Podcasts about amazon marketing

Amazon is still the world's largest bookseller, so naturally, many independent publishers and author publishers want to know how they can succeed on the platform. IBPA is always working to help indie publishers take their businesses to the next level, so we invited Firebrand Technologies' Director of Sales and Education Joshua Tallent as a guest on “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA)” to share his expertise. He discusses how the Amazon search algorithms work to garner more exposure for your books, how Amazon sales ranks are calculated, smart strategies for Amazon advertising, and more.PARTICIPANTSJoshua Tallent is the Director of Sales and Education at Firebrand Technologies, where his focus is on helping publishers of all sizes find solutions to their workflow and metadata problems. Joshua's background is deeply rooted in ebook development, metadata, and other publishing technologies, and he is an acclaimed teacher and guide on the role of data in publishing. He serves as the Chair of the BISG Board of Directors and is the host of the BookSmarts Podcast, which features practical discussions and interviews about publishing data and technologies. In his spare time, Joshua enjoys teaching Bible studies, playing complex board games, and fiddling with his home automation system.Independent Book Publishers Association is the largest trade association for independent publishers in the United States. As the IBPA Director of Membership & Member Services, Christopher Locke assists the 3,600 members as they travel along their publishing journeys. Major projects include managing the member benefits to curate the most advantageous services for independent publishers and author publishers; managing the Innovative Voices Program that supports publishers from marginalized communities; and hosting the IBPA podcast, “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA).” He's also passionate about indie publishing, because he's an author publisher himself, having published two novels so far in his YA trilogy, The Enlightenment Adventures.LINKSLearn more about the many benefits of becoming a member of Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) here: https://www.ibpa-online.org/page/membershipMake sure to check out Firebrand Technologies at:https://firebrandtech.comAlso, check out the BookSmarts Podcast at: https://booksmartspodcast.com/Follow IBPA on:Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/IBPAonlineX – https://twitter.com/ibpaInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/ibpalovesindies/

Send us a textUnderstanding the right Amazon PPC metrics is crucial for increasing sales and improving ad performance. Many sellers rely on TACoS, but is it enough? Learn how to track PPC success using ROAS, market share, and category ranking to stay ahead of competitors.Improve your Amazon PPC results. Download our PPC guide: https://bit.ly/3DLhywd#AmazonPPC #amazonads #AmazonAdvertisingWatch these videos next:Perfectly Time Your Amazon Ads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_L4ShtrGqc&list=PLDkvNlz8yl_a1PRDJWRoR4yIM8K5Ft569&index=5Drive More Sales in Early 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JCqAzSn9Tg&list=PLDkvNlz8yl_a1PRDJWRoR4yIM8K5Ft569&index=9-----------------------------------------------Problems with your Amazon listing? Let us fix it for better sales:  http://bit.ly/3B1LvHtNeed expert guidance on Amazon? Book a coaching session today: http://bit.ly/3B3HMJATimestamps00:00 - What Metrics Matter in PPC?00:28 - The TACoS Debate: Is It Still Relevant?01:05 - Why ROAS & Market Share Are More Important01:42 - Tracking Competitor Growth with PPC02:19 - The Danger of Isolated PPC Data02:48 - A Simple Analogy for Measuring PPC Success03:14 - The Big Picture of Amazon PPC Performance03:20 - Final Thoughts: Making PPC Easier--------------------------------------------Follow us:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28605816/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevenpopemag/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/myamazonguys/Twitter: https://twitter.com/myamazonguySubscribe to the My Amazon Guy podcast: https://podcast.myamazonguy.comApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-amazon-guy/id1501974229Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4A5ASHGGfr6s4wWNQIqyVwSupport the show

Send us a textSetting the right ACOS and TACOS goals can make or break your Amazon ad strategy. Learn how to adjust these key metrics for growth and profitability.Stop wasting ad spend! Learn how to run profitable PPC ads with our PPC guide: https://bit.ly/3DLhywd#AmazonAds #AmazonSelling #amazontips Watch these next:More Sales in Early 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JCqAzSn9Tg&list=PLDkvNlz8yl_a1PRDJWRoR4yIM8K5Ft569&index=6Get the Most from Q1 Shoppers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBdW1f7htrw&list=PLDkvNlz8yl_a1PRDJWRoR4yIM8K5Ft569&index=8-----------------------------------------------Struggling with your Amazon listing? Let's fix it!  http://bit.ly/3B1LvHtGet expert advice on growing your Amazon business. Book a call now! http://bit.ly/3B3HMJATimestamps:00:00 - Why ACOS and TACOS Matter00:09 - What is ACOS and Why it Matters00:32 - How to Calculate ACOS for Amazon Ads01:16 - Setting ACOS Goals for Growth vs. Profitability02:00 - The Role of COGS in Ad Strategy02:12 - What is TACOS? ACOS vs. TACOS Explained02:30 - How to Adjust ACOS and TACOS Over Time02:48 - Need Help? Work With My Amazon Guy----------------------------------------------Follow us:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28605816/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevenpopemag/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/myamazonguys/Twitter: https://twitter.com/myamazonguySubscribe to the My Amazon Guy podcast: https://podcast.myamazonguy.comApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-amazon-guy/id1501974229Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4A5ASHGGfr6s4wWNQIqyVwSupport the show

Send us a textEvery Amazon product has seasonality, and understanding how it impacts sales is crucial. Spring is a big opportunity for most sellers, but how should you adjust your advertising? Learn how to plan for seasonal changes and maximize your product's potential.Get our free PPC guide and improve your Amazon ad campaigns today: https://bit.ly/3DLhywd#AmazonSales #PPCTips #AmazonAdvertising #SpringSales #AmazonFBAWatch these videos next:Perfectly Time Your Amazon Ads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_L4ShtrGqc&list=PLDkvNlz8yl_a1PRDJWRoR4yIM8K5Ft569&index=3Drive More Sales in Early 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JCqAzSn9Tg&list=PLDkvNlz8yl_a1PRDJWRoR4yIM8K5Ft569&index=7-----------------------------------------------Listing issues costing you sales? Contact us now and fix your Amazon listings: http://bit.ly/3B1LvHtNeed expert advice? Book a coaching call and get personalized help: http://bit.ly/4eVgJxUTimestamps:00:00 - Every Amazon Product Has Seasonality00:23 - How Amazon's Selling Seasons Affect Sales00:39 - Why Spring is the Best Season for Many Sellers01:10 - Prepping for Seasonal Changes in Sales01:17 - Valentine's Day & How to Capitalize on Short-Term Sales02:29 - Best Advertising Strategies for Spring Seasonality03:43 - How to Target Competitors Early in Spring04:22 - Why Sponsored Brand Campaigns Can Boost Sales05:02 - Using DSP Advertising for Seasonal Products05:50 - Spring Promotions to Attract New Buyers06:37 - How to Check if Your Product Has Seasonal Trends07:10 - Final Thoughts & Next Steps-----------------------------------------------Follow us:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28605816/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevenpopemag/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/myamazonguys/Twitter: https://twitter.com/myamazonguySubscribe to the My Amazon Guy podcast: https://podcast.myamazonguy.comApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-amazon-guy/id1501974229Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4A5ASHGGfr6s4wWNQIqyVwSupport the show

In this episode, Michael and Brent Zahradnik of AMZ Pathfinder look ahead to 2025 and talk about what's changing in Amazon advertising. From enhanced analytics and new data in Brand Analytics to AI integration and sponsored ad optimization, they dive into the future of digital advertising. You'll learn how Amazon Marketing Cloud is changing data analysis, what new creative possibilities Generative AI offers, and why Sponsored Display is becoming more dynamic. The focus also includes ADSP updates, process automation, and how these innovations can make your campaigns more effective. This episode is for anyone who wants to stay ahead in the world of Amazon advertising and adapt to the changes new technologies will bring. We'll see you in The PPC Den!

In dieser Folge erfährst du die spannendsten Insights von der exklusiven E-Commerce Mastermind auf Ibiza, wo Top-Amazon-Händler neue Strategien und Marketing-Hacks entwickelt haben – von Cashflow-Optimierungen bis hin zu innovativen PPC-Kampagnen. Tauche ein in die inspirierende Atmosphäre einer Villa voller Experten und nimm wertvolle Tipps mit, die deinen Umsatz boosten können!

Join us in this exciting episode as we explore the e-commerce landscape with Will Haire, the co-founder of BellaVix. Specializing in marketplace marketing for D2C brands, Will brings over a decade of experience in boosting sales on Amazon and Walmart. Dive into his valuable insights on effective strategies, overcoming challenges, and the latest trends in e-commerce operations.

Laura is the founder and CEO of Envision Horizons, an Amazon Marketing company. Since 2017, Laura has worked with over 200 brands ranging in size from emerging startups to publicly traded companies with experience in both luxury and mass brands. In 2021 she was recognized on the Forbes Next 1,000 entrepreneurs to watch list. Laura is an advisor and angel investor in various mission-driven companies. Today's episode not only covers Laura's journey to founding Envision Horizons, but what it's like for her to balance entrepreneurship and motherhood. Tune in if you're an early-stage brand seeking to launch on Amazon, as Garrett asks Amazon-specific questions on behalf of kozēkozē, as they'll be launching Nip Gloss on Amazon very soon.... stay tuned for more on that! Envision Horizons Laura Meyer _______________________ @kozekozemama on TikTok ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Purchase Nip Gloss ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠or Pre-Order the kozēpee peecup (for ovulation and pregnancy testing) with code THANKYOU20 Want commission + discounts to kozēkozē products? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apply here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠to be an affiliate and kozēkozē insider :) Sign-up for the kozēkozē newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ *********** Connect with our host on IG: @garrettnwood Follow kozēkozē on IG: @kozekozemama Podcast Instagram for details on past guests: @kozekozepodcast If you like Garrett's voice, check out her ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠meditations here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email garrett: garrettkusmierz@kozekoze.com

In today's episode on our Amazon Marketing Success Strategy series, I'm diving deep into advanced strategies to boost your natural personal care brand's Amazon sales. This episode covers crucial topics such as gaining control over your listings, preparing your listings for effective ads, leveraging Amazon ads for scalable growth, and utilizing Amazon attribution to tie external marketing efforts to the Amazon platform.   Want to grow your Amazon sales this year but need help? Have a topic you want to hear in a future episode? Send us an email! Visit clickfluency.com Or email us at contact@clickfluency.com

In this episode of the Amazon Marketing Success Strategy series, I dive into the essential reports every brand should be analyzing to stay ahead in the ever-changing Amazon marketplace. Learn which key reports to download and the crucial data points to focus on for optimizing your product listings and boosting your sales. I will guide you through attribution reports, business reports, brand analytics, and more.   Want to grow your Amazon sales this year but need help? Have a topic you want to hear in a future episode? Send us an email! Visit clickfluency.com Or email us at contact@clickfluency.com

In this episode of the Amazon Marketing Success Strategy series, I dive into the essential reports every brand should be analyzing to stay ahead in the ever-changing Amazon marketplace. Learn which key reports to download and the crucial data points to focus on for optimizing your product listings and boosting your sales. I will guide you through attribution reports, business reports, brand analytics, and more.   Want to grow your Amazon sales this year but need help? Have a topic you want to hear in a future episode? Send us an email! Visit clickfluency.com Or email us at contact@clickfluency.com

Most natural personal care brands have products that are consumable, so in today's episode, I will be sharing step 5 in the Amazon Marketing Success Strategy which is how to retarget to gain new subscribers for your products on Amazon. I will share with you ways specific to Amazon, on how you can start gaining new subscribers for your products so they order again and again. If you aren't familiar with what Amazon Seller Central offers for gaining new subscribers you could be missing out on increasing your customer order value.   Want to grow your Amazon sales this year but need help? Have a topic you want to hear in a future episode? Send us an email! Visit clickfluency.com Or email us at contact@clickfluency.com

If you are driving external traffic to your Amazon listings or storefront then you won't want to miss today's episode. You will learn how to get Amazon Attribution set up inside your Seller Central account and also how much profit you can expect to add back to your pocket by properly setting this up. If you've ever struggled with margins on Amazon or want to see better sales conversions, you will want to listen. As always, I will share with you actionable steps you can take to make your Amazon Attribution more effective.   Want to grow your Amazon sales this year but need help? Have a topic you want to hear in a future episode? Send us an email! Visit clickfluency.com Or email us at contact@clickfluency.com

Today's episode will share with you how to drive advertising on Amazon for more sales growth for your brand. It is POSSIBLE to align your Amazon ad goals with how you run your ads and I'll share with you what you need to look at know to make sure you're running your ads in a way that is effective and getting you results.   Want to grow your Amazon sales this year but need help? Have a topic you want to hear in a future episode? Send us an email! Visit clickfluency.com Or email us at contact@clickfluency.com

Today's episode is all about your product listings on Amazon and how to maximize your sales on Amazon through listing optimization. I'll dig into the essentials you need on your product's listing to make sure it sells more and converts better. Before you drive traffic to your listings on Amazon, it's important to make sure your listings are set up the right way so you can make the most from your Amazon advertising. Running ads on listings before they are converting well can lead to a lot of unnecessary ad spend and wasted efforts. I'll share with you these core elements on a listing you will want to make sure you have in place today and how you can evaluate how your listings are currently measuring up.   Want to grow your Amazon sales this year but need help? Visit clickfluency.com Or email us at contact@clickfluency.com

In today's episode I'm answering a common problem for brands who have products selling on the Amazon sales channel- unauthorized sellers. Most brands want to gain control over their listings on Amazon and if this problem isn't addressed it can lead to bigger issues and headaches for the future. If you aren't dealing with this issue then consider yourself fortunate, but listen in to make sure this doesn't become a problem!  The question of how can I gain brand control and how can I eliminate or reduce unauthorized sellers on Amazon will be tackled in this episode. I'll share with you steps you can take today that will set you up for success with your products on Amazon for years to come. You won't want to miss this foundational step in successfully marketing your natural personal care products on Amazon!   Want to grow your Amazon sales this year but need help? Visit clickfluency.com Or email us at contact@clickfluency.com

Amazon is half of the US economy and 70% of adults in the US are Amazon Prime Members

In today's podcast, I'm Michael, joined by Adam from CFS Brands and Clement from Ad Badger. We're diving into the critical role of enduring partnerships in Amazon PPC management, exploring strategies for aligning goals and overcoming common challenges to foster long-term success. We'll see you in The PPC Den!

Welcome to the EcomOps Podcast, where we delve into the strategies that make e-commerce empires. In this episode, we explore the inspiring journey of Kusha Karvandi, an Inc 500 entrepreneur who has successfully launched and exited multiple seven and eight-figure Amazon businesses. Join us as Kusha shares insights from over a decade of experience in scaling brands and introduces Kazam, his AI-based SaaS tool designed to transform Amazon advertising campaigns.

In this week's special episode sponsored by Amplify Marketing, Marissa has a fascinating chat with company founder, Franklin Goldberg, about getting books into the hands and hearts of readers. Discussed in this jam-packed episode about marketing: how every book needs to be looked at individually depending on a complex set of variables, the most effective ways to market books, the difference between interruption and interception as pertaining to marketing, the complex Amazon marketing system and why it can be worth the effort, the importance of search and keywords, how to leverage Facebook and other social media platforms with testimonials, excerpts, and freebies, the importance of packaging quality and cover design, common marketing mistakes, how marketing your backlist can be even more successful than focusing on new releases, and so much more. Amplify Marketers Year in Review + Infographic: https://www.amplifymarketers.com/2023-year-in-review-for-book-publishersAmplify Marketers Our mission is to help your message rise above the noise so it can be heard loud & clear.The Happy Writer at Bookshop.org Purchasing your books through our webstore at Bookshop.org supports independent bookstores. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Find out more and follow The Happy Writer on social media: https://www.marissameyer.com/podcast/

Want the latest on Amazon ads for 2024? Listen to our podcast with Michael and Brent Zahradnik from AMZ Pathfinder. They'll explain all the new stuff – like needing custom pictures for your ads, Amazon's AI tool for making images, and why vertical videos are in. They'll also give advice on managing lots of ads at once and using extra keywords to be more visible. It's about getting your ads noticed with the latest changes. We'll see you in The PPC Den!

Join us in this exciting episode as we explore the e-commerce landscape with Will Haire, the co-founder of BellaVix. Specializing in marketplace marketing for D2C brands, Will brings over a decade of experience in boosting sales on Amazon and Walmart. Dive into his valuable insights on effective strategies, overcoming challenges, and the latest trends in e-commerce operations.

In this episode, Joe Shelerud is joined by Jack Lindberg from The Mars Agency to explore the intricacies of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) and data clean rooms. They discuss the technical and analogical aspects of data clean rooms, highlighting their significance in maintaining privacy while sharing valuable data. The conversation delves into use cases, including ASIN purchase overlap reports and insights into customer behavior after viewing ads.Key Points:Understanding the concept of data clean rooms and their role in protecting privacy.AMC as a unique clean room where Amazon serves as both the host and data provider.Use cases of AMC, such as ASIN purchase overlap reports and insights into branded keywords.Challenges and opportunities in the evolving landscape of digital advertising, especially with the deprecation of cookies.Eligibility requirements for using AMC and the importance of SQL proficiency.Strategic and tactical actions advertisers can take based on AMC insights.Leveraging AMC audiences for enhanced targeting in Amazon DSP.Guest:Jack Lindberg - Director of Analytics at The Mars AgencyJoe Shelerud - CEO of Ad Advance and Host of the Ad Project Podcast

Evelyn Osman, Principal Platform Engineer at AutoScout24, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss the dire need for developers to agree on a standardized tool set in order to scale their projects and innovate quickly. Corey and Evelyn pick apart the new products being launched in cloud computing and discover a large disconnect between what the industry needs and what is actually being created. Evelyn shares her thoughts on why viewing platforms as products themselves forces developers to get into the minds of their users and produces a better end result.About EvelynEvelyn is a recovering improviser currently role playing as a Lead Platform Engineer at Autoscout24 in Munich, Germany. While she says she specializes in AWS architecture and integration after spending 11 years with it, in truth she spends her days convincing engineers that a product mindset will make them hate their product managers less.Links Referenced:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evelyn-osman/TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. My guest today is Evelyn Osman, engineering manager at AutoScout24. Evelyn, thank you for joining me.Evelyn: Thank you very much, Corey. It's actually really fun to be on here.Corey: I have to say one of the big reasons that I was enthused to talk to you is that you have been using AWS—to be direct—longer than I have, and that puts you in a somewhat rarefied position where AWS's customer base has absolutely exploded over the past 15 years that it's been around, but at the beginning, it was a very different type of thing. Nowadays, it seems like we've lost some of that magic from the beginning. Where do you land on that whole topic?Evelyn: That's actually a really good point because I always like to say, you know, when I come into a room, you know, I really started doing introductions like, “Oh, you know, hey,” I'm like, you know, “I'm this director, I've done this XYZ,” and I always say, like, “I'm Evelyn, engineering manager, or architect, or however,” and then I say, you know, “I've been working with AWS, you know, 11, 12 years,” or now I can't quite remember.Corey: Time becomes a flat circle. The pandemic didn't help.Evelyn: [laugh] Yeah, I just, like, a look at that the year, and I'm like, “Jesus. It's been that long.” Yeah. And usually, like you know, you get some odd looks like, “Oh, my God, you must be a sage.” And for me, I'm… you see how different services kind of, like, have just been reinventions of another one, or they just take a managed service and make another managed service around it. So, I feel that there's a lot of where it's just, you know, wrapping up a pretty bow, and calling it something different, it feels like.Corey: That's what I've been low-key asking people for a while now over the past year, namely, “What is the most foundational, interesting thing that AWS has done lately, that winds up solving for this problem of whatever it is you do as a company? What is it that has foundationally made things better that AWS has put out in the last service? What was it?” And the answers I get are all depressingly far in the past, I have to say. What's yours?Evelyn: Honestly, I think the biggest game-changer I remember experiencing was at an analyst summit in Stockholm when they announced Lambda.Corey: That was announced before I even got into this space, as an example of how far back things were. And you're right. That was transformative. That was awesome.Evelyn: Yeah, precisely. Because before, you know, we were always, like, trying to figure, okay, how do we, like, launch an instance, run some short code, and then clean it up. AWS is going to charge for an hour, so we need to figure out, you know, how to pack everything into one instance, run for one hour. And then they announced Lambda, and suddenly, like, holy shit, this is actually a game changer. We can actually write small functions that do specific things.And, you know, you go from, like, microservices, like, to like, tiny, serverless functions. So, that was huge. And then DynamoDB along with that, really kind of like, transformed the entire space for us in many ways. So, back when I was at TIBCO, there was a few innovations around that, even, like, one startup inside TIBCO that quite literally, their entire product was just Lambda functions. And one of their problems was, they wanted to sell in the Marketplace, and they couldn't figure out how to sell Lambda on the marketplace.Corey: It's kind of wild when we see just how far it's come, but also how much they've announced that doesn't change that much, to be direct. For me, one of the big changes that I remember that really made things better for customers—thought it took a couple of years—was EFS. And even that's a little bit embarrassing because all that is, “All right, we finally found a way to stuff a NetApp into us-east-1,” so now NFS, just like you used to use it in the 90s and the naughts, can be done responsibly in the cloud. And that, on some level, wasn't a feature launch so much as it was a concession to the ways that companies had built things and weren't likely to change.Evelyn: Honestly, I found the EFS launch to be a bit embarrassing because, like, you know, when you look closer at it, you realize, like, the performance isn't actually that great.Corey: Oh, it was horrible when it launched. It would just slam to a halt because you got the IOPS scaled with how much data you stored on it. The documentation explicitly said to use dd to start loading a bunch of data onto it to increase the performance. It's like, “Look, just sandbag the thing so it does what you'd want.” And all that stuff got fixed, but at the time it looked like it was clown shoes.Evelyn: Yeah, and that reminds me of, like, EBS's, like, gp2 when we're, like you know, we're talking, like, okay, provision IOPS with gp2. We just kept saying, like, just give yourself really big volume for performance. And it feel like they just kind of kept that with EFS. And it took years for them to really iterate off of that. Yeah, so, like, EFS was a huge thing, and I see us, we're still using it now today, and like, we're trying to integrate, especially for, like, data center migrations, but yeah, you always see that a lot of these were first more for, like, you know, data centers to the cloud, you know. So, first I had, like, EC2 classic. That's where I started. And I always like to tell a story that in my team, we're talking about using AWS, I was the only person fiercely against it because we did basically large data processing—sorry, I forget the right words—data analytics. There we go [laugh].Corey: I remember that, too. When it first came out, it was, “This sounds dangerous and scary, and it's going to be a flash in the pan because who would ever trust their core compute infrastructure to some random third-party company, especially a bookstore?” And yeah, I think I got that one very wrong.Evelyn: Yeah, exactly. I was just like, no way. You know, I see all these articles talking about, like, terrible disk performance, and here I am, where it's like, it's my bread and butter. I'm specialized in it, you know? I write code in my sleep and such.[Yeah, the interesting thing is, I was like, first, it was like, I can 00:06:03] launch services, you know, to kind of replicate when you get in a data center to make it feature comparable, and then it was taking all this complex services and wrapping it up in a pretty bow for—as a managed service. Like, EKS, I think, was the biggest one, if we're looking at managed services. Technically Elasticsearch, but I feel like that was the redheaded stepchild for quite some time.Corey: Yeah, there was—Elasticsearch was a weird one, and still is. It's not a pleasant service to run in any meaningful sense. Like, what people actually want as the next enhancement that would excite everyone is, I want a serverless version of this thing where I can just point it at a bunch of data, I hit an API that I don't have to manage, and get Elasticsearch results back from. They finally launched a serverless offering that's anything but. You have to still provision compute units for it, so apparently, the word serverless just means managed service over at AWS-land now. And it just, it ties into the increasing sense of disappointment I've had with almost all of their recent launches versus what I felt they could have been.Evelyn: Yeah, the interesting thing about Elasticsearch is, a couple of years ago, they came out with OpenSearch, a competing Elasticsearch after [unintelligible 00:07:08] kind of gave us the finger and change the licensing. I mean, OpenSearch actually become a really great offering if you run it yourself, but if you use their managed service, it can kind—you lose all the benefits, in a way.Corey: I'm curious, as well, to get your take on what I've been seeing that I think could only be described as an internal shift, where it's almost as if there's been a decree passed down that every service has to run its own P&L or whatnot, and as a result, everything that gets put out seems to be monetized in weird ways, even when I'd argue it shouldn't be. The classic example I like to use for this is AWS Config, where it charges you per evaluation, and that happens whenever a cloud resource changes. What that means is that by using the cloud dynamically—the way that they supposedly want us to do—we wind up paying a fee for that as a result. And it's not like anyone is using that service in isolation; it is definitionally being used as people are using other cloud resources, so why does it cost money? And the answer is because literally everything they put out costs money.Evelyn: Yep, pretty simple. Oftentimes, there's, like, R&D that goes into it, but the charges seem a bit… odd. Like from an S3 lens, was, I mean, that's, like, you know, if you're talking about services, that was actually a really nice one, very nice holistic overview, you know, like, I could drill into a data lake and, like, look into things. But if you actually want to get anything useful, you have to pay for it.Corey: Yeah. Everything seems to, for one reason or another, be stuck in this place where, “Well, if you want to use it, it's going to cost.” And what that means is that it gets harder and harder to do anything that even remotely resembles being able to wind up figuring out where's the spend going, or what's it going to cost me as time goes on? Because it's not just what are the resources I'm spinning up going to cost, what are the second, third, and fourth-order effects of that? And the honest answer is, well, nobody knows. You're going to have to basically run an experiment and find out.Evelyn: Yeah. No, true. So, what I… at AutoScout, we actually ended up doing is—because we're trying to figure out how to tackle these costs—is they—we built an in-house cost allocation solution so we could track all of that. Now, AWS has actually improved Cost Explorer quite a bit, and even, I think, Billing Conductor was one that came out [unintelligible 00:09:21], kind of like, do a custom tiered and account pricing model where you can kind of do the same thing. But even that also, there is a cost with it.I think that was trying to compete with other, you know, vendors doing similar solutions. But it still isn't something where we see that either there's, like, arbitrarily low pricing there, or the costs itself doesn't really quite make sense. Like, AWS [unintelligible 00:09:45], as you mentioned, it's a terrific service. You know, we try to use it for compliance enforcement and other things, catching bad behavior, but then as soon as people see the price tag, we just run away from it. So, a lot of the security services themselves, actually, the costs, kind of like, goes—skyrockets tremendously when you start trying to use it across a large organization. And oftentimes, the organization isn't actually that large.Corey: Yeah, it gets to this point where, especially in small environments, you have to spend more energy and money chasing down what the cost is than you're actually spending on the thing. There were blog posts early on that, “Oh, here's how you analyze your bill with Redshift,” and that was a minimum 750 bucks a month. It's, well, I'm guessing that that's not really for my $50 a month account.Evelyn: Yeah. No, precisely. I remember seeing that, like, entire ETL process is just, you know, analyze your invoice. Cost [unintelligible 00:10:33], you know, is fantastic, but at the end of the day, like, what you're actually looking at [laugh], is infinitesimally small compared to all the data in that report. Like, I think oftentimes, it's simply, you know, like, I just want to look at my resources and allocate them in a multidimensional way. Which actually isn't really that multidimensional, when you think about it [laugh].Corey: Increasingly, Cost Explorer has gotten better. It's not a new service, but every iteration seems to improve it to a point now where I'm talking to folks, and they're having a hard time justifying most of the tools in the cost optimization space, just because, okay, they want a percentage of my spend on AWS to basically be a slightly better version of a thing that's already improving and works for free. That doesn't necessarily make sense. And I feel like that's what you get trapped into when you start going down the VC path in the cost optimization space. You've got to wind up having a revenue model and an offering that scales through software… and I thought, originally, I was going to be doing something like that. At this point, I'm unconvinced that anything like that is really tenable.Evelyn: Yeah. When you're a small organization you're trying to optimize, you might not have the expertise and the knowledge to do so, so when one of these small consultancies comes along, saying, “Hey, we're going to charge you a really small percentage of your invoice,” like, okay, great. That's, like, you know, like, a few $100 a month to make sure I'm fully optimized, and I'm saving, you know, far more than that. But as soon as your invoice turns into, you know, it's like $100,000, or $300,000 or more, that percentage becomes rather significant. And I've had vendors come to me and, like, talk to me and is like, “Hey, we can, you know, for a small percentage, you know, we're going to do this machine learning, you know, AI optimization for you. You know, you don't have to do anything. We guaranteed buybacks your RIs.” And as soon as you look at the price tag with it, we just have to walk away. Or oftentimes we look at it, and there are truly very simple ways to do it on your own, if you just kind of put some thought into it.Corey: While we want to talking a bit before this show, you taught me something new about GameLift, which I think is a different problem that AWS has been dealing with lately. I've never paid much attention to it because it is the—as I assume from what it says on the tin, oh, it's a service for just running a whole bunch of games at scale, and I'm not generally doing that. My favorite computer game remains to be Twitter at this point, but that's okay. What is GameLift, though, because you want to shining a different light on it, which makes me annoyed that Amazon Marketing has not pointed this out.Evelyn: Yeah, so I'll preface this by saying, like, I'm not an expert on GameLift. I haven't even spun it up myself because there's quite a bit of price. I learned this fall while chatting with an SA who works in the gaming space, and it kind of like, I went, like, “Back up a second.” If you think about, like, I'm, you know, like, World of Warcraft, all you have are thousands of game clients all over the world, playing the same game, you know, on the same server, in the same instance, and you need to make sure, you know, that when I'm running, and you're running, that we know that we're going to reach the same point the same time, or if there's one object in that room, that only one of us can get it. So, all these servers are doing is tracking state across thousands of clients.And GameLift, when you think about your dedicated game service, it really is just multi-region distributed state management. Like, at the basic, that's really what it is. Now, there's, you know, quite a bit more happening within GameLift, but that's what I was going to explain is, like, it's just state management. And there are far more use cases for it than just for video games.Corey: That's maddening to me because having a global session state store, for lack of a better term, is something that so many customers have built themselves repeatedly. They can build it on top of primitives like DynamoDB global tables, or alternately, you have a dedicated region where that thing has to live and everything far away takes forever to round-trip. If they've solved some of those things, why on earth would they bury it under a gaming-branded service? Like, offer that primitive to the rest of us because that's useful.Evelyn: No, absolutely. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if you peeled back the curtain with GameLift, you'll find a lot of—like, several other you know, AWS services that it's just built on top of. I kind of mentioned earlier is, like, what I see now with innovation, it's like we just see other services packaged together and releases a new product.Corey: Yeah, IoT had the same problem going on for years where there was a lot of really good stuff buried in there, like IOT events. People were talking about using that for things like browser extensions and whatnot, but you need to be explicitly told that that's a thing that exists and is handy, but otherwise you'd never know it was there because, “Well, I'm not building anything that's IoT-related. Why would I bother?” It feels like that was one direction that they tended to go in.And now they take existing services that are, mmm, kind of milquetoast, if I'm being honest, and then saying, “Oh, like, we have Comprehend that does, effectively detection of themes, keywords, and whatnot, from text. We're going to wind up re-releasing that as Comprehend Medical.” Same type of thing, but now focused on a particular vertical. Seems to me that instead of being a specific service for that vertical, just improve the baseline the service and offer HIPAA compliance if it didn't exist already, and you're mostly there. But what do I know? I'm not a product manager trying to get promoted.Evelyn: Yeah, that's true. Well, I was going to mention that maybe it's the HIPAA compliance, but actually, a lot of their services already have HIPAA compliance. And I've stared far too long at that compliance section on AWS's site to know this, but you know, a lot of them actually are HIPAA-compliant, they're PCI-compliant, and ISO-compliant, and you know, and everything. So, I'm actually pretty intrigued to know why they [wouldn't 00:16:04] take that advantage.Corey: I just checked. Amazon Comprehend is itself HIPAA-compliant and is qualified and certified to hold Personal Health Information—PHI—Private Health Information, whatever the acronym stands for. Now, what's the difference, then, between that and Medical? In fact, the HIPAA section says for Comprehend Medical, “For guidance, see the previous section on Amazon Comprehend.” So, there's no difference from a regulatory point of view.Evelyn: That's fascinating. I am intrigued because I do know that, like, within AWS, you know, they have different segments, you know? There's, like, Digital Native Business, there's Enterprise, there's Startup. So, I am curious how things look over the engineering side. I'm going to talk to somebody about this now [laugh].Corey: Yeah, it's the—like, I almost wonder, on some level, it feels like, “Well, we wound to building this thing in the hopes that someone would use it for something. And well, if we just use different words, it checks a box in some analyst's chart somewhere.” I don't know. I mean, I hate to sound that negative about it, but it's… increasingly when I talk to customers who are active in these spaces around the industry vertical targeted stuff aimed at their industry, they're like, “Yeah, we took a look at it. It was adorable, but we're not using it that way. We're going to use either the baseline version or we're going to work with someone who actively gets our industry.” And I've heard that repeated about three or four different releases that they've put out across the board of what they've been doing. It feels like it is a misunderstanding between what the world needs and what they're able to or willing to build for us.Evelyn: Not sure. I wouldn't be surprised, if we go far enough, it could probably be that it's just a product manager saying, like, “We have to advertise directly to the industry.” And if you look at it, you know, in the backend, you know, it's an engineer, you know, kicking off a build and just changing the name from Comprehend to Comprehend Medical.Corey: And, on some level, too, they're moving a lot more slowly than they used to. There was a time where they were, in many cases, if not the first mover, the first one to do it well. Take Code Whisperer, their AI powered coding assistant. That would have been a transformative thing if GitHub Copilot hadn't beaten them every punch, come out with new features, and frankly, in head-to-head experiments that I've run, came out way better as a product than what Code Whisperer is. And while I'd like to say that this is great, but it's too little too late. And when I talk to engineers, they're very excited about what Copilot can do, and the only people I see who are even talking about Code Whisperer work at AWS.Evelyn: No, that's true. And so, I think what's happening—and this is my opinion—is that first you had AWS, like, launching a really innovative new services, you know, that kind of like, it's like, “Ah, it's a whole new way of running your workloads in the cloud.” Instead of you know, basically, hiring a whole team, I just click a button, you have your instance, you use it, sell software, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they went towards serverless, and then IoT, and then it started targeting large data lakes, and then eventually that kind of run backwards towards security, after the umpteenth S3 data leak.Corey: Oh, yeah. And especially now, like, so they had a hit in some corners with SageMaker, so now there are 40 services all starting with the word SageMaker. That's always pleasant.Evelyn: Yeah, precisely. And what I kind of notice is… now they're actually having to run it even further back because they caught all the corporations that could pivot to the cloud, they caught all the startups who started in the cloud, and now they're going for the larger behemoths who have massive data centers, and they don't want to innovate. They just want to reduce this massive sysadmin team. And I always like to use the example of a Bare Metal. When that came out in 2019, everybody—we've all kind of scratched your head. I'm like, really [laugh]?Corey: Yeah, I could see where it makes some sense just for very specific workloads that involve things like specific capabilities of processors that don't work under emulation in some weird way, but it's also such a weird niche that I'm sure it's there for someone. My default assumption, just given the breadth of AWS's customer base, is that whenever I see something that they just announced, well, okay, it's clearly not for me; that doesn't mean it's not meeting the needs of someone who looks nothing like me. But increasingly as I start exploring the industry in these services have time to percolate in the popular imagination and I still don't see anything interesting coming out with it, it really makes you start to wonder.Evelyn: Yeah. But then, like, I think, like, roughly a year or something, right after Bare Metal came out, they announced Outposts. So, then it was like, another way to just stay within your data center and be in the cloud.Corey: Yeah. There's a bunch of different ways they have that, okay, here's ways you can run AWS services on-prem, but still pay us by the hour for the privilege of running things that you have living in your facility. And that doesn't seem like it's quite fair.Evelyn: That's exactly it. So, I feel like now it's sort of in diminishing returns and sort of doing more cloud-native work compared to, you know, these huge opportunities, which is everybody who still has a data center for various reasons, or they're cloud-native, and they grow so big, that they actually start running their own data centers.Corey: I want to call out as well before we wind up being accused of being oblivious, that we're recording this before re:Invent. So, it's entirely possible—I hope this happens—that they announce something or several some things that make this look ridiculous, and we're embarrassed to have had this conversation. And yeah, they're totally getting it now, and they have completely surprised us with stuff that's going to be transformative for almost every customer. I've been expecting and hoping for that for the last three or four re:Invents now, and I haven't gotten it.Evelyn: Yeah, that's right. And I think there's even a new service launches that actually are missing fairly obvious things in a way. Like, mine is the Managed Workflow for Amazon—it's Managed Airflow, sorry. So, we were using Data Pipeline for, you know, big ETL processing, so it was an in-house tool we kind of built at Autoscout, we do platform engineering.And it was deprecated, so we looked at a new—what to replace it with. And so, we looked at Airflow, and we decided this is the way to go, we want to use managed because we don't want to maintain our own infrastructure. And the problem we ran into is that it doesn't have support for shared VPCs. And we actually talked to our account team, and they were confused. Because they said, like, “Well, every new service should support it natively.” But it just didn't have it. And that's, kind of, what, I kind of found is, like, there's—it feels—sometimes it's—there's a—it's getting rushed out the door, and it'll actually have a new managed service or new service launched out, but they're also sort of cutting some corners just to actually make sure it's packaged up and ready to go.Corey: When I'm looking at this, and seeing how this stuff gets packaged, and how it's built out, I start to understand a pattern that I've been relatively down on across the board. I'm curious to get your take because you work at a fairly sizable company as an engineering manager, running teams of people who do this sort of thing. Where do you land on the idea of companies building internal platforms to wrap around the offerings that the cloud service providers that they use make available to them?Evelyn: So, my opinion is that you need to build out some form of standardized tool set in order to actually be able to innovate quickly. Now, this sounds counterintuitive because everyone is like, “Oh, you know, if I want to innovate, I should be able to do this experiment, and try out everything, and use what works, and just release it.” And that greatness [unintelligible 00:23:14] mentality, you know, it's like five talented engineers working to build something. But when you have, instead of five engineers, you have five teams of five engineers each, and every single team does something totally different. You know, one uses Scala, and other on TypeScript, another one, you know .NET, and then there could have been a [last 00:23:30] one, you know, comes in, you know, saying they're still using Ruby.And then next thing you know, you know, you have, like, incredibly diverse platforms for services. And if you want to do any sort of like hiring or cross-training, it becomes incredibly difficult. And actually, as the organization grows, you want to hire talent, and so you're going to have to hire, you know, a developer for this team, you going to have to hire, you know, Ruby developer for this one, a Scala guy here, a Node.js guy over there.And so, this is where we say, “Okay, let's agree. We're going to be a Scala shop. Great. All right, are we running serverless? Are we running containerized?” And you agree on those things. So, that's already, like, the formation of it. And oftentimes, you start with DevOps. You'll say, like, “I'm a DevOps team,” you know, or doing a DevOps culture, if you do it properly, but you always hit this scaling issue where you start growing, and then how do you maintain that common tool set? And that's where we start looking at, you know, having a platform… approach, but I'm going to say it's Platform-as-a-Product. That's the key.Corey: Yeah, that's a good way of framing it because originally, the entire world needed that. That's what RightScale was when EC2 first came out. It was a reimagining of the EC2 console that was actually usable. And in time, AWS improved that to the point where RightScale didn't really have a place anymore in a way that it had previously, and that became a business challenge for them. But you have, what is it now, 2, 300 services that AWS has put out, and out, and okay, great. Most companies are really only actively working with a handful of those. How do you make those available in a reasonable way to your teams, in ways that aren't distracting, dangerous, et cetera? I don't know the answer on that one.Evelyn: Yeah. No, that's true. So, full disclosure. At AutoScout, we do platform engineering. So, I'm part of, like, the platform engineering group, and we built a platform for our product teams. It's kind of like, you need to decide to [follow 00:25:24] those answers, you know? Like, are we going to be fully containerized? Okay, then, great, we're going to use Fargate. All right, how do we do it so that developers don't actually—don't need to think that they're running Fargate workloads?And that's, like, you know, where it's really important to have those standardized abstractions that developers actually enjoy using. And I'd even say that, before you start saying, “Ah, we're going to do platform,” you say, “We should probably think about developer experience.” Because you can do a developer experience without a platform. You can do that, you know, in a DevOps approach, you know? It's basically build tools that makes it easy for developers to write code. That's the first step for anything. It's just, like, you have people writing the code; make sure that they can do the things easily, and then look at how to operate it.Corey: That sure would be nice. There's a lack of focus on usability, especially when it comes to a number of developer tools that we see out there in the wild, in that, they're clearly built by people who understand the problem space super well, but they're designing these things to be used by people who just want to make the website work. They don't have the insight, the knowledge, the approach, any of it, nor should they necessarily be expected to.Evelyn: No, that's true. And what I see is, a lot of the times, it's a couple really talented engineers who are just getting shit done, and they get shit done however they can. So, it's basically like, if they're just trying to run the website, they're just going to write the code to get things out there and call it a day. And then somebody else comes along, has a heart attack when see what's been done, and they're kind of stuck with it because there is no guardrails or paved path or however you want to call it.Corey: I really hope—truly—that this is going to be something that we look back and laugh when this episode airs, that, “Oh, yeah, we just got it so wrong. Look at all the amazing stuff that came out of re:Invent.” Are you going to be there this year?Evelyn: I am going to be there this year.Corey: My condolences. I keep hoping people get to escape.Evelyn: This is actually my first one in, I think, five years. So, I mean, the last time I was there was when everybody's going crazy over pins. And I still have a bag of them [laugh].Corey: Yeah, that did seem like a hot-second collectable moment, didn't it?Evelyn: Yeah. And then at the—I think, what, the very last day, as everybody's heading to re:Play, you could just go into the registration area, and they just had, like, bags of them lying around to take. So, all the competing, you know, to get the requirements for a pin was kind of moot [laugh].Corey: Don't you hate it at some point where it's like, you feel like I'm going to finally get this crowning achievement, it's like or just show up at the buffet at the end and grab one of everything, and wow, that would have saved me a lot of pain and trouble.Evelyn: Yeah.Corey: Ugh, scavenger hunts are hard, as I'm about to learn to my own detriment.Evelyn: Yeah. No, true. Yeah. But I am really hoping that re:Invent proves me wrong. Embarrassingly wrong, and then all my colleagues can proceed to mock me for this ridiculous podcast that I made with you. But I am a fierce skeptic. Optimistic nihilist, but still a nihilist, so we'll see how re:Invent turns out.Corey: So, I am curious, given your experience at more large companies than I tend to be embedded with for any period of time, how have you found that these large organizations tend to pick up new technologies? What does the adoption process look like? And honestly, if you feel like throwing some shade, how do they tend to get it wrong?Evelyn: In most cases, I've seen it go… terrible. Like, it just blows up in their face. And I say that is because a lot of the time, an organization will say, “Hey, we're going to adopt this new way of organizing teams or developing products,” and they look at all the practices. They say, “Okay, great. Product management is going to bring it in, they're going to structure things, how we do the planning, here's some great charts and diagrams,” but they don't really look at the culture aspect.And that's always where I've seen things fall apart. I've been in a room where, you know, our VP was really excited about team topologies and say, “Hey, we're going to adopt it.” And then an engineering manager proceeded to say, “Okay, you're responsible for this team, you're responsible for that team, you're responsible for this team talking to, like, a team of, like, five engineers,” which doesn't really work at all. Or, like, I think the best example is DevOps, you know, where you say, “Ah, we're going to adopt DevOps, we're going to have a DevOps team, or have a DevOps engineer.”Corey: Step one: we're going to rebadge everyone with existing job titles to have the new fancy job titles that reflect it. It turns out that's not necessarily sufficient in and of itself.Evelyn: Not really. The Spotify model. People say, like, “Oh, we're going to do the Spotify model. We're going to do skills, tribes, you know, and everything. It's going to be awesome, it's going to be great, you know, and nice, cross-functional.”The reason I say it bails on us every single time is because somebody wants to be in control of the process, and if the process is meant to encourage collaboration and innovation, that person actually becomes a chokehold for it. And it could be somebody that says, like, “Ah, I need to be involved in every single team, and listen to know what's happening, just so I'm aware of it.” What ends up happening is that everybody differs to them. So, there is no collaboration, there is no innovation. DevOps, you say, like, “Hey, we're going to have a team to do everything, so your developers don't need to worry about it.” What ends up happening is you're still an ops team, you still have your silos.And that's always a challenge is you actually have to say, “Okay, what are the cultural values around this process?” You know, what is SRE? What is DevOps, you know? Is it seen as processes, is it a series of principles, platform, maybe, you know? We have to say, like—that's why I say, Platform-as-a-Product because you need to have that product mindset, that culture of product thinking, to really build a platform that works because it's all about the user journey.It's not about building a common set of tools. It's the user journey of how a person interacts with their code to get it into a production environment. And so, you need to understand how that person sits down at their desk, starts the laptop up, logs in, opens the IDE, what they're actually trying to get done. And once you understand that, then you know your requirements, and you build something to fill those things so that they are happy to use it, as opposed to saying, “This is our platform, and you're going to use it.” And they're probably going to say, “No.” And the next thing, you know, they're just doing their own thing on the side.Corey: Yeah, the rise of Shadow IT has never gone away. It's just, on some level, it's the natural expression, I think it's an immune reaction that companies tend to have when process gets in the way. Great, we have an outcome that we need to drive towards; we don't have a choice. Cloud empowered a lot of that and also has given tools to help rein it in, and as with everything, the arms race continues.Evelyn: Yeah. And so, what I'm going to continue now, kind of like, toot the platform horn. So, Gregor Hohpe, he's a [solutions architect 00:31:56]—I always f- up his name. I'm so sorry, Gregor. He has a great book, and even a talk, called The Magic of Platforms, that if somebody is actually curious about understanding of why platforms are nice, they should really watch that talk.If you see him at re:Invent, or a summit or somewhere giving a talk, go listen to that, and just pick his brain. Because that's—for me, I really kind of strongly agree with his approach because that's really how, like, you know, as he says, like, boost innovation is, you know, where you're actually building a platform that really works.Corey: Yeah, it's a hard problem, but it's also one of those things where you're trying to focus on—at least ideally—an outcome or a better situation than you currently find yourselves in. It's hard to turn down things that might very well get you there sooner, faster, but it's like trying to effectively cargo-cult the leadership principles from your last employer into your new one. It just doesn't work. I mean, you see more startups from Amazonians who try that, and it just goes horribly because without the cultural understanding and the supporting structures, it doesn't work.Evelyn: Exactly. So, I've worked with, like, organizations, like, 4000-plus people, I've worked for, like, small startups, consulted, and this is why I say, almost every single transformation, it fails the first time because somebody needs to be in control and track things and basically be really, really certain that people are doing it right. And as soon as it blows up in their face, that's when they realize they should actually take a step back. And so, even for building out a platform, you know, doing Platform-as-a-Product, I always reiterate that you have to really be willing to just invest upfront, and not get very much back. Because you have to figure out the whole user journey, and what you're actually building, before you actually build it.Corey: I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to find you?Evelyn: So, I used to be on Twitter, but I've actually got off there after it kind of turned a bit toxic and crazy.Corey: Feels like that was years ago, but that's beside the point.Evelyn: Yeah, precisely. So, I would even just say because this feels like a corporate show, but find me on LinkedIn of all places because I will be sharing whatever I find on there, you know? So, just look me up on my name, Evelyn Osman, and give me a follow, and I'll probably be screaming into the cloud like you are.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the show notes. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate it.Evelyn: Thank you, Corey.Corey: Evelyn Osman, engineering manager at AutoScout24. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, and I will read it once I finish building an internal platform to normalize all of those platforms together into one.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business, and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

We've got our head in the clouds this week, the Amazon Marketing Cloud that is. Michael sits down with Brent Zahradnik of Amz Pathfinder to discuss all things regarding the new Amazon Marketing Cloud. They'll discuss what it is, how it works, and how you can best use it for your Amazon PPC campaigns.  We'll see you in The PPC Den!

In this episode of The Ecommerce Braintrust, host Kiri Masters shares a special replay from "Unpacking the Digital Shelf," presented by our friends over at the Digital Shelf Institute, Peter Crosby and Lauren Livak. They're diving into the realm of Amazon Marketing Cloud, an open database that provides deeply insightful data for advertisers, with Ross Walker, the retail media team lead at Acadia, joining them to unfold the complexities of AMC and, more importantly, how to use it to our advantage. Whether you're an executive, an e-commerce manager, or a budding data analyst, get ready for a knowledge-packed session. Make sure you tune in to find out more! In today's episode, Peter, Lauren and Ross discuss: - AMC offers the ability to positively target customers based on specific behaviors, which includes customers who added items to the cart but didn't purchase. - Use of the AMC in remarketing to customers who were previously exposed to a campaign. - AMC helps brands identify their prime products for generating new customers and aids in making wise marketing decisions. - Introduction to the ASIN Overlap report aiding in predicting customers' future purchases. - Differences in the adoption and usage maturity of the AMC among clients, ranging from unawareness to sophisticated usage. - Successful clients often have internal abilities and use AMC data for informed marketing decisions. - Importance and significance of the 'New to brand' metric for Amazon sellers and vendors. - Insights offered by AMC allow a better understanding of marketing performance from a new-to-brand perspective.  - The emergence of the incremental ROAS concept for assessing sales lift and ROAS due to increased ad spending. - Potential improvements for Amazon Media Console, such as AI capabilities for natural language queries. - Recommendations for incorporating AMC into future strategies by tracking new-to-brand campaigns. - Challenges in effective utilization of data when outsourcing AMC insights to third-party tools. - The bystander effect of very few brands using AMC to upload and anonymize CRM data to target customers through Amazon DSP. - The importance of the 'New to brand' metric surfaced by AMC in evaluating the effectiveness of campaigns in attracting new customers. - Possible shift towards a focus on acquiring new customers rather than upselling to existing ones in uncertain economic times. - Features of AMC being complex and requiring understanding of writing SQL code. - Explanation of the queries AMC offers for various stakeholders to get insights into their advertising performance.  - The use of AMC in providing broader picture of a brand's performance on Amazon.  - Use of AMC to target audiences based on shopper behavior, location, and other factors.

With market share and profitability becoming ever more important in this economic era, using data to get more revenue juice out of every marketing squeeze is on the top of everyone's list. Today's guest thinks that a good amount of that juice can come from a savvy use of Amazon Marketing Cloud. Ross Walker, Retailer Marketplaces Paid Media Team Lead at Acadia, joined the podcast to walk us through the data that will drive the business metrics you want from your Amazon marketing campaigns. Trigger Warning: Incremental ROAS may be discussed.

#031 - In this episode of the Better Advertising with BetterAMS, host Destaney interviews Jack Lindberg, a LinkedIn influencer and technical expert in the Amazon space who serves as the Director of Analytics at The Mars Agency. Jack shares his journey from being an opera singer to becoming an expert in AMC. (no we are not kidding!) He emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and staying up to date in the ever-changing world of e-commerce. Jack also discusses the challenges and opportunities of using AMC for data analysis and decision-making. He highlights the need for better integration between data producers and data users to ensure that insights lead to actionable strategies. Jack also introduces a new SaaS tool called Noctis that aims to make AMC more accessible and help users generate novel use cases. Key Takeaways: AMC is a powerful tool for data analysis and decision-making in the Amazon advertising space. The biggest challenge with AMC is the disconnect between data producers and data users. AMC can provide valuable insights for measurement, attribution, and audience targeting. Jack is working on a new SaaS tool called Noctis (https://analyticindex.com/noctis/) to help users generate novel use cases for AMC. The future of AMC lies in user identity resolution, off-Amazon behavior analysis, and shopper profiling. Follow Jack on LinkedIn Learn More About Noctis Follow Destaney on LinkedIn Learn More About BetterAMS

Join us for a fascinating discussion as we unpack Amazon unBoxed 2023, exploring the most exciting releases such as generative AI and more that can level up your advertising game. Our co-host from Pacvue, Anne Harrell provides us with a unique perspective on the advertising industry. Let's start with our chat with Jeff Cohen, Principal Evangelist, Advertising API at Amazon, as he shares his transition journey and the biggest differences he's noticed. Listen in as we dive into the role of ad tech in digital transformation and its implications for brands. We examine Amazon Ads' new offerings like generative AI and sponsored TV, which promise to revolutionize brand imagery and audience engagement. Get the inside scoop on Amazon PPC and new-to-brand metrics that could redefine your brand's success measurement. We also explore Amazon Publisher Cloud, a game-changing technology for publishers that promises unique and differentiated opportunities for advertisers. Get to know Miranda Chen, the director of growth and modernization for Amazon Marketing Cloud, as she walks us through its potential. Learn how lookalike audiences can help your brand reach new customers and how templatized analytics can make AMC more accessible. We also examine Amazon Marketing Stream and Rapid Retail Analytics, which provide valuable data on retail signals. Discover how sponsored products can appear on platforms like Pinterest and the features that make Amazon's new Sponsored TV offering a game-changer. All this and more, right here on our podcast!   In episode 504 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Anne, and our special guests discuss: 00:00 - Amazon unBoxed 2023 04:31 - Insights on Amazon and Advertising Growth 08:29 - Sponsored TV and Ad Tech Announcements 12:29 - Embracing Change in Amazon Advertising 20:40 - Amazon Advertising Full Funnel Solutions 23:39 - Benefits and Capabilities of Demandside Platforms 28:25 - Lookalike Audiences for Reaching New Customers 34:59 - Amazon Marketing and Rapid Retail Analytics 41:15 - Amazon's Sponsored TV Announcement ► 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/video Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got a special episode here at Amazon Unbox 2023 where we're going to talk about all of their releases, like generative AI and sponsored brand hats, and also a lot of cool things like sponsored TV. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. If you're like me, maybe you were intimidated about learning how to do Amazon PPC, or maybe you think you just don't have the hours and hours that it takes to download and sort through all of those sponsored ads reports that Amazon produces for you. Adtomic for me allowed me to learn PPC for the first time, and now I'm managing over 150 PPC campaigns across all of my accounts in only two hours a week. Find out how Adtomic can help you level up your PPC game. Visit h10/adtomic for more information. That's h10.me/adtomic. 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 completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. We're here at Amazon Unboxed in New York. I've been on the road for like three weeks and there's a second there where I wasn't quite sure where. I was. I've been in so many countries lately, but we've got a co-host today and from Pacvue, and how's it going? Anne: Great. How are you doing? Bradley Sutton: I'm just delightful. Now, what is your background? What do you do at Pacvue? Anne: Yeah, so I'm a product solutions director for DSP at Pacvue, so I do basically anything related to DSP and AMC help with our product road mapping, help with strategy for some of our enterprise level clients doing customer within AMC marketing you name it, I probably do it. Bradley Sutton: How long have you been at Pacvue? Anne: I've been at Pacvue for coming up on four years now, so about three and a half years total. A lot has changed since I joined. I started at Pacvue focusing on our managed services team, so I was primarily working with some of our strategic accounts, helping to build out their capabilities, doing strategy not just for DSP but across kind of omni-channel focuses, so for search as well. Prior to working at Pacvue, I actually worked in an agency in Austin, Texas, where I'm normally based, where I again did omni-channel strategy for enterprise level accounts. So my background is not just with programmatic and DSP, but I really gravitated to it. It's just one of those types of advertising channels that really allows you to have a lot of flexibility and creativity and really is conducive to innovation. So I really enjoy working on the DSP side of things. Bradley Sutton: Cool. Now what did you go to school for? Anne: I went to school for advertising, so I think I'm in the right place. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so you're right. Where did you go to school at? Anne: It's called St Edward's University. It's in Austin, Texas. So I've been in Austin since I went to school and I just never left about a decade. Bradley Sutton: Okay, I was about to say, because you don't sound like you were born and raised in Austin. Anne: I was not Okay. Bradley Sutton: What were you born and raised? Anne: Well, where I was born was Hattiesburg, Mississippi, but raised is a harder question. I moved about 10 times before I graduated high school. So you pick a state, I probably was raised there. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool, yeah, because I was like wait a minute, she doesn't sound like a native Texan here. Anne: I know no accent yet. Bradley Sutton: All right, maybe 15, 20 years from now you might have a little twang in here. Anne: Right, right, I actually have a little bit of a Southern accent, I think I kind of got rid of it as I moved around. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Now what are you? We're going to be talking to some people that probably people have never heard of podcasts, right? You know there are exactly executives here at Amazon who are you most excited to talk to today. Anne: If I were to have to say, my favorite subject matter is definitely the DSP AMC side of things, and I know that we're speaking to Kelly, who's the VP of DSP, so that's obviously a great place to start. We're also going to speak to Miranda, who is a director for AMC at Amazon, so I think there's going to be a lot of really great content around that. But in general, we're also talking to a lot of people who are very broadly focused across all of ads, and so I think we'll have something for everyone in this one. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so you guys might be. There might be some newbies out there, don't tune out. This is stuff that you're going to need to know If you're an advanced seller. We're going to talk about some stuff that you guys might be able to use right away. That was just announced this week at Amazon Unbox, so let's go ahead and hop right into the interviews, all right. First up, we've got my brother from another mother here, jeff Cohen. Jeff, how's it going? Jeff: Everything is great. So great to see you, so great to see the whole Helium 10 Pack View team at this conference. It's great to catch up with everybody. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Now you've been in the game longer than me. I remember the very first conference I spoke at. You were a speaker and you were already a veteran speaker at that time. You know side note that that conference there probably had the best food I've ever had at the conference. This is probably the second best Like. Jeff: I'm really impressed with the offerings here. Yeah, I'm curious what conference that is, but we don't have to go into that now. Bradley Sutton: But it was right here in New York. But you were on the SaaS side. You know, like I am now. Now you're at Amazon, like what's been the biggest you know kind of eye-opening thing or difference, now that you're on the other side of the aisle. Jeff: Yeah, interesting because I always like to joke that you know I drink the Amazon Kool-Aid before I ever like came here. I've been an Amazon like fanboy since like 2005 when I started textbookscom and it's been interesting because I'm in a unique position where I can bring the outside in and the inside out, and I think that you know, one of the many things that I've learned is maybe like the patience that you have to have with Amazon Maybe I didn't have as much patience when I was on the outside and the amount of time that it takes for some of the things to develop at Amazon. But when they like grow and they go to scale, it then moves at like this rocket ship pace. And so I think you're starting to see that with some of the tools, like AMC or even like you know what's happening with, like Amazon Studios and some of the new, you know productions that are coming out, you have this like rocket ship pace of what's happening in terms of the development and the new opportunities and how advertisers are using the technology, and so you have to kind of be patient when new things come out. So when you have a totally new product like Sponsored TV, you got to realize that it takes a little bit of time to kind of figure out how does it work into the individual advertisers media mix, and so that's the measurement work for each brand along the way. But then once it kind of gets up to full speed, you get to see like how it all works and you know and how it's really excelling brand growth. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, now we're going to be interviewing a lot of your colleagues here about some very specific announcements that happened here at Unboxed and before I ask you to give a rundown, you know, one of the things that was announced today it's on the website too is about the new generative AI that can help people doing Sponsored Brand Ads to generate some new creatives. Can you talk about that just a little bit? Jeff: Yeah, I think there were like three themes to the keynote today that I kind of jotted down. One was this idea of, like digital transformation and one was this idea of like how ad tech plays in in a responsible way. And then the third one was like how we reinvent, right, how we have reinvent what's possible. That was said numerous times, and I think Gen AI kind of fits into almost all three of those categories. And you know, we saw a lot of opportunity, a lot of new changes with Gen AI that have come out of AWS. We saw a lot of changes with Gen AI that came out of Amazon Accelerate, and now we're starting to see some come out of Amazon ads and I'll you know it's cool, right, we can take a product and we can turn that product into a full lifestyle image. And I think it's if you can just start to kind of think about where the possibilities go from there and what else brands can do and how we can enable that, either with what Amazon ads is doing or with what our partners are doing right, because it doesn't always have to be invented by us at Amazon it's really making it easier for brands to be able to take advantage of this technology that maybe was a little expensive or time consuming or difficult to use, and now it's all done with prompts and it's really simple and easy and that's really cool yeah. Bradley Sutton: Now, what about some of the other announcements? Say you have any. You know things that stick out that you're especially excited for. Jeff: Yeah, I think that what we're doing I mentioned it during our opening segment but Sponsored TV, I think is a really cool one and you know, in short, it's democratizing the ability for brands to be able to place ads into our streaming portfolio right so across Prime Video, free V and all the other channels that we have that I can't even remember them all because I'm supposed to think so quickly and I think that's really cool. And again, like there's no budget for that, you do have to have the creative, but Amazon has services that can help you make that creative or there's third parties that can help you make that creative. And I thought that was a really exciting announcement that was made, you know, on the heels of the announcement that was made a month ago. It was kind of reinforced about like what's happening with Prime Video and it moving to an ad supported network, creating a ton of, you know, new inventory for brands to begin to explore, and that's really super exciting as we start to go into it. And then there was like a bunch around ad tech and like what's happening around measurement and I know, like from you know, we're all near and dear to this idea that measurement is critical to our overall success and new metrics that are being released, making it available to understand how new to brand customers are impacting the business, and I think those are all really important for us to be thinking about because we have to close the loop. As advertisers and as we move to this cookie-less world right, it's signs point to it happening in 2024, we have to find ways to be able to close the funnel and understand how our ads are working, and Amazon's working really hard to help brands be able to do that, both within our suite and also when you're outside of our suite. Anne: Yeah, you mentioned the new. New to brand metrics, new to brand consideration metrics, I think is what we're calling them. Can you walk our listeners through what those really are? Jeff: Well, when you're looking at new to brand, right from like a super high level, new to brand is starting to give you this metric that's beyond ROAS, and it's starting to allow brands to look at who was not buying their brand within the last 12 months. Who's now buying their brand, and there's a suite of metrics now that are available for you to be looking at so that, as you're looking at different inflection points of your advertising, you can start to actually dial down into what action you're looking for people to take. And I think that's what's really cool. And it's like this evolution and brands have to think through this evolution like one of the simplest ways to think of this, right for people who maybe, like this concept's a little far for them. One of the simplest ways to think of this is around this idea that, like, if you're trying to get more awareness of your product, when you're looking at a video, you don't want to just see video views, you want to see how long they've been watching the video, and so you might start optimizing your campaign based on video length, how many people get to a half the video or three quarters of the video. And so, when you start to get into the new to brand type of metrics, you're actually saying, okay, I want incremental growth and by definition is, you know, sales you wouldn't have had before. One of the best ways to measure that is by people who are new to your brand, and so by having multiple metrics now to be able to understand how those are being impacted, you can now go back into tools like AMC and see how that funnel is working and which ones are driving the actual you know points that you want to drive and that that's really cool, right, it's, it's very excited about. Anne: I'm very excited too, yeah. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, all right. Last question for you know maybe not something that was released here at Unbox, but you know you're very active on LinkedIn. You see what people are posting about. You know I'm sure you look at metrics about what advertisers are using. Is there something in Amazon advertising that you feel is is kind of being slept on or not enough people are talking about it, that you think more people should be using it? Jeff: I mean more people should be using Helium 10 and Pacvue. Bradley Sutton: That goes without saying. Jeff: Okay, besides that, I think that you know, bradley, you and I get asked this question a lot, right? And? And our answer is always it depends. And I think that, instead of like saying, like this is a tool that you should be using or this is a a, an advertising function, you should be trying, I think that advertisers need to be open to the idea of test and learn, and I think the more you can train your mental model to work in a test and learn type of environment, the more open you are to change, because the only thing that's constant is going to be change. Right, and you started by saying like, where this industry was years ago when we both started, think about all the change that's happened and all the change that's occurred, and the brands that have not just survived but thrived through that are brands that have taken advantage of new opportunities, have invested by testing and learning and have then double down on the things that we're working. And I don't mean to oversimplify it, right, but it's not a very specific answer of like, use helium tens tool for keyword, blah, blah, blah, but it's like that's just one piece that you then use to implement the strategy. So work backwards. What's your goal. How are you gonna get there? And then figure out what tools you need to help you scale. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. All right, well, jeff. Thank you so much for joining us. We've been trying to get you on the podcast for like two years. I'm happy it finally happened and we'll definitely be keeping in touch. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. All right, next up, we've got Kelly here. Now, Kelly, can you go ahead and introduce yourself? Tell us what you do at Amazon. Kelly: Absolutely so, Kelly McClain. I lead our demand side platform at Amazon, so we call it ADSP, and excited to be here. Bradley Sutton: Thank you for the time. Awesome, Awesome. Now you were, you know. Just saw you on stage a few minutes ago. What were your big reveals of the day? Kelly: Yeah, really good question. So I think if, if you think about Amazon ads and kind of where we've, where we've been and where we're going, we've really continued to make a lot of progress on on how, what we've been building a lot of our goals. We're focused a lot on interoperability with our ad tech solutions, so making it easier to use. We're focused a lot on performance improvements and then again, all of this is underpinned by making sure that we're putting privacy at the core of everything that we're doing, and so, with that in mind, we've been kind of launching this week in particular, a lot of different updates around, as you think about planning, activating and measuring, right. So within planning, we were launching Cross Channel Planner, which is a new way for you to really think about full, full funnel planning. We announced Amazon Publisher Cloud, which is the new clean room technology for publishers, which we're really excited about. We've been making a lot of performance improvements to the demand side platform, both with the user interface as well as the backend performance, and then we've also been been launching a lot more on our measurement capabilities, right, so making sure that marketers are getting the insights real time, making it a lot easier for them to kind of understand. You know how they should be looking at performance and where they should be making future investments. So we're excited about it. It's going to be a really fun week. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. We have our resident DSP nerd here, Ann, so she's going to go ahead and ask have some follow up. Anne: Definitely. Amazon Publisher Cloud was announced today, which is a big step for your publishing partners, obviously. Do you see any benefit for advertisers with this release? Kelly: Yes, definitely, and you know, I think to your point. I mean we've had, if you think about kind of clean room technology, right, really starting with cloud solutions. Then Amazon marketers cloud right thinking for marketers on how we can help support them. And Amazon publisher cloud it's going to be a mouthful after I'm speaking all morning. So excuse me, but you know that's really about a solution for publishers, right, giving them much more of the ability to pair any unique insights that they have right Demographics that they might know, of course, with folks who are coming to their site and then pairing that with Amazon Ads data. But the real core of that is, of course, providing opportunities for publishers but making it easier for them to connect with advertisers, right, advertisers. Often that you know there's so many different deal opportunities out there. A lot of the kind of deal process is very manual today and it's hard to discover the right deal and knowing which deal is right for you to reach your audience and so you know. A simple example, right is, if you're, let's say, you're a common website and you know the different demographics that are coming to your site every day, but by layering on Amazon audiences, you might realize, oh, I actually have pet food lovers who or sorry, pet food lovers- I have pet lovers who are coming to my site that I didn't realize, and so then that offers publishers the ability to maybe customize some unique deal opportunities to advertisers who might be trying to target pet lovers right, or specific brands who might be selling pet food, and it provides much more unique, differentiated opportunities, and we actually had a recent test with NBC Universal and they were able to offer three and a half times more reach than what they'd seen in the past, which is really exciting. So we see this as beneficial to both marketers and to publishers by really making it a lot more simple to connect with audiences. Bradley Sutton: At the end of the day, you know, pet food lovers are pets in about 10 years at Unbox. I predict like there's going to be some DSP where pets can actually base, you know, based on what they see on TV. Anne: They've already made more of the food, Exactly exactly, so we just launched something. Kelly: And if that's possible, maybe pets will be transformed into some sort of language that they can then activate. Anne: I think so, I think so. I don't even want to think about that. Kelly: I know, I never really thought about that? Anne: Yeah, that's very exciting. So, essentially for the advertisers listening, it's going to make your reach potentially broader but also more relevant, right? So the publishers have the ability to make targeting more relevant Absolutely Great. Another big announcement was the cross-channel planner. Yes, so can you walk us through how you think the ability to forecast reach will change how advertisers perform through their DSP program? Yeah, absolutely. Kelly: I mean, I think one of the biggest challenges today, as you all know right, is the fragmentation of channels and information and the overload of signals, right, and so that's where we're excited with Cross Channel Planner providing more of the ability to help marketers understand who they should be reaching right across the funnel and get much more information on how to kind of more efficiently drive their spend. In the past, we've launched Channel Planner, so that was our first product for mostly catered towards streaming TV, right, and how do you think about reach curves and how do you make sure that you're delivering against that for upfront pitches and so forth, and this is really kind of the next iteration to driving more efficient spend. So, ultimately, we think this is going to be kind of the next step of just providing much more granularity across all of the Amazon ads products on Amazon beyond Amazon, to make it easier to figure out. Okay, where should I be allocating my budget in the best way possible? We had a baby brand who actually was reaching audiences and they activated. So they leveraged Cross Channel Planner, activated via the DSP, and then they used custom advertising to direct customers to their online store and actually had four and a half times click through rate and 11% increase in impurchase rate, which was pretty cool to see. So again, I think the ability to plan and then easily activate is something that we're really committed to and excited about. Anne: Do you think this will be applicable for advertisers who are advertising both on Amazon and off, so more so that third party placement this will help plan for that as well. Absolutely. Kelly: So Amazon is known for retail media and driving conversions in the Amazon store, and we've been making so many investments over the past several years to really drive much more full funnel solutions and making all of our solutions work for all types of advertisers whether you're an advertiser that sells on Amazon or not because we're really excited about the power of again combining Amazon signals with marketers, third party and third party signals in a way that you can actually drive conversions, drive reach and have more of a full funnel experience and conversation. And that's where our Amazon publisher direct team comes into play, where we have a lot of these relationships and can reach anyone across the internet. But we've also been investing in modeled audiences and the performance through the DSP, and so a lot of people are kind of thinking about the loss of cookies in a negative way. We actually see this as an opportunity. We see this as a way to really innovate and rethink how marketers can potentially reach people in a privacy, safe way. That also drives performance, and so this is why we've also been investing in our modeled audience solutions right so, especially as we think about driving sales or reach off of Amazon, and we've been seeing over 25% increase delivery with a lot of the solutions, as well as 12% less cost per click per impression, which I'm barely able to talk. I'm going to lose my voice by the end of this day. But so, yeah, I think all of these from again, the planning, how you can activate all of the performance improvements we've been doing within our DSP we're excited. We'll continue to help accelerate marketers across full funnel wherever they want to reach people, which we're thrilled about. Anne: Definitely the ever looming third party cookie deprecation. Yes, exactly. Kelly: Yeah, a lot of energy, but understandably, and I think it's the right thing for us to rethink how we can really connect marketers and people in the right way, moving forward. Anne: Agreed, agreed. Another thing that was mentioned was the bidding enhancements that are now going to be available through the DSP program. So, essentially, you pick a KPI and you let Amazon do all the bid optimization in order to get to that KPI. Do you think this is going to change costs for advertisers, like, will CPMs go down in highly competitive categories or go up because of this automation? Kelly: Good question and, being a DSP enthusiast, I'm sure you know that our system has been really hard to use in the past. We've heard feedback from customers and partners that it was very complex, and so we've really been. So this goal seeking bidder, as well as re-augmenting our interface so that it's much more anchored on goals, has been paramount. We want to make it easier to use the DSP. We want to understand what is your goal, what are you trying to do? What outcome are you trying to drive for your business? And we've been making a lot of user interface improvements. And then the goal seeking bidder, on the back end to your point, I'm not sure what it will do in terms of you know, I can't talk to overall pricing in the system, right, but what I can say is that we're already seeing, you know, up to 40% reduction in CPAs, where we're able to better optimize against a goal, and we're seeing marketers just really gravitate towards the ability to kind of have much more of a simple experience. But we also believe in control, and so I think that's one of the powers that we think the Demand side platform has is, if you want all of the customization, if you want the complexity, we have that right. You can really adjust whatever types of bids that you want. You can layer on various different types of audiences. You can play around with different creatives. You can, you know, make a ton of different ads to try and test and at the same time, if you want a more simple, easy experience, you know what your goal is. We're able to help optimize and provide recommendations on the best way to do that. So we see it as kind of a nice balance in providing marketers kind of that wide range of capabilities, because we think there's a lot of different discussions in the industry right now on what way folks are going to be going. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time and thank you for all you do at Amazon. We appreciate it. Kelly: Thank you for the partnership. Appreciate it, of course. Bradley Sutton: Thanks, thank you All right Now we've got Miranda. Miranda, this is our first time meeting you, so can you introduce yourself and tell us what your position is at Amazon? Miranda: Absolutely. I'm Miranda Chen. I'm the director of growth and modernization for Amazon Marketing Cloud, or AMC for short. I've been at Amazon for 11 and a half years now, live in the Bay Area and at AMC I lead several teams responsible for product and engineering, developing our audience activation capabilities, making AMC easier to use for more and more customers, as well as our go to market and customer enablement activities. Bradley Sutton: All right Now. We have a wide variety of listeners, anywhere from brand new people selling on Amazon to humongous billion dollar brands. Now, the billion dollar brands probably know all about AMC, but some of our newer ones might not understand that. Maybe there can feel like wait, marketing, stream, marketing, AMC, there's all these acronyms. So can you just give a quick, maybe 30 second, one minute introduction about what is AMC? Miranda: Yeah for sure. So Amazon Marketing Cloud, or AMC, is Amazon ads as clean room, so it's private and secure by design. Each advertiser has their own campaign signals of all their various Amazon ad spend within their particular instance. So we have signals from sponsored products, sponsored brands, streaming TV effectively like all of the actual campaign events and enables custom flexible analytics on those signals. And then it also enables advertisers to be able to upload their own first party signals or third party signals so you can think of, like product catalog, retail conversions, things like that, and so then you can generate really really flexible insights, typically using SQL, such as path to conversion, reach and frequency, overlap analysis and then actually take actions on them. Bradley Sutton: Cool, so most of our listeners probably weren't able to attend here at Unbox. What's the big release for your department here at Unbox? Miranda: Yeah, so we had a couple different releases specifically related to AMC that I can touch on. The first was AMC template analytics. So it takes some of our most popular queries, such as path to conversion, reach and frequency, and then allows users to be able to generate those insights without needing to touch any codes. So that's a pretty exciting development, particularly since we know that not everybody no SQL has taught themselves SQL overnight. And then the second one was AMC lookalike audiences. So we already have the capability where one can generate a custom audience based on specific parameters. So let's just say, an advertiser saw, wanted to create an audience of folks that had seen their detail page view or even added to cart but didn't actually activate and then wanted to drive better performance. They could create a particular, they could run a query, generate that insight and push that directly to the DSP. So that's one way. That's AMC rule based audiences. And then now we launched this enhanced capability for lookalike audiences. So it enables effectively exactly what it sounds like. So finding alike audiences based on that same seed, leveraging machine learning in a clean room capacity trained on Amazon, shopper and customer signals, but all still in a private and secure place. Bradley Sutton: All right, you're already starting talking technical terms that are over my head, so let me bring in the smart one of us. And to clean rooms. My room's not clean, I don't know. That's not what we're talking about here, but go ahead and please follow up and make me sound smart here. Anne: Yeah, of course. So I'd like to talk about lookalike audiences more specifically, because this is a way for brands to reach highly relevant, essentially new customers. So do you think this will change the way people are targeting that new to brand customer targeting incrementality? Miranda: Yeah, I mean we think it's going to be a great way for brands to be able to reach more and more shoppers. So, as I mentioned, the lookalike audiences are trained on based on deep, deep ML, based on lots of very, very, very good signals, and then the advertiser can actually leverage, can get to choose what's their specific seed for the audience, like what's the general size of the audience, based on their objective and then also the relevance. So I think it'll be a really key tool as a part of the marketer toolkit. Anne: Yeah, definitely. Do you think lookalike audiences are scalable for brands that maybe have lower purchase data or lower engagement data that are using AMC? Miranda: I think so. I think they're precisely like the brands that actually could benefit from it, right Because they have a small bit of deterministic signals that they actually want to be able to enhance. And then also because AMC is private and secure by design, as I mentioned, they can also choose to upload their own first party or third party signals and then create a seed based on that and then continue to go find additional customers that seem similar to that seed. Anne: Right, I love that you call it a seed, because it sounds like it will grow over time if you're utilizing these tactics, so that's a great way to phrase it. Miranda: Thanks, it didn't come up with it. Anne: Well, we'll give you credit anyways. So you talked about the AMC templatized analytics, right? Is this a way to make AMC more accessible and, if so, are the queries that are available through those templatized analytics? Will it grow over time? What's available through that? Miranda: Yeah, so we think it's a first step towards making AMC easier for more and more customers. So we don't have a specific timeline yet on additional templates, but it is something we'll be continuing to evaluate. We have been talking to different customers and internal teams about how we can also make AMC easier to use through point and click applications as well. We also work with dozens of partners that are making AMC easier to use, either through visualizations or through their own innovative dashboard. So I think through the combination of either homegrown or partner built capabilities, we'll be able to continue to bring AMC insights to more and more customers. Anne: Yeah, pacview is one of those partners. We do have an AMC dashboard Great, I think. Another question that's kind of just in general about AMC do you think there are any verticals or categories that benefit the most from this data, or that you've seen a lot of growth and success with using AMC? Miranda: Yeah, we think of AMC as equal opportunities. So we look at the data a lot. We're very, very data driven surprise, surprise at Amazon and what we've seen is that there's penetration for AMC across brands and partners and agencies as well as across all verticals. So we've seen, certainly, strength from brands that sell on the Amazon store, but also pretty strong results with entertainment, with automotive, financial services. So you can think of someone who's like automotive who might have a bunch of local dealerships. They want to be able to do more fine event grained analyses based on specific geos, and so something like AMC is perfect for that be able to do more precise measurements. So, yeah, certainly we think it's a great product for all, but it really depends on that particular advertiser's objective and then what are the types of signals that they want to bring in and what kind of insights they can generate. Anne: Definitely, it is flexible. Miranda: Exactly Infinite and flexible. Yes, Great. Anne: My last question is just a kind of a fun one. Do you have any specific query or an example of a query that you think was really innovative that's been pulled through AMC that you can recall? Miranda: I think it's probably a generic answer, but I think the Path to Conversion one is probably one of my favorites, just because it's the simplest. I think AMC was actually the first place where an advertiser could see all of their signals across all of the Amazon ad products, and so someone who was buying sponsored products and DSP might not have realized before that they actually were driving better results together, and so Path to Conversion, and actually be able to understand how those two products were interacting, for example, really brought a lot more power and insight, I think, to advertisers. Anne: So I don't think that's generic at all. I love that one too. Miranda: There's a reason. That's core kind of at the top of the instructional query library. Anne: Right. Miranda: Agreed, all right. Bradley Sutton: I have another question for you. I like asking stuff that maybe nobody else is going to ask. When you want to take off your Amazon hat and kick back with a hobby to kind of like balance work life, what's your go-to hobby? Miranda: Well, I have an almost four-year-old so she is probably my hobby in most of the time. I'm going to try and go do fun things on the weekend, whether it's exploring new coffee shops or going to find music. Bradley Sutton: The four-year-old is a coffee drinker, is she? Miranda: No, she's not, but she's an avid consumer of chocolate croissants, and so we sample baked goods in lots of different places. Then mom gets her coffee. I think that's probably it, but in my prior pre-kid years I did a lot more yoga and hiking and things like that. Bradley Sutton: So enjoy those years. You know, my kids are over 20 already, so I wish I had a four-year-old. I remember those days All right. Thank you so much for joining us and you educated me a lot. It sounds like Ann knows all about what you're talking about. It was like a different language to me, so I appreciate you educating us on IMC. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. Miranda: Thank you so much. Bradley Sutton: Alright, we've got Teresa here. Teresa, could you go ahead and introduce yourself? Teresa: Sure, I'm Teresa Uthralton. I'm the Director of Partner Development here at Amazon Ads. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. How long have you been here at Amazon? Teresa: I've been at Amazon for almost 10 years, so I'm approaching that red badge. For those of you that know our badging conventions, Nice, nice. Bradley Sutton: Now you're from here in New York. I've always been in New York, yep. So I'm going to start off with maybe the most important question of the day Julianne's Pizza in Brooklyn. Is that the best representation of New York pizza, or not? Teresa: Oh, that's tough. There's so many really good pizza places now I can't even keep up with them. There's so many. Bradley Sutton: Alright. Well, we're going to have to connect right after this, because I have two days left and I need to maximize my time here. Teresa: Yes, Alright now. Bradley Sutton: We're not here to talk about food here. Teresa: I recommend checking out Roberta's in Bushwick though. Bradley Sutton: Roberta's in Bushwick. I have not been there. Anne: Yes, I think you'll really enjoy that. Bradley Sutton: We're going to that one. Anne: Right now. Yeah, actually, cancel the interview. Let's go there, we go. Yes, of course. Bradley Sutton: Now Anne here is going to ask a lot of the more technical questions, especially those that have to do with enterprise. Now I'm here to represent, kind of like, the voice of the average Amazon seller, and you know, there's some people out there who might not fully know what Amazon marketing stream is first of all. So could you just go ahead and just kind of give a quick elevator pitch for what that is? Teresa: Sure. So Amazon marketing stream is a partner-facing product, and what it does is it provides really granular hourly signals on all our advertising metrics through the Amazon API, and what that means to a seller is that they will be able to get all sorts of insights about their business that normally they would not have known. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right, I love that. Did you practice this? I didn't even tell you I was going to ask that. All right, cool, cool. How about rapid retail analytics, your other specialty? Teresa: I know I love rapid retail analytics, so Amazon marketing stream obviously totally focused on advertising signals. As we know, so much of what's exciting about Amazon ads is that you got online retail and digital advertising Right, and so rapid retail analytics provides that level of granularity on retail signals, and one of the reasons that's so exciting is that that data used to be available at a daily cadence with a 72-hour lag, so we literally it's almost near real time now, which is a really, really exciting development. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. Well, now that I got that out of the way, let me turn it over to the smart one of us too, and for some follow up questions. Anne: Yeah, so I kind of want to double click into Amazon marketing stream, specifically the fact that it was recently released for DSP or it's being extended to DSP. How do you think this will change the way advertisers manage their DSP campaigns now that they have that real time data that we were talking about? Teresa: Well, it's interesting. I think one of the things that I've learned is I've been humbled by our partner's creativity. Right, you know, I was just. I was just telling someone. I joined this team three weeks before Can last year and so I showed up at Can meeting all my partners for the first time, and we had just launched the first version of Amazon marketing stream and I was like this is the coolest product. But what really got me excited was it's a product that we developed based on the feedback we got from partners Like they, they have a seat at the table, they participate in all our betas and our product teams love them, right, because they get like this incredible, you know, they get their hands dirty and they come back and they're like these are the 27 things that are wrong and you need to fix right, which is if you're a product team, that's actually like really helpful, right, so, and what? The thing that's so interesting is like it launched and everyone loved it, but then people are like well, but it only has sponsored products. Right, like, I want more, I want more, I might want more. So I think what's exciting about having ADSP signals in there is that's going to unlock a whole bunch of opportunity around partners that are deep on ADSP Right. Definitely and I think you know, probably a few months from now, we'll have some really interesting case studies, success stories. There's really like almost no end to the creativity of our partners, which is really great because they're such awesome builders. Anne: I agree. I'm curious AMC they not AMS? AMC? I know they get our accurate, our Amazon accurate. I know, there's so many of them Also provides hour by hour data for both DSP and for sponsored ads. Prior to this, especially prior to AMC, but also prior to AMS, this wasn't available for advertisers, so you kind of had to guess when you were running, like day parting or anything along those lines. Do you think the release of the stream data for DSP will eliminate the need for the AMC hourly data? Teresa: Well, I think you got to go back to like what are the use cases that people use other product, right? I think, like what is great about Amazon marketing stream? Right, it's an aggregate, aggregate data pipe, if you think about it, right, and so ultimately that's going to help people build solutions that are evergreen. It's going to help people train AI models right, because how do you train AI models? You need, like, lots of granular signals, right? And whereas the Amazon marketing stream is really about very specific use cases around, like understanding the customer purchase path, understanding incrementality, understanding attribution, so I don't think it's like one or the other, I think it's very like use case specific. Anne: Right. That actually leads perfectly into my next question, which is how you see these two datasets working together with advertisers currently, or how you see in the future that they can work together. Teresa: Yeah. So I think, like what I think is really exciting about partner innovation is, ultimately, I don't think there's ever been a better time to be a marketer, right, like there's that whole age old question about, like I know half my advertising is working, but I don't know which half, and I think we're getting about as close as we're going to get probably in our lifetime, but we're on the cusp of that with a lot of these tools, and so I think the the part about Amazon marketing stream that I think is so exciting is that it will allow the kind of automation that makes brands so much smarter and helps them do more with less. Right, and we're seeing like especially like this year has been an uncertain economic climate for a lot of folks, right, and a lot of a lot of folks are trying to figure out like my budget has been cut or my budget is capped, but I'm being asked to drive more growth Right, and I think, like partners have been able to deliver solutions based on Amazon marketing stream and rapid retail analytics that have really enabled that Awesome. Bradley Sutton: And you had a last question. Anne: I did. It's a fun one. What's your favorite thing about being at conferences like unboxed? Teresa: Oh, it's meeting my partners. You know, I learn so much from from meeting with partners, right, like I said, it's very humbling. The innovation, the creativity, what they teach us about our customers, what they teach us about our products and it's such an incredible learning experience is so energizing. Were you at our our cocktail party last night? Anne: No. Bradley Sutton: I was not. Anne: We had a lot of cocktail parties. I'm sure it was very. Teresa: That was like such a fun buzzing party and I got to meet partners from all over the world. At our award ceremony on Monday we met partners that came from Delhi and it was just really, really exciting. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, all right, well, thank you so much for coming on the show and we appreciate all that you do at Amazon. Teresa: Thank you, thanks guys. Bradley Sutton: All right, we've got Ruslana here. Ruslana, welcome to the show. Ruslana: Thank you, Bradley and Anne, for having me. Bradley Sutton: Are you based here in? Ruslana: New York no, I'm based in Seattle. Bradley Sutton: Seattle. Okay, Seattle was just there for accelerate, lots of rain, but I like. I like Seattle weather a lot. Quick question for you, first of all just how long have you been at Amazon and what is your title there? Ruslana: I'm a vice president of sponsored brands display in TV advertising and I just celebrated my 10 year anniversary Last week awesome, congrats, congrats. Bradley Sutton: now we're gonna go into like what you announced today, but you know something while you were on stage, you also referred to something that was, you know, launched a little bit ago. We're how, now you know, sponsored products can show up on websites like Pinterest and things like that, and one thing that was I have a bad memory, but it was new to me, maybe I knew about it, I guess, didn't know was like it's not just a product that's gonna display, but it'll also show, I believe, like the reviews count and even the shipping time did I, did I hear that right. Ruslana: Well, with sponsor products, our goal is to deliver the same value that Advertisers are getting today by having sponsored products was an Amazon store and some of the critical sort of trusted Amazon attributes, such as reviews, pricing information, as well as Prime delivery promise, are essential elements To helping customers make decisions and actually purchase. So yes you are, you got it right at that. Sponsor products will be containing Kind of product level or Amazon key, amazon trusted information Within these new and exclusive placements across some of these sides to help our advertisers to really go quickly and with ease from discovering something or exploring something to actually purchasing awesome, awesome. Bradley Sutton: That's been. That's been out for a while, but today, when you're on stage, you announce something brand new, and that was sponsored TV. So just give us maybe a quick 30 second, one minute overview of what that is, and Anne has some follow-up questions on that. Ruslana: Well, we see a sponsored TV, tv advertising as a whole, as a critical element of brand-building strategy. That should not be something that Brand cannot do. Any brand of any science should be able to tap into this opportunity and reach these engaged audiences on a big screen In the living room, and so sponsored TV is aiming to accomplish just that. We have worked very closely with our brands and our customers and Backwards from them, to understand what their key pain points have been and why they have not potentially used TV more actively Was in their overall brand-building strategy and, as a result, launch sponsored TV. I'm trying to eliminate three main pain points no guarantee commitments, no spend, minimum creative support and, lastly, access to first-party Amazon, first-party signals. Even when you advertise in TV, powered my machine learning and Right measurement so that advertise and send value, because what we've learned is spend is intimidating, a Lack of the right creative or ability to create the right credit. Just knowing what resonates on such a screen is Hard and intimidating and, lastly, just understanding the value that TV delivers for these brands was difficult. And so, given those three main pain points, that's there. That's why we're sponsored TV. I think to wrap like there is another element right. We at Amazon, we very custom obsessed and in this instance, we have two customers right. We have brands, and we just talked about the value we deliver for the brands, but there's also another key customer, which is the viewers, and for viewers, this is an opportunity to discover diverse collection of brands and products in places where they choose to spend their time. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now I'm just wondering where, like? What kind of placements are these? Are these like, like, like trailers that come up, or are there just actual, you know, banner ads that might pop up while you're watching a TV show? Ruslana: Oh, this is a TV advertising we're talking about, so they are video, so this is not this not sponsored display. Jeff: Yeah. Ruslana: This is video ads and they sponsor TV. Today service was in freebie content. Like I don't know if any of you watch freebie, I do. I love certain shows there, so big fan. So there is freebie content. There is streaming. Do you stream? Do you twitch? Bradley Sutton: Yes. Ruslana: Okay. Well, when you twitch during live streams, that could be. Another opportunity was in. Bradley Sutton: There might be people watch watching this right now on our rebroadcasts of this. Ruslana: People that twitch. This is where the ads would show. And then, lastly, was in a fire TV apps. Bradley Sutton: Okay, excellent yeah. Anne: So it was mentioned that the goal of this campaign, or at least one of the goals, is to make it more accessible to Advertisers who have lower budgets, don't necessarily want to deal with spend minimums etc. Do you feel like there's a lower level of budget sufficiency for running these campaigns, or can it be tested with a small amount of money? Ruslana: Well, we, as I said earlier, right customer obsessed, working back, working backwards from our brands and working backwards for them. I'm really observed that they do want to be able to engage with this audience. Why wouldn't you like if you launched a product that is net new, delightful, on the market? Why wouldn't you want to tell? Like you know, I talked on my keynote about hex glad. I don't know if you don't know, if you have it in your kitchen, but if you don't, I highly recommend. I discovered through our sponsor TV offering the brand and I love the non-stick and also non scratch. Bradley Sutton: Oh no, you had me out when you showed part of the video where it flipped over and nothing Was coming on. Anne: I like that. Ruslana: Very impressive and so at the end of the day, like that is the brand that I'm delighted to cook with every day, and I like my eggs for breakfast. Doesn't matter if it's Monday or Tuesday, Wednesday or Sunday, so in at the end of the day, I think these are the type of brands. They want to engage with the right audience at the right time, and I think this is the right time. Anne: Great. Can you walk us through some of the targeting that will be available with this type of advertising? Most of sponsored ads is keyword basis. That going to be the truth for Sponsored TV, or is it going to be more signal-based behavioral audiences? Ruslana: Well, we always try to help our brands reach the right audiences. So let me Maybe adjust one statement here Most of sponsor brands is not keyword based sponsored products. Keyword based sponsored Products is keywords based. Sponsor brands has keywords Elements in their way and how you express intent. Sponsored display doesn't have that way to express intent. But our aim is to always work with our brands and help them, give them the right tools to express the intent in the best possible way so we can deliver their message and their story in the right place at the right time. So in the case of sponsored TV, the advertisers could use both sort of category based interests and as well as Genre based interest. Bradley Sutton: I've got a spooky brand on Amazon, so like come Halloween season gonna be Maybe throwing some ads on some spooky Halloween shows or horror show. Anne: Perfect, I think we have time for one more question. So I'm curious how do you recommend brands measure success with these campaigns? Do you have specific KPIs that you think you know appropriately measure the success for sponsored TV or anything along those lines? Ruslana: So they reach. Traditional metrics are available similarly how they would be available for any other TV offerings, but in addition, we are sharing branded searches as well as detail page and store page Traffic, and so that is a starting point for the offering. We will continue evolving our metrics and help brands understand the value they're getting out of their sponsored TV offering Wonderful. Bradley Sutton: Thank you so much for joining us today. Ruslana: Thank you for having me and in Bradley.

A fresh set of wheels! Ad Badger's Clement Hynaux sits down with Michael to chat about the new update to sponsored products. They define placement percentages, talk about how you can use this update to improve performance for your campaigns, and evaluate the algorithmic considerations that should be made surrounding the new feature.  We'll see you in The PPC Den!

In this episode of The Ecommerce Braintrust, Kiri Masters, shares updates and reminders related to peak season dates, including Prime Day and Black Friday Cyber Monday. She also discusses a fascinating update about Amazon Marketing Cloud, focusing on three key points: Day Parting Settings, Geotargeting, and AMC Custom Audiences. These best practices offer insights for optimizing advertising strategies and maximizing performance on Amazon. In today's episode, Kiri talks about: Important Dates for Ecommerce Sellers Reminder to send FBA and Multichannel Fulfillment Inventory to Amazon by October 26. Importance of shipping inventory early due to potential carrier backlogs. Example of inventory shortage in previous Q4 season. Ensuring inventory arrives before cutoff dates to maximize advertising strategy. Updates on Amazon Marketing Cloud Day Parting Settings: Report available in Amazon Marketing Cloud to view performance by hour. Testing showed slight increase in ROAS and Troas during non-midnight to 5 am hours. Geotargeting: Focusing on specific areas of states or DMAs can lead to more visibility and better performance. Test combining geotargeting and day parting for optimal results. AMC Custom Audiences: Creating an audience of customers who added products to cart but didn't make a purchase. Effective for reminding potential customers about the brand. Benefits of Amazon Marketing Cloud Overview dashboard for analyzing customer journey and conversion paths. Audience Insights for understanding shopper demographics, location data, and interests. Using AMC Insights to segment targeting and optimize performance. Success story of account's performance growth after incorporating AMC before Prime Day. Integration of DSP and PPC with AMC AMC as an advanced reporting package suitable for Amazon DSP users. Bringing together data from DSP and PPC to understand their impact on performance.

In this episode, Jason Boyce chats with Scott Reid, President & CEO at Dormeo North America. Scott's career has been marked by his success in building $100 million brands both in the good ol' USA and all the way over in Japan using the power of Direct TV. He is a master of Media Efficiency Ratios (MER), which Amazon sellers may recognize as TACoS.Scott and his company's marketing strategy for success in the Japanese market involved identifying products that were already successful in North America and replicating them in Japan through the use of Direct Response TV.So, what's the secret sauce for success in DRTV?The success of DRTV campaigns relies on showcasing innovative, highly demonstrable products with clear Unique Selling Propositions (USPs), making them fun and easy to use, and ultimately delivering happiness to consumers.But if you are going to spend massive amounts of marketing dollars on such campaigns, you've got to be ready to defend your products with patents to maintain a competitive edge in the market.Despite the success of DRTV, Scott insists that being on Amazon is necessary for a brand's success, given its reach and the trust consumers have in the platform, and also for channel control.There are many cool things that Amazon sellers can learn from Scott's successes when it comes to launching a product in a new market, building brand awareness, measuring the performance of your marketing campaigns, and defending your brand.We cover these topics in detail in the episode, as well as other great insights. Tune in!Key Takeaways- Scott's journey into direct marketing (00:53)- Translating successful products in the US to Japan (04:45)- Categories of products that resonate across cultures (11:54)- The secret to the success of DRTV (14:13)- Defending your product with patents to build a brand (16:17)- Why brands must be on Amazon even with DRTV (23:43)- How to build a $100 million brand (31:04)- Media Efficiency Rate (33:05)- What's next for Scott and Dormeo (37:30)Additional Resources- Scott Reid's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-reid-b61a3a7/- Schedule a FREE consultation with the Ave7 team- Grab the FREE Amazon Seller Central Checklist- Get the book “The Amazon Jungle” book by Jason Boyce- Learn more about Avenue7Media----Day 2 Podcast has a goal of helping Amazon sellers learn how to launch, grow and protect their brand on the world's largest online marketplace (and beyond).Follow us on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode!

Ad Badger CTO Nick Isber sits down with Michael to talk about all things data in regards to your Amazon PPC Campaign. They delve into Amazon's data delays, how to analyze your keyword numbers, how AI affects campaigns, and more!  We'll see you in The PPC Den!

Mastering the Art of Book Writing & Publishing with Expert Louise Harris in this episode

In this episode of the Fearless Sellers podcast, Joie Roberts interviews Norm Farrar, a marketing genius and serial entrepreneur. They discuss the importance of differentiation in the market and the power of networking. The Amazon beard guy shares his experiences of starting out on the wrong side of the fence and how he turned his life around by hanging out with the right people. They also touch on the idea that marketing is all about building a network.   Timestamps [00:02:29] Networking for Success. [00:03:50] Partnership lessons for entrepreneurs. [00:09:43] Perception of products. [00:11:46] Product pricing strategies. [00:15:33] Making money as an influencer. [00:20:56] Shoppable Video Tips. [00:23:46] Amazon Live explained. [00:29:12] Perception and AI in Q3/Q4. [00:31:35] Prompts and Training AI. [00:35:12] Writing process using AI. [00:38:57] Scalability and automation.   Contact Joie on Instagram: @JoieRoberts.official Interested in building your own Amazon business in partnership with 7 and 8 figure Amazon Sellers? If so, apply for your free consultation with Joie Roberts and the AMZ Insiders' team of experts here => www.amzinsiders.org/apply?sl=fp  

Will Nitze is the Founder of IQbar, plant protein bars, IQMIX® hydration sticks, and IQJOE® instant coffees packed with functional compounds to help you win your day. What stands out about your brand is its bright, fun, and youthful colors. You launched the company in 2017 and have raised $10 million to date. If you like our podcast, please don't forget to subscribe and support us on your favorite podcast players. We also would appreciate your feedback and rating to reach more people.We recently launched our new newsletter, Principles Friday, where I share one principle that can help you in your life or business, one thought-provoking question, and one call to action toward that principle. Please subscribe Here.It is Free and Short (2min).

Amazon's Prime Day is the most anticipated shopping event of the year. We are thrilled to have Jake Zarastian from JungleScout join Michael to share his invaluable insights for making the most of this annual extravaganza. In this episode, they cover improving images, organizing data, doing nothing, and more. Don't miss out on this opportunity to stay ahead of the game. We'll see you in The PPC Den!

The CPG Guys are joined in this episode by Keerat Sharma, EVP of Insights at Ascential Digital Commerce, the holding company that includes Flywheel, Spotlight, Edge, Whytespyder & Perpetua.Follow Keerat Sharma on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keerat/Follow Ascential DIgital Commerce on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/flywheel-digital/mycompany/ Follow Ascential DIgital Commerce online at: https://www.flywheeldigital.com/ Keerat answers these questions:1) What is a clean room and why is it considered a powerful mechanism for the mingling of data sets between retailers and brands?2) What are the key features and capabilities of a clean room, like Amazon Marketing Cloud?3) Some folks say that clean rooms will federate and finally provide a way to measure across all walled gardens. Is this true?4) What tools and resources are available for campaign management within Amazon Marketing Cloud?5) How are you building out solutions at Ascential that support your brand clients? What are the primary use cases that your team is supporting for enablement?6) How would you recommend that brands not already leveraging AMC to start getting engaged in this platform? CPG Guys Website: http://CPGguys.comFMCG Guys Website: http://FMCGguys.comCPG Scoop Website: http://CPGscoop.comNextUp Website: http://NextUpisnow.org/cpgguysRetailWit Website: http://retailwit.comDISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGGUYS, LLC or the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGGUYS, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.  CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast.

Mansour Norouzi from Incrementum Digital sits down with Michael to discuss 12 free Amazon features your brand should be using. From Brand stories and profiles, to B2B pricing and marketing, the pair discuss a wide range of free options to help elevate your brand.  We'll see you in The PPC Den!

Ad Badger PPC Campaign Manager Alfredo Roselli sits down with Michael to discuss using Profit and Loss Dashboards to optimize Amazon PPC Campaigns, and how to evolve as an Amazon PPC marketer. They break down how to format your P&L dashboard, how to analyze your findings, how often you should implement changes, and more!  We'll see you in The PPC Den!

In this episode, we talk to a marketing expert for his tips and strategies to improve your listings, skyrocket your conversion rates, and sell more on Amazon.

Junglr's Elizabeth Greene joins Michael to discuss account practices for Amazon ASIN accounts, and how those practices differ based on account size. They share their thoughts on different activities that scale, campaign structure,  how to focus your optimization efforts, and more. We'll see you in The PPC Den!

In this episode we are going to talk with Asif and Kaisar about their notorious affiliate marketing story regarding Conch House.  This is an episode you won't want to miss.  During the interview we get into their plan for making money with affiliate marketing, what worked and what didn't, how much money they made on Amazon, their best tips for affiliate marketing and what their plans are for duplicating this process again!Support the show

In this episode, Michael and Abe Chomali of XP Strategy PPC Management, discuss the effects of bidding on branded keywords and what happens if you turn it off. They will explore the potential impact on the overall performance and how it can affect the visibility of your products. They will also discuss the different tactics you can use to ensure your campaigns run smoothly even after turning off your branded keywords. So, join us on this fun journey, explore all things branded keywords, and get ready to bid on them like a pro! We'll see you in The PPC Den!

In this episode, Michael and Alfredo discuss the recent changes to Amazon's broad match type and provide valuable advice on how to adapt to your PPC strategies. From understanding why Amazon made the changes, to learning how to get the most out of its new broad match settings, this episode dives deep into the topic and offers expert insight to help you maximize your campaigns. Tune in and make the most out of Amazon's new update! We'll see you in The PPC Den!

In this episode, Michael and Clement discuss the concept of search term graduation. They also introduce the idea of lateral search term graduation, which involves taking search terms from sponsored products and using them in other campaign types such as Sponsored Brand, Sponsored Brand Video, and Sponsored Display. They also point out that this is an easy win for advertisers because it allows them to use existing data from sponsored products to prevent ad waste and expand their market share. Finally, they suggest that duplicating search terms across campaign types is a good way to own the search result page, as it can increase the chances of having multiple sponsored placements at the top of the page. We'll see you in The PPC Den!

In this episode, Michael and Mansour Norouzi of Incrementum Digital discuss how to measure a business's growth and what to consider when analyzing Amazon market share. They emphasize the importance of looking at demand when measuring growth and how to avoid prejudging a situation. They also talk about how Amazon has been releasing first-party market analysis tools, such as the Product Opportunity Explorer, Search Query Performance, and Brand Analytics to give more insight into the market. They share tips on how to best use these tools and the value they provide. We'll see you in The PPC Den!

In this episode, Michael and Brent Zahradnik of AMZ Pathfinder discussed their New Year's resolutions to become better Amazon PPC-ers in 2023. They discussed the importance of being a perpetual student in the field of Amazon advertising and the need to evaluate one's skills and knowledge gaps constantly. The hosts also reflected on the events of the past year and discussed their plans for the new year. They concluded by reminding listeners to be a perpetual student and never stop learning to become successful in Amazon advertising. We'll see you in The PPC Den!

This week's episode is an upbeat and fun look at marketing with guest Dave Chesson, who's on the cutting edge of Amazon and other book marketing strategies. We cover Amazon rankings, marketing ideas for fiction writers (who too often get left out of these conversations), and why to share your personal story out in the world. This episode includes concrete types and explains some things about Amazon that often feel elusive, so it's worth your time even if your next published book is a ways out there on the horizon. Oh—and happy holidays. We're off next week so Write-minded will be back in your queue on January 2! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we talk to Cameron Berlin-Day of Pacvue about general PPC tactics, discuss features inside Amazon ads like the Marketing Stream and Marketing Cloud, and more!