#627 - Amazon Ranking Strategies

In this episode, we're giving you the best Amazon and Walmart strategy clips of 2024 so that you can start off 2025 with a leg up on your competition. ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Welcome to this special annual recap episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast, where we bring you the most impactful strategies from the past year to give your e-commerce business a competitive edge in 2025. Join us as we explore the essentials of selecting verified manufacturers and the importance of third-party verification in ensuring accurate information. We'll discuss the advantages of trade assurance for payment protection and the significance of management certifications like BSCI and ISO, which indicate high-quality factory standards and social compliance. Additionally, we touch on regional manufacturing specializations, exemplified by the production of egg dispensers, and the importance of measuring the halo impact of ad strategies on total sales and rankings using metrics like TACoS and cost per customer acquisition. Listen in as we discuss strategies for international Amazon success, highlighting a thriving American brand's expansion into Amazon Japan. We'll explore the strategic benefits of entering the Japanese market, such as lower PPC costs and favorable tax conditions, which contribute to higher profit margins. Patience, quality products, and strong supplier relationships are emphasized as key differentiators from competitors. We also explore optimizing Amazon PPC campaigns with lifecycle-based rules and the power of using index images with numbered benefits to effectively communicate value in product listings. Discover effective strategies for online marketplaces as we recount past challenges and successes in sourcing and selling products in the U.S. market. Learn about creative approaches to finding less visible suppliers and the importance of clear communication and relationship-building. We also highlight the effectiveness of Target's marketplace and the strategic advantages of being indexed on Google to enhance Amazon rankings. Finally, we'll cover the critical importance of using correct HTS codes to avoid costly import tariff mistakes, sharing a personal experience that led to significant cost savings. Tune in and equip yourself with these valuable insights to kick off 2025 strong. In episode 628 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, we discuss: 00:00 - SSP Top 20 Strategies of 2024 02:02 - Selecting Verified Manufacturers for Trust 09:53 - Keyword Analysis and Visibility Tracking 12:25 - Strategies for International Amazon Success 19:36 - Effective Strategies for Online Marketplaces 20:06 - Leveraging Google for Business Growth 23:43 - Optimizing Amazon Listings for Google Images 25:40 - Optimizing Amazon Listings for Sales 32:12 - Enhancing Amazon Listings With COSMO 33:29 - Avoiding Costly Import Tariff Mistakes Transcript   Bradley Sutton: Today we're giving you the best strategy clips of the year so that you can start off 2025 with a leg up on your competition. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And, like we do every year and we have been doing this since we started in what was it 2018, 2019? we do a recap episode where I handpick some of the best strategies of the entire year. Every year, we go through about 100 episodes a year, not including the weekly buzz, where we have a lot of guests and everybody has great strategies. It's really hard to pick some of the top ones, but what I did is me and the team got together and pulled out some of the top strategies that you guys had talked about in social media and such that you liked, and we put it together so that you could get a leg up on the competition now that we're at the beginning here of 2025.   Bradley Sutton: And so these are strategies that are not out of date. They're still valid. There are some that already, within a few months, became out of date. They're still valid. There are some that already, within a few months, became out of date. We're not including them here. So, guys, I hope you enjoy this episode. Get your pen and paper out. I want each and every one of you to make it your homework to pick five, at least five of these that we're about to get. I think we're doing about 20 here, but do five that most apply to you and your business. Not everything applies to everybody equally. Pick five out of these and implement it this month in your business, or at least make a plan for it. All right, so let's go ahead and see the top strategies of the year.   Kian Golzari: So the first thing you did was you selected verified manufacturers. And what's that for? It means any information that they provide on their listing, whether it be number of years in business, how many staff they have, what certificates they have, what patents they have, what products they have, what does their production line look like, the images and videos in the factory. That's all been verified by a third party, meaning InterTech, SGS, TUV. One of these very reputable companies have gone in and verified all the information is true, whereas if we didn't work with verified suppliers, then whatever information they want to put there, we just have to sort of take their word for it. So verified is the most important thing to search for first. Then, on the left-hand side of the page, you'll see trade assurance right, I would always click that as well and trade assurance just means that your payment is protected. So if you've ordered an egg dispenser which holds, you know, 20 eggs and you do the production and you receive one which only holds 10 eggs, then the trade assurance will protect you and it will refund your order because you've selected that right. That's just a little bit of a safety net important for, like you know, new sellers, right. And then, as you scroll down on the left-hand side of the page, you'll see something that says management certification, right. And if you scroll down a little bit more, yeah. So you see like BSCI and you see Zedek, you see ISO. I always like to select BSCI and ISO. So BSCI is your business social compliance initiative and ISO is just a really high-quality standard and this just basically means these are factory certificates that they have. So, uh, BSCI will go in and they'll check, like you know, um how many years you've been in business. Do you have, like, fire extinguishers? Do you have adequate lighting? Do you have safety exits? Like we've checked the dormitories, we've checked like the canteen where the workers eat. So it's kind of like gives you confidence that you're working for a very, very good factory, right. So now, if we go back to the top of the list, right, we've. Now we've searched by manufacturers, we've got verified manufacturers, we've got trade assurance and we've got factories which have, you know, BSCI and ISO certification. So now, as I'm scrolling down the list, like if you zoom in on the company names, like the first word in the company name is always the city or the province in which that factory is located.   Kian Golzari: So sometimes, like the factories, like electronics are made in Shenzhen, backpacks are normally made in like Shenzhou. Like furniture, like steel tubing for furniture, chairs is made like Yongkang. So I'm just trying to get familiar. Is there an area which specializes in egg dispensers? Maybe not because it's such a niche product, right, that maybe you could make it, make it anywhere. But as I scroll down, I'm trying to see, like, is there one name that pops up more frequent than others and in that area which specializes in that product? But I see Ningbo has probably popped up a few times, right? So, but anyway, it doesn't matter. If Ningbo had popped out like eight out of nine times, I would say, right, well, that's the region we need to be ordering from.   Bradley Sutton: Interesting.   Gefen Laredo: You know ACOS is great, but obviously this is TACoS Tuesday and TACoS is the metric of your total sales.   Carrie Miller: Yes.   Gefen Laredo: And so when we're looking at total sales something that we brought in and I know it's a little vague, but we really looked at the halo impact of ad strategies and how they impacted ranking and total sales, right. And so when we focused our ad strategy, maybe on a cost per customer acquisition model, maybe on a TACoS model, and we look to really prioritize, hey, where are we showing up, right? So, if, if, if we're driving all this traffic and we have a 20 percent conversion rate, let's say, on this keyword, are we tracking using, using uh, using a Helium 10, of course, um, are we tracking that ranking properly? To say, hey, we started running these ads aggressively on August 1st and if we have been tracking ranking on that keyword for the last two months since going aggressive on that term, where are we ranking now and how have sales changed? and are there broader KPIs that we're measuring outside of just direct ad revenue? And that worked really well for us because we centered that around tentpole events and this is a really big strategy of ours. That is incredibly complex, it takes a whole village to actually execute. But when we focus our customer acquisition and ranking models around major times in the year so think Prime Day, think Fall, Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, holiday and then, of course, if you're a one-off brand, if you I don't know are ski related, then obviously your season is January to March. You know like there are differences, but really peak seasons. If you're able to focus your growth model around the times that are going to give you the most reward, then that worked really well for us last year and we expect to see a lot more of that this year, especially as we all expect people are going to be more deal oriented. It's a constant battle for margins, so the better rank you are, the more organic sales you drive, the better your TACoS is.   Ben Webber:                           Several years ago we were about to stock out of as you know, we sell a lot of fourth quarter products and kind of joke toy products and we're about to stock out of one that we sold between 800 and 1000 units a day of which is a fairly substantial issue. So we actually loaded up a cargo van and drove the cargo van to Amazon, talked our way through the front gates to deliver it and they took it, and so we did that once, then we did it again and we got through again. The third time they're like no, you can't do this, and so like okay, but somehow, like no, you, you can't do this, and so like okay, but somehow, we have to be able to do this. So we looked into carrier central and figure out how we could become a last mile rider, which is incredibly easy it takes about 15 minutes to fill out a form and then you have to show that you can back in and out of a parking spot incredibly, incredibly easy. But so in that January we bought a truck and the rest is history from there. But it came about because we were about to stock out and panicked and we're like, well, what's the worst that can happen?   Silas Moestrup Pedersen: And one of the things that I recommend to every time that we have a new client or meet someone is to narrow in on fewer skills. It sounds quite simple, right, but what we do every time is that if you have a big catalog A, B, C and D products and then A products they get a special treatment compared to B, C and D. It could even be, if your catalog is massive, you only focus your ad spend on A products. Same thing from a content perspective. Those are the ones that get the most love in terms of title, bullet point, backend attributes, et cetera, descriptions. So it's just having that focus on fewer products, I think, is number one. Then, if you can automate your reporting, we have that in Looker automated so that you don't have to necessarily sit and look at the data and pull Excel spreadsheets et cetera it just saves you so much time. If you're capable of doing it and spending time on it, then I think. Thirdly, we talked a little bit about it, but I think taking the time to do super solid keyword research from the get-go Like get into Magnet, get into Amazon's data sources, get into Cerebro, look for all your competitors' keywords et cetera understand what those A keywords are, and those A keywords are the only thing that you focus on in the start. Those are the ones that go into your rank campaigns, that they go into your manual campaigns, et cetera, and that those are the ones that just like where you track everything through Like a little hack could be for your A products. Every week you use a repro. Every other week you put in your A product and then you export all the data for that. You take a spreadsheet. In column A you say this is the date when I pulled the. This is the date of either. I pulled the data, this is the ASIN you put in the ASIN that you pulled the data for. Then you make a formula.   Silas Moestrup Pedersen: You can just ask ChatGPT where, based on the paid and organic rank, you say whether you classified the keyword as being on page one, two, three or four, and then you pull this data in this way every single week for maybe two months when you're running a new test or something like that. You take all the data, you put it into a pivot table and boom, then you would have an overview and a graph of how many like your all your page one, two, three, four positions across your entire catalog and you could even put a filter on up in the top and then you can sort by ASIN and then you basically have your own visibility tool where you can see your paid on your organic visibility on a weekly level at an Asian level. And you can use that to take all those keywords If you're ranking let's say page three or two or something like that put them into a rank campaign. If you feel like they're good, you can take all the keywords where you're on page two, maybe put them in the title, et cetera. So, like building those systems, that allows you to scale something consistently.   Bradley Sutton:                           What was your gross sales yesterday, last week, last year? More importantly, what are your profits after all your cost of selling on Amazon? Did you pay any storage charges to Amazon? How much did you spend on PPC? Find out these key metrics and more by using the Helium 10 tool Profits. For more information, go to h10.me forward slash profits.   Cara Sayer: So one of the biggest things was the fact that I do think a lot of Amazon sellers don't really have a brand. They just have a name for a business or a name for something that they use and they don't really have a what I'd call a true brand. And they don't always. I think sometimes also, existing only on Amazon makes you lose perspective on you know how normal businesses work, like businesses that aren't based on Amazon, and so you know a lot of businesses. I mean, I think throughout life, people buy from people and I think that's so important to remember that, even on Amazon, one of the reasons why Amazon focuses so heavily on A plus listings and now they're bringing in the premium A plus and all the rest of it because Amazon knows right. You know me quite a few years now and I've always banged on about brand. I've always banged on about having a story. Tell your story. It doesn't have to be your story necessarily, it could be the product story, but you need to have something that differentiates you. And even then, I was chatting to someone at the conference earlier on and I was saying the thing is that sometimes it's not even the fact that you're selling different products, it's the way that you curate them right. So it's the collection of products that you've chosen to sell under your brand name says something.   Nick Katz: So one of our clients is an international brand. They're an American registered company and they last year they cleared seven figures and we're definitely looking to do a lot more this year. That's in two years. They're doing very, very well in America, they sell in Europe and they sell in Canada. But the Japanese sales are now almost comparable to the to the us sales, but the profit margins are a lot higher.   Bradley Sutton:                           That was about my second question.   Nick Katz: Yeah, because you know things like the PPC is a hell of a lot cheaper. The ACOS for the account is about uh, I think it's about eight, nine percent now. The TACoS is about three or four percent. It's the kind of figures you can't really get in the US. So actually in theory you could sell a lot less in Japan and still end up with the same kind of profit as you could in the US. But obviously if you're getting sales close to the US you're probably going to have much, much higher margins. Japan generally is cheaper. It's cheaper tax as well if you are off the threshold to pay tax. But if you're under 10 million yen, which is probably about 60,000, 70,000 US, if you're under that in sales, you don't have to pay consumption tax. There is no tax. So anybody like me selling in Europe who gets absolutely lost by the tax authorities there, paying 19, 20, 21, 23% in some of the regions in Europe, you could be selling 50, 60,000 US in Japan and not have to pay any consumption tax whatsoever. So there are definite advantages to selling in Japan.   Bradley Sutton: What are some of the things that set you apart from maybe the 10 other matcha people who maybe have started and gone out of business, you know, because they didn't have your strategy? What do you think set you apart from others?   Sam: Well, I think a handful of things. The first one is okay, so I think you can use. You can rely on Amazon PPC. You can look at your search term impression share reports, you can look at your keyword ranking and all that kind of stuff and that will help you in the short run. But honestly, the thing that really helped us the most was patience and making sure that your product is on a sensory level it's actually good and people like it. Once you have those two things covered, then you just need to get people to try it, get them to tell their friends, and then their friends who are interested in Marchable buy. Then they are buying again and then this whole thing kind of grows by itself. Your PPC and all of these other tools that you have are really just like fuel that you add to this engine.   Singchuen: And on the other side of things is, obviously you kind of need to make sure that you treat your suppliers well as well. Make sure that they understand what you're going through and make sure that you try to understand what they're going through. If language is a barrier, hire an interpreter, right, it's not too difficult. Decency goes both ways. So you may be pressed, but you've got to recognize that the factories themselves, they are pressed as well. So working together for a compromise, understanding each other and not throwing too much Just to be a little bit more understanding towards each other, goes a long way. A bit more understanding towards each other goes a long way. I think what tends to happen is that if you're not patient, as Sam has mentioned, you may cut off communications with factories that may help you in the future, and you don't want to do that.   Destaney Wishon: I think the biggest things that we look at is we create rules for the different outcomes we want. If we're launching a brand-new product, then we're creating rules that are based off sales. So we're going to be taking a deep dive into, hey, what is the conversion rate and what is the sales? And we're going to build rules for maximizing that increased bid when I have a certain conversion rate. On the flip side, if our goal is profitability, we're going to work backwards from our ACOS or RoAS goal. We're going to say, hey, let's build rules that are based on lowering bids when our ACOS is too high, and maybe layering in our conversion rates also low, let's go even lower, right. So those are the two simplest ones that we look at, but it really needs to be strategic. You can create rules that are based off the phase your product's in, whether it's launch, consistency, profitability, organic rank. You can create rules based off your overall business outcomes. Which is always an important one is what is that key RoAS that you're going to optimize for all of your campaigns, but just making sure not to overcomplicate it in the beginning, right. Once you start to understand the correlation between CPC and RoAS, then you can start building in a little bit more customization around lifecycle and things like that.   Kevin King: This is how you been converting like crazy with what? what do you call an index image? This he calls it the uh, it's the image in your listing that will be the top reasons why your product is the best. This is not your main photo. This is not your photo number one. This is what he calls this photo number two and it's an index of of your products is why I think it's why he calls it the index image, and what he says is you need to number the benefits. A lot of of people are using call-outs, they use infographics, but they don't number them. So you want to actually have numbers like this. So this should be something like this should be your second image the five reasons you love, or the seven reasons or the three reasons.   Odd numbers are always better than even numbers. Three, five or seven or nine always work the best. But here he's got the five and look, there's big, there's numbers. That's important. He just doesn't list them. People like order and when they see numbers, their mind can sort it and they can read it quickly and it makes sense to them. So the numbering system here is critical, not just the fact that he put the main point, the main benefit and capital, and then explained it in. I mean in bold and a little bit larger than explained everything else below it in light blue, but he's got these numbers. That's the critical thing is numbering it.   Bradley Sutton: Maybe this is a little bit of the sexy side of patents, but you've talked before about how patents doing patent searches can actually be a form of product research and finding a product to sell on Amazon. How in the world is that possible?   Rich Goldstein: Yeah, absolutely it's true, because the way that the patent system works, once a patent expires, it's fair game for anyone to use it. So a utility patent lasts for 20 years and a design patent lasts for 15. But once that patent expires, anyone can make that product and, at the same time, keep in mind that a lot of people have an idea for a product, they get it patented, but they never do the research, they never learn about the process enough to actually get that product launched, and so there are a lot of great ideas that have been patented that are just in the patent archives and they've never actually been put on the market. There are some lousy ideas, but there are also some great ideas, and so if you know how and you search the patent record for expired patents, you can find ideas for really great potential products.   Tom - Honest FBA: We dabbled with the US a few times in the past and Thomas Net is really popular. You see, it's spoken about quite a lot as a place, as a resource. Honestly, we never had any success there. There was a time when we were the MOQs are always insanely high and there was a product previously that we agreed to the MOQ. It was something like 10 or 20,000 units. It was pretty high. And there was a product previously that we agreed to the MOQ. It was something like 10 or 20,000 units. It was pretty big. And we were like, okay, we'll go for it, but can you just repackage them into a different kind of mix? And they just said, nah, nah, don't fancy it. And we were like, right, okay. So we kind of banged our head against the wall. So now a little-known site called Google is honestly the best bet, so like, but I'm not talking page one at Google. You've got to dig. So put on a VPN. If you're somewhere like we are, like in Spain, put on a US VPN and then get down to like pages five, six, seven, eight, get in there. And then I just hammer a lot of emails out, but a lot of the websites that you find down in those stages or those pages. They're not good at SEO, they're generally kind of old sites, but you're finding older, established businesses so and often you'll find a phone number. So one of the best lessons I say is like get on the phone and just ring them up and you can save months of time, like the guy who ended up.   Tom - Honest FBA: One of the guys who ended up working with had a phone call with him on the first day. I found it and we ended up. We're now doing two products with him already. We've got another three lined up and he had nothing to do with the niche we're in. He was in so we're in pets. He was in humans. He was in food. I just gave him a call, explained the brand vision, what we're trying to do. He got really excited. He's now helping us source new ingredients. He's coming to me with product ideas. He's now going to do a whole range of products for us. So that was one of the beauties is like having that communication line and being able to really explain yourself has been massive. We are still sourcing in China, by the way. We still think it's a really viable option, but having this US option as well, there's so many benefits to it.   Grace Kopplin: In terms of Walmart, that's always been a strategy for us. Transparently, Walmart just hasn't been a volume driver for us. It's been steady but it hasn't really been a place that's warranted a ton of focus for us. But another marketplace that has been great for us is actually Target's marketplace, target Plus and that's been a key, key piece of our success, especially with working with brands who are looking for store placement at Target. For example, we've had a few items that we've listed on Target's marketplace that have done really well, that have gotten the attention of a buyer and actually got store placement, which is really exciting. And, at the end of the day, getting an item placed on shelves most of the time can drive more volume than a mid-tier listing on Amazon. So we tend to try to use that strategy.   Bradley Sutton: How do you get on target these days? Wasn't it invite only back in the day or now that Target is adding that 360 or some kind of like yeah.   Grace Kopplin: I think it might still be invite only, but I know they've been actively adding a lot of sellers. I know that their backend is still quite archaic compared to what Amazon is. It's probably what Walmart was like four years ago. But I think it is still invite only, but definitely something to reach out to your connections and see if you can get a connect with a Walmart e-comm buyer.   Leo Sgovio: So there are a few reasons why you want to be indexed on Google, and for the most, let's start from the most advanced ones, right? Advanced sellers they normally try to send traffic to Amazon, especially during the launch period, using external traffic, right? So Google, we know, is a good referral that tends to help your rankings, and so Amazon tends to reward you if they see traffic coming from Google. So if you're not indexed, you lose a chance to show Amazon that you are getting traffic from Google. Now, I have a theory that paid traffic has a little bit more weight than organic, but the reason why you want to be indexed and the reason why you might want to be indexed for certain keywords is so that when you drive traffic through the URL to Amazon, you can actually give attribution to that keyword. That's number one, right? So you can actually use these URLs as your two-step.   Leo Sgovio: Number two if you do a good job with your indexation and your listing is optimized, you actually also appear in the images, right? And so if people are looking for specific products, sometimes I search on Google using images because I'm looking for specific products that might be hard to find on Amazon. But if I look through the Google images and I find the product, then I go to Amazon and so if you're not indexed, you're also not going to be able to be found there, and Google images actually gets a ton of traffic. So here are some of the reasons why, two of the reasons why. I can think of many more, but the most important are these ones. Google is still one of the largest search engine, and so missing out on that opportunity search engine and so missing out on that opportunity, I'm afraid it causes a lot of missed visibility for an Amazon seller at a listing level.   Carrie Miller: I think one of the things that sets us apart is that when I've created our listings, or whenever I create our photos, I think about what are the main benefits of the product, the main selling points of it, and I realized this isn't something that everyone can easily do, and so the way I kind of have been teaching it is that you can take your competitor's listing, download their reviews, download their best reviews, their five-star reviews, and say ask ChatGPT, like, what do people like most about this product? What are the benefits of this product according to reviews? What do people like? Basically, ask a bunch of questions to ChatGPT and you'll get a bunch of kind of selling points and you'll kind of see a trend of like the top selling points or top benefits of your product. And that's what you want to focus on is like what's in it for the customer? You've got to kind of appeal to their emotions. How is it going to make their life better, easier, are easier, are they going to be more beautiful? Are they going to you know what? What is it, what's in it for them?   Carrie Miller: And I think that that is going to be the key that sets you apart, and I know it's. It sounds pretty basic, but I've actually been doing some looking at different listings. People have been asking me hey, can you take a look at my listing? And when I look at the listing, I'm like, well, these aren't, these are not actually selling points or benefits. Like, these are features of the product. Right, you can always put the features in right later on, but how are you appealing to the person when you were? If you're telling somebody about your product, are you being like oh hey, the dimensions are 14 by 14. Like that's, that's like an afterthought, right? You, you want to. However, you would even just sell to a person, like talking face to face. That's how you're going to do that. Your first image shouldn't be a dimension photo. It should be a selling point, your main, like best selling point, main benefit in that first image. So I think that's a huge thing that a lot of people are kind of missing.   Bradley Sutton: What would you say is the most actionable things from search career performance? That kind of closes out like, hey, this is actually something that is not just, oh, it's good to know, but hey, I'm actually going to take action, uh, on this.    Mansour Norouzi: Taking action. I would say, even when I look at my own brand one is that for the main keywords, what I actually I do this on a weekly basis I have a list of the main keywords which is for my, for one of my aces are like 10 uh, 10 uh keywords and actually I go into the detail of week over week what is happening to my click share for those keywords, because they are very important for me and I want to be on the top and like top five for these turns. I want to be aware of what is going on with my competitors and what's my need. So if I see I have a track of my click share for the keywords, if I see it is going down, right away I'll figure out what's going on and maybe push with my advertising, for that for me would be our main keywords and what's going happening for my click share rate, conversion rate and click share just on my top keywords. Honestly, I will go, I think, by myself going with all for all the keywords, just like top five to 10 keywords, what they are, and I'll keep it very close overview and monitor them to see exactly what's going on, because you see that search volume going up or down, but I want my click share and my conversion share that I have I'm generating. Either they are consistent or going up. So if I see this trend is down, right away I start doing maybe I run coupon code or I push with my advertising to make sure I'm getting them back into track.   Bradley Sutton: What is your favorite? Helium 10 tool Ksenia or function of a tool.   Kseniia Reidel: Probably the audience. That's the one that I use all the time. Is it called audience?   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, the split where you ask the questions to the people and say, how are you using that Like for your images, or just for product ideas, or what are you using that?   Kseniia Reidel: Honestly for everything. For both for the product ideas, for your images, or just for product ideas or what are you using that? Honestly for everything. But both for the product ideas, for the images, because I just think it's so easy. You know, when you're thinking about like the product we find, then I usually do um, like the drawing and uh, 3d, you know the 3d image of the product that doesn't exist yet. Then usually all my products are like, really designed differently, that's what's on the market right now, and I just upload the image there and I see what people say and ask them would you buy this product? And if you wouldn't buy this product, why, why not? Or what would you change in this product? And sometimes I see the things that I didn't even you know, I didn't even think about that.   Bradley Sutton: So you're launching just the 3d rendering and just asking a question on that image, or you're launching it like, or you're launching it, you're putting it in a poll next to like existing products and asking them, or which one are you doing?   Kseniia Reidel: I'm doing both. Actually, the first, I just do the rendering and ask them would you buy this product? And if you would not buy this product, what would you change Like? How would you make it better for you? And then sometimes I also compare it to the other products that are on the market and ask them which one would they buy?   Bradley Sutton: Interesting.   Kseniia Reidel: And a lot of times I do the changes on the product based on what the people say.   Bradley Sutton: What was the results of those search, find, buy in order to send those relevancy signals? Again, not for rank, but to send those relevancy signals to Amazon. Take a look at this when I ran in Cerebro on June 19th, just three days after they did that relevancy single, you know, push those three coworkers here at Helium 10,. Take a look now at the Amazon recommended rank. Remember how it was only showing two keywords for Amazon recommended rank. Now it was showing multiple ones and it put that keyword that I sent the relevancy signal for egg holder countertop. It had Amazon recommended rank number three, which basically means that that was the third most important keyword according to Amazon for this product. Now do you remember what I was getting for impressions in PPC? Like 200 total impressions over three days. What did sending those relevancy signals to Amazon do for my PPC impressions? Take a look at this. To amazon, do for my PPC impressions. Take a look at this.   The next three day period from June 19th when my relevancy got fixed to June 21st instead of 200 impressions, 5 000 impressions, 4 000 of that. How? What keyword was it for? Egg holder countertop, that one that I sent those relevancy signals to Amazon for? This works, guys.   Ryan King:                          So Walmart has the equivalent would be brand portal, and I would absolutely recommend, if you're the seller, if you're the brand, to register through brand portal, and the main reasons are there are certain advertising opportunities that are only available to brand registered brands, so sponsored brand videos, sponsored brand ads that go across as banner displays. Another major one would be brand shops, brand shelves we can talk about later as well and then IP protection, and so the advantage of being registered in Brand Portal is that you can file IP infringement claims, and in this case, the most successful one to do is to file claims against those alternate listings for using your copyrighted imagery, and so we see success of getting those pulled down within 48 hours, typically when that happens. Now you can still file that IP claim even if you're not registered through Brand Portal. There's a link to file that claim, but you can't track its progress, you can't see the history, all those kinds of things. So it just gives you greater credibility in those and greater ability to look back at the progress. And the last one I'd say is if you're a registered brand, it's going to give you the highest content ranking for your listing. So even if there are other sellers that have tried to change that listing content. You're going to outrank them as the registered brand and chances are you're not going to have to deal with things changing on your listing in that regard.   Kevin Dolan: Cosmo is a specific tool and I think that the function that it performs is valuable to enhancing Amazon's understanding of a listing. So I certainly would not be surprised to see Amazon implementing this in a production capacity on a large swath of searches. That would not be surprising to me, but it's not as massive as the shift that we've seen into semantic-focused search. Cosmo in particular discusses essentially a mechanism for enhancing Amazon's understanding of a product by taking into consideration things that aren't expressed in the query and things that aren't expressed in the listing. The example that they use in the paper, the canonical example, is if you're looking for shoes for pregnant women, a listing might not literally say shoes for pregnant women. It might produce a specific type of open toed shoe that has good support, good comfort. That might not literally be listed as a keyword in the listing, but it might be something that the system can infer based on its knowledge of the universe, about what it's like to be a pregnant woman and the types of products that they might benefit from.   Norm Farrar: Out of everybody that we've looked at, it was up to 80. But 70% of Amazon sellers do not have the proper HTS code. They let their Chinese seller set an HS code and it's wrong. So when they get in here and guess what, nobody, nobody is calculating that as a part of your cost of goods. So they're going out, they're sourcing in China, they're not calculating, and this could be as high as 400%. Now, I've never seen it that, but it can be. So you know you're 25, 40% of your cost of goods. Is that not something that should be calculated? And like for me, I was doing natural soaps and I was paying 17%. So we were taking a look at it and Afolabi says can you consider this Castile soap? And I said yeah, it's olive based. And he goes well, how about I give you some good news. Pay zero. I just stuffed 17% back in my pocket. So out of the 70% of people that are missing the boat, they don't have the proper tariff code and the average person that gets the proper tariff code on an order the average that we've been able to calculate has been $7,800.

Amazon makes a big title policy change that could cause some of you to have to update up to half of your listings. Is this move that Amazon is about to make, essentially not allowing sellers to sell on Temu? These two buzzing stories and more on this episode! ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s VP of Education and Strategy, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level. New Amazon product title requirements effective January 21, 2025 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHNEJGOUZIUUs4SFBXWkRV Amazon effectively bars sellers from Temu marketplace https://channelx.world/2025/01/amazon-effectively-bars-sellers-from-temu-marketplace/ TikTok Shop Order Cancellation, Return and Refund Update https://channelx.world/2025/01/tiktok-shop-order-cancellation-return-and-refund-update/ Prime-exclusive discounts are moving to the Price Discounts tool https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHQzRCMkFMNkdLNTZSRVNT Mexico unveils new tariffs, popular e-tailers like Shein, Temu may be in crosshairs https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-unveils-new-tariffs-popular-e-tailers-like-shein-temu-may-be-crosshairs-2024-12-31/ APEX – An Alternative Patent Resolution Procedure on Amazon https://natlawreview.com/article/apex-alternative-patent-resolution-procedure-amazon Get more details on image issues with Compliance Issue report updates https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHODdFWE1BQ0pTREVCQVpG The Year (2024) in Amazon vs Walmart, and a Look Into 2025 https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2024/the-year-in-amazon-vs-walmart-and-a-look-into-2025/ Lastly, we share insights from Helium 10 on product misclassification alerts and provide upcoming training tips on how to use our Amazon Inventory Heat Maps to maximize your e-commerce success. In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers: 01:19 - BIG Amazon Title Policy Update 08:48 - Amazon BANS Temu? 11:24 - TikTok Shop Refund Change 13:56 - Prime Exclusive Discounts Moving 14:50 - New Mexico Tariffs 16:32 - Amazon APEX Procedure 18:11 - Image Compliance 19:03 - Amazon V Walmart 20:56 - Helium 10 New Feature Alerts 23:23 - Training Tip: Amazon Inventory Heat Maps

In this episode, let’s talk about Amazon’s A9 algorithm with Brian Johnson and all the details about how to rank on Amazon based on his research. ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos What if understanding Amazon's A9 algorithm could transform your Amazon-selling game? Join us in a captivating conversation with Brian Johnson, Co-Founder and CPO at DeepM AI, as we unravel the secrets to mastering Amazon’s search rankings. Brian shares the essential strategies sellers need for maintaining and regaining their positions in Amazon’s fiercely competitive marketplace. Discover how data-driven approaches can offer powerful insights into tackling ranking challenges. Explore the nuanced world of Amazon's A9 algorithm and the myriad of factors that shape product search rankings. From sales velocity and inventory issues to the surprising influence of TikTok-driven search term trends, we cover it all. Brian provides a deep dive into the phenomenon of search term bleed and how emerging platforms shift consumer behavior. Learn how to leverage these insights to stay ahead of competitors and adapt to shifting marketplace dynamics. Finally, we discuss practical tactics for optimizing your Amazon listings and advertisements to boost sales and profitability. Understand the critical metrics—like click-through and conversion rates—that drive success. With a focus on competitive analysis and innovative metrics like "tacos sauce," we highlight how to comprehensively monitor and enhance your e-commerce performance. Whether you're a seasoned seller or just starting, these insights will empower you to optimize your strategies and thrive on Amazon. In episode 627 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie, Kevin, and Brian discuss: 00:00 - Ranking on Amazon Algorithm Strategies 02:39 - Decoding the A9 Algorithm 06:31 - Improving Amazon Search Rank Control 09:36 - Factors Affecting Amazon Search Rank 11:46 - Influencer Impact on Search Terminology 14:02 - Amazon Search Rank Factors Analysis 15:45 - Understanding A9 Algorithm Factors 21:47 - Amazon Ranking Algorithm and Conversion Rate 25:28 - Amazon Search Ranking Optimization Strategies 28:59 - Product Profitability Analysis Strategy 33:54 - Commitment Required for Amazon Success 38:37 - Analyzing Past Ad Performance for ROI 40:21 - Competitor Monitoring and Metric Analysis 42:29 - ACoS Sauce Concept and Visibility 

What is the hottest marketplace in the world right now? TikTok Shop. In this episode, we bring one of the world's foremost experts on TikTok Shop success to help you get started on the platform. ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos What if exploring the latest trends on TikTok Shop could redefine your business strategy? Join us as we unpack the secrets of thriving on one of the world's fastest-growing marketplaces. We welcome a top-tier expert in TikTok Shop success, Michelle Barnum-Smith of TTshopsellers.com who lays out a complete roadmap for navigating this dynamic platform. From leveraging powerful tools like Helium 10 to hearing firsthand success stories—like a couple whose sales soared after adding TikTok Shop to their go-to online marketplaces—you'll gain insights that could transform your approach to e-commerce. Plus, we tackle the buzz around a potential TikTok ban, sharing insider reassurances to keep your mind at ease. Our discussion takes a strategic turn as we explore the mechanics of integrating TikTok Shop with platforms such as Shopify and Amazon. Discover how to tap into the "halo effect" where viral TikTok products can boost sales on Amazon. We also highlight the importance of abiding by TikTok's community guidelines, especially when it comes to directing users to Amazon, to ensure your shop's integrity. Listen closely as we share content strategies that don't rely on going viral but instead focus on crafting engaging, quality content that resonates with your audience and amplifies your brand's presence. And if you're wondering how to spark impulse buying, we've got you covered. Learn the art of balancing ads with organic content and the power of influencer partnerships, which can yield substantial returns. We offer practical advice on starting with small-scale affiliate efforts and building robust creator networks that align with your brand's ethos. With tips on aligning your marketing efforts with trending events and using AI tools to supercharge your outreach, this episode is packed with actionable strategies designed to elevate your TikTok Shop success. Tune in and revolutionize your approach to this exciting marketplace! In episode 626 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Michelle discuss: 00:00 - TikTok Shop Success Strategies 01:30 - TikTok Ban Not a Concern? 03:44 - Rapid Growth on E-Commerce Platforms 08:31 - Steps to Start TikTok Shop 11:43 - Navigating TikTok Shop Strategies 12:50 - Impact of TikTok Virality on Amazon 18:07 - GMB Max for Ads Optimization Strategy 24:32 - TikTok Shop Sales Strategies 29:57 - TikTok Shop Affiliate Strategy Tips 37:30 - Content Performance Metrics and Strategy

In this episode, we discuss the top 10 newest strategies for leveling up on Amazon, including one brand-new one that maybe only 10 people have used so far. ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s VP of Education and Strategy, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level. In this week’s episode, Join Bradley as he explores the latest strategies and features designed to supercharge your Amazon selling experience. This special episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast highlights the top 10 innovative strategies and tools released by Helium 10 in the second half of 2024. We kick things off with a groundbreaking PPC strategy that can enhance your campaign management by focusing on optimizing auto, broad, or phrase campaigns. By negative matching keywords that generate clicks without resulting in sales, you can prevent unnecessary spending and ensure a more efficient budget allocation. This approach is not limited to Helium 10 users, as even those employing other tools can benefit from these actionable insights. As we continue, discover how Amazon influencers can seize new opportunities by leveraging video reviews to earn affiliate commissions. By utilizing Helium 10's Chrome extension and influencer tool, content creators can identify chances to get their videos featured prominently on product listing carousels. Additionally, we delve into the revamped keyword tracker that offers advanced features like heat maps and keyword harvesting. These tools, along with Cerebro, allow sellers to track competitor keywords and optimize their listings effectively, saving time while maximizing sales potential. With these insights, you can uncover valuable market dynamics and boost your Amazon performance. Finally, explore the exciting updates from Helium 10 that enhance product analysis and sales estimation. With features like keyword sales estimates for European Amazon sellers and detailed insights into sales at both parent and child item levels, you can strategically target high-converting keywords and identify top-performing variations. Learn about the reintegration of Adtomic into the Helium 10 Diamond plan, which offers AI-driven advertising capabilities to streamline campaign management. With accurate sales estimates and superior competitive analysis, Helium 10 equips sellers with powerful tools to navigate the ever-evolving Amazon landscape. Don't miss this opportunity to gain practical strategies and make the most of the latest features available to you. In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers: 00:45 - Top 10 New Helium 10 Features 06:19 - Automating Helium 10 Adtomic Strategy  08:55 - Amazon Influencer Program and Profitability Calculator 14:17 - Keyword Tracker for Competitor Analysis  19:23 - Keyword Value Comparison in Amazon 23:15 - Helium 10 Sales Estimates Accuracy 29:11 - Amazon Brand Analytics Key Features

In this episode, our expert guest answers your Amazon PPC questions. Learn how a seller scaled from $200K to $4M during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Get actionable tips to optimize holiday sales and achieve remarkable growth!   In this episode, our expert guest answers your Amazon PPC questions. Learn how a seller scaled from $200K to $4M during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Get actionable tips to optimize holiday sales and achieve remarkable growth! ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos What if you could transform your holiday sales from hundreds of thousands to millions? Destaney Wishon of BTR Media, our expert guest, reveals the art of crafting your own demand and skyrocketing sales with strategic off-platform investments, such as TV and video ads. We dissect the tactics that took one brand from $200,000 to a whopping $4 million, focusing on differentiating branded and non-branded sponsored product campaigns, and structuring these campaigns based on search intent to maximize their impact. We also break down Amazon advertising strategies for those looking to boost performance and profitability. Discover how to make the most of tools like the Search Query Performance report and Amazon Marketing Cloud for comprehensive insights into conversion rates. Learn to balance profitability with traffic through dual campaigns, explore the potential of DSP for bigger budgets, and navigate the nuances of keyword targeting. With Destiny's insights, you'll be equipped to optimize your strategies using metrics like TACoS and tools like Helium 10 Adtomic for periodic assessments. As we explore the intricacies of Amazon PPC campaign optimization, we cover everything from keyword volumes to match types. Learn how to effectively manage budgets with keyword volume, and understand the importance of automatic and manual campaigns, especially for new product launches. We also touch on the importance of influencer collaborations and product targeting to improve conversion rates in high window-shopping categories. Join us as we conclude with a special Q&A, where Destiny continues to share her expertise and engage with our community. In episode 625 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Destaney discuss: 00:00 - Strategies for Amazon Holiday Sales Success 00:35 - Welcome to TACoS Tuesday 06:17 - Optimizing for New Product Launch Strategies 10:26 - Optimizing Amazon PPC Campaigns for Higher Sales 16:56 - Amazon PPC Campaign Optimization Strategies 17:57 - Optimizing Keyword Match Types in Campaigns 21:14 - Influencers and Organic Sales on Amazon 27:02 - More Q&A and Follow-Up Questions Transcript   Carrie Miller: In this week's episode of the Serious Sellers podcast, we have expert Destaney Wishon with us and she's answering all of your questions, and we're going to be talking a little bit about Black Friday and Cyber Monday and how one of her clients actually went from $200,000 to $4 million this holiday season. This and so much more on today's episode of the Serious Sellers podcast.  Bradley Sutton: How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think, think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. Well, that's a completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and this episode is our monthly live TACoS Tuesday show, where we talk about anything and everything Amazon and Walmart PPC and advertising related with different guests, and today's host is going to be Carrie Miller. So, Carrie, take it away.  Carrie Miller: Hello everyone, Welcome to TACoS Tuesday. We have our expert guest here, Destaney Wishon. Thanks so much for joining us, Destaney.  Destaney: Happy to be here. Very excited. I mean the chaos of the holidays Black Friday, Cyber Monday, what better time to get all your questions in?  Carrie Miller: Yeah, exactly.  Destaney: On our end, almost across the board, we saw Amazon's extending this holiday period, you know, taking some pressure off of their shipping for two days. So for the first time ever. You know, if we're just comparing Black Friday to Black Friday, year over year, this Black Friday was a little bit lower, but the overall holiday period was up. I don't know if consumer sentiment around shopping is higher, but sales were almost incredible and I would say our ROAS was pretty in line. We had one brand go from $200,000 to $4 million in sales month over month. It's obviously a giftable item, but it was pretty crazy to see that. So it's been really strong now. Carrie Miller: Oh, that's amazing.   Destaney: Didn't run deals whatsoever. You did nothing for lead-in CPCs are up and your sales weren't that much stronger. But for the brands who leaned in, they did fantastic.  Carrie Miller:  That's amazing, was there a specific strategy you think that they changed, because that's a pretty substantial jump.  Destaney:   They did a fantastic job. And this is kind of the new topic I've been coining in my training is when you list on Amazon, you're just capturing the demand. Amazon's doing all the work. They're driving the people that are searching for your product. You're just, you know, you got a little bucket and you're capturing it.  Carrie Miller: Yeah Destaney: What they did incredible was they created their own demand, so they went off platform, they invested in TV and video and they educated their customer based on why they need to buy their product. So when Black Friday, Cyber Monday came along and they typed in their search term, they stood out in the page because the customers were already familiar with their products.  Carrie Miller: Wow, that's, that's pretty incredible. Yeah.  Destaney:   Yeah, it was insane to watch.  Carrie Miller:  I was. I've been curious about the tv ads and how. You know how those are going for people, so that's sounds like they. You can do a really good job with them, depending on- Destaney: 100%. We're seeing a lot of success. It's also just like rewiring your brain. I think a lot of brands are spoiled because sponsor products are so successful. But I'm like, of course they're successful, a customer's already planning on buying you. You didn't do any work, you just fit on a keyword. Like Amazon did the work of bringing people on the platform. Carrie Miller: Very true, so would you like to get on and start answering some of the questions from the audience?  Destaney:    Let's do it. I mean, typically these run over, so we might as well start strong.  Carrie Miller: Well, yeah, okay, this is from Spencer, and he says What is considered best practice for branded sponsored product campaigns. Do you make a separate campaign for each SKU or do you make one campaign and put all the SKUs in it?  Destaney:     It kind of depends. Your branded searches aren't always the same, right, if someone's typing in Coca-Cola Diet Coke versus regular Coca-Cola, you can change your strategy. So we segment based off search intents. We almost always separate branded versus non-branded, like that is table stakes. You have to separate branded versus non-branded campaigns. But when it comes to lining up your SKUs, we depend on search intent. But also from a reporting perspective, it's sometimes nice to break out into single SKU campaigns because then you can look at your TACoS per brand and you can say you know SKU A is doing really well. Maybe I should increase my branded search investment on this SKU and increase my budget on that campaign while pulling back on my branded investment for SKU number two. Breaking out into single SKU campaigns as a whole just makes it really easy to control your budget distribution if you have good naming and good organized campaign structure.   Carrie Miller:   Daniel says afternoon. Is there a I think it's morning for me, but afternoon probably for you guys Is there a golden ratio of CTR to CVR for measuring effectiveness of ad campaigns? Destaney:   I'm not going to give a golden ratio per se because it's really dependent on category. Click-through rate's also really difficult because it depends on things like pricing and reviews. So your advertising is going to be influenced by that. Same for your conversion rate, but your conversion rate. You can figure out what your category is converting on really easy using tools in Adtomic or using the search query performance report and clearly see using brand metrics. Hey, my category is converting at 20%. You should be converting better than category average, like that's kind of the standard. If you're going to increase your ad investment, you need to be converting better than category average. That being said, again, it's also dependent on search intent. Probiotics is going to be a lot more expensive than probiotics for kids back to school, right? So you can't just blanket look at your conversion rate across the board. You have to understand intent.  Carrie Miller:   Awesome. Okay, let's go to Joshua. He says if you came to Helium 10 from an agency and had hundreds of their old campaigns in your account, what is the best practice? Should I delete all of the non-performing campaigns and start over? I am not sure how to proceed. Destaney:   Great question. No matter what software you're transitioning to or an agency you're transitioning to, we don't ever recommend just pausing everything and hard stop. It's really bad for relevancy and it's difficult for the transition. What we do recommend doing is pulling your search term report for the last 60 days. Pull out all of your keywords that are successful and build them out into the new structure that you want to move forward with using the new software and then slowly rolling those out at the same time. As your new campaigns pick up traction, you can slowly pause out your old campaigns that are maybe a bad structure or maybe they're a weird single keyword structure that you don't want to move forward with. You slowly transition them over. First thing pull all your good keywords. Second thing pause all your bad keywords. Third thing slowly launch and transition your budgets over from old to new.  Carrie Miller:     What are the best practices for 2025 for new product launches. What's changed? I mean, I don't know if that's in regards to that's what I would put it, as I think.    Destaney:     I mean I don't know if that's in regards to me, but I would put it as yeah, I think quite a few things have changed. In terms of product launches, I would say driving external traffic is still doing really, really well and something that I think needs to be leaned into. A lot of brands cannot afford the CPCs in the category on a product that has zero reviews, so any way you can use external traffic that's maybe a bit cheaper to get your reviews up before leaning really heavy into Amazon advertising is a little bit more profitable. I would also say we're seeing this transition to creative matters so much more. So, making sure your click rate and conversion rate is good with your main image, but on the Amazon advertising side, really focusing on your sponsor brands, your sponsor brands video, your headline search ads, anything that makes you stand out on the Amazon advertising side. Really focusing on your sponsor brands, your sponsor brands video, your headline search ads, anything that makes you stand out on the page, because when you're launching, you don't stand out on the review perspective, so find unique ways to stand out within the search results.  Carrie Miller:   My product launched in October and I'm struggling to get sales. I've been using auto and manual campaigns, spending between 30 to 50 per day on a $20 product. I've launched the product in another territory where it's selling well. So feel confident with the product and listing. Any suggestions? Destaney:   Yeah, so I would say the first thing is to look at the keywords and really make sure they're the right keywords. Type them into Amazon. Do you see similar products? Once you see similar products, are those products priced at the same as you or are they cheaper than you? Do those products have a lot more reviews than you? Figure out the competitive advantage that they may have over you and improve your listing in that way. On the advertising side, it's really as simple as again looking at the keywords and trying to expand the keywords in which you have that competitive advantage and then optimizing your bids to make sure you can be profitable. The biggest thing, though, I would say, is understanding that competitive advantage. When you type in your main keyword, what do your competitors look like? What's the price? What's the reviews? Is the main image different?  Carrie Miller:   And the next question is from an Elite member of ours. Hi, Andrew. For SB product collection campaigns we find basically all our sales come from top of search. Is that common? Also, is it worth spending time bidding on other placements for those campaigns? Great question.  Destaney:    In general, I would say it is common. If you think about how the search results are set up on desktop and mobile, what is the biggest ad on the page? It's the sponsored brand top of search ad. The headline ads, the sponsored brand ads on the product detail page are typically video. It's not typically product collection, it's sometimes store spotlight and video. The only other sponsored brands that show up on page one are way down in the middle of search, sometimes the bottom of search. So this is very typical, not surprising. You can bid on the other placements. It's not going to drive a huge difference. Just know that the majority of your traffic and visibility comes from top of search because that's where all of the customers are clicking and viewing before they scroll down the page. Carrie Miller:   All right. The next one is from Keith. He says my BSR is improving and my PPC is converting. However, the organic ranking for my main keywords are not improving much. Any advice on how to improve rank?  Destaney:    Yeah, the two biggest factors that you can then break down is sales velocity or conversion rate. So again, figure out your category conversion rate. That's super easy with brand metrics, insights and planning or Helium 10 Adtomic, it's Amazon given data, it's first party data. So look at brand metrics. If you're converting lower than your category, you're going to need to drive a lot more traffic to your category, so you're probably going to need to spend more in order to improve that organic rank. On the flip side, let's say that you are spending more than the category or driving more in the category. Then it comes down to again like improving that conversion rate. It's traffic or conversion. Those are the two levers you really need to consider. So again, traffic the easiest thing to do is spend more it's not always the best answer or improve your listing and convert better, so that way you can easily spend a little bit more.   Bradley Sutton: Did you know that just because you have a keyword in your listing, that does not mean that you are automatically guaranteed to be searchable or, as we say, indexed for that keyword? Well, how can you know what you are indexed for and not? You can actually use Helium 10's index checker to check any keywords you want. For more information, go to h10.me/indexchecker. More information go to h10.me/indexchecker. Carrie Miller:    Hello, 80 to 90% of my PPC campaigns coming from SBV. I see the CPC and SBV a lot lower than sponsored. I am thinking to double down on I'm assuming that's sponsored brand video and let the SP sponsored on the second plan. Would that be a good way of going?  Destaney: This is. I'm not going to say this is wrong, but this is really really unusual to see because on page one there's one sponsor brand video ad, so it's very limited in terms of advertising inventory. On page one there's 15 to 20 different sponsor product camp placements, so almost actually across the board. As an agency with over $100 million in spend, 70% of sales almost always come from sponsored products because they have more real estate and inventory on the page than anything else. Very unusual. Also, sponsored brands view can get competitive really fast because since there's only one placement on page one, when everyone starts increasing bids for that placement, you can kind of lose control as CPCs go up and you're going to lose a lot of your sales velocity. So I love sponsored brands video. It's a great format, but it's very, very limited in terms of advertising inventory and you should be investing more in sponsored products. That is, across the board, the highest sales driving tactic because there's so many more sponsored product placements than anything else.  Carrie Miller: Keith says or asks what is the best way to check my conversion rate versus competitors on keywords?  Destaney: I would say your search query performance report is probably like one of the easiest ways as a whole to look at search query performance. It's not specifically related to advertising. When you're specifically looking at advertising, you can't compare directly on the keyword level. You can look at it at the subcategory level but you cannot see directly on the keyword level. You have to use SQP and then overlay it with the rest of your data.   Carrie Miller: How can you measure the effects of having a loss leader to help bring in additional traffic into your brand or variation listing?  Destaney:    Great question. I would probably dive into AMC for a lot of that. AMC is going to help you understand if someone clicks on one product, do they then end up buying another product? That's the easiest way. Without that, you could probably use depending on where you're advertising the sponsor product to advertise product report to see if people are clicking on one and then buying another. That's a really easy way to justify. It's just limited to only your advertising data where, if you use the appropriate AMC report, then you're gonna be able to see all of your organic data and that's gonna help you understand much better.    Carrie Miller: My sponsor campaigns are doing well when I have a lower bid. Whenever I raise my bid to try and get more juice out of them, my budget gets blown and they become unprofitable. Do you know what I should do in order to make this work for me?  Destaney:    There's really no perfect answer here. I mean is the balance that is Amazon advertising. One of the things that we do to help this is we'll create two campaigns with the same keywords. One of our campaign will be lower bid, focused on profitability, and the other campaign will be higher bid, with focus on sales, and we'll shift our budget back and forth. You know, 70% of our budget is going to go to profitability, 30% of our budget is going to go to the high traffic. That way we're not having to constantly fluctuate our bids. This kind of allows us to move the budget from both to maximize profitability and then, when we're done with that, it's okay, we can shift more and turn on higher sales. It's just easier budget distribution. The other things that you could look at is your bid management strategy. Maybe there's a better middle ground. Are you optimizing for placements? Are you moving broad phrase and exact? Sometimes your long tail keywords are going to be a little bit cheaper from a CPC perspective, so you're going to be able to drive more profitability from your long tail keywords. All of those additional measures are going to be hugely beneficial for the strategy.  Carrie Miller:   The next question is what's your take on DSP and data from AMC?   Destaney: I'm going to start with data from AMC, because it is now available for everyone. Brian Lee asked later on in the chat who can use AMC. Helium 10 has actually rolled it out, so you first need to request your instance being set up, but you do not need to run DSP ads to get access to AMC now. AMC is basically analytics and audience platform that just gives you a ton of insights into your Amazon advertising data. If you're not incredibly familiar with Amazon ads, it's gonna be probably a shiny object syndrome and I don't recommend you dive into it just yet. But if you understand sponsor brands and sponsor display. The second part of this question is what's my take on DSP? DSP has a bad reputation in the space because agencies and or Amazon managed services haven't been running it well, but DSP as a tool is incredible. It's one of the most powerful Amazon advertising tools out there, I would say, if used appropriately. You do need to be spending at least $10,000 on DSP a month for it to make sense, but DSP is incredibly, incredibly powerful for brands that are ready for it.  Carrie Miller: What do you recommend for Ad campaigns when you have separate listing variations. Do you recommend to merge or manage in each campaign??   Destaney: Again, it depends on search intent. In my opinion, if I have a black t-shirt versus a red t-shirt, and that's how they're variated, I like to separate out my campaigns so I can create search terms based off the variations. So I can create search terms based off the variations. If my only variation difference is size. No, not size price $20 variation, $10 variation I may not segment them. I would typically put my lowest price first because that's going to have the highest click-through rate and then lead customers to my other variations. If it's flavor variations, weight variation, something with different search intent, I recommend segmenting campaigns so you can curate your keyword experience.   Carrie Miller: What is a good way to determine keywords that you are ranking for, then comparing them to PPC campaigns to determine which keywords you may not be advertising for? Any quick way to do this.  Destaney:   Quick way is the fun part of this question. So the biggest thing I would say is to 100% 80-28. We kind of look at if we're ranked in the top four. We're going to pull back on sponsored product spend and move budgets to our sponsored brand, so we're winning the top of search and showcasing our brand. That's our overall strategy. You can use TACoS correlation to do this. If you have a TACoS objective, you'll see that when you spend on a sponsored product ad that you're ranked for, your TACoS is going to increase because you're cannibalizing your organic sales. So you can almost use TACoS as a lever to push and pull. It's not a perfect solution but it will help. The second thing to do would be to dive into you know, using Helium 10 and on a monthly, quarterly basis, pulling probably those terms, that on average you're above number four, number eight on, and then we create segmented campaigns for ranking that we can turn on and off as needed. So I don't want to turn off that keyword as a whole, I just want to lower the bids. So I'll shift my budget for my ranking campaigns to my profitability campaign. So I'm still running, but I'm not showing up in the top four sponsored ad placements.   Carrie Miller:    Jason says what is an optimal amount of keywords per exact campaign. I started with 15 or so, but as keyword harvesting creates new targets, the list has grown quite a bit. Break them into new campaigns question.  Destaney: Absolutely I personally don't love harvesting new keywords into an old campaign because it's going  change the performance of your old campaign right. If you have 10 new keywords that aren't proven, then your overall campaign may stop, start performing worse. So 15 is a great number. This is one of those fun like depending on what influencer you follow in the space, you're going to get a different number. It's really dependent on your budget. You know we've had brands that are spending a million dollars a month and they're able to have 100 keywords in a campaign because their campaigns had a thousand dollar budget. So we could afford from a budget perspective to drive traffic to every keyword. If you don't have that budget and you're only at $100 a month or a day, then you're going to need a lot smaller group of keywords to make sure you're collecting data on those keywords. So start with 15, maybe go to 20 to 30, depending on how high you want your budget to be, but then always break them out to new campaigns past that point.  Carrie Miller:   Are exact keywords generally expensive than broad? What, according to you, is the right mix of keywords, match type within a campaign and how many can should be added? Destaney: This is a fun one. There's a ton of misconceptions around this. In my opinion it just depends, because it's an auction model. If someone is bidding more on their exact match term than they are their phrase match, then maybe your exact match keywords are more expensive because your competitor is bidding more. We test all three match types across the board. They all three run in a very similar ACoS or ROAS because we control the bids to what's converting best at that certain point in time. I think for us, phrase match is one of our highest selling match types right now because broad sometimes goes too broad and doesn't convert as well. Exact match typically converts the best but can be the most expensive. If we're in a category where our competitors are bidding a lot more on exact, highly recommend running all three. Later on, someone asks can you put them all in the same campaign? You can. It's not necessarily going to hurt. We break ours up most of the time. There's instances where we won't, just so I can control again where my budget's going. But we continue to test every single keyword and every single match type and then just negate and or pause or lower bids depending on the performance in the CBCs.  Carrie Miller: I recently launched, about two weeks ago. I'm running an automatic and manual campaign. Is there any other campaigns I should be running? Destaney: No, I'd say that's fine unless you have a really high budget and look at maybe video or sponsored brands. Those are going to do really well for you. It's unique advertising inventory but considering it's only been two weeks, I think an auto and a manual is good. An auto is going to be used for keyword research and data collection for you. Use your manual campaign to really control where your traffic's going and then just continue adding those automatic keywords you're finding into your manual campaign.  Carrie Miller: Mike says, I'm in a category where there's a lot of window shopping, so my advertising spend is high as lots of clicks, no and low sales. Long tail keywords have low traffic and the keywords with higher search volume are very general, expensive and saturated by competitors. Any other strategies to consider?  Destaney:   Yeah, I would say, like the home decor, apparel, puzzles those categories can be really difficult because of the window shopping. So you got to think how do you stop someone from window shopping? Video does really really well because then you're educating them on why your product's better and why they're interested. And the good thing with sponsor brands video is if they're just watching the video you don't get charged. You only get charged if they clicked, and if they click they're interested. But again, I'd put this back on you to ask why are people clicking on your listing but not buying? Like even in high window shopping categories, you need to have a competitive advantage. The second thing I would say is product targeting, sponsor product product targeting, sponsor display product targeting can do really well. Target all of the competitors who have lower reviews than you, a higher price point than you, worse reviews than you. These do really well in window shopping categories because, as you mentioned, people are looking at competitors and then clicking on other listings and other listings. So this is a good opportunity to kind of take advantage of that mentality.  Carrie Miller:   Would you also say influencers are probably really the best way for those particular categories.  Destaney:  Yeah, I think influencers do really well because they're again, it's the same as the video concept. You don't want to just capture the demand and be compared to every other product in your category by price or reviews, which is what Amazon's known for. How do you educate a customer on why they need your product before they even click? Influencers, video ads, off-platform traffic does that job.  Carrie Miller:   Do you think Amazon rewards or gives more ranked juice for organic sales more than PPC sales, or do they treat them the same?  Destaney:    I would probably say more to organic sales. This is why your big retail brands your Johnson and Johnson's, your Pepsi or Coke's can get away with having listings that maybe aren't as fantastic because their organic conversion rate is so much higher, right? Even before they were spending a ton like seven years ago when I got started in this space those brands did so well because their conversion rate was higher. Customers were searching for their brand name and buying right, so their organic is already inflated and doing much better. Nowadays, PPC of course plays a role, but Amazon knows that they're going to max out on how much PPC opportunity they can have within the search results, so I think organic is weighted a little bit heavier in terms of conversion rate and click-through rate.  Carrie Miller: Do you ever increase budget on a PPC campaign, even if it isn't maxing out?  Destaney: It doesn't hurt. I don't think it necessarily helps. It can. I've seen a few people kind of make statements like I ran a campaign at $50 a day budget and it did nothing. When I increased it to $500 a day it did something. I've never really seen that, but it doesn't hurt anything. Carrie Miller: Joshua says wait. So I thought it was best practice to segment campaigns, as in keywords and such, to determine the performance. So is it best practice to clump keywords together for campaigns in groups of 10 to 15?  Destaney:   It doesn't really matter. Single keyword campaigns are okay, they don't hurt, but they're a pain to scale. We have brands that have 500 keywords doing well, so I'm not going to create 500 campaigns when it doesn't drive that much added value. We do 10 to 15 because it's controllable, it's easy to scale, it's easy for us to build out. Because it's controllable, it's easy to scale, it's easy for us to build out. In an absolutely perfect world, single keyword campaigns could be the best solution, the most value added, because you can do your placements at the same time, but they're not scalable for most people. Most people don't have the operations to run it appropriately and the software's out there that are recommending single keyword campaigns have a really terrible bid management strategy that doesn't make sense for them. So I would say if you're a small brand, only have one product, go ahead and run single keyword campaigns if you want. Just make sure you have a good system for naming and structuring.  Carrie Miller: This is a good question. If you're new to Helium 10 Adtomic, what's the best place to start? I feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the system.  Destaney:   I would start by saying that that is the nature of Amazon and Amazon probably going to feel overwhelmed. So the biggest thing is to actually go through, like the videos that are directly within Adtomic. Like that's what I would say one of your best bets and start learning each piece individually. That's something that I kind of got overwhelmed with, like in the beginning. Keyword research and bid management that should be our core focus when it comes to advertising. So go through those segmented videos and help yourself understand the system that way. Do you have anything else, Carrie?  Carrie Miller: Yeah, I mean we do have kind of a PPC Academy. If you are a paid subscriber to Helium 10, you can go into that course. But Bradley also has done some. He did some masterclasses on Adtomic and then there's also kind of learn videos, like you were saying, just like watch those little videos for each different thing within the actual tools. There's kind of little training videos. I would suggest doing that. We also have it in our academy. We have videos in our academy that show you how to use Adtomic.  Destaney:   General, it just takes time and, to not get overwhelmed, you have to hop in and you have to test and learn. By the time you learn something Amazon will change some button or some switch. So don't get overwhelmed by like. We have incredible comments and questions that are being asked that I would say are pretty advanced here. So, like, don't get overwhelmed by all of that. Just start simple, start small and you'll figure it out as you go. Carrie Miller:   I think we'll do maybe one more here. I think this is a good one. I use Cerebro to extract keywords from competitors ASINs and then include those as exact and phrase match within the same campaign. As a result, my campaign sometimes ends up with 500 plus keywords. Is this approach okay, or should I create smaller, more segmented campaigns? Destaney:   I'm going to assume what's happening with your 500 plus keywords is only 10 of them are actually getting impressions and clicks. That is the problem with that strategy. Unless you have a thousand dollar a day budget, you cannot afford the data across all those keywords. And what I mean by that is the industry standard is you need anywhere from 10 to 20 clicks per keyword before knowing whether or not it's a keyword that can be optimized right. So let's say 10 clicks at a $1 bid across 500 keywords. I can't do that math. What is 500 times $10? Like 5000?  Carrie Miller: Yeah.  Destaney:  Please, you guys I just got the zeros. This is one of those memes I was like what is the most embarrassing thing you typed into your Amazon or your calculator this year? I was about to say you cannot afford to collect data on all those keywords. You're going way too big and you're going to have campaigns that only have 5 to 10 keywords getting clicks, because that's where all of your budget's going. Your budget's only going to go to those keywords. Amazon's not going to spread it across all of your keywords. So there's no point in doing any of that keyword research when 480 of those keywords you cannot afford to get impressions on. That is why we break them out in a segmented campaign. So I can have a $10 campaign focus on one to two keywords, collecting data. I can turn on and off as my keywords are successful versus your 500. Again, you can't necessarily afford it unless you're going to be spending 5 to $10,000 to collect data on all of those terms.   Carrie Miller:   All right, I think that's the last question. I think you've done an amazing job for pretty much 45 minutes straight answering questions. So thank you. And Andrew says Destaney is the GOAT. And then Cory said “Agreed, this is awesome!”. So thank you so much for joining us for TACoS Tuesday and thank you to everyone in the audience. We had lots of I mean, we still have questions we haven't answered. I'm sorry about that. We just don't have time to do all of them every single time, but if you join next time early, you can get your questions in early, right when we start and get them answered. But thanks again for everyone who joined and also Destaney. If anyone wants to reach you, where can they reach you? Destaney:    Facebook or LinkedIn is probably the easiest. I see a few like good questions that came in last minute. Cory Benson, like all of my content is pretty much on LinkedIn, based around your question, so feel free to follow me on either of those platforms or reach out in the Helium 10 groups. I'm pretty active in those groups, so if you have any questions that we missed, we'd love to hop in and help.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, if you're not following Destaney on LinkedIn, you're missing out, so you got to go go follow her there. So, all right, thank you again, and we'll see you all again next time on TACoS Tuesday.

Learn how to audit old Amazon listings to uncover new keywords, drive sales, and gather valuable customer data that can help in listing optimization to boost your conversion rates. ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Could Amazon listings that you haven’t touched in a while be the hidden goldmine you've been overlooking? In this episode, Bradley Sutton reveals his tried-and-true method for breathing new life into overlooked product pages and uncovering keywords that boost sales and conversions. As 2025 approaches, it's vital to stay ahead of trends and search habits to refresh your listings. Using the Project X egg trays, he demonstrates how to effectively audit and optimize your Amazon listings using tools like Search Query Performance and Helium 10. We'll explore how examining new reviews and tweaking your advertising and product images can align your listings with consumer trends, ultimately driving profitability. Keyword optimization isn't just about throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Instead, it's an art form, and Bradley is here to guide you through crafting a keyword strategy that resonates. With a focus on a wooden egg tray example, we'll uncover unexpected opportunities by analyzing platforms like Etsy and Search Query Performance. Discover how an overlooked keyword like "porcelain egg holder" can unlock new potential. By analyzing click-through rates and impressions with Helium 10’s Cerebro tool, you'll learn how to capture untapped markets and expand your advertising reach. Understanding sales dynamics is crucial for any Amazon seller. By leveraging BSR history, we can pinpoint sales spikes and identify the keywords that fueled them. Bradley will show you how to use Helium 10's historical data tools to track keyword sales and ranking changes over time and outsmart competitors. It's not just about finding what works but creating a Standard Operating Procedure to efficiently manage the process across multiple products. Get ready to unlock hundreds of dollars in additional sales by strategically optimizing your keyword usage. Let's make tangible financial gains a reality. In episode 624 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about: 00:00 - Auditing Amazon Listings for Optimization 00:56 - Refreshing Product Listing for Project X 02:34 - Market Analysis Tools for Sellers 04:43 - Analyzing Keywords for Optimization 08:36 - Keyword Research for Wooden Egg Tray 14:14 - Utilizing Historical Data for Product Ranking 15:19 - Analyzing BSR and Keyword Data 17:40 - Organic Ranking Improvement Analysis 20:49 - Analyzing Keyword Performance Through Sales 25:33 - Analyzing Feedback for Product Improvement 28:24 - Optimizing Amazon Listings for Sales 28:41 - Discovering Profitable Keywords for Increased Sales

BREAKING NEWS: Amazon sellers are angrier than I've ever seen them before because of this move that Amazon made that could be costing sellers millions. How crazy is that? ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level. Update to the FBA inventory reimbursement policy https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHTU4yV1c1M0xMQlNKWlRB Is Amazon's new FBA inventory reimbursement policy a game-changer or a nightmare for sellers? Recent changes have sparked a significant uproar, and many sellers feel misled and worried about potential financial losses in the millions. We dissect this contentious shift, highlighting the importance of transparency and fairness in Amazon's communication while recognizing its right to shape its own policies. The discussion also provides strategic insights into managing these upcoming changes. TikTok Shop US Sales Surpass Shein, Sephora https://www.silicon.co.uk/e-marketing/ecommerce/tiktok-shop-us-593031 Return Rate and Star Rating features on Voice of the Customer Dashboard https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHWEw1VEZNWTI2WFc0WTdO Temu Leaves Amazon in E-Commerce Dust, Topping Apple’s Most-Downloaded Apps List https://www.inc.com/kit-eaton/temu-leaves-amazon-in-e-commerce-dust-topping-apples-most-downloaded-apps-list/91067132 Account vacation settings and support for the holidays https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHN0w1UkNRQlZQR0E5SjJW TikTok asks Supreme Court to temporarily halt a law that would ban the app in the U.S. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-12-16/tiktok-supreme-court-temporarily-halt-ban Enhanced display placement targeting features on Amazon DSP https://advertising.amazon.com/en-us/resources/whats-new/enhanced-display-placement-targeting-amazon-dsp/ Join us for a comprehensive exploration of these pivotal shifts, equipping you with the knowledge to thrive in the Amazon space. In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers: 00:52 - Amazon Drops Hammer On Reimbursements 23:28 - TikTok Shop Passes Shein 24:01 - Amazon EU FBA Fee Update 27:46 - Voice of the Customer Update 28:30 - Temu Most Downloaded 29:21 - Amazon Vacation Mode 29:52 - TikTok - Supreme Court 30:31 - New DSP Features

In this episode, we got the TikTok queen with 1M+ followers to share her 2024 journey as an influencer, creator, & new Amazon seller. Learn her secrets to making money this year!   ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos   Gracey Ryback from Deal Cheats, the TikTok and Amazon Live sensation with over a million followers reveals her transition from a successful influencer/content creator to Amazon seller in our latest episode. Gracey shares how her initial venture into sourcing products from China provided key insights, eventually leading to a strategic pivot towards U.S.-based suppliers. Her story is not just about product sourcing, but about understanding the intricacies of e-commerce from a seller's perspective, enabling her to connect deeply with other aspiring entrepreneurs in the industry. Forget traditional advertising methods—Gracey explains why she swerves around Amazon PPC, favoring the power of external traffic and influencer marketing to launch products organically. We dissect her strategies for breaking into saturated markets, utilizing influencers and deal sites to propel organic traffic and product visibility. With practical advice on setting lucrative discounts that draw customers while keeping profit margins healthy, Gracey provides a replicable blueprint for launching products without sacrificing profitability. Dive into the world of influencer marketing on Amazon as Gracey discusses the tools and platforms that make content creation and brand collaboration seamless. From Helium 10 Xray’s influencer mode to utilizing other platforms, Gracey shares how repurposing content can maximize reach and revenue. Balancing the demands of being a creator and Amazon seller isn't easy, but with Gracey's insights on work-life dynamics and leveraging multiple platforms, listeners will gain valuable knowledge on how to thrive as both a creator and a seller. In episode 623 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Gracey discuss: 00:00 - Gracey's Amazon Selling Journey 06:59 - Organic Product Launch Strategies 08:53 - Uniqueness and Potential for Success 13:01 - Product Promotion and Brand Expansion 15:10 - Maximizing Influencer Income on Amazon Live and TikTok 18:10 - Best Helium 10 Tools For Amazon Sellers 25:53 - Alternative Revenue Streams for Creators  26:05 - Creator's Work-Life Balance and Platforms 28:48 - Daily Routine and Content Creation 34:10 - Influencer Tools for Amazon Success

In this episode, we’ll discuss helpful Amazon advertising strategies, Amazon Marketing Cloud, Search Query Performance, and even some suggestions for the best Ethiopian restaurants. ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Join us as we welcome back George Meressa of ClearAds Agency, to the Serious Sellers Podcast, where we talk about Amazon advertising and e-commerce strategies. We discuss how tightened margins and increased competition from Chinese products are impacting sellers. The conversation covers the role of AI in leveling the playing field for non-native English speakers and the significance of external traffic sources like TikTok and Google Ads. We also examine the rising influence of larger brands on Amazon and the higher entry barriers that are discouraging new sellers. Our transition to using Pacvue for Amazon advertising and the emphasis on improving listings to enhance conversion rates are also key highlights. In our discussion on Amazon PPC campaign optimization, we focus on strategically reducing wasted ad spend and reallocating resources for better performance. George and Bradley share insights on identifying inefficient ad campaigns and leveraging tools like the Hemingway app and Pacvue to simplify language and automate bid adjustments. We explore the importance of enhancing listings through effective keyword use and optimizing Q&A and reviews, which are crucial for ranking. This conversation emphasizes how strategic budgeting and allocation can uncover easy wins and growth opportunities for Amazon sellers. Listen in as we explore modern advertising strategies and data utilization on Amazon. George discusses optimizing sales through effective keyword analysis and the benefits of using Amazon Marketing Cloud for insights into new-to-brand sales. We also touch on the value of Amazon's B2B reporting and the challenges of sponsored TV ads for ROI-focused clients. The conversation highlights the enduring effectiveness of sponsored product ads and the importance of maintaining advertising spend on high-ranking keywords. Finally, we share a lighter moment, connecting over a shared appreciation for unique ethnic cuisines, with a particular focus on Ethiopian food.   In episode 622 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and George discuss: 00:00 - Amazon Advertising and E-Commerce Strategies 04:42 - Optimizing Amazon PPC Campaigns 09:48 - Automated Bid Adjustment Strategies for Success 14:41 - Amazon Advertising Strategies and Data Utilization 15:09 - Understanding Amazon Search Query Performance Keywords 19:03 - Advertising Strategies and Best Practices 21:26 - Benefits of the Amazon Bestseller Badge 26:17 - Shifting Focus to Organic Sales 29:55 - Discussing International Cuisine Preferences 30:29 - Exploring Unique Ethiopian Cuisines Transcript: Bradley Sutton: Today we've got George back on the show for the first time in a couple years and we're going to talk about a wide variety of subjects, including general Amazon advertising strategy, AMC, Search Query Performance and even some suggestions for the best Ethiopian restaurants. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for Serious Sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we're here in Milan, Italy, at our Avask and Helium 10 workshop, and just fresh off the stage is George. Now I'm going to be asking him a little bit about what he talked about, because I was in here recording another podcast so I didn't get to hear him. But, George, it's been a little bit since you've been on the podcast. Welcome back.   George Meressa: Thank you so much for having me. It has been a while yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Yes, yeah. So now you flew in here, you're still based in London.   George Meressa: I am, yeah, I'm in London.   Bradley Sutton: Excellent, excellent. So I'm going to need some restaurant advice. I'll be going there two times in the next couple of weeks, so you'll have to give me some great local eats.   George Meressa: Absolutely, I'll give you my advice. I've been told I have horrible advice, but there's one or two winners, so then I'll get you with them.   Bradley Sutton: Excellent, excellent. Now we're not just here to talk about culinary things, were here to talk about you know what, what your specialty is, which is, you know, Amazon advertising, just Amazon in general. And so I remember the last time you were on the show. You know you talk a lot about DSP. Dsp obviously has come a long ways, but just in general, what are the biggest things that have changed in the last couple of years that advertisers are dealing with now? Or you know some new feature that they have access to? That wasn't around the last time you were on the show.   George Meressa: Yeah, it's a good question. So I think the biggest thing we've seen is just how margins are being tightened for sellers. So there's been costs that have increased in so many different areas, like warehouse costs. The cost per click just has increased in general, and not only that, but we've also seen a whole range of competition come within Amazon, so a lot of cheaper products coming directly from China and I think AI has had a massive impact on that where now Chinese sellers are able to have content that matches up with those who speak the native languages, like English in the US and other marketplaces and Temu has been one as well. It's just been a competition where you can find products at such a lower rate.   So there have been a few big components. Outside traffic as well has played a big part too. So getting viral stuff coming through TikTok, people really homing in on Google Ads they've had an impact and also the bigger brand as well. I think a lot more bigger brands are putting their products on Amazon and because they have the awareness, the conversion rates are just naturally better and they're coming in and just sweeping in and taking a considerable amount of market share. So there's a whole sea of things happening. I think one of the biggest things we've noticed, though, is there's less newer sellers, because just the barrier of entry is a little bit higher than it was when we first uh, when we last had the conversation. Bradley Sutton: Now you guys, uh, I know, um, in the last couple years you know, switched over to Pacvue, uh, for software, another one of our companies. So you know Pacvue is not just Amazon, you know, it's a really a lot of multi-channel. So are you guys leveraging advertising now on other platforms at all? Are you strictly still pretty much Amazon advertising?   George Meressa: So we're mainly Amazon advertising now. I think the biggest change that's happened since we last spoke is, uh, we're now working within the listings too, so leveraging some of the skill set we brought in from outside um, those who've run amazon brands and done really well and they've been able to help us to grow the conversion rate, because ultimately it comes down to the conversion rate and the sales. So and sometimes it's quite straightforward fixes it could be standing out with images, it could be keywords in the back end that most people forget to put in descriptions, titles, and just really working with that, and other times just that product is kind of hitting the end of its life cycle and that's   one thing we've noticed is the life cycle of products are kind of diminishing more and more since last being here.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I imagine that's kind of a benefit for you guys, because if you're only an advertising agency, you know you can only control the advertising. But if they've got a crap listing or they don't even have the right keywords, it's a little bit hard to change things. But if you're able to go in there and help people from a to z, then it just makes the advertising, I imagine, much more effective too.   George Meressa: Exactly that. So it's a kind of massive flywheel effect. When you get the listings right and you have a kind of superior product or product that stands out, it just makes everything else flow better. So you could, you know, um? On extreme examples, we've seen exceptional products of high barrier or high barrier to entry products, where they have very basic PPC campaigns, but they just rank, they just do well, and on the opposite side you have other products that are similar to what's out there and it's very difficult to get that edge. I think when I first started doing Amazon pay-per-click, you know you had the auto campaigns. Manual campaigns were just introduced. There wasn't much data. I mean there wasn't much competition, so it was easy to run it. But now I mean the data that we have access to with Amazon is unbelievable. It's unbelievable what information you can get right now and I think that is still probably the biggest edge a lot of people can have against their competitors is actually taking advantage of the data and knowing what to do with it.   Bradley Sutton: Now what is one of the most common I don't know if I can say mistakes or things that you're changing like now you take on a new client and now you do have the ability to go in and modify some things, both on the advertising side of what they were doing, but both on also on the listing, you know, side or keyword side. What are some things that are like oh my goodness, like we've had so many customers who have done this wrong and this is like the first thing that we check for to change. Does anything stick out in your mind?   George Meressa: Yeah, it's very simple. So we look at what can we bring down, what can we bring out? I mean, what can we bring down? What can we bring up? They're the two simplest ways of putting it. So what can we bring down? Where in the campaigns that we're looking at is there wasted budget? Where that, where the resources haven't been allocated well right? So this could be campaigns that are getting a very high amount of clicks but not any sales. So that's a. That's just a more straightforward basic um, um kind of uh example. But on the other hand, you can also have keywords that have a decent a cost, a horrible conversion rate, and that's where most of the budget's been distributed. So the more budget and ad spend a company has when they come to us, the stronger the chances that we will find something to improve. So that's the first thing we do is okay, what can we cut back? If someone's got, you know, you know, 10 000 a month ad spend or 100 hundred thousand a month, and we can reduce it by 10%, 15%. Then we got opportunity with that additional budget to put it in places where it is working, or untapped opportunities. That is going to be an easy win. So where is the easy wins, is the quickest thing, and reducing that spend and cutting the cost is the first place we go. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is what can we bring up? Where is there potential for growth? And this is where we kind of dig into Search Query Information. Where are certain listings organically positioned well or getting a good proportion of sales that you're just not pushing through PPC right? And when we got that information, we can then create campaigns to then test okay, what would happen if we put some campaigns behind this? Would their positions improve? And most of the time the conversion rates are strong, as strong as they and they are shown on Search Query Data. Then they move and it works well. So, from a PPC side of things, that's where we see the quick wins. Um, on a listing side of things, it's very basic things that get missing. I mean the amount of companies we look at where they just haven't got back-end keywords and they don't have, uh, their descriptions fleshed out and their, their, um, their bullet points haven't been reviewed since they first launched the products because they've got so many products. Amazon is looking at the listings to look at what is this product relevant to what is. What is the search terms that are most likely to entice a sale. So we go a little bit further as well and kind of work on um Q and A as well. How can we maximize the, the amount of questions that are answered around the products and making sure that the type of answer that's given is what amazon's looking for. So, especially with Rufus so there's a science paper that uh was recently published where amazon actually say they, they give more um, they put more weight in terms of ranking to the questions and answers and the reviews as opposed to the product description. So really making sure that all of the content it works well. I think one of the things I've just shared downstairs as well is um using simple language, right. So a lot of people things I've just shared downstairs as well is using simple language, right. So a lot of people forget that, just using the US as an example, the average reading age is of a seventh grader, right? So if the average reading age is of a seventh grader, why not use this much more simple language within your listings to really convey the message? Because then, ultimately, you're reaching 100% of your audience as opposed to reaching, you know, 40 or 30%. That in itself could have just tremendous impact and it has, we've seen in our clients in terms of the conversion rates. So I just spoke downstairs a really cool app to use is Hemingway, the Hemingway app. So with that app, you can just put your listing title in there and it will teach you to just use more simple language. Right, there's no, there's no, there's never any issue in doing that, and actually you could reach a much, much larger audience, especially if you're selling a complex product. That is the art. If you sell a complicated product to complicated ingredients, you know, really conveying the um, the benefits. And just moving back to what you mentioned, Pacvue that's been a game changer. One of the big things that it's allowed us to do is allowed us to put in rules so that we can automatically make bid adjustments that humans just can't do as well, right? So just to give you a few examples, we can put in rules which say, okay, if, uh, the position in organically is X, make X change within the bids, right. So if this and if the conversion rate threshold is above this, increase the bids, right. Doing this is just one layer, right, and that's helped a considerable amount in terms of ensuring that it's done in real time. That's the first one. The second thing is doing um, increasing bids, budgets during certain times of the day and week, right. So we found out, all of the tools we've used, patfuse being the most superior in terms of getting that right and homing in. You know, you can ask someone, a VA, you can ask a special, a specialist account manager who's been doing it for donkey's years, to manually sit there and do that, but it's not going to meet the human, it's not going to meet, uh, the tool's ability to do it at such a rapid rate. There's so many things that we do within those tools now where we're now focusing more on a strategy and we're allowing the tool to do the mundane clicking and ensuring that the campaigns are given the best possible, uh, chance of succeeding. So, um, that's kind of how we use the tool and I think, is getting to a place now. If you're not using these tools, you're going to fall behind, like you cannot. It's not like those old days where you could just click and make the budget adjustment. Amazon is checking all of the position and ranking every time a search is made for your products, right? So you want to take advantage of that, especially if you're doing good volumes. You're getting good traffic, getting good impressions. You really want to be on top of it.   Bradley Sutton: Want to keep up to date with trending topics in the e-commerce world, make sure to subscribe to our blog. We regularly release articles that talk about things such as shipping and logistics, e-commerce in other countries, the latest changes to Amazon Seller Central countries, the latest changes to Amazon Seller Central, how to get set up on new platforms like Newegg, how to write and publish a book on Amazon KDP and much, much more. Check these articles out at h10.me forward slash blog. Now, one thing you mentioned a couple minutes ago was about the Q&A. So let's say, you know, just organically, nobody has left that many questions and so obviously that means there's not that many answers to. So does this mean that you're just getting like some Amazon customers to write some questions so that the seller or the account manager can answer them, or how do you get the right questions and answers on there?   George Meressa: Very good question. So I'm going to step a bit back, Bradley. So you can use a tool like AHREF, right, and you can ask a question about a product, right, and it will give you the most asked questions on Google, right. So that's where you can do the research and be more data focused. So I'll give you an example there was some sort of nail varnish that one of our clients sold. When we put that product into AHREF how to remove the nail varnish it was the biggest question I was asked. It was getting like 20,000 to 30,000 searches a month.   So, firstly, it's about finding the right questions. Where is the itch right? What are people asking? Right? And then, when you find a few of these questions, then we encourage friends and family and there are some other ways you can do it. I just would need to speak to a team about how to do it, but in the day-to-day of the business. But what we find is, when you do that and then you answer the question as well, there's Amazon Comprehend. So Amazon Comprehend is a tool that allows you to ensure you answer the question in the right way.   So you're not neutral. So either positive or negative, and it's about being as black and white as possible, and we've noticed that Rufus picks up on this as well. So, um, you want to make sure that you're answering those questions. Um, well too. So, um, don't be vague. Um, try and be yes or no. Um, does it answer the question is this a product that removes? Uh, you know how does this product remove nail varnish easily? Yes, it does it. Does it X, does it X, Y and Z? And actually what we did is, when we actually did the research on some of these tools like AHRef, SEMrush, we found that when you go to the listing, you can actually put some visual aids of showing step-by-step how easy it is to remove it. So there's a whole range of ways you can find it but this has been really, really useful for it.   Bradley Sutton: Um, you, you also mentioned, you know, Search Query Performance and I think that's just a great data point, that that Amazon. I think none of us really ever could have predicted that Amazon would, would, would give. Um, I think you touched on it. But, like, my main thing is, I'm looking at keywords where I've got a better conversion rate for purchases, that, then the overall and then yeah, you know, checking. Maybe I'm not advertising for it or maybe I'm not ranking high. I need to double down and then maybe the ones I'm not converting as well, maybe I even dial back on the spend because I know, you know, it might not help me much with my organic ranking. Uh, because I'm converting poorly for it. What other uses other than just those, those two that are using the search performance data for?   George Meressa: That's a good question. So, as well as looking at conversion rates, looking at what is the potential on that keyword, if you're getting three sales a week from that keyword and there's 25 sales, is it gonna be better use of your time to go for another keyword that you may be getting free sales, but there's 400 sales a week, right, so it gives you the potential that keyword has for you to grow in it and make more sales. So that's the first thing. Another thing as well is Amazon doesn't make this clear, but there's two types of keywords that you have within search query, so you have more discovery keywords and you also have more kind of intent based keywords. Right, and you can figure out where these keywords lie by just looking at their kind of um, the click percentage share, and you can also look at it from the add to cart share as well.   So there's going to be certain keywords where people just are more likely to buy quicker, and so they're the keywords really good to really understand as well, because effectively, this is going to be better use of your money. So if you can find those keywords where the conversion rate is higher, then you're likely to kind of do more with that. So there's some of the ways we use search query and I know they've gone a step further with my team as well where you can actually reverse, engineer and figure out, ok, depending on how many sales there are for a certain keyword and how much competition there is. There are for a certain keyword and how much competition there is, if you get X amount of sales for that keyword per day, this is how much it's likely to cost you per click on average to see what it would look like to move you up organically. So that's what search queries can do if it's in the right hands.   Bradley Sutton: What other new Amazon data points you know, like brand metrics or things like that, are you guys leveraging to help you make decisions?   George Meressa: Good question. So I think one of the I was just speaking to Ben just last week and I think one of the big things we noticed recently is just the B2B reporting through the child ace and so you can see now how many sales you'll get in from B2B customers. So I think that's been interesting. So I think anyone who uh is sales on amazon and they should just apply to and have b2b pricing. So if people wanted to buy uh larger units we're still quite early on into this, but we started to see certain trends of search terms where it's more targeted towards b2b customers and really taking advantage of those search terms as well and probably spending a bit we spend a bit more on them. So uh tape, some sort of tape for plumbers we kind of saw that. Yoga supplies we saw that. So there's gonna be a lot more we can do with it, but that's kind of one of the latest things that we've seen that we've taken advantage of.   Bradley Sutton: Are you guys leveraging AMC? I mean, AMC has been around for a while, but now it's kind of more getting a little democratized. It's not just for people with DSP. Have you been leveraging that at all for your clients?   George Meressa: Yeah, we've been using AMC for some time now with DSP clients, so there's a whole, there's a bunch of really cool things that AMC gives you in terms of data. So the first and most obvious way is you can now start to see how many new to brand sales you get through sponsored product ads. Uh, within the interface, you can only really see that for responsive brand. So it really, especially if you have, um a consumable product, you're able to see, okay, um, which, which keywords are responsible for bringing in new purchases where, um, they've never they've never seen your product I haven't bought within a certain time period. So that's been really useful.   Um, and leveraging that information, um, there's been. How else have we used it? Uh, we created custom audiences as well. So, um, you could exclude. So, within dsp, you can exclude those who may have seen your product 15 times, because they're less likely to buy after 15 times across the whole account as opposed to uh, as opposed to one um. So there's yeah, there's been a few ways, and I think this is going to be really good for uh, e-commerce brands now, the fact that we have it at our disposal within seller central, because before it was, you know, you had to go for an agency.   Bradley Sutton: So have you guys dabbled at all with any of your clients with a sponsored tv?   George Meressa: uh well, we haven't seen it work. We have, um, it just seems to waste a lot of money, um. So most of the clients that we deal with they're kind of more ROI focused. They want to grow. We haven't really had anyone yet with us. I know Matt has his previous agency that want brand exposure and are prepared to spend 20, $30,000 a month on that. So we haven't. We haven't. We've tested, we've not seen the results. So we haven't, we haven't, we've tested, we've not seen the results. So we've kind of moved away from it.   Bradley Sutton: Um, what's maybe the best kind? You know, obviously there's a million kinds of ads now before, back in the day, say, there's auto campaigns, or there's broad campaigns, and then there's ASIN targeting and then now all of a sudden there's, you know, sponsored brand headline ads and video ads and throughout different times, you know different ones have been the most profitable or drive best ROI. It's a general thing to ask, but anything like any type of ad you see nowadays in 2024, 2025, going into 2025, that are just working better than others, that you're like, hey, everybody needs to be making sure they've got a good strategy with this type of campaign.   George Meressa: I think it's been sponsored product ads from the get go and I think they're still kind of the number one.   If you can get your ads to appear, your products to appear at the top of the search results for the right keywords, that is always going to outperform anything else.   So that's the first place is to kind of find those keywords that you're likely to convert better with, or you have been converting better with, and pushing them top of page placements through sponsored products. We tend to find that 70 of our budget goes to sponsored product ads and then if we start to see, okay, there's common themes across certain keywords where we do convert well through sponsored product ads, then we would take those keywords and put them into sponsored brand ads on exact match to really push them that way. So they tend to and have done so for a while perform the best. Every now and again you get ace in target campaign and category targeting. That works really well, especially if a particular product is superior across the category. So if you have that kind of product where your average rate and count is a lot higher, then that's another option as well to kind of really push and with those kinds of terms, if someone has searched for your competitor and they end up buying your product, then Amazon's gonna favor that a great deal more too.   Bradley Sutton: So the question I have is kind of like, I'm not sure if there's one right answer, but everybody has differing opinions, so I just want to get yours is a common one that people have is like hey, I'm on a key keyword that's relevant to my niche, but now I'm already ranking high organically. You know, like, like, should I pull back on my, my spend? You know, like, maybe before I was always going for top of search for, for sponsored ads. But you know, like, my philosophy in the past has been I want as much real estate as possible. You know, I want to go ahead and have that sponsored brand headline ad. I want it to be the one of the first sponsored ads. I want the organic rank. You know, maybe I'll have a video on the page just because now it's pushing competitors. But you know, is it, is it possible that I'm maybe cannibalizing some organic sales because they clicked on the sponsored ad when they probably would have bought my product anyways? Where do you sit on this, on this kind of debate, I guess?   George Meressa: Good question. So, um, if you have the bestseller badge, you want to do everything within your power to keep that velocity of sales up. You want to make sure that you have more sales within that category than anyone else, because when you get that badge, amazon also already knows that you are the best in that category with what you sell. So there's going to be places that Amazon will show your products that you just would not have access to otherwise. So there's a whole range of benefits that you see would not have access to otherwise, right, so there's a whole range of benefits that you see. Not only that, but when you're positioned and you have the best seller badge, you actually have a much higher advantage compared to your competitors in terms of the price you pay per click. So we tend to also find that the cost per click is lower.   So when one of our clients actually cuts back or when they lose that bestseller badge, it's so hard to get it back. It's really, really difficult. Effectively, what you've done is you've created a moat. So if you've got those number of sales in, you're making a profit. You do really want to work hard to keep that momentum of sales. If it's working to cut back, it could be dangerous.   I would probably consider encouraging people to look outside of Amazon. If it's working to cut back, it could be dangerous. I would probably consider encouraging people to look outside of Amazon to kind of compliment what they have. But I mean, there's been just too many horror stories I've heard and seen where people have, like, positioned really well, doing great sales, and then a few people with VC-backed money come in, really push PPC, run their campaigns that are lost for a while, and then, um, they take the best seller badge and they just can't get it back. They don't have the resources like some of the other companies do. So if you're in that fortunate position, you should be doing everything you can, and I think one of the key metrics you should be looking at is how many units of sales are you pushing compared to some of your main competitors? Um, just to make sure that? uh, yeah,   Bradley Sutton: Somebody's just getting started and they want to start budgeting. Uh, you know, maybe it's tacos or maybe it's like, hey, how much should I put aside? You know, like because the worst thing they can do is just budget for the product, for shipping and getting started, and they have no budget for PPC. But nowadays I think the amount of advertising we kind of have to do is more than ever. But you know you can't do it to the point where you lose money. Is there a number where you're like, hey, you should budget this percent of, like, your initial order or this amount of money weekly or something for somebody so they can really make sure that they've got enough budget where they don't run out and then now they can't run advertising.   George Meressa: So somebody, so they can really make sure that they've got enough budget where they don't run out and then now they can't run advertising. So what we look at, especially when someone's launching a product, is okay, what terms are you going to want to go for to begin with and work backwards in that way? So if you have a product, strongly encourage you. Well, try and get brand registry from the very, very beginning so you have access to brand analytics. Get the products in. You're doing a variation; it's going to be easier to get this information. But what we tend to do is look backwards and go okay, what are the keywords that we're going to target and what impressions and clicks and conversions do they get a week? What do we need to achieve to begin with? And then how much do we need on average, working on some scenarios, to have more of an educated guess, and we work backwards in that sense.   And then we have phases as. So we might have four or five phases. So at the lower end of the phases, we've got those search volume keywords. I'll get in maybe 5,000 searches a month and we start there and then we kind of go right. Here's five keywords in phase four and what we're going to do with these keywords is start off with that and we're going to have X amount of budget. So we do have a tool in-house where we kind of figure out what we, what we need to spend and then we kind of move up the phases. The moment we start to see movement in organic positioning, um, but at the beginning is going to be, you know, I mean you obviously should probably going to sign up for vine and get those reviews coming in it's going to all factor in at the beginning. If you're getting really good reviews, you're getting really good conversion rate, then then you're going to have to have some budget, additional budget, to just help you with that momentum   Bradley Sutton: Another question I had was I think in the old days you know, I don't know, maybe six years ago or so a lot of, if not the majority of sellers, when they're trying to optimize their advertising, is like strictly ACoS, like hey, I have a cost goals at the campaign level, at the keyword level, whatever. Nowadays that that's not enough. You've got to be looking at ROAS and different things like that. What is your suggestions out there as far as managing your advertising in a more holistic way, instead of just strictly looking at that one ACoS metric that we did for so many years?   George Meressa: ACoS is certainly an important metric to look at, but that shouldn't be your key KPI. I think the conversion rate should be ultimately right at the top and TACoS then comes in later, should be prioritized more than ACoS, because there may be some sacrifices you have to make with ACoS for the benefit of organically getting ranked better and start to get more sales. I think the biggest shift that we're seeing is more sales across every. Well, most accounts we're looking at is coming from paid ads compared to organic ads from the past. So trying to reverse engineer that where you're having more coming from organic, is going to be key because that's going to give you a stronger moat compared to your competitors, if you can master that. So and there's been some extreme examples where we've had one or two clients where they have a higher price point when it comes to their product, but the conversion rate has been um, not as good, right. So PPC they have additional margins compared to their competitors where they can rank higher than them, I mean where they can position behind them on paid ad, but organically they're not running the moment. Moment their ads stop running, their listings go down, right. There's no history there organically. So it's heavily reliant on PPC. So, and that's why ACoS can be a dangerous game, if you're constantly measuring ACoS and you're going with the terms with the lowest ACoS and you're pushing them, every ACoS is just going to continue to climb and climb, and climb and climb. And for someone who's a little bit more strategic, um, and using data to their advantage and they're focusing more on the keywords where the conversion rates are higher and they're positioning better, they're going to come in and they're going to take those positions off you. They're the ones that are going to come and start to slowly win.   There's one example of one client where we didn't want the main competitors to even know that we were competing for those terms. So we went for those slightly obscure keywords that get maybe a number like 20 sales a week, 30 sales a week, and we pushed those keywords to get the velocity and we started ranking and we started to understand what kind of keywords relevant to us and then we went for those core keywords that everyone else goes for, right, and then that way we were able to then easily kind of come in and take organic position and rank, and that's how you should be thinking now. So a few years ago ACOS was our main KPI. Now it's just something we look at and it's really difficult actually to share with people. That way of thinking now is such it's so short term it's not going to allow them to kind of really see this for a year good points.   Bradley Sutton: Now before we get into our last questions. If people want to reach out to you to get more, information on what you do and how you can help them out. How can they find you on the interwebs?   George Meressa: So clearadsagencycom is the URL. Just search George Meressa on LinkedIn. I've got an obscure last name M-E-R-E-S-S-A. I think there's no one else with that. I'll just say George Meressa, so you'll find me. Connect with me there. But yeah, that's probably the best place.   Bradley Sutton: Favorite Helium 10 tool of all time.   George Meressa: Cerebro.   Bradley Sutton:     And something that you know. Maybe you don't know if we have or not, but you're like man, I don't think Helium 10 has this. If I was in charge of Helium 10 or this is the task I would give them that would give me more value.   George Meressa: I mean, you've got a Genie in there. Now we need the reverse, what helps you get money back. So that's what's, and it's free. So that's probably one I would have suggested, but you've already done it, so that's a box already ticked. I can't really think right now of anything I want. I think you've got the package. I think the data that we found has been, um, it's been so solid over the years. I think you, you're one of the very few companies who've had this data for so many years, and I think that's always been important to us. Um, but yeah,   Bradley Sutton: As you know, I'm going to Ethiopia for my first time. Obviously, I'm ordering lots of injera, but what's a couple of dishes that you recommend? Maybe even a dessert? I've never had Ethiopian dessert, so what are some things I should be looking for in some uh restaurants? I can call it by name and they'll be impressed that I know.   George Meressa: Okay so first, what you gotta do is you gotta find those little places where they're making coffee. There's like an old lady wearing all white and she's she doesn't have to be old, she could be young but like, um, like, and they're just making some coffee, the freshly brewed coffee. Get some of that, you're gonna love it. So that's the first place to go. And then, um, when it comes to India, the India is actually quite different to what you get in the uh, in the states and in the UK it's they use that.   It's that really brown sourdough. I don't know if you've had that version. It's usually kind of white flour they use in in your kind of Europe and the western world, but that's quite sour, so it's going to be interesting for you. I mean, you can take spice, right? Yeah, so I love ASAP. That's like the red sauce with the egg and the chicken and that is not my favorite, but, um, yeah, I think that's probably in Jera is like the most common thing to have there. So that's what I recommend.   Bradley Sutton: Love it, love it. That's the. It's a top three cuisine for me. Like I’m all for Mexican food, Korean food and then Ethiopian food is there, so like it's always been on my bucket list to go and I'm finally going only for a day, but maybe next time I'll be able to go for more.   George Meressa: That was the most random thing, though, and I think you told me three years ago. I was like George, do you have Ethiopian food? I was like yeah, and he's like I love it. And I was like what it was? Bradley was the last person food. It's like crazy. Anyway. I don't have many people that come up to me and tell me that and this is like an intimate cuisine for me, like I have it at home. I grew up with it, like growing up, and it's just there and um, and now you know you absolutely love it anyway. Crazy.   Bradley Sutton: Love it, love it. I will people know I march the beat of a different drummer. I don't like to go with what's the norm and that's definitely not the norm and I love it. So if you guys look up, uh, Yelp, if you have an Ethiopian restaurant near you, and give it a try and trust me, you're going to love it.   George Meressa: Thank you so much for having me, Bradley.   Bradley Sutton: Thank you for being on here, and we'll bring you back next year to see what you've been up to.   George Meressa: Sounds good.