April '24 Roundup
This month's roundup highlights case studies, research, and inspirational ideas across a few key themes:
Ready... Set... Let's GO!
Posts from the GO Team:
For brands that work with a distributor, it can be daunting to end that relationship and take ownership of getting products to Amazon fulfillment centers, especially when facilitating large orders. This case study highlights key areas of support that our team provided to help a new client make the switch and successfully ship an order that was up to 195x the size of the average SC order.
Prime Video's ad launch in early 2024 has already been showing strong promise for advertisers looking to reach the now 50+% of households that have walked away from traditional TV. While it’s still early, here are a few notable callouts:
To see continued growth on Amazon, brands need a holistic strategy that not only focuses on conversion but also prioritizes new customer acquisition and brand loyalty. Our Amazon Ads Partners Award-winning case study with Pip & Nut | B Corp illustrates the power of a multi-goal approach that utilizes a variety of advertising products, yielding the following results:
💸 +871% Increase in Ad-Attributed New-to-Brand Sales
🔄 +133% Increase in Subscribe & Save Subscriptions
📈 +52% Increase in Shipped Units
Having just come off a rebranding, a new client partnered with GO to leverage the new look and design for greater growth on Amazon. Our team customized a strategy and support system that balanced priorities across...
This approach resulted in the relaunch producing 3.6x growth.
Any kind of growth shows promise, but like a spark failing to turn into a flame, some growth will never turn into long-term success because it’s missing a key ingredient. No metaphor is perfect, but there is some correlation between the ingredients needed to start and maintain a fire and those needed to achieve sustained, profitable growth.
To translate this metaphor into brand-building on Amazon, let’s imagine...
Posts by others that stood out and sparked our curiosity:
Ellen Sheng wrote a piece for CNBC about the challenges Amazon is facing as they look to reduce the environmental impact of their shipping materials. For FBA brands, the launch of the Ships in Product Packaging program has been one of the ways that Amazon is looking to work with a select number of brands to test their products and durability without additional packaging from Amazon.
A couple additional things to note:
Industry KPIs: Scrollable CTV ads drive significant consumer engagement
EMARKETER (EM) released industry KPI data related to connect TV (CTV) ads, highlighting their significance due to EM’s projections that show US CTV advertising on track to reach $28.75 billion this year (+18.8% YoY). While it’s still a relatively nascent format that the industry is learning how to leverage, some early data shows scrollable ads generating greater performance.
EM’s Daniel Konstantinovic calls out this issue in the user experience with CTV ads in general:
“Consumers have to use a secondary device to engage with the ad, leading to issues like 21% of consumers saying they fail to scan codes in time, 10% not understanding how to use QR codes, and 13% saying their mobile device wasn’t on hand.”
Konstantinovic also states how this positions scrollable ads to have a greater advantage because they are baked into the format:
“...Rather than requiring users to operate an external device or visit a secondary platform, scrollable ads are easier to engage with because they meet consumers where they are without extra wrinkles.”
There is a lot to learn still about CTV ads, but with US CTV households making up 86% of households this year and growing to 89.4% by 2028, the opportunities for advertisers are going to continue to scale.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Researcher and strategist @Bill Harvey shared insights related to an upcoming 2024 neuro study (to be released in May) which reveals the inherent issue with digital ad platforms that utilize built-in effects to constrain the majority of ad exposures to less than two seconds of attentive viewing. The study focuses on the two main digital media segments that collectively represent nearly $350 billion in annual global ad spend and the resulting research data is hinting at just how ineffective that spend might be. Harvey states:
“Evidence is beginning to accumulate in neuroscience that in 1-2 or even 4.5 seconds of attentive viewing, it is physically impossible to cause the kinds of brain reactions known to be very highly predictive of sales effects.”
As advertisers, this research might reinforce your experience and become a foundational factor when considering the right and best use of your media budget across platforms.
Recent Consumer Confidence Data
Numerator published their updated consumer confidence tracker with these notes:
“Consumer confidence was up in March versus the month prior, driven by increased comfort across the board. Households reported higher confidence in their ability to make ends meet, higher confidence in the job market, and higher comfort with non-essential spending. Overall sentiment is up slightly from last year, though job market confidence is down.
Job Market Score: 40% of consumers think it’s very or somewhat easy to find employment in the current job market, up from 38% last month but down from 43% last year.
Household Finances Score: 49% of consumers say their household’s financial situation is currently good or very good, up from 47% last month and 46% last year. 15% say their finances are poor or very poor, down from 17% last month and 16% last year.
Spending Comfort Score: 41% of consumers are very or somewhat comfortable spending money on discretionary purchases right now, up from 38% last month and last year. 30% are somewhat or very uncomfortable, down from 32% last month and last year.”
While these slight increases month-over-month are good to see, advertisers will need to stay diligent and look to compare YOY trends when planning for upcoming tentpole events like Amazon’s Prime Day and holiday shopping.
Brad Sherwood shared some great reminders for any brand looking to navigate inflation-related constraints hitting their target consumers. Here’s what he shared and the Harvard Business Review article he referenced:
“... How do brands adapt in response? How can they continue to attract customers with a higher cost of business?
We've seen many brands resort to 'shrinkflation' tactics, which can increase profits and prevent sticker shock but can also drive consumers away (if they notice).
As an alternative, companies can look at the current environment as an opportunity to build brand loyalty further. Focusing on the customer experience is key.
Check out the article Brad referenced from HBR: “Maintaining Customer Loyalty in the Face of Inflation” ⇢
“Innovation comes from thousands of failed experiments.”
This month’s get GO-ing challenge is pulled from a post by Martin Harbech who shared an interview where Jeff Bezos was retelling the genesis of the Amazon Prime subscription. Check out the video below, read Martin’s perspective, and then think about your own team environment.
If innovations are only possible in environments that welcome experimentation, are you helping to create a space where experimentation is encouraged even if/when the experiments fail?
Martin's post continues:
“Amazon’s pioneering loyalty program has been a core driver of their explosive growth for many years.
… but when it first launched, most thought it was crazy.
Many senior leaders felt it was too risky.
Shareholders feared it might take down the company.
‘All-you-can-eat’ two-day delivery for $79/year might sound normal today… but in those early days of e-commerce, it was truly disruptive. The first of its kind.
The challenge was the huge financial uncertainty.
‘Our most loyal customers will cost us a fortune!’
‘If too many abuse it, we could go bankrupt!’
In the end, the decision was more instinct than data.
It was clear that Prime would be an amazing experience for customers, and members would undoubtedly buy more and shop more frequently.
But no one had any idea just how successful it would be.
It took many years for Prime to fully take off, but it ended up defining Amazon’s trajectory and history.
It turned out that a simple annual fee could fundamentally change customers’ mentality. Once the upfront fee was paid, everyone wanted to get the most value out of their investment. Human nature.
Now, twenty years later, we can look back at the Prime launch as a true masterclass in customer obsession… and a powerful reminder of the importance of being willing to test new ideas even when others insist you’re wrong.
For Amazon, the Prime launch was an experiment. Worst case, they would have to roll it back.
As Bezos noted many years later:
‘We don’t have enough time for me to list all our failed experiments, but it’s the big winners [like Prime] that pay for thousands of failed experiments’
The lesson?
Innovation comes through constant experimentation.”
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