#137: Lessons Learned From 100 Amazon Accounts

Norman Ferrar  0:03  

Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, aka the beard guy here and welcome to another lunch with Norm, the rise of the micro brands. 

Norman Ferrar   0:21  

I guess  you guys are getting used to running a couple of minutes late. But anyways, I’m not gonna blame Kelsey, I guess that one’s on me. All right. Today, we have somebody that is the first time on the podcast, but not the first time the company has been on the podcast. You might have remembered, we had a really great show with Chris Brewer. We’re going to be featuring Chris Tyler on and he is the director of Amazon advertising over at OMG commerce. Now, Chris is going to be talking about his experience and auditing hundreds of Amazon accounts, what are the common denominators, and we’re just going to kind of just, you know, I’m not sure exactly where we’re going to go today. But we’re going to kind of go down those lines. So I think it’s gonna be really key that especially if you’re new to Amazon, to hear what Chris has to say, what are those things? What are those mistakes? What are the things that you need to do to make your listing better optimized, but before we do that, Where is Mr. Kelsey? 

Kelsey

Hello. 

Norman Ferrar 

Hello, Mr. Kelsey, I’ve seen you so much this week.

Kelsey 1:27  

I know it’s been crazy. So much. So much time together.

Norman Ferrar   1:32  

Did you see how Carlos was just,we were dead. I don’t think he almost couldn’t make the podcast. So yeah, it was yesterday.

Kelsey 1:42  

Yeah. So we really appreciate Carlos coming on. But yeah, he was definitely feeling it. But Welcome, everyone. Welcome. Dk. Welcome Red. We actually have another giveaway from Red today. This is the week of red. So we’re going to be giving out a foreign one desktop charger today from the rads company. Oh, very cool. That’s available. Thanks red, US, Canada and Mexico. So we’ll talk more about that later. But welcome, Andrew is from Sao Paulo today. And let’s see smash those like buttons. Share this to any Amazon fellows and friends and barter causes joining us from Los Angeles. Welcome, Simon. Happy Wednesday, everyone. And if you have any questions at all, put them in the comment section. And if you ever miss an episode, you’re looking for highlights you can check out our YouTube channel. Norman Farrar, that’s where everything goes. And if you haven’t yet joined our beard nation, that’s our Facebook group. It’s lunch with Norm Amazon FBA e-commerce collective.

Norman Ferrar   2:47  

Alright, hey. And I think I just saw Simon on. Seller sessions. I was just on that podcast with Danny. And I thought I saw you there. Okay, so yep. Like you were saying, Kelsey, questions over into the comments section, we’ll try to get to every question. If we don’t, it’ll be posted in our, our group. Okay, so I think that’s it. I think we’re done with that. You’ve told everybody to smash those like buttons and subscribe. And I have to say that how many times two times or three times during the podcast? Is that correct? Three times. Okay. So that’s once. All right. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the podcast. Hello, sir. Hey, norm. Great to be here. appreciate you having me on. Hey, no problem at all. It’s great to, you know, get you on here. This is kind of an interesting topic where we’ll be discussing today, especially for new users, not even experienced users. always learning something about what other especially agencies see when they’re looking at an Amazon listing what they can pick up. And sometimes it’s just these little things that can make a difference between a very successful listing or something that’s okay to something that just sucks. So yeah. Why don’t we talk about we’re going to be talking specifically about auditing. But what is auditing?

Chris Tyler  4:10  

Yeah, so when I do an Amazon audit, it is on the PPC side, though there is something to look at the product page, you know, is a retail ready conversion and things like that. But for us, it’s basically doing a deep dive into the campaign structure. What is built? What’s the structure of the naming convention? What’s the setup with match types? within the campaigns? Are they using all ad group types? Are they optimizing enough? Are they adding converting search terms? So essentially, from start to finish, campaign build out and then continual improvement of what’s running? We review that and basically say, Here’s everything you’re doing right? Here are things you can do better. And then here’s things you’re not utilizing at all. And it’s interesting I don’t know how many I’ve done. Total, I know it’s over 100. But the there’s a common thread with probably 70% of everything I’ll present on these audit calls and follow ups after I do deep dive, that is almost the same. It’s just customized to that client right there category of product or goals or KPIs. But the base theme is the same. So kind of prepping for this podcast, I’m really excited. I wanted to be able to give actual actionable Nuggets to your listeners.

Norman Ferrar  5:33  

That’s, that’s great. Okay, you know, we do different types of marketing, content marketing, and we drive traffic over to Amazon. And the people that have great listings usually have great results. The people and these are usually the big complainer’s, the people that say, hey, this doesn’t work or search, find buy doesn’t work or Facebook marketing doesn’t work. You drive it over to either a search page or over to their listing, you’re not responsible for that second click, you’re not responsible, you can get people over to a search page or to the product listing. But if it sucks, you can’t force that customer to click and buy a burger. Yeah, yep. So that’s an issue that I see a lot, I see a lot of blame. But I don’t see a lot of action being taken to improve the blame. A lot of the times, it’s not the agency, or the person that’s setting it up. And which could be the same person, like it could be the Amazon seller. But at the same time, if you don’t take those little steps to improve your listing, because it might cost you 250 bucks, or it might cost you 500 bucks, like to get better images or whatever. You can’t take it out on the agency or the person who’s doing whatever it is. I need you to talk to some of my clients. Oh, yeah. I can’t leave the best clients. No, no, but that happens. You know, we’ll hear about it. And we’ve got to discuss it. And oh, it’s it’s, we can get you to a certain point. We can’t get a customer to click or to convert that, you know, they have their own minds. Yep. Unfortunately, we can’t press a button. We try. Yeah, right. Okay, so um, just before we go any further, we’re gonna be giving away a really great giveaway today. So Chris, why don’t you tell everybody about what’s happening?

Chris Tyler  7:37  

Yeah, so we’re giving away is an hour consultation call with myself. And I’m gonna throw in our CEO Brett curry doesn’t know this. He’s our Google and YouTube guy. NDCs, we kind of does it all that we want to look at your account answering questions, you have to be able to consult, not just on the PPC side, but on the content side. So I am a data guy, I’m analytics, I can look at some and tell you right away. And here’s what I’m seeing. Brett curry is more like, okay, you’re doing this video, tweak this to boost your conversions and really show what you’re trying to sell. And so that that is some are given away. And I’m excited to do that and talk to your listeners and see how we can help. That’s great. What kind of values that other than the priceless value? Yeah, now that I added bread, it’s it’s priceless. But I would put it at 500 bucks. Yeah.

Norman Ferrar  8:33  

Oh, that’s, that’s fantastic. And this isn’t something that happens every day, guys. So just hashtag we will have Kelsey and Kelsey Are you just putting it on the same? We’ll

Kelsey 8:45  

know. So for reds. giveaway, we’re just going to do hashtag red.

Norman Ferrar  8:50  

So our hashtag red. This very good. And the last thing before we get back to it is just that if you do want to have a second entry tag to people, and you’ll have that second entry into either the consulting or the prize from rad. Okay, so let’s get into it. What let’s go through, we’ll get to the action steps. But what do we got to do? What are some things that we have to look at to start to build out a better listing? Or what are you looking for?

Chris Tyler  9:23  

Yeah, so I would clarify a little bit on my end. I’m looking at the PPC side. So right, that comes down to the listing. Is that correct? Yes. I will say most of the audit probably 90% is the campaign structure and what’s being run there. And I’ve got some, some gems there. When it comes to the listing. I would say you know the basics. You know the title. What are you putting in that? Is it appropriate to what you’re going after for the keywords that you want to be ranking for. It’s changed a bit. I I was listening to a few of your past podcast with Brian Johnson, which On a side note, when I started five years ago in the Amazon space, I took a sponsored product Academy. And that’s how I got into it and then kind of grew from there. It’s not the same as it was years ago, where you’re stuffing the keywords, right, I want to build that for the the the end customer right to convert. But you also want to tailor that so that you’re not losing keywords and phrases that might be in the page or should be in the page that people are searching for. So like on our end, we do a mix of end up gear research, looking at converting search terms and the data from the advertising platform that has done well. And also looking at competitors pages, and what they’re ranking for, and even potentially showing foreign sponsored ads and kind of structure with the title bullet points and back in search terms that kind of fit within there. Everything you need to cover. And then obviously, images on the page. Eb are a plus kind of that I still call dBc. Making sure that that’s appropriate. I will say though, that that’s not my like main expertise. So we have someone our team member naurelle, who’s head of our full service offering and she’s like, content, all of that. So I’m more like, I can talk a little bit, but the action stuff goes to her mind is more. Okay, how do we get traffic to that? And how to do that efficiently and skillfully?

Norman Ferrar   11:32  

Okay, well, let’s, let’s go over to that point. But I do have one thing to ask about the titles. I’m just curious. I’ve had a bunch of Amazon optimizers on okay. And this is I see, or listing optimization. copywriters. And I get a mixed bag. And I’m just wondering what you’re seeing. So it used to be, you know, back in 1314, it was keyword stuffing, you stuffed everything, you stuffed it everywhere you then I think it was 14, they started to say Oh, you don’t have to put in plurals you don’t like the algorithm will pick it up, then it went back to Oh, you got to stick in all these keyword phrases a million times you? Is it? I’ve heard, and we’ve been practicing short, shorter titles. Not the like just use using main keywords, relevant keywords, but not repeating phrases over and over and over again. Like if you use the word knife, you wouldn’t have to use the word knife again, in the listing. Are you finding that?

Chris Tyler  12:39  

I would say overall, yes, we do test that out. And when it comes to the title, I agree, like the shorter is better used to be like, massive, I know. Yeah, we have a client in the betting category and a competitor came out. This is like three years back and ranked right away. And I think they’re doing some blackhat stuff, but their page titles just like Queen sheets 10 times just over and over crunchies concrete screen sheets. And don’t do that now. So I will say that I don’t think you need to duplicate there are times on the back end. And in the bullet point, we may have it twice just to be safe. We’ve tested it both ways. Not a huge difference. If you’re doing it right. Overall, if you’re have a free slice or not, I don’t think that’s gonna make the biggest impact. I will say we don’t try to change titles too much just because once you get kind of momentum there and it’s established product, we more added bullet points and then the backend if maybe new things are coming out through analytics or search things that we think are relevant, that are currently in there at the keyword level. But to your point, I think those days are over, we’ve got to duplicate a lot. For the most part, we’re not.

Norman Ferrrar  13:55  

Okay. All right. So let’s dig into PPC. Where do you want to start? Where? Yeah, so right, right at the start.

Chris Tyler  14:03  

This is what Yeah, I’m super pumped to jump into this, I figured I could talk high level first right like structure and then just the basic strategy pieces that I find her missing. And then if we have time, the campaign types, I’ve got three or four pieces for each that someone can listen to, and then go to their own account and see what they’re doing. And it’s very simple to do. So if it works for you, I can start on that high level structure. Okay. So to kind of put some clarity to kind of the audits we do. I think our monthly sales for the clients, we audit range from like 100k to like a couple million, probably than the average is 250 to 500. And I say that because it’s interesting, there’s a cancer to doing two mil a month that are making the same mistakes as someone doing 50 to 100,000 a month. So being newer and knowing this at the onset can really set you up for competitive advantage. Even against the big seller’s. And so the first thing that that I notice as kind of a common thread is naming structure. And it seems really simple, really straightforward. But I do a lot of audits where somebody, maybe build campaigns themselves tried another agency, and then another agency, and they’ve got just a mess of campaigns. And it takes me an hour, hour and a half to kind of dissect that and see what’s actually built what’s running, and then tell them what to do. And when I talk to them, they’re like, Yeah, I don’t really know what’s going on their sales are coming in. Performance is good. But when I talked about the pieces to scale more, and make adjustments to see that growth, they don’t know how to do that, because it’s kind of tied into this knot, if that makes sense. So I think being simple, is best if you’ve got a product, and you’re building up 10 different campaign types, sponsored, brand, sponsored, display, sponsored video sponsored product, and then the variations within it. Name, the beginning the same, you know, have a structure that says, I know what’s being built to later, we need to check that when you need to see what things are doing in terms of performance, you can do that easily. And we’ve got some caps with like 2000 products. And so it can take us months to to adjust things and restructure in a way that you can follow. And without being able to measure things appropriately, it’s hard to take action on that. So that’s like the first one. And so if you’re new on Amazon, that’s an easy one campaigns, maybe don’t have any, maybe there’s only a few. Keep that in mind as you scale, you don’t want to go back and redo some of that work. And then the other thing is the utilization of all campaigns. And I’ll go a little more in detail a little bit. But you got tons of product, auto manual and info manual, product targeting sponsor brand, you’ve got keyword and product targeting sponsored display product targeting audiences. And that’s what’s around video, I would say on average, about 50 to 60% of these are in use with the audits we do. And then within that it’s probably the top 20% of the product. So that 8020 rule makes sense to start, where if you’re an advertiser, you’re like, Hey, I’m going to go really strong on advertising with the top products. It does make sense. But we often see that these lower priority lower selling products are kind of forgotten, right? You build a sponsored product campaign, maybe a sponsor brand, and then you build nothing else. And this is something I see with some of the big agencies, not the name anybody but I’ll look at and be like, Why are these built, and it’s time and a lot of these aren’t able to be done within automation, like sponsored brands sponsored display. And so the view from advertisers and some agencies, is it’s not worth the time because we’re getting a better return from something that’s easier to build and utilize that 8020 rule. And I think in this case, that doesn’t work, right. I do think that building out top products, campaign types makes sense. But that takes maybe, let’s say, one to three months, right, depending on your size. But then as you continue, you should have that same structure for products with low sales, you should build out all campaign type for all products over time. And and I’m not seeing that, like I never see it, where it’s like over 80% are utilized. And I think like, there’s a lot to unpack there, and I will as we dig in, but those are the two things that really stand out when I first look at an account.

Norman Ferrar   18:35  

Very good. So are there anything when you’re when you’re building out this structure? I’m kind of curious, because I’ve seen these structures where there’s hundreds or 1000s of products, right? Yep. And they’re completely unruly? Is there a way can you download a list? Can you can you manipulate the list where you can see it all in one glance, rather than trying to find each product and try to figure it out?

Chris Tyler   19:02  

Yeah, so what we do is it exists in a spreadsheet right now. I’m sure you can, you know, put in a software. But when we build out Tosa, you’ve got two products, elderberry and vitamin D supplements, right. You nailed my products. Okay, thanks. So basically, each row in a sheet would be that product, the campaign name anchor, which might be elderberry, the ace, and then like something else you want to add to it. And then the variants at the end would be as it’s hotter product keyword is as hot the product auto. And we would name in a way that it’s very easy to with a V lookup and a couple other formulas, pull it out. And then we’d have a checklist across kind of those columns that says is a building with date, just so we know when we built it. So when we’re seeing performance and talking on it, and so that concept worked with a few products. So if you have 1000 we do the same. And what’s cool is I can pull a campaign Report. And I can look at that anchor kind of checklist for lack of better phrasing, I’ve built a spreadsheet. And with just a couple formulas, basically say, for each product, here’s what’s built. And then for each product, there’s a performance overall in the for each campaign type, because I’ve named it appropriately, it’s those a lot of data like it can be data paralysis, look at 1000 products and see their spend their sales or a costs or total sales or tacos, and then like, make a decision, but it’s all there. So if you want to say I want to look at these two products, out of the 1000, it’s there. If you want to look at high level, it’s there. It’s still get a lot to look at. But we find that we need that because when we started five years ago, it was just me like, I’m not a structured guy, right? I’m like, let’s do it. Let’s test, let’s talk it out. And then like, it’s there. And we’ve gotten better. So we’ve got an amazing team. And so that structure has helped. Because as we’ve grown, it’s like, oh, before we just sponsor product and like sponsor brand, right. And it feels like the campaign types of like three acts. And so there’s a lot more that you need to be aware of. And also, again, measuring that attribute. And we find that structure works for us. I’m sure other people do it different ways. But that’s why we do it.

Norman Ferrar   21:16  

There’s a lot of PPC people out there. There’s ton. Yes. And it’s more by the day. Yep. And anybody who’s taken a course, it seems to be a PPC expert. You know it how, what are some questions you can ask? When you’re hunting for somebody, an agency to work with you?

Chris Tyler  21:37  

Yeah, great question. And I’ll preface this with like, even though different agencies, different experts, like slightly different strategies, it doesn’t mean one is better or worse than the other. Like, I build campaigns with the match types, method and ad groups other people do at the campaign level, because they want to just placements. I can’t say one’s better or worse, but it’s just different. And so I think when you’re talking to a PPC expert or an agency, you want to talk about how they do each step. Okay, how do you optimize? How do you track? How do you keep track like I we just talked about with the different campaigns? What do you do with all products? Right? So that is something I would ask where it’s like, hey, I’ve got x amount of products. What is your view on the campaign structure and build out for these are you going to give them some love, because, again, oftentimes, that’s not the case, I would ask about the reporting. That’s a big one. Again, you can’t decide actions, if you’re not knowing what’s going on, I would act about their experience. That’s not the biggest thing. But one complaint we get from advertisers we talk to a lot is they’ve talked to somebody on a audit call or just talking to agency, and they’re like, Man, that person was great, that person was an expert. But then they get somebody who’s like brand new. And so I would ask, Who am I trying to get? And brand news not bad, I don’t want to say like, everyone’s got to start somewhere. Yeah, but understanding the support structure there. So that you’re not surprised, and you’re not disappointed. And you know, you’re getting into, and I think the agencies should do the same, like we make a point to say, we do these audits, if you’re gonna work with us, he or she would work with us their history, their experience, where they’re, you know, they’re going to shine with you. But we want to be upfront with that, because that’s probably our number one or two complaint from advertisers we talked to,

Norman Ferrar   23:32  

yeah, I find a lot of people that I talked to in the space, they don’t manage expectations. So you know, they oversell and, you know, they and even with, when we’re talking a cos, and you know, tacos, it’s unrealistic. Like a lot of the times, like, I’ll just, for example, you know, I’ll hear a product, I kind of I know the market, and I’ll take a look at what they’re targeting, with the budget that they’re targeting with the keywords I’m going, this is so unrealistic, they’re never going to hit this. And this magic number of Oh, you have to hit 22 or 23%. a cause to have an effective campaign or below. I don’t know about you, but I just I’m not looking at that number. I’m looking at tacos and that’s it. If tacos is working, I really don’t care how high my a cause is, as long as my tacos is in line, or if I’m trying to build out, you know, a wider campaign. It might be effective for a bit, but a lot of the times again, just talking to a lot of PPC people, you just find that they promised the world and that just doesn’t pull through. So expectations is something that so what is your I’m kind of blabbering here but for we’ve got a lot of it’s a third, a third, a third, beginner, intermediate and experts list To this podcast. Okay, what are the expectations when you’re talking about a costs? in general? I know it’s really broad?

Chris Tyler   25:10  

No, it’s a fair question. It’s always easier when there’s data, right? So if I’m talking to somebody that’s already running some ads, I can basically looking at the running, get their margins or their goals, either one. And usually it’s dictated by that, look at their tacos and say, Hey, here’s a couple strategies, maybe conservative, moderate, and aggressive for growth, and then what’s within that and ranges of spend? It’s, and you need a cost. And it’s tough to your point, like, some people can be stuck on that. And sometimes when I bring in tacos, a client, or potential client will be like, oh, like, like, I’m up to something, right? And I’m like, No, no, no, like, you just take your margin, you minus the tacos, and you can figure out if you’re gonna make more money, and they’re like, I want to lower a cost. I don’t want to lose money in the end. And that’s a slippery slope. And so I think, looking at what it is you actually want to be doing with your account with your products? Are you looking for growth? With your margin? Are you okay with up to a breakeven to see that happen to begin with, like, for newer, newer accounts, which are always tough, those are the toughest to say, Hey, here’s the estimate, I’ll normally be very straightforward and say, I would look at it as a set budget as a minimum that you want to go into and test and figure it out. Because I, I can guess I don’t like guessing. But I can guess and say maybe, you know, you’re new, if you spent 5k a month, you might be 45%, a cross and 30% tacos. And that works because you’re 43% margin, and there’s room to move there. But I’ll preface that with also you might not, you might not get sales, maybe we have to get data and analyze that and say, Hey, we thought these terms were covered. And maybe the product page is a factor. So let’s look at that. Maybe we need to go and pivot and go to longer tailed, more aggressive and pull back on these broad terms. And so there’s definitely almost a rabbit hole, but in a positive way, like a deep dive that happens as you kind of push past maybe that test. But in terms of expectations, I would be realistic with the client. But I like to say it’s it’s client by client, just because no one is the same in terms of that space. I know that’s a terrible answer.

Norman Ferrar   27:23  

No is actually bang on. And I like how you approach it where you kind of come in like a financial planner. Okay, if we go aggressive, or if we go, you know, if you want to be risk free. So this is what you got to spend. These are kind of what your returns will be. So, yeah, and that’s fair. But I think I’ve got a tougher question. And this is probably on everybody’s mind right now. So Amazon’s gone into these ASN restrictions. And I don’t know about you, it’s caused a lot of havoc with some of my clients. Right now. We had been King on the other day, and it’s cost them huge dollars, because of some issues with Amazon. How are you adjusting? or How are you adjusting your strategy to these ASN asen restrictions, especially when you’ve got either a small person just launching or a very seasoned account, which, based on their storage, could just cost them an arm and a leg?

Chris Tyler   28:30  

Man, it is tough. I remember when that update came out. I guess it’s only a second or whatever. And it was like, okay, you know, when I first like read the first part of it, I’m like, Yeah, cool. You can have new products, you don’t have the limitation and then kind of detailing like what what his name is, I’m thinking, that’s exactly what I said. I think we’re all thinking that I’m not like I’ve talked to some I won’t name names. employees at Amazon, they’re like, yeah, we heard about this, like, last Friday. This is like I talked on Monday, like we don’t really know at this point. And so that’s never a good sign. I will say percent wise maybe hitting like 20% of our advertisers and impacting a few of like gone from a lot of room prepping for Prime Day. Not great timing, overall program for Prime Minister products and are suddenly 10% over and they’ve got to take products out. Yeah. And it’s tough because like the back of my mind is saying maybe Amazon adjusts they realize like this is kind of crazy, but you can’t plan on a hope right? And so a lot of our advertisers are pulling out products that they need to based on inventory analysis. It does make it incredibly difficult. But also looking at three PL and being able to back it up like thinking Prime Day right? Back it up or if FBA gets maxed out, and maybe they sell out right and they’ve got to send an FBA but you’ve got cut offs at the end of May to be able to Like, make sure it’s ready for prime day, they’ve got some other type of shipping ready. It’s not great, because a lot of those will be merchant fulfilled later delivery dates. But I think the worst case scenario thinking probably, but in general is you run out of inventory, you’ve got to send it in, that’s delayed by Amazon, and you’re suddenly out of stock. And we’ve got some sellers doing almost like a million bucks. And their AV might be $15. Right? So they’re 10s of 1000s of inventory, and they’re suddenly condensing. So they’re the ones scrambling, and I really think everyone’s learning. Yeah, as we’re navigating this, but I think the biggest thing is the three PL shippers and making sure you’ve got a backup, and then taking out product that is high in inventory, but low sale, velocity is a good place to start.

Norman Ferrar 30:52  

So it’s it is interesting, because if you have a very aggressive PPC campaign, and it hits it, let’s say you’re in that, that honeymoon period, and all of a sudden, you’ve got a great listing, the PPC is taking off, and you’re off, you’re you’re going strong. Now you throw more inventory at Amazon, and it’s their speed road. I, I’m looking at this yesterday going, Oh my god, we’re where we have product on order, the changes were made. So the product is it’s still going to Amazon, but when it hits Amazon, we’re probably gonna have to remove it. Yep. Because we’re over. unless we do something, and now we’re thinking, Okay, how do we how do we create a PPC campaign or something to just drive sales? can we can we lower the price, can we, and that whole strategy is really up in the air. One of the things that we’re trying to do, oh, one of the things that we’re trying to do is figure out a few strategies for our, our listeners, it is bloody tough.

Chris Tyler  32:05  

It’s tough. And like even the PPC side, that’s a very good call out, we’re looking now with a few clients, but a lot of, of the instances, we’re already at, like the return they want, and we’re crushing it for him and to go more. It’s tough. And that’s a weird way of phrasing it to centrally scale PPC to make sales happen. There’s that point of diminishing returns where it’s not even like, you go from a 30% a cost to like 40 and might go from like 30 to 60, depending on how much of that space you’re already owning. And so I like the idea of maybe discounts and coupons. But then the flipside is a lot of our clients are like, hey, it’s actually going to be more cost efficient for us to remove it, than to either give coupons or discounts or push a lot of PPC. And so similar to how you asked about expectations for PPC it is definitely advertiser by advertiser, But to your point, like some of these are good things to be thinking about for anyone listening. But we’re still navigating it. And it’s a lot of testing and really planning out as best we can, with something that is still an unknown. However, last,

Norman Ferrar   33:18  

okay, so because Kelsey told me to do this, this is the second time. Remember, if you like what you’re hearing to hit those like buttons, subscribe to our channel, ring a bell, whatever it is that you have to do on social media. But we do have a great giveaway, Chris is going to be auditing your account. It’s about a $500 value, if you like the ln Brett’s gonna be doing it as well. So Brent, the CEO of the of the company is going to be surprised, but he knows. He knows just a tiny bit of stuff, doesn’t he? So he’s going to be helping out as well. So you’ve got a two for one deal. And that’s hashtag we’ll have Kelsey, and also one of our super listeners, rad is going to be giving away a product as well. So that is hashtag rad. I think that’s what it is. If it’s not Kelsey, just put it into the comment section. Alright, so let’s go back to before we go on to some other strategies, just the common mistakes to look out for when you’re setting up campaigns. You’ve already talked about setting it up. But are there are there any things that just come to my common denominators?

Chris Tyler   34:31  

Yeah, that’s a good question. I have to be careful not to go so in the weeds, so my mind is like yeah, so you want to build this auto like this is this manual like this? I think you know, the first one would be figuring out what campaigns you’re building like we have a checklist that’s basically I think it’s a dozen it changes Amazon’s updating their campaign offerings, that says Alright, for sponsored product, we have an auto we know there’s a format so then it we have a strategy for each one. What we’re going to do With loose match for schools match, right? There’s different purposes for each, we’ve got our product targeting for sponsored product, okay, we got brand defense competitor targeting, we get the keyword we don’t brand segment it from non brand. And that’s there. There’s like five campaigns, right. And so understanding the breadth of what you plan to build out, setting different KPIs for each one. And it sounds complex, right? Like when you go through each one, it’s very simple. But I think putting it all together in one piece can be tough to start. But I think the prep work is the biggest. And I’m somebody that normally we’ll start with moderately conservative bids, and budgets, and rather bit up into traction and in figuring out that sweet spot. So see if it’s newer, right, if I got that upper product and building new variation, every campaign, I look at the existing CPC, the return conversion rate, and then base it off of that. But if I’m brand new, I’m not going firing out, it’s like $50, or even $5 bits, I might start at like 50 cents, 80 cents, depending on the category. And product, in bid up incrementally used to be in the day back in the day. And maybe some other people do this, I’m not a huge fan, where you come in strong, maybe have an auto really high bid hog budget. Some of that’s for keyword research. Some of it’s like that, that view of a two week grace period for a new product, you just blast it right and you pull back. That can work sometimes. But I’ve found that that can be a waste of money. And if you’re newer, you don’t want to get a bad taste in the mouth for PVC. You don’t want to push them like Hey, didn’t work. And that’s one of the things I’ve kind of seen in a lot of audits where they’ve tested either PPC in general, or more likely one campaign type. They pushed it, maybe a month returns that great instead of optimizing and changing things and reviewing and pivoting, they pause it in these audits like hey, you’re not running sponsored brand at all. Oh, yeah, I didn’t do well, it was like 2018. And it’s been like 1000 bucks, and they’re selling like 500,000 a month. And I’m like, that’s not enough data. And also, there’s best practices not put in place. Certain things were done, that probably shouldn’t event. So I think the prep work, the layout of what should be built in knowing that if something’s not working, review it, analyze it first, don’t just give up on and say hey, this is it. This doesn’t work tensor products is crushing it, I want to pause or sponsor display cuz I returns 50%, a cost on sponsored products 40% or 30%. Because one of the things I’ve seen with the accounts, I look at the the top culprits in a ton if I’m going on too much of a tangent, but go ahead, the top culprits that are not built, or utilize much as sponsor display product targeting, right. And that’s brand defense, owning your own space and going after competitor targeting sponsored display news and audiences. I’m not the I’m not the biggest fan of those, but I always build them with a little bit of a budget to test them out, like one out of 10 might do great. Like even for myself, I know it’s not all the time that it will do well, but I’m going to build it I’m just going to structure with lower bids, budgets, control it, sponsor, Grant, Ace and targeting. Man, I very rarely see that build at scale, if at all. And I love that one because similar to try the product and further explore, you can target your own essence. But it’s in search results for a lot of it. And so it’s more of just the view of owning the real estate on Amazon, if somebody’s searching for something that already showing up in either sponsored product or organic, and it’s not always branded right so you’ve got that overbury supplement We know you’re selling. And and let’s say somebody searches for normes elderberry supplement, well, then it may show up because it’s branded. But if somebody searches for elderberry supplement for guys with beards, it may be that that easson is showing up in organic results in that sponsor brand acent targeting is tied to that. And so it shows up there and even though it’s a brand defense or brand nice and targeting, it’s not a brand search. It’s just a real estate enhancement. And the other couples sponsored product Ace and targeting. So I’ve done a ton.

Chris Tyler  39:12  

And I would say that if you build those out to the full ability that they can follow your products. I feel like a Geico commercial you can you can increase your sales 20% in 20 minutes, I really think that you can see a marked improvement in ad sales by 10 to 25%. I was running the numbers prior to this call sponsor display overall is usually two to 10% average like five or 6% of all AdSense for kind of the average freeze account, right? So during a sponsor display, I would say five or 6% would be good. You could be as low as two could be as high as like 10 or 12 sponsored brand video that’s what I forgot. Everyone should be using that. Sponsored brand videos usually five to 12% of advertising ad sales sponsored brand is five to 20 percent, and each one’s incremental. But if I had to add up everything not built, I would say n equals probably 20 to 35%. ad sales that could be boosted, that are not used at all. And I love that because if you’re not using it, it’s not like, oh, will cannibalize current campaigns or current things and running like, no, you’re not using it at all. So it’s just a straight add on in terms of performance. And it, it’s crazy to me because it’s so simple. Each piece is very simple. It just takes time. And I like to think with Amazon, it’s, you don’t have to be rocket science run ads for it, you just need to be consistent. It helps to be analytically driven. But even then, if you’re just consistently do the fundamentals, you’re in the top 80% already and what you’re running,

Norman Ferrar   40:49  

are there any of the campaigns, I know you’ve gone through a bunch here, but are there any campaigns, you’d probably say hold off on, you know, it’s probably on the lower end of return.

Chris Tyler    41:06  

I hate to say like, hold off, so maybe the perspective of like test, pass, and once you’ve built everything else come back to I would say at scale expansive display audiences, I would do if your top products, and if it doesn’t work for them, it’s harder to fathom it’s going to work for other products, doesn’t mean you’re not going to continue testing. But I would not spend all my time at the beginning, just building out side display audiences. If I were to stagger, like performance based priority, I would say I’d probably do sponsored product, manual campaigns. Sponsored product, auto, and autos are so easy to build you do at the same time, I would do sponsored video. Next, I would do sponsored brand, keyword targeting, sponsored display product targeting. And that’s fun to bring product targeting. And the thought is, for those last three, sponsored brand product targeting factor display, product targeting, and even sponsored brand a little bit, they’re all going to be like two to 10% of your ad sales. So it really depends on a few things. And the biggest thing I would stress, if you’re listening is build out the full Gambit for your top, let’s say three products if you don’t have a ton of time, and then gauge which campaign type is doing the best, right? Because I can look at one camp one client, we run and maybe sponsor brand, product targeting is doing 3x better than sponsored display product targeting. But in another one, it’s the inverse. And so I would kind of stagger in that way as just a general rule. But I would say build out everything for your top products and then gauge based on your category, your products and what you’re running. Were performance is best repeat that. But honestly, like our view at the agency is just knock them out, build everything out as fast as we can. And that sounds like overkill, or like we’re not being strategic with it. But the view I take is if you’ve got a product, you want 100k a month and you’ve got a product doing 100 bucks a month, within some time period, maybe it’s a year, right, if you got a lot of products, that $100 product should have the same campaign structure built for it. The only caveats I can think of offhand is like if it’s not retail ready. If reviews are terrible, like if it’s just a bad product, maybe you don’t want to run ads at all. But if you’re considering running ads, I would still build it all out. The differences would be based on campaign settings, bids, budgets, and overall strategies, you may spend 10 bucks on $100 product in 10,000 and $100,000. product. But But I think what people don’t think on is this, especially if you have a lot of products, if you can boost, I don’t know 1000 products by like 50 bucks a month, right? Or even 100 products by 50 bucks a month. And that’s what’s this like, full build out, right? It’s a lot of time initially and then ongoing less. That’s 5100 products that’s 50,000 on those 1000. It adds up that 20% adds up. But kind of to your question, I would focus on the top priority first, but just never stop. Never. I think that uh that movie never stop never stopping Justin Bieber kind of play. Right. But that that’s my view.

Norman Ferrar  44:26  

Okay, very good. So, counsel, let’s get to some questions.

Kelsey  44:32  

Let’s look came in just a second. Okay, so, Tony, for brand ambassador, for brand sponsor,

Norman Ferrar   44:39  

Kelsey. You gotta like dial up internet or something. Maybe you want to go to high speed one of these days.

Kelsey   44:46  

Maybe more. But can you hear me now is my audio guide.

Norman Ferrar   44:52  

Let me see if I can blow this up so I can read it. Or Chris, if you’ve got good eyes. Maybe you I can

Chris Tyler   44:58  

read it. Yeah. All right. ad for brand sponsored ad Should I stick the broad match phrase an exact match don’t get much impressions. So the view we take is we do run all match types will normally negate in the broader phrase match what we’re targeting. So saying the exact match, to run a phrase or discovery exact match is scale. I’m biased with higher bids for exact just because you know, you’re bidding on it shouldn’t, in theory, perform best. But as I think most of us know, that’s not always the case. Brought up phrase do play an important part. And it could be certain times were like that is here that a certain match type they might not expect broad match is doing the best. I don’t know specifically, like what bids are given for for these match types, like Tony might have them all at the same bid, well, then broad match just has a high propensity to show for a lot of variance variables of what you’re targeting. So the view I would take is, I usually start with broad match X amount that let’s say 50 cents, I might go phrase match 6065 cents, an exact match 80 cents with negatives on the broad phrase, and I’m okay, if I’m that type kind of takes off, and I’ll kind of Stoke that fire. But then for Matt types that aren’t kind of getting scale, I’ll have to dig deeper into why it’s hard to tell in this case. But I’ll incrementally bid up, I’ll make sure I’m targeting rate terms that I’m adding in converting search terms from the broad match to the phrase and exact, because in theory, if he’s getting a lot of impressions and sales in the broad match, you’re getting new search terms, most likely, because broad match just says what you’re doing that. And those should be added back, especially the exact match. And if it’s got a higher bid, it naturally should kind of scale up to that match type, not all search terms, but in general. And so I, I really never go to just one match type, I would stress use them all. And then kind of stagger the bids and make sure that in converting search terms, and then just keep digging deeper. It’s not a negative that broad match is the only one with volume. But usually it’s based on a bid or the targeting that that causes it to knock in impressions. All right, next question kills. Okay, Chris, go ahead. Yes. How would you rank two listings that are similar products, but only if the texture is different? Most of the keywords are common for both listings. Natural I fully follow that? If if it’s for advertising, like how would you split them out? Or put them together? I can I can talk through that. Unless norm you have a different interpretation?

Norman Ferrar   47:42  

No, no. And I’m not sure who the Facebook user is. But if you want to clarify. But yeah, go ahead and enter.

Chris Tyler   47:50  

Yeah. So if these products are under the same parents and you know, group them together, and mostly the same targeting campaign types, things like that. Sounds like in this case, it probably isn’t. So just whatever it is, whatever the product is, the texture is different. I normally look at this and say, Okay, what are the similarities? What are the things that are very much the same between the products and utilize that in sponsored brand targeting? pushing that I will consider and is case by case, combining them into a sponsor product and normal campaign structure for turns that both are going to basically go after the same? I don’t always do that. Normally, I won’t, because I just want each one to have its own ability to say Will it work? Right? So if you’ve got, I don’t know, linens and one’s wool and the others, not? Well, I don’t know my linens? Well, you, you may go after the same terms on some I usually prefer separate campaigns, because each one should be given its own chance to see performance based. That may change as data comes in, maybe one’s doing much better. So you kind of pull back on the other. But I really like to look at what are the unique identifiers. So in this case, the texture is different, okay, what sorts of things are different? hone in on those in these different campaigns that are running for separate campaigns for each product, and push that more? It’s hard to answer that specifically if I put them together enough, but I’d have to see that more. And then I’d hide like that in sponsored brand, right. So being able to talk the broad kind of search terms. In this case, let’s say it’s linens, right? You can take those and just showcase your to texture types in the sponsored brand campaign and be able to show the differences and so if somebody doesn’t know what they’re exactly looking for, they can see the variant you have. I think that’s probably how I would answer that. That’s the info give him

Norman Ferrar   49:48  

Alright, internet. Okay. All right, next question kills. Let’s see you guys I’m going to try to read this, how can I do that?

Norman Ferrar   50:04  

Is there a limit? Is there a limit for this computer? Can’t go back far enough? Is there a limit for how many keywords you can put in each ad group? I have a campaign with 40 to 50 keywords in one ad group, but I’m finding that half of my keywords don’t even fit or doesn’t fit into any impressions.

Chris Tyler   50:27  

Yeah, it looks like doesn’t even get any impressions. And I, this is funny, I should know this, I want to say it’s still 1000. I never touched that I never go that high. So it’s not something that I like test the limits on but I think it’s 1000. To two answer it from my view, we view less is more like you can, you can get hundreds of keywords 1000 if you want, but how are you going to manage that it just doesn’t function well with the algorithm in my view. And so will normally run 50 to 100, I think the most we normally see is like 150. And it’s not that like when you go past 150 things crumble, it’s just when you use broad phrase, and then exact, you’re covering most of the bases you want to cover, if you’ve got auto running as well, that it’s more about scale and momentum behind it, and not just throwing a lot of things out there and just hoping they grow. In this case, I would say half getting impressions. And then hopefully, spending sales is actually pretty decent. It is the case often that you probably have like, I don’t tend to 25% of your keywords bringing in 50% plus your sales. So that’s when you’re looking at product phrase because something will anchor that maybe it’s a root term. And that will bring that in. And so I don’t look at that as a negative at all. Ideally, you know, the more traffic tracks you can get across terms, the better. But if you’re finding that half are not getting it, I would first look at the bids and maybe look at the suggested bids and kind of dig deeper into maybe what competitors are doing and and then figure out a game plan to incrementally test bidding up. And then it would also if it’s broader phrase, view the search report and see if maybe those are bringing in the terms of already targeting so let’s say broad match and you’re targeting elderberry, and that’s got like most of your spend in sales. And then you’ve got a keyword that’s elderberry gummy supplement that has like minimal impressions. Well, maybe elderberry that broad match was performing really good. So you bid up on that. And so that other term elderberry gummies supplement has a lower bid at this point. And so that turns already been covered. And so I think understanding, are you actually missing terms? Or is it just a keyword level that has low traction impression does matter. And then if you really aren’t getting it as you kind of get up, it could just be you’re not relevant for it, Amazon’s not finding it. And based on your margin, your breakeven, there’s a point where you probably don’t want to bid up more, right, you’ve got a bit of 10 bucks, it’s not it’s not worth it. And then this, this is kind of just a light tie in. It’s always good to kind of quarterly refresh keywords you’re targeting looking at brand Olympics, your research has tons of tools for that, and always looking at your converting search search to see if maybe you’re missing anything that you can add in. But that doesn’t answer the half of keywords that getting impression, but something I would also include.

Norman Ferrar  53:31  

Okay, great. Oh, what are your key measures to using to use to check if an agency is hitting best performance?

Chris Tyler   53:45  

Yeah, that’s a good question kind of ties back when you’re talking about setting expectations. I would say to know this, you need to know what best performance means. Right? It for one advertiser could be huge scale at a certain a cross or tacos. It could be efficient growth. It could just be bringing down tacos and keeping sales. And so to answer that, I would say you need to set expectations with your agency. And hopefully they’re setting it with you and asking you the right questions that says Where do you want to be? next three months, six months, 12 months, two years, five years. We’d like to kind of talk high level on that with our clients. And it’s tough. You know, Amazon overall is always changing. And so it’s hard to say specific sales numbers and know them two years from now. But I think having that discussion of what you’re looking forward to your goals is helpful. And then the agency should be providing substantial reports on what they’re doing, what the metrics look like that the expectations are based off of, and then bringing up any challenges and concerns of seeing like now we’re going year over year, you know, with Looking at COVID spike in some of our advertisers, a decent amount of supplement company supplement industry, like with elderberry are seeing relaxer, they’re up like 100%. And this year they’re like up 5% or flat. And that’s something as an agency, we made sure to talk about leading up to this year over year. So they’re not just saying, Hey, we’re up 100%, why aren’t we 100%? Again, it kind of it goes both ways. If the agency isn’t asking the right questions, or even talking about what your strategy and where you want to be headed, that might be a light red flag, that they’re more just based on the numbers, okay, you want this, we’ll get to that. Even what you’re trying to get is based off of a rationale and a strategy behind that. So I think just expectations, communication and feeling the buying from the agency that they’re constantly thinking where you want to be, is the first step. And then based on reporting and what you’re seeing on the metrics. If from there, you kind of see if it’s the best performance you’re hitting, you know, I’ve

Norman Ferrar  56:05  

seen this goes back to what we were talking about a little earlier, but some agencies start out with really incredible talent, but they explode. They everybody hears them, they might be somebody speaking at a conference, and all of a sudden these amazing results. That’s what’s gonna happen after this podcast. Yeah, there we go. But it’s, it’s hard. It’s just like, you know, if you don’t have the proper policies and procedures, so PS, it’s really tough to bring in recruit newer people. And, you know, sometimes you’ve got to talk about that, too, when you’re when you’re talking to your agency is we talked about at the very beginning is, who am I getting, like, what kind of experience to have a conversation with that person? So and on top of that, you got to kind of make sure that your personalities match.

Chris Tyler  56:56  

Yeah, something where we started in in CRISPR, kind of pioneered this. And then he’s been on the podcast a couple times. I don’t know if it’s enneagram, or there’s something that will pull from potential clients to see like, kind of where they are, personality wise. And that helps us either decide if they’re not a fit, there’s certain ones that we’re like, yeah, that’s a tough one. You know, unless there’s a really clear cut kind of path or working together, we’ll be transparent be like, hey, this hasn’t worked out normally. And that’s rare. But normally, it helps us kind of pair them with the right account manager, the right specialists. Insight, they’re gonna fit so well with you because we know, at least high level where your personalities that right. And we found that to work really, really well.

Norman Ferrar   57:41  

Okay, let’s give Kelsey one more shot. Okay, how is it? Good that? We’ll try it. It’s still choppy. Okay. We do have a lot of questions. So I know. What’s your time like crazy? Let’s go the rest of the day. I’ve got a few hours. All right. So we got 24 hours of questions here. Yeah.

Kelsey  58:04  

All right. So from Andrew, do you guys use PPC software? Or both coils? Also, what do you recommend personal brand?

Chris Tyler   58:14  

Yeah, that’s a great question. This is gonna sound funny, but up until like, and 2019. We weren’t even using bulk files, we were just doing manual. So like opening up all the campaign’s the ad groups within them. And the reason there is, I feel, especially at the time that automation just was was lagging behind, and the ability for the specialists to be in the account, at that end up of a level, you start to actually see the terms that you’re targeting, you see the numbers and you’re actually part of that company a bit more. And so when you’re when you’re on call with clients, you’re like, Hey, I you know, for this product, elderberry, here’s like search term level data, right analysis at a granular level, starting 2020, with bulk files. So we found that kind of putting the right parameters in place, we’re not just doing formulas we’re mainly reviewing has allowed us to streamline how we optimize without giving up that manual approach and the visualization into the account. And we do it a couple times a week, but usually one main optimization and also the mass but like we don’t try to like touch things like every day, I will look at things every day and if there’s something really offer or crushing, it will adjust that immediately. But we’ll look at different windows 714 3060 days and kind of our own system of of within, you know, each month how many times we’re gonna do which timeline and we find that works really well. At this point. I think I can optimize account for like 20 minutes, so it is much more efficient. And I think there’s good automation software out there. I don’t know if and one will ever go to it. I still like that approach. We take to your point, Nora. As an agency, like we’ve grown to me a lot, it was just me four years ago. Now, there’s 12 of us. But it’s still small enough that like, almost everyone that’s working with us has been with us over two years. I don’t think we’ve had anyone ever quit or leave. And so it’s kind of just a very intimate team in the sense that we know our clients, we take on a small amount. And even though the bulk and the not automation takes more time, it’s the way we do it, it just feels the most effective. And then for a small brand. That’s a interesting question. I guess it depends on you know, it’s a small brand, like brand new, is there sales attached to it, because I’m solely adverse automation. But I don’t want to push that too much. Because there are good tools out there, it does work in a lot of ways. You just, I think you missed some of that personal touch in in ability to look in the account, I would recommend bulk up, you build out the campaigns, and once a week, even if you’re busy, you know, everyone we talked to on Amazon is like, Hey, I get the advertising. I don’t have the time I’m running a business here, right? And we’ll come in, we’ll help kind of accelerate things. I think we do that? Well. I would recommend bolc. But you have to kind of learn it. You know, once you get it, it’s gonna be very simple. If you have no time at all, I think automation is better than nothing. And there are tools out there that can do the basics. Well, they don’t fill it out all campaign types. I know they’re progressing, but I don’t I don’t know if they do sponsor brand Ace and targeting sponsor display, product targeting? I’m not sure. Yeah, so I would look into that. So ideally, you’re doing bulk automation be the next one. But it really depends on your time. And if you have money to kind of pay an agency to do it, though, you can test things out yourself pretty easily, like you pick one product and look at the gambit of campaigns, spend a little bit of time just to get used to it. And it brings up a good point that even if you use an agency, you should know PPC, at least high level you should know the campaign type you should know the questions asked. So you’re not just saying oh, cool, you guys made cost looks good. You’re not questioning, you want to be able to ask and collaborate with whoever you’re working with? Yeah, that that’s my thoughts on that.

Norman Ferrar  1:02:21  

At what point should I get a smaller agents or a smaller seller might want to go to an automation app? At one point, do you think that it would be best for them to look at an agency? Well, where would the sales kind of be targeted?

Chris Tyler  1:02:40  

Yeah, great question, I probably look more at the profit to it. So let’s say you’re selling 50 grand in your margins, 30%. You know, before spending anything on ads, you’re making 15k. Let’s say you’re spending 5k. And you’re using automation, and it’s like 500 bucks a month at this point. I don’t really know the number we’re at, I think 9500. That’s your end, right? So you’re doing that. And it’s let’s say it’s working? Well, let’s say you want to go to agency, and they’re charging 2k. But they offer more campaign build out, things like that, I think at the base level for like that, first, I don’t know, three month period of working with an agency, you just don’t want to be losing more than you’re making before. So that 1500 if your margins, the 1500 extra, so if you’re doing automation, 500, let’s say the instance 2000, you need to make basically 40 505 grand more in sales, to make that 1500 profit to be able to pay this agency and have them pay for themselves. So one of the things we’re looking at, as you can see, when I do this audit is say, first off, can we pay for ourselves in the first month? We’re usually accelerating pretty big brand. So more often than not, it’s like, Yes, absolutely. And then from there, okay, at what point do we start to bring more return to the client? Is it second third month? We don’t know. But we’ll know at this point. So I think I would run the numbers there and then talk to let’s say you do an audit, or you talk to an agency and you say, hey, just be transparent, is what I’m selling. You don’t have to say what you’re paying for the automation software, but you can just say, Hey, I ran the numbers, I need sales to be here, if I’m paying you X amount, and then tacos would be here. And that way we at least pay for ourselves and then ask the agency Hey, can you beat that? You know, like, that’s just like the baseline so we can start working together and I’m not losing money. And then what’s the ceiling? do you guys feel? I think that like that’s how I look at it. It’s different cuz I’m not an advertiser. I’m more on the other side where I’m like, I do an audit if I don’t think like we do some auditor accounts. They might be selling 35,000 a month right which is was really good. I was excited because it is a lot of potential for growth. And then you’re talking to the person running it which is always fun. I love my job because I’ve talked to really interesting people. I’ve got a guy Sell 10 mil a year sorry, I just garage. He’s like, yeah, I tried to sell stuff on Amazon and you know, now I’m crushing it. So what I would say is like when I look at that, I’ll give them all the recommendations. I can’t say, you’re not going to make more money working with us because we’d have to boost your sales 10k maybe and based on the numbers, I don’t know if you can do that, right. But here’s where you should start. And then you get to that point, come back to us. I think of an agency to point at some point in this podcast you mentioned, sometimes it’s pitch like, Oh, yeah, we can do that. Right. Or you’re overselling. And you’re still want to get them in? That’s not good for business. It is short term, right. But like, word of mouth, I think and referrals are the biggest thing within the Amazon space, especially for us as an agency. And so if the agency that you’re talking to isn’t being clear with that, or they’re just promising you the moon, that’s kind of a red flag. So I would just ask the questions, tell the agency, hey, here’s where I think I need to be to afford you guys. And then Rick, can you get us past? That? is a good starting point. Okay, very good.

Kelsey  1:06:05  

For Tony, video ads and competitive categories, or keywords, can anything be done?

Chris Tyler   1:06:14  

Okay, I’m reading that as he’s got fun to run video ads running. But even with high bids, he’s not getting traction. That’s a tough one, we’ve got some sellers in the pet category. And then certain supplement categories are like the most competitive in skincare where even with like 10 $12 bids, which is more just like test space, we’ve got as high as 20 bucks are getting nominal traction, or at that point, if they are getting traction, they have to convert it like 200%. Right, even like breakeven. And so what I would look at some of the things, one of the other earlier questions is what are you targeting, right? If you’re targeting broad terms, and you’re not getting volume, and you’ve got really high bids. And it’s funny, I think I listened to Brian Johnson’s podcast like twice before coming out, because I want to like prep, like for the flow, and he brought up like, you know, maybe that doesn’t work. And so going longer tail testing other terms, and making sure utilizing broad and phrase match, because it gives you more of an opportunity to show, I think is a great place to start. You could test other videos. But at that point, you’re not even getting shown right. So if you’re not getting impressions attached to it, I’ve went to rush to be like, Oh, it’s just another video. Unless it’s like a bad video, then at that point, you probably probably should be running a better one. So I think it’s more victories in the match types. do further keyword research, try to hit longer tailed, I would test like if you’re getting absolutely nothing. I would take a campaigner to set a budget, maybe 20 to 50 bucks, and just set a really, really high bid and maybe incrementally do it. But let’s see your five now. Put it at 10. The most you’re gonna spend is that budget. So if it doesn’t convert, you kind of using that as a testing spending the money to see like, Is it a bid thing? And it’s just crazy competitive? Or does Amazon just say I’m not relevant. The other thing is if if you test that and like you get nothing, you might not be relevant, which takes the next step to be like your product page, look at what you have going on vers other competitors in the space that are ranking for these keywords, see what’s different, and try to set up some kind of game gameplan towards optimizing your product page or adjusting things to be relevant. And that’s a tougher thing. But I think those are the things I would look at the start.

Kelsey   1:08:43  

So again, we still got lots of questions. It’s 112. We’ll take just a couple more. Okay. All right. Nice and easy one. Andrew, can you assist with Australia market?

Chris Tyler  1:08:57  

short answer is yes. We work mainly in all markets available. So yeah.

Kelsey   1:09:05  

Okay. This is a two parter. From DK Different people have different strategies, aggressive versus conservative. What would happen if I set up campaigns for both simultaneously? example, two separate campaigns for the exact same keywords at the same time, but each with different bid and budgets and settings?

Chris Tyler  1:09:25  

Okay, um, I would say Initially, I love testing so like, fundamentally, I don’t think I would ever do this but if harasses question, you just want to find out like, it’s not the worst to test it. One of the things that I kind of seen from my audits is people not testing enough right? Think outside the box if it doesn’t work. You changed I will say though, for the same terms. I don’t really see the benefit to it. I know there’s been kind of pitch like waterfall effects. I think it’s been the auto but where you kind of have higher bid and higher budget when that turns off, it goes to the next one and onwards. But I like to get scale momentum in one main campaign for whatever campaign variation going after. So if it’s sponsored product keyword targeting, and its exact match, I want that campaign and ad group to just scale and scale. And so I don’t see a lot of benefit to going after the same terms and different bids, I’d rather let’s say you’ve got, you know, bids at two bucks on the exact match. Just run that for a little bit. If you’re not getting the traction want low to three bucks 250. I’d rather test within the same campaign and running, then have to, and it just, I can’t see you getting enough data to be like, Oh, cool. You know, here’s what I learned. Because Amazon may show more for one than the other. But it could just be maybe that campaign was built first or just got data to begin with, like, there’s so many variables, I guess, that I personally wouldn’t recommend that. I would recommend testing aggressive and conservative in the same campaign, if you want to say, Okay, I’ve got campaign doing well. And I want to see if I can scale and still be somewhat profitable or hit my KPIs. To do that, do for at least two weeks, I do my kind of increments in two to four weeks, and I’ll check within these periods, but you need some data coming in. And so pushing those and then if it doesn’t work, or you pull back, if it does you keep pushing, I think that’s great to test. I don’t think I’d recommend the two campaigns simultaneously with the same exact terms.

Kelsey   1:11:33  

Okay, let’s do Dr. Cause. And Andre, and that’ll be it for today.

Kelsey 1:11:38  

So from Dr. Cause, I see more and more that when I started a campaign only 35 targets get most of the attention. Do you have advice on how to how many target keywords phrases to to have within a campaign?

Chris Tyler  1:11:52  

Yeah, so this one’s kind of similar to the question from the other user with like 40 to 50. And only half are getting terms, I don’t think my answer would change much. Starting off, I think we normally do 50 to 100 keywords. And then they’ll scales we added converting search terms, if it’s a very niche space or tighter budget, we might start with like 2025, and really depends on the search volume, the keywords out there and a few other things. And so three to five is low, but I don’t know, if you’re targeting 10 or 1000, I would keep it to start under 100. And then incrementally bit up if you’re not getting traction. And kind of like that other question. Dig deeper into what those causes might be.

Kelsey  1:12:36  

And the last question is, I used to have 60%, PPC sales 40%. Organic, and about 20 to 25%. A cause since two weeks, it’s been about 30% PPC, 70 organic, but my daily sales fell 30%. And my A cos is about 40%. What could be happening?

Chris Tyler  1:12:58  

I feel like this is a question get like in school, and it’s like if a train leaves, you know, like, oh, okay, um, I’m glad you’re answering this one. Yeah. So that’s interesting, I can only assume. And I could be wrong, that as a cost as increase, maybe this isn’t the these campaigns have been optimized? down, right, because maybe it’s been based on that a costs that’s been potentially stable at 20 25%. And so as it’s increasing, you’re probably bringing it down. And that kind of potentially has a snowball effect. That brings your PPC sales down. But the organic, stays solid so that percents get higher. For organic, it’s 70%. But your sales are 30% less, so their organic may not change a ton. But if your PPC dropping, that makes the ratio different. So that’s one thing. And sometimes you have to be down, if the returns just not there, but somebody we talked about earlier, it’s like a cost matters. But tacos is king in a lot of places. I don’t want to use that to say well, a cost is higher keep pushing. But that’s something to factor in where what like, check your profit, right? If you’re making less now, maybe things changed in the competitive space or for PPC in that category recently that 40% still works for you. more likely than not, though, like I’d have to, I would say for you to dig deeper and Okay, where did it actually drop? Usually, if I if I looked at this would probably be one campaign type or a couple pieces that that are the main cause of this. And then Okay, is it’s a specific search terms, that a big change, like you want to kind of reverse engineer what happened in that small period. And it’s great. You think about it now. We have some accounts we’ve talked to and it’s like, oh, yeah, the past three months, things have gotten worse. And it’s like, it’s harder to diagnose three months of data when it’s like that far back. If you’re two weeks in, you can look at brand analytics for the terms you’re targeting and see, did the search volume change? They’re like, the competitive length scale change a new product come out? Did you can look at BSR ranking for for yourself compared to some of your competitors. Has that changed? Did you change anything on the product page like I can go on and on. But I would say diagnosing where it dropped. And then trying to determine why is probably the best place to start. And then acknowledging like, maybe you do need to hire a cause for a little bit to kind of get back on track, while you’re figuring it out, and then setting the right things in place. That’s the best I can answer without looking at data. I could probably diagnose it in like 30 minutes digging in. But but for the user, I would just say dig in search and reports to campaigns. Look at it in the space of time that you’re talking about. And I think you’ll find a couple things that saved up.

Norman Ferrar  1:15:54  

Fantastic. Okay, so we’ll give you a couple of about a minute to if you haven’t entered into the we’ll have Kelsey hashtag, we’ll have Kelsey for the hour long console with Chris and Brett. Please do so. And we also have one of our listeners read giving away one of his products, the foreign one solar charger. So and that’s hashtag red. Okay, so while we’re waiting for these last few people to come in and enter, how do people get ahold of you, though?

Chris Tyler  1:16:30  

Great question. So our website OMG commerce comm is a great place to start gives information on what we do about us we have a blog as well. And then Brett curry has his own podcast e commerce evolution. You can find that on our website or go to e commerce evolution on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. And look for me I’m on there like three or four times so those are probably the ones to listen to.

Norman Ferrar  1:16:57  

Alright, so Kelis, I think it’s about that time. I think so. Okay, here we go. All right. That’s pretty all and now he’s mute. I still can’t hear you. You’re out a bit of trouble today. I will now. Okay,

Kelsey   1:17:31  

there we go. Okay. All right. So this is for the consultation. So I’m just gonna shuffle everyone’s name up. And here we go. This is about a $500 value to so it’s a great prize. Okay, I can’t read that. This is it. This is I think it’s called solutia. But it’s from a YouTube account also. And,

Norman Ferra 1:17:58  

and solutia is a new listener. I think I don’t really name Yeah. So congrats. Awesome. Okay.

Kelsey 1:18:06  

And then for our rad giveaway. We got one more wheel. It should have been hashtag radical. That’s Fridays. Oh, okay. All right. It’s all suffered. This is for US and Canada only. But here we go. 321. This is four, four and one charger, courtesy of Brad. Okay, no, no, no, right. Congrats. Harry casts and also from YouTube. So thank you very much. And yeah, we’ll get in touch. Just email me at K at lunch with norm calm. And I will connect, you know, Chris, and also get the shipping information.

Norman Ferrar  1:18:51  

So Chris, we held you on the line, you know, about 20 minutes later, but we really appreciate it. You gave us a lot of information. We didn’t even get to three quarters of the questions that I had for you. But we’ll have to have you back on but I really do appreciate you going an hour and a half with us. And you answered so much. I mean, you dropped a lot of nuggets here. So thank you.

Chris Tyler   1:19:14  

Of course my pleasure. Thanks for having me out.

Norman Ferrar  1:19:16  

And I’ll tell the elusive Brett that I’d really liked for him to come on the podcast and say hi to Chris for me too. I will. Alright. Okay, everybody. So thank you so much for watching the podcast today. It was a it was a really great podcast. I learned a lot myself. Unfortunately, Kelsey is internet. Dad will buy what’s happening today. Dad will buy you high speed so don’t worry, okay. That’s your salary. Okay, so what do we got?

Kelsey  1:19:48  

Okay, so first of all, let’s see on Friday’s episode, we have Henry Kaminski. He is brand doctor. He’s got his own podcast, the brand doctor, but he’s going to be talking about how to Grow your sales through market. funneling funnels. I’m just having the worst, worst day to day. But yeah, yeah, so tune in on Friday. Also, if you haven’t yet, please like and subscribe to today’s episode into the podcast. You can find all of the information on our YouTube channel that said Norman Farrar. Also, you can join our Facebook group that’s where I highly recommend everyone goes. That’s where you can message me and norm we do a lot of means it’s a fun place where you connect with the audience. That’s a good place for the community. And that’s lunch with norm Amazon FBA e commerce collective. And yeah, thank you, everyone. Thank you for the questions today. And thank you to Chris again. And I think everyone appreciated how in depth he went with all the questions so we we love that. And thank you for everyone. And I’ll talk to Zulu. Zulu, Asha. My email is k at lunch with norm Comm. I’ll put it in the comment section as well.

Norman Ferrar   1:21:05  

Yeah, so today, we noticed or at least I noticed a lot of new listeners. So thank you so much for listening today. You can join us every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at noon Eastern Standard Time. And if you new you probably haven’t heard about our newsletter that doesn’t suck. You can go over to lunch with norm comm and sign up for it. It’s just content about digital marketing, Amazon eecom how to become a better seller. So thank you, thank you for joining our community. Thank you for being part of the show and enjoy the rest of your day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai