific products on Amazon so you can actually say, hey, you know what, this guy over here is a huge competitor. I’m going to bid so then I can actually get my ad on his listing. So when someone is looking at his listing than I can see my ad to and they may purchase mine [inaudible]
Stephen: [00:20:12] when I have my money, know when my pull up my listing and I see my competitor looking really good right next to me. They’re paying for that, correct?
New Speaker: [00:20:21] Yeah. They’re paying for it and they may be willing to pay top dollar for that. You know, sometimes it is about raising the bed and being as competitive as possible to really beat out your competition or try to get as many cells from them as possible. And it really goes to show that, you know, Amazon is developing, these tools are making them easier to use. They’re getting a better interface on Amazon as well. And they’re really focusing on the fact that by doing the ads, we’re not just taking your money, like not just trying
Edward: [00:20:47] to get your money, but they’re trying to create conversions and they’re really trying to make happier shoppers and they’re not just going to take your money with no type of effect from it. They want you to have an ad that leads to a purchase of leads to a happy customer that will come back and buy more on Amazon in the future. Everybody thinks that they make their money for storage fees and all the rest of that. Well, you know, my town we have for Amazon warehouses, those babies aren’t cheap, so you know, it is. I mean, I’m not exaggerating. They’re monsters. Like they’re a mile long and they’re not cheap. Right? I mean, depending paying for parking for their employees in another place, I mean, and then they bust them over, right? I mean all those costs. So I doubt that our storage money is covering their costs on their warehousing.
Edward: [00:21:27] Right? They make their money when something sells. Period. Correct. Now I understand that the advertising business for them has become a huge revenue source and that’s nice and free for them, right? I mean there’s, there’s programmers and stuff but that, and that’s nice and free, but, but, but to be honest, they make their money when that item sells, they get there eight, 10, 15 percent, whatever it is and that’s what they want to do and they want to sell as many. But I thought, I think you brought up another good point is they also want that customer to say I got it at Amazon 100 percent whenever I, you know, there’s. So whenever they’re thinking of anything, they only think of Amazon and that makes perfect sense. Know you mentioned those banner ads. I thought banner ads have been a declining business. I, I knew that, you know, in, in the, in the old media world, that was the big thing they were doing was running these things, but people weren’t looking at them anymore.
Edward: [00:22:16] Is that different on Amazon, Dina? Yeah, it definitely is. Um, so really the whole sponsored brand ads, the banner ads, so they kind of are called as well on Amazon. They’ve really developed them in such a way where there’s more options actually if you’re doing a sponsor brand add in the past, they were really just at the top of the page, like whenever you search something. And usually the top result was a headline search ad as they used to be called. And these were pretty, pretty simple. Um, they really didn’t have much other placements and you could have them lead to like, you know, a list of all these different products. So it’s more like a, a kind of a controlled environment. So like instead of clicking on a competitor product and seeing an ad there, you can actually just click on a headline search ad and it can take that shopper to a list of maybe 10 of the products that you offer.
Edward: [00:23:02] But, but now they’ve actually changed it to where you can actually direct that shopper to your storefront that you created on Amazon. So if you have brand registry, you can actually build out a storefront that’s beautiful. It can have different tabs, it can have some lifestyle images and it can actually make it easier for that shopper to purchase a product because they click on the ad, they go to the storefront, they learn more about your brand that they learn that you actually have quality items. Then they can purchase them from there and then on top of that there’s also more placement. Now I’m the sponsor brand ads are now like on the sidebars on the bottom of the pages and just have a really nice placement on mobile as well we’re using on the phone, so they’re expanding that reach and giving you a bigger audience and giving you better placement and
New Speaker: [00:23:46] they’re actually one of my favorite ads just because you have that creative aspect in it because you can use, you know, a lifestyle image of someone
Stephen: [00:23:53] going to ask you that. You don’t have to use that plane back white image
New Speaker: [00:23:58] for those sponsored ads. Correct? Exactly. Yeah. It’s huge because it actually, it gives you a product more life. It actually gives you some depth that gives your brand some type of recognition, which is exactly what you want with these ads. And then on top of that, the headline like, I love spending time to create these catchy headlines for these new ads that I’m creating for some of the clients that I work with because I want them to be catching. I wasn’t looking to kind of summarize what their product is and what it does within 50 characters or less. And it’s a challenge, but it’s also so fun because it adds that value right up front and people know what their brand is. They know what the product is. They’re like, wow, this picture is awesome. This looks like something that I want, this is perfect. And then they’re hooked. Just like that.
Stephen: [00:24:43] I’m looking at a picture. I pulled up something and it, and it was, um, for Christmas and down the bottom on the sponsored ad, the first one says, confetti confetti sticks, flutter, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it shows this picture of all these people having fun and this stuff flying in the air. Right? It’s like it’s, you know, compared to this plain white image of this product. I’m looking at it. I mean it’s just plain awful white image and then I looked down a little lower and there’s a whole group of people and I can see like through that image I can immediately see what that does. Right. That’s very effective. It really is. I hate that I’m influenced by advertising. I was thinking about on the way in this moment now or my son or this morning I was thinking about like selling a balloon, you know, and you have that plain white image of a balloon yet, you know, I’m thinking a big hot air balloon and make a really big example, but yet you want to see is that huge image out in the sky, floating over the trees and floating over that image is so stunning and yet in your plain white image until you break terms a service, which I would do it for that, but you, you really can’t use that.
Stephen: [00:25:47] Right? That’s a good example. But yet when you can see it and then you can take you away. To me that, love it, love it, love it. Okay. All right. So, so we’ve gotten a, there’s, there’s a lot of opportunities to advertise. How do you, how do you know your example earlier where you talked about that company, um, that a brand brand registered but it was a little bit more than that. What did you call it? Where they have their own page and they have all the different things. Yeah, we really just, if you have brand registry to it’s brand registry to point out so that, that right there. Sorry, I, there was another one that you mentioned and I get them confused, but that one there. How effective is it, you know, or what, what types because you, you manage a lot of campaigns for a lot of different people. How effective has that become for people also to really stand out, like you said, because you could really have those lifestyle images. You can, in my balloon example, you could actually have all of it displayed, right? You could really play out.
New Speaker: [00:26:42] Yeah, mean. So it’s really become so brand centric on Amazon and I love it. Like of course, you know, I still have clients that are doing, you know, uh, the, the resale, they’re doing some wholesale and they don’t have as much of an opportunity, um, but all the ones that have brand registry and they’re really looking to build their brand on Amazon, they’re, they’re kind of being rewarded to a case because Amazon is building out these tools and these features of advertising that are really for people that have a brand and it becomes so much more effective because you’re able to actually really build a culture around a brand on Amazon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is something that you used to only be able to do through social media. Of course, still use social media by all means, but this allows you to have like a kind of a look inside your company and inside your brand on Amazon through that store front, which is, I love storefronts.
New Speaker: [00:27:32] They’re so awesome. And also by having the headline search ads and really just being able to have that creative space to do things like exactly what kind of. Just like, like if I were advertising a hot air balloon, I would have it like going over like a huge mountain and just make it look beautiful because then that way people think, well this brand like this is Edwards balloon company is awesome. Like if they’re adventurous, they want to do things, they want you to experience the venture as well, and that could even be in the headline like, you know, take advantage of your weekend and be adventurous or something like that. That probably wouldn’t do that well for a hot air balloon, but it’s just really cool because Amazon is doing, you know, brand registry two point, oh there are a lot of people that have brand registry to do headline search ads response or brand ads as they’re now called. And they’re also allowing them to have those storefronts. Like they’re rewarding them and it’s working because it leads to more conversions. It leads to more repeat sales. Of course, if you’re something that can be replenished over time and it really does show me that it works to have a brand and it’s. It’s what Amazon wants people to do nowadays. I think,
Stephen: [00:28:33] well, it also, if you take it a step further and then you take your own website and your own old, all the other platforms that you sell on, it gives you the ability to be consistent, right? So having that standalone site on Amazon, you can make it very similar to your standalone site, um, on your, your personal stuff or your social media, your instagram, all that stuff. You can make it consistent and ultimately that’s what people want, right? Then you get a loan for that.
New Speaker: [00:28:59] Exactly. And that’s actually one thing. I do whatever I do know, we have a new client that’s coming to us and I kind of researched them to find out what they’re doing. I, the first thing I do is I find their Amazon storefront and see if they have one and then I also look at their social media presence to see how it compares to see if they’re like, you know, a more consistent throughout the platforms or to see if there may be a similar. Usually again. Uh, so as of recently it’s actually gotten better. A lot of them do have a big reach on social media, some of them are just now kind of switching over towards Amazon, like they’ve had their own shopify account for awhile, then we’re switching over to Amazon instead and it’s cool to see that. Then of course the are some where I’m like, Hey, have you thought of brand registry in? If not, you should do it because it can help you. Here’s why.
Edward: [00:29:42] Um, so I definitely do. It’s not like I’m trying to up sell someone to get brand registry. I just want them to see the benefit of doing good and definitely going through the process, getting that, you know, applied for and get it taken care of as soon as possible. And, and how long does that take? Because again, this is a company that’s built a brand, right? Are they, they’re in the process, they’re trying to build a brand, they’ve got these amazing products that they need to maximize the utility from them, right? They need to get it every chance, every opportunity to sell. How much effort is it to get that brand registry and then not only that, then to get it to the real so that pages or the page and then the tabs are really effective. Yeah, I mean really applying for it is not hard.
Edward: [00:30:23] Um, I think the biggest time consumption really comes for waiting for it, I believe is what I’ve kind of seen. Hurry up, hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait, you know, and as soon as they get it then it really is pretty easy to actually build out a store front. You just need some creative images and just need some possibly some other options to do just for your storefront. But that doesn’t take long the build out. Of course. There’s also something else I haven’t even talked about. Enhanced brand content as well. That’s something else that’s not related to advertising, but it’s just like on your listing you can have a better images. You can have kind of a whole entire section that lets you use larger descriptions and more lifestyle images. Besides what it is, it is advertising really, right? Because it’s when people see.
Edward: [00:31:04] I’m looking at this site right at this particular item, this Christmas item, and they only have two images, which is poor. Um, but if I could see, you know, in there seven or eight images, I guess, where their video, right? Which is enhanced brand content, all that stuff, right? That’s what people are looking for generationally. Your age, US old dudes are different, uh, advert but, but at your age you guys, I mean, it’s, it’s, uh, reviews. It’s a, you want to see it, you want to see everything about it. You guys are like research nuts and, and, and having that ability to see a video and seeing it, you actually get used and be like, oh yeah, that’s how. Why would use it? Yep, that’s exactly what I would do. It will. It will really take it further. So to me that there really are related.
Edward: [00:31:45] Okay. Alright, so let’s do this. So let’s, let’s talk about, I think there’s three things that I think are really important that we really want to break down for people. Okay? So can you break down and I’m going to, I’m going to label them and then you’re gonna have to go through each one. Okay. So developing a strategy, right? Because I think the strategy is different. So back to our supplements versus hot air balloons, right? My hot air balloons going to sell for, you know, I don’t know, 50 grand, I don’t know if that’s cheap for a hot air balloon, but I’m going to say that versus a supplement that’s selling for 12 bucks. Right? Different strategies. Right. And, and you’re going to mass market that as opposed to micromarket. Right. And then I want to talk about how you organize a campaign and then finally really choosing the right key words because that’s really where it all comes together. Correct? Yeah. One hundred percent. Like I’ll go through them in order, but it does definitely because I’m, I’m a Wacko about order, so if you could keep it in order. Now I’m teasing. I, I love all these.
New Speaker: [00:32:40] Um, I guess to begin with, you know, the strategy, the strategy is going to vary for every accounts and this is actually part of my job. Whenever we have a new client come to us as I spent, you know, a few hours sometimes developing a strategy just for those clients and that’s simply because no client is the same, no categories to same, no product is the same. And when I say strategy, it’s really just about, you know, getting things set up to run for a long time. One thing that I see a lot of people will do is they create campaigns that are just kind of, you know, throwing something up the wall and hoping it sticks and then a month from now it has to all change. So with the strategy, you have to really go ahead and set your goals and what you want to get out of the advertising.
New Speaker: [00:33:25] You have to know if you want to be really competitive, you have to really know what, what your break even is on a product and kind of what’s your profit margin is as well for the products that you’re selling. And you have to know exactly what type of ads you want to run. And this. These are all kind of the types of questions that I ask everybody that comes to us as, you know, tell me about your product, tell me about your brand, tell me what you want from advertising because if you have someone, for instance, estimated like, you know, a hot air balloon, they’re going to have a different strategy from supplements and some of the reasons for that are because hot air balloons, they have a high cost. They also may have a really high profit just considering. So if they make one sell, they’re a cost maybe like you know, really, really small, like two percent or something because they’re not spending that much money on the actual keywords in relation to the actual sales and how much they make off of them.
New Speaker: [00:34:13] But then also you have to look at the competition there because a hot air balloon company on Amazon probably doesn’t have as much competition as a supplement company on. Amazon. Kind of talked about this earlier, so you have to know when developing your strategy, how competitive your market is there a second because that’s an important point. So, so in that hot air balloon example, there might be two or three other sellers just because you know, not many people can make a hot air balloon. So therefore do I automatically get pulled up in search if somebody searches hot air balloons on a, on Amazon because there’s only two or three other sellers, is it likely that I’m going to make it to the higher end of search? I’m already. And is that then something you consider? So not necessarily a unfortunately, it’s really. So this kind of goes into another part of the strategy which is, you know, having a powerful listing and having your listing set up to include the keywords you want to rank for and really have a strong listing with the images, you know, the bullet points in the title because that will help you index more for the actual keywords that you’re targeting.
New Speaker: [00:35:17] Of course this is both organic and also paid for placement as well. So even if there are just two other people selling hot air balloons on Amazon, which I’m actually really curious about, actually just put it into, to, had to do. Because I’m sitting here thinking to myself, so go all departments, hot air balloon, everybody listening, pause and go out there and search for this because I think it’s very enjoyable. Um, there are, there’s actually
Stephen: [00:35:38] his second one down, travels, light, hot air balloon authentic models, you know, 49 bucks. I mean, I don’t know if that’s big enough to hold a person. I don’t think so, but it’s pretty stinking cool. Um, it is actually very, very cool. I mean, here’s a, here’s if you go down a little ways. It’s an authentic model. I don’t know, a 12 hour. It’s only a 12 inch balloon, so it’s not a big deal. All right, so I want to see a real hot air balloon mic. Even like having like a mini hot air balloon. Like that itself is a conversation starter.
Stephen: [00:36:12] Hey, what’s that in your backyard? That’s a hot air balloon. You know, I’m just playing with the hot air balloon. Very cool. All right. So, so, uh, I don’t see my giant 25 or $50,000. I think I said $50,000 version, but yeah, I get it. But it. But what I do see in here, this is where I think your point is, is I’m seeing in toys and games, home and kitchen clothing and jewelry, children’s books, socks, nursery furniture. So yeah, I’m not going to show up unless somebody is looking for person carrying hot air balloon right then then is very good. Okay. Alright. That makes sense.
New Speaker: [00:36:44] Do you have to be specific in your listing? You have to include the keyword to rank for maybe the ones that you don’t want to have in your listing. You can put those in your back end up your listing so you can actually get some ranking for that. And of course Amazon wants to see velocity and cells of course to to get you that higher placement because they want to see that your product actually sells and people enjoy it and you know, they look at reviews, they look at a lot of things. But one thing that I really pushed for whenever we work on campaigns is Amazon will only drive traffic to a sponsored ad campaign. If they see that it’s converting. And this is another way that you can make sure that you’re getting your sponsored ad placement up higher and whatever they mean by this is whenever you make a new campaign, Amazon usually throws a lot of traffic at it to begin with just to see how it performs.
New Speaker: [00:37:32] And if Amazon sees that it’s working well and it’s converting, they will kind of continue that traffic. But if they see that that’s not doing well, it’s just getting a lot of clicks and they’re just not converting no cells at all, they’re going to drop down the traffic, they’re going to stop getting a traffic because it’s, it’s not working and they’re really make sense. And also on top of this is competition. You’re paying more to get better placement a lot of times. So that rolls into, of course irrelevancy, but you, the higher you bid, the better your placement is. This is something that a lot of people don’t realize. They think they’re just bidding just to get some placement, but it really does help you in your actual placement on the page. Like if I’m like paying a dollar for a keyword and then my friend Tyler’s, you know, they’re paying fifty cents instead ivy on page one, he may be on page two or three maybe at the bottom possibly. And that’s something you have to keep in mind is when you’re looking at the suggested bid range, I usually go like you know, towards towards the higher end, maybe just a little below the higher end. So that way I can be competitive and I can get that higher placement which will in turn lead to more conversions. So this all goes into that strategy. You have to realize
Edward: [00:38:36] you have to research and find out how your market is, how the category is as a whole, maybe research competitors and find out how much you want to spend and how you want to run these ads as well. And part of that strategy is you might spend more upfront because again, we’re trying to get, get some traction and then over time you might be able to pull back that and, and move down that after you’ve gained some of that traction. And those are the kinds of things that, again, it has to be, you know, we’ll, we’ll get to, you know, how do you measure if it’s working right and whether you’re getting a good. Somebody is doing a good job. Okay. All right. So we’ve got a strategy, right? Put a lot of thought, a lot of effort into it. Now we need to get um, some kind of organization, some approach a campaign, right?
Edward: [00:39:17] I mean that’s really what it is. It’s a campaign to do, to, to enact the strategy, right? To really right, to take it into play. So talk us through that. Yes. I mean the biggest thing that I always say whenever someone’s making a campaign, his group similar products together, I cannot preach this anymore. Like this is my go to for things that people do wrong, is they’ll just have one campaign that has thousands of products that have nothing to do with each other. And this really doesn’t work because it’s harder to extract. Data is harder to see what’s working. So it’s always good to group similar products together. And what I mean by similar products, as you know, if I’m selling a tee shirt and it comes in four different colors, instead of making one campaign for each of those, I would possibly just just group them all together because they’re going to share more keywords than they are going to differ in keywords.
Edward: [00:40:07] They’re all going to show you another for men’s tee shirt or cotton t shirt that applies to all the variations. Now of course you can always argue that you can, you know, break them out and have some campaigns for each who just like very simple terms like green t shirt, but you’re not going to get as much conversion off of that. It’s very, very specific as opposed to someone just looking for a basic t shirt. And I’m saying this in the regards, like I’m just selling tee shirts. So that’s a good example because that’s a, you know, visually when I can see all the different tee shirts on there, the color, that is what I get attracted to. I doubt that I’m putting in green unless it was for st Patrick’s day or something like that. But then I wouldn’t be putting it in green, I would expect it to be green, right.
Edward: [00:40:46] So it’d be a waste to put in green in that perfect example right there, right? Yeah. And then also on top of that, like we said before, Amazon wants conversions. They want people to buy products. They will actually optimize that campaign over time so they show the variation that actually converts the most. And this is beautiful. So Amazon’s helping you out. It’s helping to drive more traffic to that variation that gets more sales and leads to more happy people. And, and so that in itself just shows an Amazon does want you to succeed. So I usually, you know, group similar products together, um, have you know, a manual targeting campaign for that, but then also have an audit targeting campaign and this is huge. So mainly we’ll targeting campaigns are of course the ones that you bid on specific keywords, you have more control on your spend and you get like that.
New Speaker: [00:41:34] The better placement, the top of page placement. And you can show up in search a little more. But auto targeting campaigns are a gold mine, like they are so awesome because first of all they show you what people are searching for to find your product and they also show you what Amazon thinks your product is because Amazon doesn’t have someone who just sits around all day and goes through campaigns and says, okay cool, this campaign is for a t shirt, this one’s for a hot air balloon. They instead analyze your listing and they see, you know, the type of keywords retargeting and that helps them to know what to target and an auto targeting campaign and this is just a way to justify if you’re doing things right and you’re listing like if I’m selling tee shirts and all of a sudden I see search terms showing up in my auto targeting campaign for, for lizards and snakes, I have no idea what happened.
New Speaker: [00:42:25] Maybe I’d put in some words that were irrelevant and I need to take those out so that that helps you sharpen the use. Things like sharpening a pencil, those little smooth little changes because you’re paying for that. And it’s a good example. So that lizard comes up, you’re paying for that as dumb as it is, we shouldn’t be there. Right. So there’s a reason for that. And so you can tweak and tweak and tweak. It’s a continuous change, isn’t it? I mean it’s not a set it and forget it kind of thing, is it? Yeah, no, definitely. So I, I’m the type of guy who runs audit targeting campaigns all the time, like some people in them than just focus on manual. But I always run auto targeting campaigns. I check them, you know, a few times a week we look at the search terms, we set negatives for the terms that we don’t want to show up for.
New Speaker: [00:43:12] But then also the reason why I always run them is because auto targeting campaigns get unique placement that manual targeting campaigns usually cannot. Um, for instance, like whenever you’re looking at a listing, there’s an area that says like, you know, a sponsored ads related to this item. Those are actually usually audit targeting campaigns. So that’s why it’s so important to run an audit targeting campaigns. So you can show up on your competitor’s listing and then it goes even further. This is great. This always gets me, whenever you add a product to your cart on Amazon, Amazon shows more ads. They’re like, they show you more ads. They’re like, hey, you’re spending money. Why don’t you buy one of these as well? Those are also audit targeting campaigns. And then they go even further. This just is great. This is so perfect. Whenever you actually buy a product, Amazon says, wow, thank you.
New Speaker: [00:43:56] Here’s some other products. And those are also audit targeting campaigns and those actually do pretty well. Conversion wise, uh, getting that placement can actually lead to some sales for you. So that’s why it’s important to have the manual campaign which has, you know, the overall organization and has, you know, the more competitive bids, you can kind of see the match types and you can see which one’s doing better. And then you have the audit targeting campaigns to get you to that placement and that ongoing research because you can never have too much data. Like it’s, it’s always going to be growing and changing. And you can always use that to make your manual campaign better. You can find those search terms that are working, move them over to that
Edward: [00:44:32] manual campaign. I’d love it, dude. To me, what you just said makes perfect sense, right? Because as you say, there’s going to be lots of opportunities for people to buy products and to buy your competitor products or your competitors products. So by placing this stuff. Oh, so smart. All right, so let’s talk about choosing a key word because I think it really all comes down to that. That’s, that’s like it’s half art, half science, right. I heard a Kelly fatio said that one time, she’s like, you know, a product choice and key word choice. It’s really half um, science, right? There’s lots of data but there’s also an art to it and that art is not everybody has it, right? No. Yes. So I definitely love that idea. Like, you know, being half art and half science because I’m very data driven, but a lot of times you have to look at something and just say, that’s really stupid.
Edward: [00:45:22] Why would I do that? And there really is just part of it because whenever you’re looking for powerful keywords that will lead to some type of conversion and it gets some type of traffic. Of course you can use the ways of looking at your previous data. So for instance, a lot of times we will use that audit targeting campaign we’ve been running to find the search terms that are doing well and will make them our own keywords. And that right there is based off of data we see that they worked well before we see they had conversions, they weren’t so expensive. And then we extract them, add them as a keyword, so manual targeting campaigns. So, so that’s one of the, one of my favorite ways to find keywords. And then of course there’s other tools like scope that allows you to see. That’s what I was saying, what we use scope.
Edward: [00:46:03] We look at our competitors who are already doing it right? And we’re like, okay, there’s somebody smarter than Steve over there. I’m going to use his or her words. Probably her more than likely. And uh, um, and that doesn’t work. That’s what I use. I, I am, I am a sucker for a scope, like I use it all the time. It’s just so easy just to see cures end. Even if it’s just like an idea, I can then take it at it as a keyword and see what actually performs. So, so that’s going to be getting into more of the art. It’s like looking at those keywords. Okay. Some of these makes sense. Some of these don’t using like, you know, the idea that I have in my product because my product, I knew it really well. I know what key words, I add it to the backyard, but this is a good example though.
Edward: [00:46:43] You know it really well, but you’re limited by your knowledge, right? You’re tarnished by that knowledge, right? You’re not looking at it. It’s like men and women speak, right? It’s a perfect example, right? I’ll say something to my wife, she’ll be like, she’ll hear something completely different and I know what I wanted to say and that’s not what you heard it. I’m like, whoa. But that’s because she’s thinking at it from a different point of view and I think that’s what’s one of the cool things about scope is that you’re seeing them chew ceasing and you’re like, Huh, I wouldn’t have chose that, but hey, it’s working at. I was like, alright, I get it now. And then you expand your boundaries, your limits get a little bit sharper and you’re like, oh, I get it now. And it’s like the. Sometimes the lights go on and it’s like, oh, I get it.
Edward: [00:47:22] Which is very, very cool. I think the man women thing is a good example for people to think about it real. It’s absolutely real. It is because like, even a lot of times like, you know, we’ll be helping someone out and they’ll have an idea like, you know, these are the keywords that we want to target. And I’m like, well what about this one? And they’re like, oh yeah, that’s actually a good idea. But it’s just, just like you said, they’d been working on it for so long. So close to a new. Yeah, there’s just so like in like enveloped in so that they can’t see outside of it sometimes and that’s fine. Like you know, it just means you have to use a tool like scope or even just looking at competitor listings, just even just reading like you know, their description and you know their bullet points in their title and that itself can give you some other keyword ideas.
Edward: [00:48:00] They may just be able to rephrase another key word that you’re using that you never thought of. So really like a third way is just looking at your competitors. That is huge. Always looking at competitors or similar products or even just other products in the category to give you an idea about how you can get maybe a broader reach or just very, very simple keywords that could lead to a lot of people seeing your ad and then of course testing it to see how it converts and probably being more conservative because it’s such a broad term, but that way you can still constantly be learning because more and more competitors come into the field all the time and it’s just constantly being aware of that and seeing where your ads are placing to get an idea about those competitors and who they are. And that’s another great like, uh, I guess benefit of the audit targeting campaign says they will actually show competitor aces in there or similar product basins.
Edward: [00:48:49] And that’s huge. That it’s like, whoa. I think I used another good example, ketogenic diet now it’s been around for long time but it’s only popular now and it’s hot right now, right? It’s the, it’s the Diet today. Right? And then next week it’ll be something different. But how many products have added the word Keto friendly or whatever and why? Right? So they were already selling, you know, a almond flour on the flower’s been around a long time. Now you look at the package Keto friendly or a coconut flour and stuff like that. And it’s, that’s a good example of something that somebody’s taken a product and now all of a sudden people are searching for this because they want to get it for Quito. And now by targeting that word, all of a sudden you’re going to move up in that search. I think that’s a good example too.
Edward: [00:49:30] It is. It’s wonderful. All right, so let’s, let’s go through a couple more things because I think, I think we’ve, we’ve gotten that, that really, that breakdown, again, we got to develop a strategy and the strategy is different depending on what you’re selling, right? And why you’re selling or you know, of course you were selling to make money but, but cost and all the rest of that stuff. Again, you’re going to organize a campaign the right way and then you’re going to make sure you got the right key words, but that is not a static piece of information that is an evolving piece of information. I think those three tips are strong. So what’s the characteristics of a good campaign when you look at. Because again, I’m looking for best practice, right? I’m looking for the things that I’m, I’m assuming this is my assumption. I think there’s pretty reasonable that what you thought was working three years ago or what was working three years ago probably is not the trend today. Is that fair? Yeah, definitely. It’s become way more involved and yet the kind of watch it closer to um, because since it’s developed and it’s gotten better, of course more are advertising
New Speaker: [00:50:28] and that just means that the, the average cost per click is going up and you have to pay more attention to it because you’re spending more now like you know, of course with, with Google advertising it, you kind of expect this from like $11 a click sometimes are just like, you know, you’re, you’re really expecting to spend more with Amazon. Like you know when it first really got up, you’re looking at like fifty cent, twenty five cent bids and now for some of the categories that I’ve been working with for over a year now, they have doubled or even tripled in some cases because it’s gotten so competitive. So really like when whenever you’re looking to analyze your campaign to see if that’s a good campaign. One of the first things I look at is traction and this is very, very basic traction. Just in the side of impressions. Like are people actually seeing my campaign?
New Speaker: [00:51:14] Are they actually seeing the ads? And is it getting in front of the audience that I want? So I usually look at impressions just to see if it’s getting placement because if you’re not getting placement, nothing else will follow. So if you’re not getting placement you the analyze your bits and be more competitive. So hold on a second there. I want to make sure I get this. So again, that’s your first step, right? Is to make sure that you’re getting in front of eyeballs. So whether they’re buying or not, that’s a different issue. You just gotTa make sure you’re getting in front of the so you have an opportunity to sell. Okay, that makes sense. Exactly. It’s just like, you know, you’re not gonna sell anything unless you show someone. So just jump out there and try it. Like, you know, try to get as much traction as possible. Of course you want to be smart. I’m not saying put 40,000 keywords and then just hope for the best. Do not do that. That’s the stuff that makes me cringe when I see that. Um, but everything’s, everything’s a keyword.
New Speaker: [00:52:04] So I always look at impressions first. I always have, and then of course as you go down the pipeline, you look at the clicks, so you want to look and see are people seeing my ad? Then are they also engaging with it and when you’re looking at clicks, of course she want to see if you’re getting a good amounts, you want to see it. There’s particular keywords that are doing well and something else there is, as you’re getting clicks, you’ll get an idea of what your average cost per click is and this will let you know how competitive your campaign is and also the category. If you see a really high cost per click, like if you know the average cost per click is $5 right now, that’s pretty competitive. Of course, probably a year from now people will listen to this and be like $5, ah, come on.
New Speaker: [00:52:47] That’s nothing, but it’s definitely good to analyze how much money you’re spending overall, and of course she can look into individual costs per clicks as well, but this Leccino how competitive the category in the market is that you’re aiming for, but the best way to determine a good campaign as how many of those clicks actually converted, and this is where you actually see your worth. Of course she want to have a high conversion rates. You want to see that these people are actually seeing the ad engaging and then converting as well, but you want to be careful there too because if you’re getting conversions but they’re just costing so much money and it’s just really driving up for a call, so you want to be careful.
Edward: [00:53:26] He may have to dial back on some of your bids, so then that way you’re not spending as much money to get those conversions and that’s kind of where the balance comes into because I could have a campaign that’s doing wonderful. You know, it has an incredible conversion rates. Every, you know, every three clicks I get, I get one conversion. That’s really awesome. I’m loving it, but then I have an average cost per click of $5 and I’m selling like, you know, an $8 product and that’s where I had to realize like, wow, like I’m not making as much as I need to offer this. Somebody had to back out, analyze the keywords, maybe bring down my bids on some of them just so I can get more organic velocity to make up for the fact that I’m spending so much in the campaign itself.
Edward: [00:54:07] And you’ll get some of that organic velocity again as your rank improves. Right. So some of that is, is, is, it’s kind of like starting to snowball down the hill, right? You starting to get it going, you got to kick it off. So in that scenario, rather, it’s a, a product that is going to have a shelf life that you’re going to need to replenish or not. Sometimes that makes sense to get it started. Right. You got to give. It’s basically giving them away because you’re losing money on them in essence. Right. Um, so that makes sense. Okay. All right. I was thinking about this too is is there a, you know, like a, a one, one, a short, short version of how to get started. I mean for people, is there an easy way for me because it in a whole bunch of people are like, oh my God, these nerds talks way too deep and you know, think you know it.
Edward: [00:54:52] It is painful for all this stuff sometimes a lot of terms, a lot of things to figure out, but is there an easy place to get started or an easy way that you suggest for people to try it to get started? Yeah, I mean, so if you’ve already got a listing on Amazon and he spent some time making it look awesome, you’ve already done a lot of the work and then the next step is really just to create auto and manual targeting campaigns and of course groups similar products together and you can do that manual targeting campaign with some keywords that you find from scope or other tools like that as well. And for your auto targeting campaign, you can be more aggressive up front and then there’s a list of search terms that could be possible keywords for that manual targeting. Can you take what they suggest, right?
Edward: [00:55:35] And logically and you look at the impressions, right? And then you pull them back and then you create your manual campaign based on that because that’s good information as you said. Right? Yeah. And some people even they will just start off with just an auto targeting campaign. If they have a really small budget or they don’t want to spend too much, they will just do that for the time being. And you know, after a week or two, you have a good amount of data that you can use to just make a maintenance marketing campaign with those terms. And that’s really like, you know, a simple way to get started. Of course there is going to be optimization along the way. Uh, I really do not like it when people would just start campaigns and don’t check back in on them. I always say like as you’re doing this, as you’re launching them, check them two to three times a week and also don’t over check them, give them time to grow, give them time to breathe because you want to have data that’s usable, but you don’t want to have just one day’s worth of data.
New Speaker: [00:56:24] You want to have a couple of days that we can actually see what’s going on and what’s working, what’s not working as well,
Stephen: [00:56:29] and then that’s where you tweak and then you go back and adjust again. Right, and you just keep. Exactly, yeah. Fine. Sharpening the pencil. Get that vision in your mind is you’re sharpening and overtime. All right, so here’s a big question that I get. When do I outsource? When does it make sense? Because there are lots of companies, a seller labs as a company, right? That does manage, right? You guys manage people’s. There’s lots of companies out there that manage people’s advertising. When does it make sense? Because you’ve got some mega clients that you personally manage to. I have to be a mega client for it to make sense to outsource.
New Speaker: [00:57:03] No, I mean really we have like really so many different types of clients. We have those larger brands that just, you know, need a professional team to come and do the advertising for them because it makes sense because they’re so large they need to have someone who manages just that sector of their business. But then we have those smaller brands who need to focus more on building the brand on Amazon and Amazon. They just don’t have time to do the advertising. And then of course there’s people who just don’t understand it as well as they want to and they don’t have time to learn it. That they want to look for a team like myself in the managed services team to do it for them. And of course whenever I am bringing on a client, I expressed it as, you know, we want to be an extension of your team.
New Speaker: [00:57:44] We’re a no way just, you know, stepping outside, doing what we’d need to and then reporting back. We do it with you. So that way the brand is consistent across the board and we’re able to help you and also grow your brand. At the same time it has to be a good fit. Both ways has to be. Exactly. And that’s something that I always love about it is because there are, you know, different types of services that do this, but I really enjoy what we do just because I enjoy talking to people and I enjoy learning about their products and their brands. Like if I could tell you all the different types of products that I know a lot about that I thought I never would, it would blow your mind. It’s, it’s crazy and it’s just, you have to look at it and see like, you know, can I devote time to do this myself?
New Speaker: [00:58:22] Okay. If I can’t, I need to get someone or do I really want to do I want this to be something else I have to manage on a daily basis. And as she had to kind of manage to see what your time is worth, your time may be better spent developing your listing or getting a newer product to market or looking at your off Amazon sells while we’re handling. You’re on Amazon, like you know, advertising. So you have to really see if you have the time in your day or your week or your month to get this done because it is something when you started, like we’ve said, you have to continually check it and update it and adjust it because if you don’t you’re going to lose money so you have to see if you have time for that. And even this can just be sitting down for 15, 20 minutes and looking at your month, looking at things that you have planned and then also just say, can I fit in an hour every other day or every two or three days to actually check into my advertising? And if you can’t, so then I would suggest outsourcing it because this is what we do like all day everyday. Like even outside of office hours. And now I get it
Stephen: [00:59:23] because, you know, I think about my accounting profession, right? I was an accountant and you know, when I went to a county school, and this was years and years ago, I mean I come out and I used to have to do depreciation and tax and 10 k’s and all this stuff. I have no clue that stuff got compartmentalize and specialized because it was so much to maintain. Tax. Yeah. I don’t do my own taxes, you know, because it’s just so. It’s political, it’s specific and you have to, for everybody. I mean, imagine all of us trying to understand all that, that those little nuances and stuff. It’s just too much to maintain and stay current on, um, when you only have to do it once a year, once a quarter in our case. But, but, so it’s a good example. It’s a good analogy with this is that this is a, um, this is something that’s kind of specialized.
Stephen: [01:00:08] And so especially as you scale a brand, what you’re describing, building a brand. When you talk about that page, right? When I have my storefront and I’m building all that out, I mean all those different things. Do I want to be the one taking the pictures as opposed to getting them professionally done and at some point if I’m building all that stuff up, I need to have people on my team and you know, what’s kind of cool is I don’t have to pay you as a employee. Um, I get to pay us a service. I mean it’s a service, um, but, but it is a paid service, but it’s not quite the same. So I think that’s good. How about this? Let me ask you this because, and, and I know, you know, don’t, don’t give me the seller labs a standard answer. Honest man, because this is important for people. How do they know they’re doing a good job and it’s just, well, you know, our company’s the best Steve. Well, come on, you know, be fair. How do I measure that? You’re actually making a difference for me, Edward or not. You are. Let’s just pick another company. How do we measure that? They’re really doing a good job for me.
New Speaker: [01:01:02] Well, so one thing I always do with every account that we manage is the first thing I ask is what are your goals? What do you want? Are you looking to just get a larger return? Amazon, are you looking to scale back your spin? Are you looking to just optimize their existing campaigns? And that’s one of the first things I asked them. So then that way I can know what their primary goal is and this is even before I have looked at their campaigns or even looked at their brand that much because I want to know what their actual like down to earth, you know, bottom of their heart goal is and why they’re coming to us. And that’s something that we put, you know, actually kind of in their, their accounts is what their goals are, what they’re working towards. And we continually check back with them to see, okay cool, your target a cost is 30 percent.
New Speaker: [01:01:45] As you can see we have 25 percent, but also on top of that we’re actually extending your reach. We’re getting more impressions and more clicks while lowering your costs. And those are the two goals that you had. So it’s always important to have goals in place. And if someone comes to us and says, you know, I don’t really have any goals, I just want you to manage it, then we’re going to manage it to the effect of getting more traffic, getting more cells because you know that that’s what it is. Right. You know what, even though I didn’t know, I didn’t know what to ask. Right, exactly. Okay.
Stephen: [01:02:13] All right, that’s fair. And so again, then that way I can manage it. And so when it’s not going so well, you know, what do you do?
New Speaker: [01:02:20] So really the biggest thing is always being able to speak to it. I’m like, you know, if there is some time where traffic is slowed down just because of the month or the time of the year, we have to understand that. So we also understand the seasonality of the products that we’re helping to advertise. And if we do have like, you know, it spread like let’s just say two weeks sales went down, we have to be able to speak to it. But also we encourage that communication to where like if there is an inventory issue, we can recognize, okay, this product was out of stock, that’s why the sales are down, but if they’re not, we can analyze that data and go into it and see where the impression is dropped off. Then we can look into that specific day, look at the search term reports and see why maybe there was, you know, an increase in the competition or someone else came to market and they’re really trying to beat down your advertising.
New Speaker: [01:03:06] You have to be able to speak to it. So it requires that amount of research to bring that to, you know, these biweekly calls that we have to say, hey, we noticed this drop off, here’s what we found and going forward we’re going to do this to correct it. So we come to it knowing the issue, knowing why it happened and also knowing how to correct it. And it could even be corrected same day sometimes. Like sometimes it does just seem that like, you know, this campaign has performed as well, so we’re going to start a new one with a different approach or we’re going to, to somebody new came into the market or something changed. Right. You wouldn’t know. Right. I mean those things are outside of your control. So biweekly call. What’s that about? Yes. The biweekly call is awesome when we do these with every client that we have and these are really cool because it allows us to bring forward to them a report that shows the change over time, just like, you know, specifically in the metrics, but also we hit points of what’s been done to the account, what winds that we see, um, if there are any types of losses that we noticed or things that aren’t doing as well, we bring those to light and we say like, you know, what the matter is to correct them.
New Speaker: [01:04:08] And also, you know, if we have some new campaigns that got up and running, we talk about those and talk about how they’re doing because we always have that email communication, you know, in between these biweekly calls. And of course we can have called sooner if there is something urgent that happens. The stuff gets lost in email. It’s not as personal. It’s not a, you know, I want to hear it in your voice. I want confidence. That’s what I’m making. Exactly. And I am so huge about that because I want to have that rapport to where like I can get back on the colonic and say, hey, how’s it going? How was your trip last week? Or I saw that you were going to vegas. Did you enjoy that? Like, I want to have that relationship to where we’re not just talking numbers, we actually are an extension of your business and we’re able to provide you results that you want.
New Speaker: [01:04:44] And then speak about them openly. Like we’re honest. We work hard to get you what you need and we’re going to work as hard as we need to get you where you want to be as well. Well, you can understand the reason that I wanted to bring Edward on. I mean he’s done a really good job of breaking it down. This did not turn into a seller labs pitch, which I really appreciate, although they are sponsoring and I don’t want to downplay it because I, I believe at otherwise we wouldn’t have the relationship as long as we’ve had, um, in what you guys do. Um, and it’s phenomenal. But I think you’ve done a really good job of presenting information. So
Stephen: [01:05:18] I’m going to pitch the seller labs stuff now and say, if you want more information on this, you need to check out sellerlabs.com forward slash ignite. Okay. Just go there. I’m going to college. Anything you don’t have to register, you’re going to see a couple of their big sponsors, Mike from death, wish coffee. He’s gonna be coming on the show short Vermont, Teddy Bear, massive companies and what they’ve been able to do and what they can do for you or just just go there and learn, be a lurker and learn and understand this stuff and get to the place where you know, um, you need a, you need to bring on that team member. That’s what we all would hope for is that you’re getting so busy and so big that you need to bring on a team member. And then of course our labs would be the right. That’s who I would recommend. It’s 100 percent who I am. I always say that. Um, so, uh, you’re not always making pitches, Edward, you’re available. Somebody has a followup question. Is that, can I, can I stick that out there?
New Speaker: [01:06:10] Yeah, yeah, you can definitely do that. Um, you know, I, I use linkedin a lot. I’ll be honest with you. Linkedin is great because also I’m starting to put the content that I do there as well. So you can hear like, you know, other podcasts I’ve done are there even just training videos and Webinars, I’m putting them there and that’s also great just for future education. We’re doing some now where we’re talking about, you know, advertising as a whole that she may find interesting. We have some more basic ones. Um, so that’s really the best. It’s just Edward Ruffin a, you’ll find me on there and you can also message me on there as well as when to be the easiest way just so that way I can forward you to other places as well. And of course from there we can follow up by email if we need to as well and I’ll be more than happy to help you out. And also you can, there’s actual, a contact form, I believe Ansara labs.com for the managed services too, that you can do as well.
Stephen: [01:06:57] Dude, I really appreciate you taking the time. I know how busy you are. I’m really, you know, you really taken me a lot further my knowledge. I mean there’s a whole bunch of things and I’m sitting here saying, Huh, about my campaign.
New Speaker: [01:07:09] Thank you so much. I love it. Thank you so much. This is what I love talking about. I could do this all day, so whatever your whatever.
Stephen: [01:07:18] Take care. Thank you. What a great guy. Um, again, this is my several labs is doing so well because they’re hiring guys like this and they’re giving them, you know, they’re basically saying, all right, here’s some more rope. Go ahead, learn, learn, learn, do more, do more, do more. Take it as far as you want to go. And you can hear the enthusiasm in his voice. I mean, he was in the precall and afterwards, but both pretty pumped after that call because it’s cool stuff and it’s exciting when you’re helping other people have success and you get to see it and got a little piece of it, you know, uh, the little piece of their success. You get to be part of it. It’s a pretty cool thing. I mean it’s, you know, that that reward system we all need. And I think he did a great job with it and he did a really good job of explaining a pretty complicated thing and I think he made it really easy to understand, reach out to him. Um, if you need. And again, I have those links for his linkedin there. Reach out to me if you can, if you need some help and I can connect you with them to ecommerce momentum.com, ecommerce momentum.com. Take care.
Speaker 4: [01:08:13] Thanks for listening to the momentum podcast. All the links mentioned today can be found@incomersmomentum.com. Under this episode number, please remember to subscribe and like us on it
New Speaker: [01:08:25] wounds.
