🍀 Pathfinder Bulletin - March 2023 in Review
AMZ Pathfinder
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Fresh Amazon Info 🌱
ClearAds recently held a webinar with top Amazon advertising experts to tackle themes that 7-figure businesses care about. I joined in to talk about how branding, new data sources, tools and tactics, and changes in mindset and operations. We of course dug into advertising nerd stuff.
Together with ClearAd’s Head of Accounts, Tom Waghorn, and special guests Sean Smith,Destaney Wishon, and Aaron Moreno, I shared practical tips and insights for growing your business on Amazon.
Amazon has launched a Beta version of its Amazon Marketing Stream (AMS), which gives advertisers access to near real-time metrics and state updates about Amazon Ads. This is a great technology as it delivers far more insight into new data points in existing ad campaigns. Even in Beta, AMS has the potential to change the game for Amazon FBA sellers.
To help shed light on the major AMS use cases, I recently joined Orange Klik podcast host Lisett Lees. I also explained how AMS works and shared three ways that sellers can benefit from AMS data, specifically: hourly bid adjustments, budget allocation, and placement data.
Amazon has launched a cool new Sponsored Brands Attributed Purchase Report, which gives advertisers insight into how customers engage with their Sponsored Brand ads. Although it doesn't reveal the exact keywords that lead to purchases, it's still super helpful because it shows how shoppers actually purchase vs what they click.
Michael Facchin invited me on to talk about everything you need to know about this new report. We discussed how advertisers can access it, why it exists, its limitations, and how it affects total ACoS. We also covered topics such as attribution types, purchase ASIN, Brand Halo, and using the Pivot Table for insights.
In the first episode of the Rich Sellers Podcast, host, Sammy Akthar invited me and Jack Lindberg from Pacvue to talk about the Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). This powerful tool provides advertisers with a more comprehensive understanding of their ad campaigns on Amazon and gives them valuable insights beyond basic metrics.
Jack and I explained how AMC works and discuss its significant benefits. We also talked about how AMC can bridge the gaps in Amazon advertising data and provide advertisers with a more accurate and holistic picture of their campaigns.
I jumped on an exciting LIVE video session of the Maximizing Profits and Scalability Seller Hacks series. Amy Wees the CEO of Amazing at Home brought a bunch of people together to share our input on a list of 12 key questions.
As part of the session, I shared key strategies for launching a business, while Vanessa Hung discussed common mistakes to avoid. Additionally, Shawn Hart and Seth Stevens provided creative ways to drive business sales and growth. Check it out!
Events 📅
AMZ Days (April 28-29, 2023) in Barcelona, Spain
10% Discount code: amzpathfinder
In just a few weeks I’ll be hopping on a train to Barcelona to speak at AMZ Days. I will be joined by 3 other Pathfinders and we expect to have a blast in one of the best cities in Europe. Feel like some Spanish sun and tapas? Meet us in Barcelona at the end of this month and learn from, network with and hang out with 100 other sharp sellers and service providers.
Seller Sessions Live (May 13, 2023) in London, England
Seller Sessions Live is back. It will be held at the America Square Conference Centre in London which is a larger and more centrally located venue compared to previous years. This conference is one of my favs and I’ve attended every year since the first iteration. The speakers are top-notch and there is a great mix of service providers and ecom business owners which keeps it interesting for everyone. If you’re coming from North America don't miss out on this great chance to take a trip to London for learning, networking, and fun all at the same time.
Ambizion 2023 (June 3, 2023) in Tallinn, Estonia
15% Discount code: BRENTAMZ
Ambizion 2023 is a conference with no salesy promotions, recycled content, or fluff, just actionable insights to help attendees maximize their knowledge. It offers a choice of 10 practical workshops led by 7 and 8-figure Amazon sellers, allowing attendees to select the sessions and workshops that are most relevant to their business.
I'll be arriving a few days early for the pre-event hangout sessions which are a great way to get to know smart people in the Amazon space (go-karting, anyone?) and be presenting a workshop with someone else from the Pathfinder team.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Bansko Nomad Fest (June 25 - July 2) in Bansko, Bulgaria
10% Discount code: brent-bnf2023
This one is a bit different from an Amazon-focused event. Nomad Fest is the place for digital nomads, lifestyle business owners, and remote workers who want to learn, network, and have fun to gather for a full week. The structure is designed to optimize engagement and quality encounters, with talks and workshops in the morning and activities in the afternoon.
I'll be giving a presentation about running a remote team for 7 years and building enduring company culture. Join me at Bansko Nomad Fest for a novel experience in a unique location.
Amazon News 📰
This new label has only been seen on a handful of products in the US marketplace but caused a flurry of discussion online. Imagine what it could do to conversion rate on a listing you can see why. Still, Amazon is yet to provide any guidance on what percentage return rate will trigger a “Frequently Returned” label appearing on a listing. Even if they do its likely to vary wildly between subcategories as those like apparel and electronics have a higher return rate than others. Maybe this is just a beta test that will ultimately be rolled back?
Intentwise wrote a post about how using the new Return Insights data in Inventory > Manage FBA Returns paired with their data platform to build a dashboard can make return monitoring far less challenging. I agree with their assertion that building a new monitoring workflow is the right move.
As Colombia, South Africa, Nigeria, and Chile were at least planned to go live with Amazon marketplaces in 2023 it's interesting to take a look at what other marketplaces are the fastest growing when considering international expansion. Brazil, Mexico and Australia show the most growth in terms of web traffic but that doesn't account for mobile app growth like in India where most shoppers using Amazon for the first time are doing so via smartphone. This is probably the case in a lot of developing countries that have skipped the whole “desktop computer at home” phase and gone straight to widely available cheap 4/5G paired with smartphones.
Something we noticed while in Mexico earlier this year for EVOLATAM is that Mercado Libre still leads Amazon in the central/ south American marketplaces but has shouldered all of the other competitors out of their way. This is a critical region for them to get right and they’ll continue their relentless expansion, as always.
More like this, please. We love to see Amazon taking direct legal action against fraudsters abusing copyright and DMCA channels as a blackhat method of sniping competition. Of course, this game will always be a sort of whack-a-mole as new schemes and channels for abuse pop up, but if Amazon listens to the vast majority of businesses who play by the rules to understand what problems they are actually facing they could solve these issues swiftly.
Just because something works well in the Chinese market doesn't mean it will see the same traction in the US or the West. Consumer behaviors are wildly different between these two places and encouraging new habits to take hold is difficult if the conditions aren’t there.
A lot of effort has been put into creating these new shoppable streaming channels from Meta, TikTok and Amazon yet none of them have truly taken off. Some have even given up and gone back to the drawing board only to try again later. It’s only on Prime day and other major sales events that we hear Amazon talking about numbers related to live-streaming shopping. I agree with the author that most shoppers in the West are looking to shop online to save time, not spend it watching streaming transactional content as a form of entertainment.
Prime Day Preparation (yes, already) 💪
Amazon has put us all on notice. Create your deals by April 28th to participate in Prime Day sales, and ensure inventory arrives at US fulfillment centers by June 15th. They recommend shipping in product as early as possible, like always.
Nerd Zone 🤓
Click-based ACoS % for SD VCPM campaigns
There was a recent addition to the Sponsored Display Campaign report which adds performance metrics fields with (Clicks), meaning for Viewable Cost Per Thousand (VCPM) based campaign types that factor in views there is finally a distinction between performance for ad clicks and ad views. This is something we’ve wanted for ages!
Getting at this information is simple:
I don’t want to sensationalize this in an attempt to cause panic as I’ve seen some doing online, because we've always known these VCPM sales figures when seen from the Advertising Console were inflated but we didn’t know by how much. The question was always “what percentage of the sales in this campaign are from clicks?” Looking at several of our accounts the answer seems to be "not very many". The % of click-based sales seems to line up with what I've seen in some ADSP orders and line items. The nature of display ads perhaps?
I’m pleased to say that since we were tuned into how this campaign type functioned early on and treated it with a healthy dose of suspicion while testing it, we weren't caught flat-footed by this one. We at no point created large numbers of these campaigns or reporting their apparent returns as gospel truth. Client education was required here to ensure everyone involved was on the same page.
What impact ad views have on shoppers ultimately converting is a related discussion, but I think what most users in Advertising Console expect when looking at top-line ACoS % as they scroll through campaigns is that Amazon is reporting on sales from ad clicks, which is why I've always disagreed with how Amazon has shown this information in the interface.
I'm curious to hear about your own experience with this campaign type and any numbers if you’d care to share them.
Thanks for reading!
- Brent
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1yThanks for sharing