Will Haire | BellaVix
Amazon represents tremendous opportunity for brands interested in entering the world of ecommerce, but pulling off a successful Amazon launch is a hurdle many brands fail to successfully overcome.
In this episode of The Inbound Success Podcast, BellaVix founder Will Haire breaks down what it takes for brands to succeed on Amazon. From how to structure your product listings and write optimized descriptions, to using Amazon’s DSP to advertise and drive demand, he shares insights he’s developed from helping countless clients to nail their Amazon strategies.
Check out the full episode to hear what Will had to say.
Resources from this episode:
Check out the BellaVix.com website
Connect with Will on LinkedIn
Reach out to Will be email at hello@bellavix.com or will@bellavix.com
Will and Kathleen recording this episode
Kathleen (00:02):
Welcome back to the inbound success podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is, Will Haire who is the co-founder of BellaVix. Welcome to the podcast Will.
Will (00:23):
Hey, Kathleen, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk about my favorite topic, everything Amazon.
Kathleen (00:31):
I'm excited to talk about it too. For very selfish reasons <laugh> because I just started a new role as head of marketing at Tradeswell. So for folks who are, listen, I don't know if you know that or not. And this actually relates to something I'm doing at work. So one of my favorite things to do with this podcast is to invite people on who can help me do my own job, better unabashedly free consulting. But I always like to think that anybody listening, who is in a similar position to me would probably find value from it too. So, so all jokes aside. No, I think this is a great topic because Amazon is kind of eating the world of e-commerce. And if you are a brand that is looking to sell online, which these days who is not in some way, shape or form Amazon is where it's at. So before we dig into that though I would love it if you would take a moment and just tell a little bit of your story. Who are you, what do you do? What is BellaVix and how did you wind up in the role you're in now?
Will (01:31):
Excellent. I appreciate it. I've been in advertising and digital marketing for over 10 years. It's crazy to think about it. And in the of time I've always worked in agency life. So started out like most people doing most people with my background, SEO and, and Google. And then over the course of time kind of got turned onto eCommerce and then made my way into consulting eCommerce brands on marketplaces. And then in 2018 just got tired. You know, I saw an opportunity in the market to kind of focus deep down on just providing services to marketplaces. And we had, you know, a lot of clients that just had that gap and, you know, what, what we learned it's really better to be specialized and kind of just go really deep in an area, really passionate and interested about.
Will (02:23):
So I took that opportunity and my wife is actually my co-founder. So with two kids under four at home, we both quit our full-time jobs and, and started BellaVix in early 2018. And while that was a little scary, it ended up being the best thing that's ever happened to us. So since then we've grown we've full 12 full-time employee and we manage different brands across multiple marketplaces in the us and overseas. And we've just been really fortunate on the types of brands and companies we've been able to work with. And of course, delivering the value, you know, at the end of the day, what makes a really great agency, not only delivering results, but the customer service element and, you know, really diving deep to solve some complicated problems. And I've been in this field long enough. I need complicated problems. Cause if I'm doing the same thing over and over again, I'm gonna lose my mind.
Kathleen (03:14):
Yeah. Amen. Well, one of the reasons I, I think I immediately felt like I clicked with you is that before I went into my, the last few years of in-house roles as head of marketing, I owned an agency for 11 years with my husband. We started it when, shortly after my youngest son was born. And so hearing you talk about it, I was like, oh wow, this is bringing me back to those early days. And I just think that anybody who goes out and takes the leap of starting their own business, it takes tremendous guts. And, and it's a lot of work. And I really you know, my hat goes off to you. So I, I wish the best for you and your wife and, and the good news is I'm still married after doing that for 11 years.
Will (03:59):
It's great. It's funny to mention it. It comes with a lot of its own challenges, but it's also really rewarding. And something we talk about all the time is like, if you work naturally in a lot of the positions, like you'll never get the autonomy and the opportunity to work on some of these really high level complicated problems. And plus it's fun to kind of work in your own business and you know, how do you make that engine? So that's what we're, we're really excited about.
Kathleen (04:20):
You know you can trust your business partner. Like, that's one thing you never have to worry about, but you also then have to balance that with, when you come home and it's nine o'clock at night and you're still talking business. <Laugh> like, it's all about boundaries and seriously, you know, and when it's the, and I always used to say like, it's a rollercoaster. When it's good, it's amazing because you're both in it. And when it's bad, it is like the worst thing in the world because you're both in it. So we can have a whole nother conversation about that offline, but I, it definitely resonated with me to hear you talk about it. So you mentioned that you work with marketplace sellers and you obviously have taken a deep dive with Amazon. I do think that there are a lot of businesses out there clearly a lot in the B2C world and increasingly some in the B2B world that are, that are looking at Amazon as a channel and you know, wanting to understand how to succeed on it.
Kathleen (05:16):
And I think I've, I I've done some interviews on this podcast in the past about Amazon at advertising. And I think some folks on listening might understand it. Some might not, but I wanna really take a deep dive in to like more of the advanced level stuff here. Okay. You know, because, and, and I'll just level set with this. Like I look at Amazon and I see a, a search engine it's for me, it's like Google for products, right? And you have, your equivalent of your website is your seller account. And your, you know, you have your SEO, which has to do with how many reviews you're getting. And you've got your product listings, which are your offers. And then of course there's ads, which you can use to drive traffic to your site. So taking that as the basis. Can you dig in a little bit to what you see as the building blocks for success on Amazon? And maybe I, by the way, maybe I framed that wrong too. So feel free to contradict me.
Will (06:15):
You've framed it. You're on point. And just to call out some just I love stats. So you call that a couple things and I'll back up with some data for you. About 50% of US e-commerce sales happen on Amazon, which is significant. It's no small small bubble or, and then also 60% of searches for products start on. So you may not realize this, a lot of people are searching your products or your brand, and they're looking for feedback. They're looking for those reviews. So a big conversation I have, especially early on when we work with brands is you know, is Amazon gonna steal from my website? And it, it, they work together. You know, it's just the, having the availability for where having a presence, wherever your shoppers are shopping and having a consistent brand experience from your website, through your social media, on the different marketplaces.
Will (07:07):
Like that's, that's what makes Amazon great. And that's what you need to think about as you're building your business or, or your e-commerce business. But as we talk about, you know, jumping into Amazon, like, what does it take to actually scale a product and, and, and get on there? You know, I tell everybody, I get a lot of people, especially B2B they'll come to me and say, you know, we wanna penetrate the market and we wanna start on Amazon. And that is actually great, but you need deep pockets. Cause if you're gonna launch onto Amazon as a brand with no brand equity, no followers, no anything else you're gonna, the only lever we have on Amazon to build your audience is essentially advertising is putting your products in front of these people, but you're also you're listings, aren't retail ready? You don't have hundreds of reviews.
Will (07:57):
You're competing against the established sellers who have been in the space for maybe close to 10 years now and think about it from the shopper's perspective. So if I'm going into Amazon and I'm buying a, a garlic press, let's go set the generic. And I see your garlic press with 35 reviews at a competitive price point. But then I see something pretty similar, a price point, and it has 1500 reviews. I mean, we all shop on Amazon. It's a no brainer. I'm gonna take the one that clearly has a lot more market validation. So how do we get that market validation? If you're a complete launch product it's gonna be advertising. It's not only gonna be pay per click and understanding that you're not gonna be profitable. It's also implementing programmatic advertising, which is Amazon's deal and it gives us the ability for full funnel targeting, which is how we would build your brand on Amazon.
Will (08:47):
Generally, when we launch a brand on Amazon, the minimum, not including management fees and all that stuff, we'd ask for at least $150,000 budget just on advertising. And this would be like for the year, for the year. Okay. So not crazy. You know, give or take a little over 10K a month, but understanding our goal for total ROAS would be, can we get you guys dollar in a dollar out by the end of the year? And a lot of that comes in, you know, a lot of that comes into play the validation of market and I'm talking lunch, I'm talking, you have no brand equity. Yeah. So I'm entering a very competitive marketplace. And then we would implement these different strategies to just get sell through, to train. Amazon's a nine algorithm, which is the search algorithm on what you actually convert for.
Will (09:35):
What are the most relevant keywords to your product and your brand, and then does it actually convert? So like, we're, we're doing a lot of training the first year and it's not, you're not losing money every month, but we're slowly building it up. So a lot of my initial conversations with launch brands are, you know, what is the take? What's the expectation 12 to 18 months, at least 150 K if you're only doing Amazon and you're testing the market for validation and don't get me wrong. I I've worked with clients that have been really niche. I got a supplement brand. We work with that, you know, in six months we were just killing it. And it, it was just unique. You know, it was just, the riches are in the niches, right? So there's always nuances, but I like to be conservative in my projections. And when I have these conversations,
Kathleen (10:21):
I wanna get into some more detail on the DSP, because I don't know that everybody understands that. But before we do my question for you is, you know, you were talking about, you have to start with advertising and it's very competitive. And I think about my behavior as a shot on Amazon. And, and you mentioned like people looking for who has reviews, I definitely do that. Like, I don't wanna take my chance on some sketchy person who clearly just listed their thing. Cuz my assumption's like, oh, did you get bad reviews on your other listing? And then just re-listed and that's why you only have two people. But the other aspect of Amazon that is a little different than Google that I appreciate as a consumer, but I imagine makes it very challenging as a brand is the filterable nature of the results.
Kathleen (11:05):
And so like I can say, show me the least expensive things first. And then I'm starting immediately from this position of price consciousness. And then it's like in my head, I'm going, I want inexpensive with a decent number of reviews. And so, so the, I guess the, the question I have is like from an expectation set setting standpoint, like how do you talk to the brands you work with about pricing? Because I do feel like pricing on Amazon is a different game than pricing on Google because of that filter that they give you. It's a, it just makes it so much easier for the buyer to weed out, you know, the, the premium products.
Will (11:54):
If that's what they're looking for and there's a whole different strategy, if you have a higher price point item and we won't get into that, but you know a couple big. But with regards to the pricing, Amazon has a policy that lowest price guarantee essentially. So essentially if they find your product on Walmart, on your website, eBay doesn't count, but any legitimate. You're in Macy's Sears, wherever you're listed, if they come across and find that it's a, a lower price than what's listed, and it's not an event like a 24 hour flash sale or something they'll suppress your listing. You're listing will no longer show up on organic results because when you sign onto Amazon, the terms of service as a seller is the price match guarantee. Meaning you're offering the lowest price.
Will (12:43):
Something else to consider when it comes to price is give or take. If you choose to do fulfilled by Amazon. FBA prime roughly this categories are all a little bit different, but 30% of your price is gonna go to Amazon fees. The referral fee access to Amazon customers, 15% could be 12 up to 15, depending on the category. And then your pick and pack your actual FBA, where they take your product. When the cell comes, drop it in the box with the nice smiley face and they ship it out to the customer and that give or take another 15%, obviously there's different programs. If your products are less than seven ounces and $11, we can get you to the smaller mic program. And that would be a reduction in fees. And it's how they work with like lower price point items. But with regards to the, so putting that out that's that is a challenge on Amazon.
Will (13:33):
And if you're launching, we're talking a lot about launching established businesses. You just, you don't have these kind of problems. But generally when we talk about launches, I actually recommend to everybody launch on your website, launch on, build your audience and come back to Amazon. It's gonna be a lot better if you have like 20 to $30,000 in sales, on your website and you have a little brand equity built up and you have some following on social media that you can get traffic to your Amazon listing. And that it's just so much less expensive. And you get, you know, retention, you get email addresses, you can add these people, different marketing channels on Amazon. They own your data. You get a thousand followers on your storefront, which is a brand registry thing. And it gets a little complicated, but then you get the ability to email the customers who chose to follow so that strategy, but.
Kathleen (14:21):
You have to email them through Amazon, correct? Cause I actually, I have a friend who, who has a product that's he sells on Amazon. He was explaining this to me. He's like, it's frustrating. You have to email them through Amazon. So you don't really get those email addresses. No, but then it sounds like a lot of brands are trying to combat that or tackle it or offset it, whatever word you wanna use by like when they ship something, including like a QR code with a sign up to get product updates or register your product. And that's like how they capture data, is that kind of smart.
Will (14:51):
And some of that is in terms of service. So whatever I tell you guys, I'm, I'm gonna tell you the terms of service, nothing illegal. And as an agency, we're a complete white hat. Obviously you could pay people. You can I forgot what it's called, but there's a system where you could connect an app, but it could get all those email addresses for you. And if Amazon caught you, you will never be some products on Amazon. They're very strict about review search, any type of manipulation that reduces the user experience. So that's, you know, something to keep in mind as you're, as we're considering tactics and stuff like that. But regards to, you know, so how do you, how do you get a little bit of that warranties, if your products warranty about great, you can include a warranty in your actual package, the QR codes.
Will (15:36):
You gotta be careful if it's baked into the packaging. I haven't seen it be an issue. It doesn't mean that it won't be an issue later. You know, Amazon's policy is pretty straight and direct, you know, don't direct traffic from us off of Amazon. Yeah. But they also let you include, you know, you you're allowed to direct people to your social media. You're allowed to have a card in there that says, follow us on Twitter, follow us on Facebook. So on and so forth. So they are somewhat flexible in giving that, but they're gonna make it really difficult for you to get those email addresses. And that's why, you know, it's better to build the audience and just do everything through Amazon. We've actually done some experiments, which is really interesting. We've had two brands we've worked with and we, we were able to conduct this.
Will (16:18):
But essentially we turned off all their their advertising on their website. So all their search ads, all their Facebook ads and we shut it off for two weeks. And we wanted to see if there was like any spillover or, or if we would see a, from, for ads and the goal, you know, they see our landing page, they would read the information and they'd either we go to Amazon and buy it or buy it on the website. And what we found, we found about both accounts is about the same, which is crazy, but about a 20% reduction in that traffic coming over to the website. So by sorry, from the coming over to Amazon. So when he stopped his ads on the website, we saw over those two weeks of 20% reduction in total sales. So there is a spill over and that's why I say they work together. Yeah, you know, he lost the opportunity, but we learned a lot from that. And so now we know there's roughly a 20% spill over.
Kathleen (17:11):
So I wanna, I wanna dig into the DSP stuff. You know, and I didn't even really understand what a DSP was until about two years ago when I started working at my previous company, which was in the ad tech space. And so I think the first thing is like a little table setting for people who aren't doing a lot of programmatic. And, and I, the way I would explain it again, and you tell me if this is strong, but when you're doing programmatic advertising, you have, you know, you're the advertiser and you somehow need to get your ad to the place where you're doing your advertising and a DSP, which is a demand side platform is where you, as the person with the demand, meaning I wanna advertise puts their can, can like put their ad in and, and make their purchase. And then on the other end, there are supply side platforms, which is where the, the places where the ads appear, offer up their inventory. And then there are like a million exchanges in between, in that equation. Like that from a very simple standpoint is kind of how the ecosystem functions Amazon is interesting. So Amazon is supply, but it also has its own DSP. So can you explain
Will (18:20):
That, Hey, now the, the concept, exactly. So the demand side platform, which you can only get access to through an agency or directly through Amazon gives us the ability to target Amazon shoppers on and off of Amazon, on their mobile devices, on websites. They also have third party providers. AdRoll, all those other providers as well as Amazon data and what I'll point out to your customers. And this is usually a conversation I have when we start talking about programmatic advertising. Google's data is based on search and browser behavior. Facebook data is based on social engagement and social currency. And Amazon's data is based on actual shopping habits from shoppers conversion, data sales behavior, generally across all the program platforms. You're gonna find the best results through Amazon DSP and like anything else, Amazon it's its own ecosystem. It works under its own context and rules. And that's just how Amazon has become the leader in in eCommerce or marketplaces.
Kathleen (19:25):
So why do you say you're gonna find the best results on Amazon DSP? Why is that?
Will (19:29):
Because of the data. The data is of actual shopping habits. So we're able to put, give you a couple examples. So some of the targeting opportunities we have through programmatic advertising, and I'm gonna go from bottom of the funnel to top of the funnel this way. It's nice and easy. And bottom of the funnel, I'm talking about retention and loyalty in market. So product oriented searches and behavior in market, and then up for there, we're talking complimentary and substitutable products, and then we're talking about lifestyle. So this is kinda like what that funnel looks like. And each stage of that funnel paper per click PPC, you know, will, will occupy the bottom third of that funnel. And then programmatic and where that strength, then it does give or take it does the full funnel, but allows us to do that top of funnel targeting.
Will (20:14):
So if you're working with me and you're like, well, let's do programmatic. And to be honest with you, we implement programmatic on most accounts we work with. And I can't say how many people come to us and they're like, my sales have stagnated. We don't know what to do. Programmatic is the tool we've used over and over again, to, to help get them to the next level. And because of the full funnel effect, give or take some stats from Amazon brands that use programmatic advertising generally see 8% more total sales, and they see about 25% more engagement on top of the funnel. And they generally see a brand lift. They'll see a lot more searches that are brand oriented. And now that Amazon has released brand metrics dashboard, we now have the ability to measure the brand lift at the top of the funnel awareness, the middle of the funnel consideration and the bottom of the funnel purchasing.
Will (21:05):
So those are just are some things to keep in mind when I talk about programmatic advertising and how we would use it for a brand first thing, retention, we're gonna target all your customers that have viewed a specific category of products in your catalog or your catalog in general, depending on how large it's or your brand in general. So we'll retarget customers that let's just say you have a consumable item, like a, a face cream or something that's generally consumed. Every 30 days we can set a parameter. And that says, we wanna showcase our ads on these different platforms on and off Amazon. That's gonna show our products after 30 days, we're gonna exclude everybody who purchased in 30 days. We're gonna target everybody who view our product in the last 90 days. And we're able to just serve ads as a gentle reminder of you bought our product. I hope you had a really good experience and don't forget if you need more, you know where to find us.
Kathleen (21:55):
So let's take that as, so that kinda an example, and I just wanna dig in a little bit, so you, so I love the face cream example and I totally get targeted by this kind of stuff, cuz I buy that sort of thing on Amazon and there is a cadence to it. So if I'm buying ads, if I'm this brand and I'm buying ads through Amazon's DSP there's obviously an opportunity to feed ads through the Amazon platform itself. You know, do you wanna order it again? That kind of thing, but, but you're mentioning Amazon is also feeding advertisements off platform. So, so where would be examples of places that it's placing ads?
Will (22:25):
Excellent. They just open a, a Twitch. So you'll see this on Twitch. You'll see this on IMDB, any Amazon owned and operated property, amazon.com the sales pages and different category pages and as well as pretty much any third party mobile app or website that's.
Kathleen (22:42):
Traditional publishers. Like, I mean, would you see this on like cnn.com or just, you know, and so it really CNN traditional publisher, that is, that is, that is using an in this case, right. That's feeding their through a supply side platform. Okay. Got it.
Will (22:59):
And so when you're bidding on, like if you're getting into the nuances, but if you're actually setting this up, Amazon's because it generates more sales Amazon's own and operated property and Amazon com will generally get a better return on ad spend. It'll get more engagement and people are like on the website. So they're on the they're they're in consideration, they're in market. So you spend a lot more per CPM, programmatic as a CPM model. Whereas these third party marketplaces are targeting these different websites. It's generally a CPM because it's just, you know, you're catching people, not, not actually looking for the product, we're just trying to get front of mine. You know, David Ogilvy's theory on advertising, you gotta see it 20 or 25 times before. You're like, oh, I, I have this problem. And here's a solution. What a coincidence.
Kathleen (23:47):
Now, one question on this and this might open up a whole can of worms, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. You know, let's do it. If anybody who's familiar with the online advertising world or even the digital marketing world has heard rumblings about what's happening with third party cookies. And, you know, in the advertising world, there's talking a lot on the, at least the Google ecosystem about something called FLOC, which is federated learning of cohorts, which is all about in, in plain English. What that means is instead of being able to necessarily like retarget or to target a specific user based on specific parameters, you're targeting like interest groups, like people who like volleyball, for example. But, but the, the methodology used to perhaps like bucket people in those groups is not really perfect yet. So with Amazon, when we talk about targeting on the Amazon platform, won't be an issue with any of that because you're keeping everything within the same ecosystem. But when you start to think about targeting using Amazon's DSP to target an Amazon shopper off of Amazon on a non Amazon property any thoughts around like how that's going to evolve as the, the deprecation of third party cookies looms closer.
Will (25:01):
That's really interesting. And to be honest with you, I don't know about the third party cookie policy. And I stay up to date on Amazon advertising. So they're not talking about it in the ecosystem. It doesn't mean they're not.
Kathleen (25:12):
And it may not affect them because it's Google, that's really talking about doing it. And so like, this is what is so interesting. I'm not as familiar with what's how Amazon will be affected either. And, and it may not be which, which might actually make it all the more valuable for advertisers who are having a harder time in these other, like with apple changes and Google changes.
Will (25:34):
Interesting. So like, as we're kind of diving deeper into this, but the, the lifestyle such to your point, you could target interest so on and so forth, same thing on Amazon and what we'd say, depending on where you're building on, on your a funnel, you know, custom ads, top of the funnel is a great opportunity to test custom messaging, to know, okay, what's resonating. That's gonna get me detailed page views so that I know my messaging is correct. And I'm able to, you know, there's two ways you could do it, the responsive e-commerce ads which is bottom of the funnel, it'll take it right, take the creative right from your listing. And it puts an Amazon creates the ad for you. It'll show your reviews. You can include a review, it'll show sales, so on and so forth. And that works great when you're targeting consideration to the bottom of the funnel. But when we're talking about the upper funnel and the interest groups, for example, that's where you wanna consider custom ads so that you could start testing the messaging, working these people down, you're funneling to turn them into loyalists.
Kathleen (26:32):
But describe for me what a custom ad is.
Will (26:35):
A custom ad is just uploading a custom JPEG that has custom messaging. So I know this is visual but responsive e-commerce ads on Amazon. The creative is generated by Amazon and essentially it's just scraping your listing, your listing and the, the title and the, the main image is pretty much what it's pulling and, and your price. And that's really it, the custom that our ability to put a custom image of person a style, we like lifestyle images for top of the funnel and a, you know, really short message on like what you do gut health or, you know, beauty or whatever that is. And we find, you know, as you're thinking about that full funnel approach to where programmatic fits in, it's important to also know like where, how you should message and position your, a product that each stage of that funnel, so that you have the best chance capturing that sale and leveraging DSP, another drawback of DSP and another drawback of Amazon really it's the last click attribution method, meaning the last click that got the sale will get the credit for it.
Will (27:40):
So DSP loses the little head win in terms of return on ad spend, because if they viewed my ad, they may not engage it, but they viewed it a few times. And then they went to Amazon and clicked on a paper click ad and made the purchase. You would never see that. So that's where that brand metrics and that we call it the halo effect on Amazon. And essentially what that means is by driving a lot of sale and by driving a lot of traffic to specific listings, indirectly, it'll lead to more sales, which will lead to more reviews, which will lead to better BSR, best seller ranking, which will lead to better organic placement, which will lead to more sales. And the halo effect at Jeff Bezos describes it as a flywheel. But it's that concept of just do you build it? How do you build it and how does it come?
Kathleen (28:26):
Yeah, the whole, the whole concept of last click attribution is so broken right now. Seriously, I have spent a lot of time focused on this in the last two years, cuz the, you know, my last company, we solved a problem having to do with coupon extensions. And this is off Amazon. But like if you're, if you're an, an e-commerce brand who's direct to commerce direct to consumer rather, and you're doing Facebook advertising for example, or you're buying ads through Amazon's DSP or whatever, and somebody comes to your website and they came through your Facebook ad and they get to check out and they're about to pay. And then all of a sudden honey pops up and it claim credit. It claims last click attribution, even though they were ready to hand you their credit card. And you know, by the way it does that, whether it finds a valid coupon or not, which I just think is total highway robbery. But topic for another time. But like I do think it's something that marketers need to be aware of that last click, if you, if you're really overly, heavily reliant upon that, what it's gonna do potentially is cause you to over invest in certain channels that are not actually driving results for you. So you really have to, you really have to understand how, how tracking works, how attribution works and, and be somebody who questions the data that's fed to you.
Will (29:49):
Nailed it. I mean, that's the biggest challenge. The honey thing's really interesting, but yeah, we, we eat it and a lot of brands will come to us that say, you know, Hey DSP, isn't working, look at, look at these results. You know, it's, it's not doing what it's doing, but it is, you know, so something we do early on and you know, we work with most budgets, but we'll say tacos, total advertising cost of sale is one of the key KPIs that we use. So a lot of consumers will come to us cuz they have kind of a, a narrow view on where Amazon fits in. And they're just like, Hey, I just wanna do pay per click. And it needs to be below 30% advertising cost of sale. And there's a place for that. You know, if you're a smaller business, if you're tight margins, if you're, you know, saving for another product launch. Great. but if we're talking about long term success, long term growth and building brand equity on the platform, you know, you need to be leveraging all the tools that you have available. And the key KPI we use to kind of determine that is total advertising cost of sale, which is your total ad spend divided by the total sales on the platform and depending on what your margins are or anything else, I was just gonna
Kathleen (30:56):
Say, how do you factor in margins? Cuz that's I know for some brands on Amazon, their margins are razor thin.
Will (31:03):
Yeah. And that's the challenge. So it comes, it's different for each client. So obviously, and, and it comes down to the circumstances, you know, we push tacos and then generally with the clients that we're able to do it generally it's like 20% or less 12 to 15 is probably where we end up with a lot of clients, but it gives us enough room where we, you know, we can really kill it on pay per click, but now we can do these upper funnel strategies and it gives us some room to show the value to show that look, you guys are getting more detailed page views. We're conversion rates are still pretty solid and look, total sales is raising. So we're able to tell this story by just kind of focusing on the right KPIs, but it it's different for every brand and for brands that are razor thin margins, it, it might not be the right solution for you.
Will (31:49):
And you may want to consider bundling package together products together. Virtual bundles is something Amazon offers through FBA. But there are ways to get your price point up. So depending on if you work with an agency or anybody else they'll make recommendations, how do we get your price point up to stay competitive? But also to have enough margins where we could be full funnel. Cause at the end of the day, if you're trying to build a brand and this is different for somebody who's doing retail arbitrage, I'm talking for like manufacturers and brands who, you know, wanna be around for a long time. You're wholesaling products. It's a completely different strategy and there's nothing wrong with it. It's just not something we're as familiar with. We mainly focus on brand brand equity and building long term value on the platform.
Kathleen (32:32):
Yeah. I, and I really feel for e-commerce brands today because between like all the margin pressure that you have on Amazon and then couple that with the supply chain issues that are happening, like you might be actually killing it with demand for your product through your advertising campaign. But if you can't then fulfill that because you have run out of either components or, or fully manufactured end product, you're, you're dead in the water.
Will (32:54):
<Laugh> oh yeah. Not to mention the effect on your listing. So the second you run out of inventory and that's not available, you're losing the SR, your seller rank, you're losing organic and there are software we use all the time where you could see it. Sales are great. And then, and it takes, you think, oh, I'll just get inventory back in two weeks. Nope. It could be up to six months to get back to where you were. And a lot of it could just be changes in the market or competition, better products than the longer you're out, the harder it is to build that back up. So just something to be aware of and yeah, we're all feeling it, you know, it, it is it's post COVID. This is the life.
Kathleen (33:33):
Exactly. So, so I'm curious, what are the biggest mistakes that you see brands make when they go to Amazon?
Will (33:41):
A couple of them is not getting brand registry. So first thing you should do is get brand registry. It gives you a lot of tools, gives you additional advertising features. You can use. It allows you to build a storefront, which allows you to build Amazon assets. You can get the customer engagement tools. So there's lots of different features and tools that you get that, you know, it's crazy if you're not doing it. The second thing, when it comes to SEO, keyword stuffing, you know, everybody learns by copying the top competitors. But it drives me nuts, like use natural language, pick the most relevant keyword, like one or two and focus on that. And based on the, of your product, the newer your product or brand is to market. The longer tail that keyword should be. Don't go after like antiaging cream, because lemme tell you everybody makes antiaging cream.
Will (34:31):
You need to be very specific so that people who search that, and you need to use tools to know how people search and what that behavior is. So two would be, you know, don't own keyword stuff and being mindful of the messaging. The other thing too is when people or customers or whoever, when they build their listings, they're just nonstop thinking about thinking about search and keywords and it, you know, you have to think about the user journey, keywords help you rank. There needs to be a place for it, but you have to think of like what's best for the ecosystem. So your title should have the most weight, the most relevant keyword or two, that's it. And it should be very clear on what your unique selling proposition is. And, and, and it's in the title when that person clicks already your page, and they're looking at your bullets and your description and possibly your a plus content, don't worry about SEO anymore.
Will (35:25):
You need to tell about your story, your USP, what makes your product different? And you need to consider that the first 70 characters are mobile friendly. So a lot of what we do is like all capitalization, cuz similar to your website and I'm guilty of it. You don't always read everything. You're like, yeah, how's this, this, this, okay, I'll buy it. So it's important that it's skimmable. So you can address that and it's important. You're, you're calling out the KPIs that are most likely or sorry, the attributes that are most likely gonna lead to a conversion. So like when we look at like, let's just talk KPIs. When I look at my title what I'm looking at when I'm advertising, I'm looking at clickthrough rate, I'm looking to see, and you could do this advertising and off Amazon through to business reports. What's my click through rate.
Will (36:09):
Am I relevant? The second thing is now when they're on my page, I'm looking at a conversion rate. Am I getting the sale? And if I'm not getting the sale, then I I'm kind of reverse engineering. Like what, what am I doing? That's off that maybe some of my competitors doing. And a lot of it comes on a split testing. Don't set it and forget it. Cuz that's not gonna work for you. Through Amazon they have managed my experiments and then they have tons of platforms. We have a partnership with cell zone. I happen to think that their software's topnotch, but it gives us the ability to split test images. Titles, bullets gives the ability to split test a lot of options to kind of see what's gonna work the best. What's the messaging that really resonates. And then from there it's just incremental improvements over time, that's gonna help, you know, level you up. And it's something that, you know, your competitors might not be doing cuz they're just not as much on the, the marketplace.
Kathleen (37:01):
That's good advice. All right. We're gonna shift gears cuz I always ask my guests a couple questions before we wrap up and I wanna make sure we don't run outta time. First one being the marketers I talk to by and large are challenged by the same thing, which is that and this, this conversation's a great example of that. Everything changes constantly in the world of digital marketing and there's so much information out there and so much to keep up with. So like how do you personally stay educated?
Will (37:30):
Read my blog please. I'm kidding. I honestly Amazon at this point and what's interesting about kind being like Amazon's Amazon, the ecosystem where it's at is not that old, you know, Google has a lot more history. So what I've personally found, cuz you know, I've been on Amazon for over five years now. It's just like, I've seen a lot. So like a lot of articles, I'm like how to prep pre Q4 and stuff is less relevant. So how I stay on top of it, I listen to Sellernomics is a big one. The hustle is a good one. There's a handful of podcasts that I listen to, but what really helps for me is I look at the RSS feed, oh, sorry, the newsfeed inside the Amazon platforms. When you log into your seller or vendor central dashboard, they'll have a news section.
Will (38:20):
And I use that to keep on top of what the changes are. So not only does it talk about feature changes, different projects that they're rolling out opportunities for betas and programs, depending on what your product is. They also give information on legislation that may change the game. Like right now they just put something out that Congress may potentially be busting up Amazon basics because of the, the whole monopoly stuff. Yeah, the whole monopoly. But also they're talking about possibly breaking up Amazon's prime two day shipping that oh, would be terrible. And that's a whole thing. So like keeping on top of that is what I, I do. So podcasting blogs is something that I definitely follow, but a lot of the news I get at this point is directly from Amazon. And then I'm part of a few consulting groups or business groups of likeminded, Amazon, where we just nerd out on this stuff, to be honest with you. Yeah.
Kathleen (39:19):
I love that. Well, that's great advice. Second question. This podcast is all about inbound marketing, which I define as really anything that naturally attracts the right kind of customer to you. So given that definition, is there a particular company or individual that you think is really knocking it out of the park with inbound marketing these days?
Will (39:39):
Inbound marketing? I'm actually not sure Kathleen cuz we mainly work on Amazon. A lot of it's I, I, it would be hard for me to say who's killing it, but from a, a brand perspective like brand to I, I happen to think are doing really well on Amazon. They're gonna be a large bit, but like Instant Pot would be an example of a brand that does it really well. A couple things. If you look at their storefront from an example, it's cat for such a large extensive catalog, it's categorized very well. And it's actually from an advertising perspective, it's very well put position for ads because it's very granular. So I always have relevancy as I build the different ad types. Also they're positioning as being innovative innovators in the kitchen space is something that hap I happen to think that they do really well on introducing products that are not the cheapest in the market that have these unique features that none of the other competitors are doing. And their ability to just.
Kathleen (40:42):
They're a little bit like bandaid where people don't say pressure cooker or whatever they say, Instant Pot.
Will (40:49):
Yep. And that, and that's another challenge in itself too. How do you differ? How do you know what's brand and how do you know? What's just, yeah. People not knowing how to search. But that that would be an example of a brand that I happen to think is doing it really well. I'm trying to think if there's anybody a little, little, maybe not as large. I would say Derma E is a pretty popular brand. Like we find them in target and other big box retailers and the same thing. So their storefronts position really well. What's unique about them is that a lot of their products are natural and dermatologists recommended. And as you go through their store and their products, they really put a lot of emphasis on their unique selling proposition and to kind of wrap this all up.
Will (41:39):
So it makes sense. You know, I was asked to talk about 20, 22 and what, what are we seeing as some of the potential changes? And one of the things I wanted to call out is that anybody who's invested in sustainability or you know, is conscious of their environmental impact. The, these generation of shoppers, especially who tend to shop on Amazon are very conscious of brands that are conscious of their impact on the environment. So as these brands kind of are getting more defined on what's their impact on the world, them and what makes them great. That is gonna be the game changer. And if I was launching a brand this year those would be some of the aspects I would keep in mind as I'm considering launching onto this space.
Kathleen (42:27):
Yeah, that's great. I love that. Thanks for sharing it. Right. If I'm sure there's people who have questions, cuz I feel like we've only been able to like hit the tip of the iceberg with this conversation. It's, there's so much to learn about Amazon and it's a fairly complex ecosystem. If somebody wants to learn more, you mentioned your blog. If they wanna reach out to you and ask a question, what's the best way for them to do that.
Will (42:50):
Excellent. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I post something almost every day and I stay on top of Amazon news and features. So if you if you don't wanna check out the news feed, just follow me on LinkedIn. Well, we'll do it for you and you can also yeah. And then check us out on BellaVix.com. You can reach me at hello@bellavix.com or will@bellavix.com. I'm happy to answer any questions and I could talk all day about this stuff.
Kathleen (43:14):
Awesome. All right. Well you heard it there and if you want to find any of that information, links to Will's LinkedIn or any of the other URLs, just head to the show notes, which live on Kathleen booth.com, you'll find it all there. And in the meantime if you know anybody else who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me at work mommy work because I would love to potentially have them as my next guest. That's it for this week. Thank you so much for joining me Will, this was a lot of fun and I learned a ton.
Will (43:43):
Excellent. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
