Podcasts about amazon marketing services

https://e-comas.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeromedeguigneamazonexpert/ E-commerce Excited to have Jerome as a guest on the MarginBusiness podcast!

Will Haire is the successful co-founder and CEO of BellaVix which is a full-service Amazon Agency that helps brands grow their business by offering different levels of support depending on the client's needs.Coming from a family of veterans, Will enlisted in 2002 where he acquired a Marine Electricians license through the United States Military Apprentice Program. With time, he realized that he had a passion for marketing and left a comfortable 6-figure job in the power industry to go work for $14 an hour at a startup digital agency.For 10 years, he honed his skills in digital strategy, digital marketing, marketing consulting, advertising and marketing strategies on Amazon.In 2018, Will and his wife, who is also a digital marketer, had a son. This prompted them to have a conversation about starting a business. Growing up, his father was an entrepreneur running an elevator business and he always knew that at one point, he would also want to run his own business.In March, 2018, Will quit his job, and together with his wife, co-founded BellaVix. Within no time, after Will updated his LinkedIn profile, people that he had worked with before reached out to him. In less than 60 days after starting his company, he had 8 clients in his portfolio. Currently the company has 10 full-time employees, managing 20 Amazon accounts and generating $2M in revenue a month on the platform.We covered a lot of ground in this episode, discussing topics such as:05:16 How to successfully work with family members07:15  The challenge of hiring and recruiting as an Amazon service agency.07:38 Hiring a global team and how it affects company culture11:17 Why they chose an Amazon marketing service as their e-commerce niche14:11 Growing an Amazon Agency 15:07 How to price your agency services17:56 Vetting potential clients22:17 Using inbound marketing strategies to get leads and the platforms that will get you the most leads26:09 Screening potential clients and qualifying them28:11  Using a proforma to onboard clients37:19 The vision for BellaVix39:26 Round of Random – six random questionsAdditional Resources:The Sales Driven AgencyBellaVixWill on LinkedInWill on TwitterRegister for the Sales Driven Agency MastermindThe Sales Driven Agency will launch its first ever agency sales mastermind in April 2020. It is a mastermind specifically and only for agency owners to help them fire themselves from selling and hire the right sales people. The mastermind will open in April, and the pricing is $1000 for the first 20 subscribers before it goes up to $1500.To register, visit salesdrivenagency.com and in the top right, click on book a call to talk to a member of the team.

I review some exciting recent changes to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Author Central, and the Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) platforms as we head into 2021. YouTube video: https://youtu.be/zDRK7KHKiDA Timestamp show notes (click on timestamp to view segment on YouTube): 0:34 Updates to new KDP Reports Beta interface 2:46 New Amazon Author Central interface 3:35 New Customer Reviews reporting on Author Central 4:34 New Sponsored Brands ads on AMS 6:26 New Kindle Unlimited KENP Reads & Estimated Royalties tracking in AMS 7:51 Why you shouldn't be discouraged with your 2020 book income 8:41 How to connect with Heidi Check out my Udemy courses to level up your self publishing game in 2021: How to Sell Your Self Published Book on Amazon https://www.udemy.com/course/how-to-sell-your-self-published-book-on-amazon/?referralCode=CC4046D09C80264BC0BE How to Self Publish an Audio Book https://www.udemy.com/course/how-to-self-publish-an-audio-book/?referralCode=75A2310A555CB12AFE4C

Everyone is excited about A.I. and the idea of using technology to improve business. But that excitement has also led to confusion. There are many definitions and applications of A.I., and few have been able to truly optimize their A.I. strategy. That’s where Ashwin Mittal comes in. Ashwin is the CEO of Course5, a transformative intelligence company helping companies improve their businesses using technology like A.I. and machine learning. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Ashwin explains where and how people have gone wrong with A.I. in the past, and the steps an Ecommerce company needs to take in order to be able to get the most out of A.I. It all starts with understanding and controlling your data, and includes retraining your employees to rely less on their guts, and more on the analysis A.I. provides. He reveals how to do exactly that on this podcast.   3 Takeaways: It’s important to build a structured data foundation from the start so you can move to a place of making decisions with data You must teach your employees how to interpret and analyze data and make sure they are comfortable using the data to make decisions. Individuals must be taught to lead with data and then let their gut take them the final 20% of the way toward a business decision Understanding the entire customer journey and where there are points of failure will help you create a strategy on optimizing your data and building an Ecommerce experience that is successful from start to finish   For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Hey everyone, and welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host Stephanie Postles, and today we're joined by Ashwin Mittal, the CEO of Course5 Intelligence. Ashwin, thanks for coming on the show. Ashwin: Thanks for having me, Stephanie. It's a pleasure to be here. Stephanie: Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on today because throughout a lot of our previous interviews that we've had so far, everyone has mentioned AI in some form or fashion, and when I saw that you were coming on the show and we were going to have a deep dive conversation into AI, I was very excited. Ashwin: It's a deep subject to talk about, so yeah, it should be fun, hopefully. Stephanie: It will be. So, what brought you into the world of AI? What got you excited about that and building a company around AI and analytics and all that? Ashwin: So, we've always been in the business of delivering insights for sales and marketing to customers from data and information. But about five or six years back, I realized that we're in this perhaps future technology wave of transformation because of the onset of artificial intelligence technology, and from a big picture perspective, if you look back the last 30 years, 40 years, we've perhaps seen two or three waves of substantial change value creation through technology. We've seen the PC wave, and we've seen the internet wave. You can say, okay, maybe there's a separate mobile internet and social media wave, but it's part of that. Both of these have completely changed our personal and professional lives, and one was built on the other. Because we had PCs, so the internet was [inaudible 00:02:03]. Ashwin: So, my belief is that with AI it's going to be pretty much the same. It will take 15-20 years to play out, but its impact is going to be as deep and profound as the internet. And it's going to be built on top of the fact that we all have computers, that we're all connected, all devices are connected, and for us being in the data business of driving insights from data, we're really in the eye of the storm. Because the root of AI comes from data science. So, on the one hand while this presents a challenge to our business, and possibilities of us getting disrupted, but at the same time, it presents even larger opportunities. Ashwin: So, at that time, I decided that we needed to really double down on the AI wave, and started to completely reorient the business and the company towards riding this wave. So, that's really how [inaudible 00:03:12]. Stephanie: That's great. So, how would you explain Course5 Intelligence? What do you all do? What kind of clients do you help? What problems do they come to you with? Ashwin: So, we help our clients make the best decisions from data and information for sales marketing customer-related problems. And within that, one of our largest focus areas is digital and Ecommerce. We typically work with large corporates, Fortune 500, Fortune 1,000 companies, and in some cases, we might be working with the Ecommerce group, their digital group, with the CMO's office, sometimes with IT or some combination of all of these. Stephanie: Very cool, and you guys have over 1,000 people that you employ, right? Ashwin: Yes, we have 1,200 people. Stephanie: Wow, that's crazy. When did you all start, and how long did it take to get to that 1,000-person mark, and what was the change like within your company? That's a lot of people to manage. Ashwin: Sure, sure. Yes. So, we've been in business for, what? 16, 17 years, and we've also changed and evolved along the way. The way you run a company that is 50 people doesn't really work when you're running a company that's 200 people, and you need to run a company differently when it's 500 people, and certainly when it's 1,000. So, we've also had to learn, change, evolve along the way. How we run the company, what kind of talent we bring in. How we set the organization structure, and today we're pretty much a global business. We're present in seven, eight different countries, have customers all over the world, so we're sort of a micro multinational on our own. Stephanie: That's great. Is there any struggles that you face when it comes to working with your teams around the world that you had to learn along the way? Ashwin: Sure. Yes, yes. No, absolutely. Absolutely. So, there's one challenge, which is a more difficult challenge, which is culture. There's a second challenge, which is also important, but perhaps not that difficult, which is regulation. Culture is a really tough one. It's not as tough today as it used to be maybe seven, eight years back. Today because of just the globalization and easy access to information everywhere, people are a lot more aware of different cultures, different people, and a lot more sensitive and things like that. Ashwin: But in our early years when we were globalizing ourselves, we had to learn about different approaches, different cultures. We had to be very open minded, and I think we managed okay. We're still learning, it's important to be sensitive. Culture is an important issue. In terms of regulation, that's somewhat easier. You just have to follow certain processes, protocols and make sure that they're completely compliant in every job that you're offering. And especially in a business like ours where you're dealing with data and information, and there's a lot of regulation around that, around data privacy and sensitivity around that and things like that. So, we need to just ensure that we are compliant in every geography that we operate. Stephanie: That makes sense. So, everyone talks about AI. Like I mentioned, a lot of people mentioned in our previous interviews, and oftentimes I think people if they're using AI or they're referring to something like it's AI and it's actually not. So, how would you describe AI? And specifically, how does AI help Ecommerce, or could it help Ecommerce if people aren't already looking into it? Ashwin: So, first point you made is spot on, right? What is AI? Stephanie: Yeah. Ashwin: So, this really means different things to different people, and honestly, there is no one perfect watertight definition. So, AI is essentially an umbrella term that covers a bunch of different technologies, which are all meant to convey computers getting intelligence, which is not typically expected from computers, and which is more human-like. Which is the common sense definition, which we would all accept. But then what falls in that bucket, and what doesn't fall in that bucket is different for different people, and I'll give you a simple example. Take a very old technology, something like OCR, optical character recognition. Nobody would call that AI today, but when it first came out, maybe some people thought it was actually computers becoming intelligent, and it was kind of AI. Ashwin: So, the definition is also keeping on evolving as our expectations from technology keep changing. But I would say that amongst the different technologies that encompass AI, the core one, the most important one, at least to me, is what you call learning or machine learning. And machine learning is essentially the ability of computers to learn, and that is really a game-changing technology. And then that supports all the other technologies that are typically and the umbrella term of AI. Where a computer can run a certain process or program and get better at it every time it runs, which is what humans are good at doing. Ashwin: So, that for me is one of the most important technologies. And sorry, you had a second question you asked about AI and Ecommerce? Stephanie: Yes. Yeah, how it impacts Ecommerce right now. Do you think people are using AI efficiently or what do you think the future could look like if they do start implementing this in a better way? Ashwin: So, it's already here. It is being used extensively, more by some companies, less so by some. Companies like Amazon are, of course, using it in a very, very mature and sophisticated manner. But various types of companies are using it, many of our clients are using it, and its footprint is increasing. It's used in automating various tasks, in virtualization, in campaigns, even at the back end in supply chain, inventory management. We all know that chat bots are used for customer support in A.I. In Ecommerce. Physical robots are used in warehouses, which also could have AI technology. If it helps, I can give you a couple of examples- Stephanie: Yeah, I think exactly. That'd be great. Ashwin: ... of a couple of our platforms- Stephanie: Yes, please. Ashwin: ... which truly you would consider as AI. So, we have this one platform called Compete. Now what Compete does is it enables our customers, our clients to gather competitive intelligence in the market, and respond in quick time. So, it has technologies and a bunch of bots that go out and search all competitive websites of a brand to collect and synthesize all the information on what the competitors are doing in terms of the five Ps. So, you traditionally have four Ps, product, placement, promotion and price, and we have a fifth, people reviews. Ashwin: And so, this keeps collecting this information in rapid time, and on different product SKUs and different combinations, how competitors are doing, what they're placing, how they're pricing. And then this is updated in a dashboard along with analytics to help the Ecommerce players monitor competitive moves and respond quickly so they can optimize their revenue, their profits. This platform's also used extensively during these major selling seasons, like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and brands expect to make substantial sales in a very short period of time. Ashwin: So, they have to be very responsive to what the competitors are doing and what's happening in the market. So, this is one example, one platform that we have. Another one, which we call Adomate, this is really taking it to the next level where we're using AI to optimize creativity? Stephanie: What? Ashwin: Creativity, exactly. So, AI is not getting creative, just to be clear, and I'll explain to you how it works. Stephanie: It's not going to take over the world, do all the artwork in the future, write all the books. Ashwin: No, no, no. Well, there's some of that talk going on, but I think that you'll always want to read the book written by the author, you'll always want to know about the author. You'll want to see the artwork, which you want to know the painter's story. While those things might happen, but I don't think that's going to... Robots can play sports, right? But you want to watch humans play a football match. You don't want to watch robots play, they might play better than the humans. So, it's the same thing with art. Ashwin: But in terms of this platform called Adomate, so what we're doing is we're actually optimizing the process of content creation for either campaigns or advertising. So, when companies typically do campaigns online for Ecommerce, they will create, let's say, 100 different creatives, 100 different images, and put them into a system. And then the system will do live optimization depending on who's responding to what. Change which creative is being shown to whom. But you might have missed something fundamental, right? You don't know why something is working, why something is not working. Maybe you missed something in those creatives. Maybe there's some combination of both that you didn't know about. Ashwin: So, what our AI system does is using computer vision it actually reads every creative. So, it actually looks at the creative and then distills it into structured data. Who are the protagonists in the creative or what's their ethnicity? What's their emotion? What the background colors? Is the brand shown? Is the logo shown? Where is it shown? If it's a video, then it will break it into frames and read each frame. And so, you've got now structured data against each creative, and then you have the data of how people responded to that. Who clicked, who bought which segment, and you can combine all of that and actually then get prescriptive. Ashwin: So, depending on what kind of campaign you want to run, what segment you want to target, you can actually advise, "Okay, use a dog in this or use a Latino woman or bring the brand in or use red color instead of purple or whatever." Stephanie: Wow, that's interesting. Are a lot of companies using that today where they're actually personalizing the image for the product based on who comes in using AI behind the scenes to come up with that in real time? Ashwin: So, this is an early stage platform. It doesn't change the image in real time, though that's also possible. And my AI head tells me that we should be doing that next. But it doesn't change the image right now, what it does is it prescribes. So, for the next campaign, when you want to create something, then you would enter into the system what you're trying to achieve and the system might advise you what to do. Or if you have a creative you can submit it to the system and it will give you a score of how successful it's likely to be. Ashwin: But even that is an early stage platform. This is one of our exciting newer products, and we have maybe three or four customers using it right now, but it's certainly something that we're betting on. Stephanie: Got it. So, when these customers come to you, one thing I think about is when you have a problem. Back in my old days at prior companies, the teams I worked with who were focused on machine learning always told you like, "Well, you can apply machine learning to a lot of things, you just have to know the problem and if it's worth solving with AI and machine learning." How would a company know if the problem that they're maybe encountering is something that could be tackled with AI? Or how do they start thinking about that, especially if they're a smaller company, maybe a B2C company right now, and they are feeling certain pinches in areas, but they're not really sure how to handle that? How do you tell someone to start thinking about this or how do you have a conversation with someone so they can get this on their radar? Ashwin: Sure, sure. No, great question. So, it has to go step by step. That's what we always tell them, and first, honestly, a data foundation needs to be in place before you should even be thinking and talking AI. In terms of technology, what data you're collecting, how your metadata is defined, what data sources you're using, what are the connections between all of those, and are you able to establish a single source of truth. You can't put the cart before the horse. You need to make sure you're collecting the right data and it's reliable data. Ashwin: Then the other, I would say, even more important piece than that is organization culture. So, technology is all available, and getting your people aligned to data and technology to drive their actions and decisions is very good. If you're not able to achieve that, then all else will fail. So, we tell people that even before you think about advanced analytics or you think about AI, first get your teams into the culture of making decisions through data. We've all made decisions through gut, and gut is nothing but some kind of big data swirling in our heads. How do we move from there to letting data take us 80% of the way, and then still the top 20% can come through our gut? Because there are things we know that we may not have put that data into that system. We may not have been able to capture everything which is in our heads. Ashwin: So, we need to first get that culture in place, otherwise the entire analytics and the agenda won't [inaudible 00:18:12]. Once we have that in place then we can start driving different types of analytics programs and business outcome led programs for higher sales, higher profits for customer. Getting better customer experience, and it's not necessary that every problem, as you said, needs AI. Depending on the size of the company, the complexity of the problem, sometimes you might just be able to use a prepackaged solution. And there are prepackaged solutions out there, which maybe can solve your problem instead of developing something custom. Ashwin: But yes, if your problem is complex, your data size is large, then yes, you can have substantial rewards by deploying an AI solution, which we've seen with many of our [inaudible] customers. Stephanie: Cool. Yeah, great answer. So, when it comes to the companies that are coming to you, there has to be a core theme that many companies are struggling with, where you keep hearing the same recurring problems or the same thing that they want help with. What is that theme or problem if you could kind of group it together, and what did it look like after they implemented some of your analytics and AI got assistance from you guys? Kind of like a case study if you have one. Ashwin: Sure, sure. So, yeah, it depends on the company and what stage of the data and analytics maturity they're at, and what their business objectives are. So, sometimes we're asked to help with foundational data issues of assessing data quality of living data infrastructure. We sometimes work with our customers to create access to data and to create across sources, and just provide them with reports they can consume to run their business. Ashwin: So, in these cases we might start with a discussion of their business, and what data and metrics they need to make decisions and on what frequency. Sometimes we might get asked to choose or implement a specific data technology. And then for customers who achieve data maturity around data and metrics, then we get asked to drive business outcomes, which in the Ecommerce world it could be conversion rate optimization, it could be upsell, cross-sell, customer churn reduction, personalization. Ashwin: Essentially for many clients, we work with them through this life cycle, and this typically takes years. We first build their data foundation, we provide them with key metrics and intelligence to run the business, and then start driving sophisticated analytics programs, and then start leveraging AI in a more sophisticated way. So, it's really a journey, and it keeps evolving. So, it's not something that you come in, you do and you finish. Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative), makes sense. So, what are some of the metrics that you provide them. You said you provide metrics around the business. Is there a core set of metrics that you think are really important for every company to look at or how do you think about that? Ashwin: Sure. So, again, it depends on the way they view the business and their needs, and typically, this will start with a conversation between us and them of how they run their business, what are key metrics they want to look at? Maybe we might have a point of view what metrics they should look at. But on the tactical side, we might help people optimize metrics or measure metrics like basic things like nuclear revenue, margin, campaign incrementality, lift. So, lift is the extent to which a campaign drove sales over and above the regular run rate of the business. Ashwin: These high-level metrics could be broken down to... Within these metrics you might have some metrics like average order value, units per transaction and others like that. Conversion rate typically tends to be a metric of focus, and then these could be compared to past periods, could be segmented by channel, by device, by geo, by transaction Stephanie: When it comes to the metrics, have they ever led a company the wrong way where you saw someone look at a certain metric or data point and they were making decisions off that where it was actually giving them bad information? Or you had to advise them like, "You guys shouldn't be looking at this because this isn't helpful. Maybe you should be looking at this instead." Ashwin: No, absolutely. So, that happens all the time, and honestly, data if it's garbage in, it's garbage out. It's actually a great question because so often we've seen companies and very large sophisticated companies where different business units, geographies and departments have built their own data systems and their own infrastructure. And then in that process they've gone about defining their own data and their own way. They define a certain metric. Every metric needs to be defined what that metric essentially means, how it's calculated. Ashwin: And then if you have different geos, different views defining metrics in different ways and then when you put it all together and you're trying to look at it, it makes no sense. So, we've often seen that happen. It's very important for companies to really have a very clear data foundation and a data strategy, and to have a metadata layer, right? Define the data beforehand. And often sometimes we have to come in and just do that. Sometimes we'll end up just doing their house cleaning with our customers. Stephanie: So, if you were to start an Ecommerce company today, would you tell them getting the data aspect right from the start is a priority? Should they make sure they have their data dictionary, and they're talking about how they're actually putting their metrics and collecting the right data? How should someone think about this if they're brand new, and set themselves up for success? Ashwin: Absolutely. Absolutely spot on. So, what we call it is a data strategy. So, they need to have a clear data strategy in place as in what data they need to collect, how they're going to define that data, what technology they'll use to collect that data, and what business outcomes they'll drive from that data. How they'll use that data to drive certain business outcomes. And of course, that will evolve because business is dynamic, the business changes, the market changes, and what you track, how you think about things, it has already changed a lot in last few, and it will continue to change further. Ashwin: But it's very important to have a data strategy, and it's important to keep reviewing it and enhancing it as you go. Stephanie: Are there any data points that you recommend people to collect that maybe they're not already, because I'm sure a lot of platforms that especially newer brands are on probably collect some level of data, but I don't know if it's the right kind of data or what they really need to help them with that longer term data strategy. Are there any key data points where you're like, "Make sure you get this, this and this from the start to really be able to help build towards the future"? Ashwin: I mean, it's all these ones that I've mentioned like conversion rate. Obviously, traffic and obviously conversion rate. Different points of failure where drop-off has taken place. Campaign effectiveness, campaign effectiveness by segment. All of these definitely would recommend that people collect. One thing we've discovered is even in today's day and age, one of the biggest failure points which we've talked about for a long time in Ecommerce, but it still holds true even today, is just the checkout process. So, just the customer is willing to give the brand his or her money, but somewhere something doesn't work, something doesn't render, some option doesn't come up and there's drop-off. Ashwin: So, definitely collect data around the entire journey and where the drop-off and all of that happens if it does. We found that it's remarkable that even today that seems to be an area of [inaudible 00:27:17]. Stephanie: Gotcha. So, with all this data that you get access to when you're helping them build their data strategies and all that kind of stuff, is there any surprises that you've seen when going through some of the customers data and helping them organize it and build systems around it. Anything that you saw that you weren't expecting? Ashwin: Yeah, so actually we covered a couple of those challenges that we've seen, but the two main sort of surprises that we've seen are the two that we just covered. One is, just like we said, the checkout process. The page takes too long to load or it doesn't render on a particular device or particular browser. And then just the entire confusion around the data asset that the company has and how it's being measured, the metadata, and also there are opportunities for data sharing with partners and with vendors. These are really under leveraged, and if it's done in a thoughtful way it can yield real dividends. Ashwin: So, to give you an example, we have this major CPG customer, and we were helping them with their Ecommerce business and with their Ecommerce analytics. And then they said, "For our Ecommerce business we actually have a different supply chain because we have to compete with the needs of Ecommerce customers, which is very different. We need to have quicker deliver times and whatnot." So, they asked us to help them with their supply chain analytics. So, we started doing that, and then we realized these guys were buying their raw material product from farms, from various farms. And the farms actually have a wealth of data that can be combined by our customer across various farms to give them back valuable inputs to improve their efficiency, and also to improve product quality. Ashwin: Perhaps there wasn't enough advantage being taken of this opportunity, so I think there are opportunities that businesses just don't realize that they're sitting on, which they're able to leverage. Stephanie: Yeah, that's a really good example. We had a similar example when talking to Grubhub where they would share their data back with the restaurants to help them improve. Like hey, this person.... You'd get maybe a bad review whenever someone orders the nachos versus... Or they order at 5:00 PM, like what kind of chef do you have at 5:00 PM versus 9:00 PM when you get better reviews. Again, it's a really interesting point about how companies can partner with each other to share data to help each other. Stephanie: Do you think there's any hesitancy around that, because I could also see companies viewing even the farmer as maybe a potential competitor? If they were, I guess, worried about that, or worried about sharing data that could somehow come back and bite them later. Have you seen that hesitancy because I do see this as the way of the future, but I just don't know if I've seen enough people doing it yet? Ashwin: Sure. No, you're right. You're absolutely right, and that hesitancy is there, and it's fair concern that there could be competitive issues. So, for example, so many brands sell direct and sell to marketplaces. What information does the marketplace share with the brand, and what information does the brand share with the marketplace? There is a symbiotic benefit because when the brand has its own property that provides a certain richness of information about the product. And while they may still be doing a larger share of their revenue in the marketplace. But these kinds of concerns are there, competitive concerns are there. Ashwin: Then there are also concerns about data privacy because data privacy is a big issue and it can be done ensuring compliance, but one has to be careful of how one shares the data. What data is shared? Is it masked? Is it personally identifiable or not? And then the other issue is what we spoke about earlier is that they may be defining data in different ways. So, different entities that are defining their data in different ways, again, if it's shared, it may not lead to the right analysis because it may actually provide different perspective than what it's meant to provide if it's defined in different ways with [inaudible 00:34:10]. Stephanie: That makes sense. Is there any way that you think it would be best to set up a data sharing program that would also make sure that the company doesn't lose focus? Because like you said, it could be a pretty big process to make sure that you're putting the right data points in there, masking it, actually giving your supplier or whoever it might be insights. Then I could also see that turning into 50% of your day job. So, how do you advise a company to think about that if they are thinking about sharing data with a partner so that they also don't lose focus on their own product? Ashwin: Sure, sure. So, and some retailers are doing it today already. Amazon does it, Amazon has Amazon Marketing Services where it shares a fair amount of data with its brand partners. It has certain definitions and certain ways in which it makes it available, which is pretty standard. So, then it's up to the branch to take advantage of it and use it in the way that it makes sense for them. And then they might have the other marketplaces that may be sharing this data in a different way. Ashwin: So, that's where we really come in is that we know how the different formats work and the different definitions work, and we bring it together in, let's say a dashboard that makes sense for a brand to consume and process different sources. Stephanie: Yeah, that makes sense. So, we keep talking about data definitions and how companies, oftentimes different teams will have different definitions for the data. I have personally experienced this in some of my old roles. And oftentimes, it's because maybe a team is very entrepreneurial where they're trying to start their own project and they're trying to create their own dashboards, and you just all of a sudden have funny different organizations using a different metric for, like you said, the conversions. Have you seen any best practices for large companies to be able to create a global spot for people to go and look into that dictionary to find what this data metric, if it already exists, what it means? Have you ever seen anything like that, that actually works well? Ashwin: Yeah, I think it's great question, and honestly there's no real silver bullet. Different companies are using different approaches and strategies, and the entire data and analytics journey is really evolving across companies. Different companies have different organization structures to [inaudible 00:36:45]. One thing that works, which has worked for some companies is having a chief data officer. Somebody who's really part of the CEO's office and who's empowered to drive that agenda throughout the entire business. Ashwin: But for certain other types of companies it doesn't work because they're so fairly diversified, they have different business units that have different needs, and they want that dynamism. So, in those cases there is a compromise where every business then goes ahead and sets up its own system and approach and uses that. So, then you typically have, on the one hand you have, let's say the core operation systems like your accounting and things, which work as a single source of truth. And then every business uses what we would call then multiple versions of the truth, which sit on top of a single source of truth and then they create their own logic and versions on top. Ashwin: So, we've seen both approaches, and both have their pros and cons. I don't think there's a definite answer. Stephanie: So, when it comes to having some versions of the truth in dashboards, I always get hesitant about dashboards because people can interpret them however they want. One person might be like, "Things look great." And the other one might be like... They might expand the time horizon and be like, "Things look horrible." It just depends on who's looking at it and what they want to see or what they think they see. So, how do you... You said that you are providing data a lot of times for these brands to make decisions, business decisions off of the data. How do you, or if you do this at all, guide them on maybe like, "Here's how you should think about this decision"? Or how do you make sure that dashboards are being read correctly? Stephanie: And this is not just for your company, but I'm thinking a lot of companies have dashboards that could potentially be advising people the wrong way. Well, not even advising. Providing data and people are reading it the wrong way. Ashwin: Sure, sure. No, absolutely. So, there, again, there's one very important is the people aspect and training aspect is very important. How to use that information, what it means, what it doesn't mean. As you said, you can look at something and interpret it in five different ways, and one person can say it's great and one person can say it's terrible. So, that training is very important, and along with that what we do is that we will set a baseline for expected performance for most key metrics. And then we have certain tools where we can actually append insights into those dashboards. Ashwin: So, we have this platform called Discovery, where along with dashboards, the system actually generates contextual insights. So, along with a number, it will explain what that number means, and why that number has moved from one point in time to another. So, then that helps people contextualize that information, and as they see that... And they can actually double click on that, so this allows people to interact with that information as well in a natural way. You can actually chat and receive information back on chat, or you can ask a question and the system will... A basic question, it doesn't do very, very deep questions, but basic or an analytical question and the system will understand your question and the calculation can come back and answer. So, things like this- Stephanie: That sounds helpful. Ashwin: Exactly, and then just on a very basic level, as we work with the business and we understand what they consider as good, not good, average, certain metrics, we can do things like color coding, highlighting into dashboards. Basic things like that can also help to just contextualize. Stephanie: Very cool. So, a couple times we've mentioned needing to train employees to have that data mindset and to actually know how to think about data and organize it. Is there any training tools that you recommend or courses or things that you've seen companies have success with by having employees go through them? Ashwin: Yeah, courses there are lots, and there are enough courses and there are lots of great trainers out there. But what is very important is you need to have a couple of internal evangelists within the company. There's this new term actually in the industry actually, which has become very popular, citizen data scientists. You have data scientists, which is like the kind of people they have. Technically people who can go deep in the data and who can drive the statistics modeling and all that. But citizen data scientists are essentially the translators. They're the guys who sit in between the executives who are making the decisions and the data scientists at our end. Ashwin: In some cases, the citizen data scientist may even sit in our organization, but mostly they sit in the client's organization. These people play a very important role of driving that awareness and culture within the company. It's highly recommended that every company either converts some of their existing resources into that or otherwise they hire some people [inaudible 00:42:20]. Stephanie: I like that chief data scientists, and I have heard that quite a bit. I think it'd be interesting to have a course depending on if you're in Ecommerce, it'd be nice if there was a certain path that employees could go down to then be well versed and know how to operate within their industry. Because it does seem like there's just so many courses, I don't even know where to begin sometimes with them. And oftentimes you don't know what you need to learn either. Seems like there needs to start being some tracks that you can go down. Ashwin: That's true. That's true, and because of AI technology and because of all this transformation, there are lots of new opportunities also, new roles that people can take up. And I do believe that going forward we should all plan to spend some percent of our time learning. Stephanie: Yeah, so when it comes to skills, do you see people headed in a direction where everyone's becoming a polymath where they're a jack of all trades with many things, or do you see people really focusing in on a specific skill like, "I am an expert in AI for retail, that's my lane that I swim in"? How do you see the future shaping up for skills? Ashwin: Sure. So, I think that there is always an increasing need of course right now for specialists. But there will also always be a need for good generalists because you need specialists who can be deep in a certain function or technology, especially disciplines like AI, but at the same time we need generalists who can make sense of all these different pieces and put them together. So, I think that both career tracks... Therefore, you should just be clear which one of the two you want to be. Trying to be both then you're setting yourself up for failure. Stephanie: So, for everyone listening you're good either way. Whatever one you are, you just have to choose. So, to zoom out a little bit into the general Ecommerce industry, what trends or patterns are you most excited about for digital commerce? Ashwin: So, well, now we are in the midst of a human crisis, right? So, a humanitarian crisis with the COVID pandemic, and of course, we are all very mindful of the human tragedy, the hardship, the economic hardship it's put on people all over the world. It is exciting that this crisis has presented to really accelerate digital transformation and the use of digital channels. So, we have seen companies that have had digital transformation plans that have been one year, two years, three years long. And then, now they're talking, "Okay, we're going to accelerate and do this in two weeks, in three weeks." And it's actually becoming possible. Ashwin: So, what was thought to be impossible is actually becoming possible. We're seeing that if people really want to get these things done, they can. So, that adoption is exciting. It has potential to be... Digital has a potential to be much more personalized, more predictive than brick and mortar commerce. So, it offers a better experience for the customer, and it is good in other ways. It is good for social good as well because you can argue that it will reduce to some extent the impact of climate change. Less traffic, less congestion, less travel. And people get more family time for exercise or hobbies or what have you. So, digital commerce brings with it a lot of benefits as well, which I'm quite excited about. Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah, completely agree. It definitely seems like a lot of things have set up very quickly, and it's interesting watching the companies, there's a couple that I've been following, who just aren't moving to Ecommerce. How do you view companies like that who are taking a strong stance not to go online? Ashwin: It's interesting. While I do think that the industry at large is moving towards Ecommerce, and not just digital commerce, but digital everything, right? Digital entertainment, digital customer experience or digital communication. Most brands will need to do that to be successful. But sometimes there is always a market for those few contra players, right? Because there may be some consumers who may just want... Not want that new approach and new technology and who make the stand. They might have a spice boutique customer base who works with them. It won't last forever, but maybe it might help them for maybe the next seven, eight years, I don't know. Stephanie: Okay, so when it comes to everything that's been happening with the pandemic, how do you lead in times of change at your company or personally? Ashwin: So, a leader that has inspired me from his book was Satya Nadella at Microsoft. In his book, one quote that really stood out for me was he wrote that the C in CEO stands for culture. And he also talked about the importance of empathy in leadership. And so, I have taken it upon myself to foster the organization culture that we want to have. The culture that ties us together, and that is really helping us in these times. That culture that we fostered, which is bringing us all together. Ashwin: Along with that empathy, understanding of the challenges people are going through. It's not just being work from home, but anxiety about the disease, anxiety about the economic future, and along with that regular communication, transparency in communications. These are some of my key priorities, which are driving some of my actions in this crisis. Stephanie: That's great. Are there any challenges that you face when it comes to working remotely? Ashwin: So, it's actually been quite a surprise that when the pandemic hit and when we have to transition to work from home across all our different geographies, and 1,200 people moving to work from home, and I'm really surprised at how effective it's been. The work that we do is iterative, it requires collaboration and things like that, and it's working fine. And it seems like thankfully this happened at a time where all these technologies had evolved like Microsoft Teams and Zoom and others where it's still become very much possible. So, now I wonder why we used to be in offices all the time- Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative Ashwin: Exactly. And so, it's not just us. It's the whole industry just thinking these things. We still need offices for bonding for having certain hard conversations, for inducting new employees, for fostering our organization culture, but we don't need them all the time. We can have 60, 70, 80% work from home. I don't know what the right balance is, we'll discover. But more than- Stephanie: Are you changing that at your company? When you can go back, are you only having a certain portion of your employees go back? Or how are you thinking about that? Ashwin: So, we've not taken a clear decision yet, but it will be definitely at least 50% work from home, maybe more. Could be 60, 70%. And we'll just have to experiment and find the right answer. We also want to see how things change when the pandemic isn't there and then how that changes people's orientation. But at least 50% work from home, and maybe much more is very much doable. And it will give hopefully people a good balance of engagement in office, and at the same time better quality of life because of [inaudible] and things like that. Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah, completely agree. Ashwin: But in terms of the pandemic, while work is not suffering, but the bigger issue is the emotional challenge. As I said earlier, people are not meeting their colleagues, not meeting their friends, so they have anxiety. Here we've tried to do a lot of things. We've tried to engage people through various activities like talent [inaudible] or talent contests and things like that. Yeah, so I'm amazed at the kind of talent we have in the company. People are singing and drawing and cooking. Ashwin: We've had different types of training. I rolled out a new skill learning challenge, where I challenged every employee to learn a new skill to enhance their career over the next 60 days. I said that I'll- Stephanie: How are you tracking that? Ashwin: So, it's not mandated. It's just a challenge, which is free for everyone to sign up for or not. But at the end of 60 days, if you have done it, you can report, and there'll be a prize for person or people who have enhanced their career prospects the most, and prizes for leaders who have helped their team members enhance their career prospects. Just to set an example, I said I'll learn how to program and write code in Python. Stephanie: Oh, man. Ashwin: It's been fun. I'm doing it with my daughter and it's been fun. And we also are providing some resources for things like mental health counseling and things like that if people are feeling anxiety and depression. Stephanie: That's great. Really good examples of things that other companies could take and implement on their own too. Especially the talent thing, that's really fun. Ashwin: Yeah. Stephanie: All right, you probably get this question a lot, but I have to end the interview. So, I'm sure a lot of people have asked you this or want to know this. Do you think that AI will replace jobs or will it just augment jobs and maybe some will not be around anymore, but it will also create new opportunities? What's your take on that? Ashwin: Sure, that's a great question, and that's a question that so many books have been written on it, and there's so much discussion in the industry. I'll just give you my point of view, and there are some people who think quite differently as well. But AI, what AI does is AI doesn't really automate jobs, it automates tasks. When you think of a job, any person's job is made up of a bunch of different tasks. Typically, what we've seen is the AI systems will automate some of those tasks, so that person is not becoming redundant, but some of their tasks are freed up. Ashwin: And so, then that gives the opportunity to use that individual to then do other things. To drive more personalized experiences, to take the businesses to the next level and things like that. But then that requires that right orientation in that individual, and then requires training. The company to provide that training to those people, or for the people to also take interest and train themselves through resources available. So, like I said, I think that now everybody in this new environment will have to consistently be training and upgrading their skills. Ashwin: But do I think that AI is going to come and replace other jobs? No, I don't think so. I think it will free us up from certain tasks and will enable us to widen the scope of [inaudible 00:57:19]. Stephanie: Well, that is a good positive way to end the interview. Before we move into the lightning round, are you ready Ashwin? Stephanie: So, the lightning round is where I ask a question, and you have one minute or less to answer. And we will start with some easier ones. Once you can travel again, what's up next in your travel destinations? Ashwin: Oh, wow. Okay, well, I'd love to go to the Maldives. Stephanie: Great. Ashwin: Yeah, I'd like to go and do some scuba diving. Stephanie: Sounds amazing. What's up next on your Netflix or Hulu or wherever you watch TV shows? What are you watching? Ashwin: So, I'm currently watching Money Heist on Netflix. I don't know if you've watched Money Heist- Stephanie: I haven't. Ashwin: ... know Money Heist on Netflix. Stephanie: No. Ashwin: That Spanish adapted English show, pretty cool. And I also like the historical genre, so I'm watching some shows like Last Kingdom and Vikings. Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative), sounds good. I'll have to check those out. What's up next on your reading list, other than Python 101 manuals? Ashwin: So, that is taking up some of my reading time right now, and I'm trying to be disciplined about not wasting time consuming just unlimited amounts of coronavirus news and doing more productive things. So, right now I'm reading The Alliance by Reid Hoffman, and I'm also reading Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? Robert Goffee. Stephanie: Oh, I will have to check out that second one, I've heard of the first one. All right, the last harder question, what one thing will have the biggest impact on Ecommerce in the next year? Ashwin: Well, what's already had the biggest impact is the COVID crisis, but in the next one to two to three years, I think it's going to be AI. Stephanie: Well, that's a perfect way to sum up the interview. Ashwin, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a blast, and we'd love to talk again soon. Ashwin: Thank you so much Stephanie, it's been a pleasure. I look forward to talk to you soon.  

Amazon sellers quickly learn that using Amazon Marketing Services ads can add significant visits and incremental sales to their product listings. But anything in excess can become a problem. If you're ready to pivot toward a more well rounded traffic strategy - this episode is for you!

Amazon Ads used to be called Amazon Marketing Services, or AMS, but it has since rebranded and are now known as Amazon Ads. I explain what Amazon Ads are, clarify which types of ads are available on Amazon when you're marketing your books and also some recommendations along the way. New episodes EVERY single Monday. To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC PATREON! Many bonus perks for those who become a patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy LET'S CONNECT! Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/ Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/ Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Jesper (12s): A couple of weeks ago I talked about how you have to use paid ads in order to gain any visibility as an author in 2019 I also recommended to use Amazon apps, but I didn't really get into what those ads are, so I thought I better close that loop. Today we're going to remove any confusion about what Amazon ads are and clarify which type of ads are available. Jesper (44s): My results and recommendations on each and by that also why you should care about Amazon ads in the first place. If you are a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place. My name is Jesper and together with Autumn I host this channel between us. We've published more than 20 novels and our aim is to help you in your writing and marketing endeavors. The first thing I need to do is to give a huge shout out to bill Finley, who is our newest supporter on Patreon. Jesper (1m 22s): There is a link in the description field below. If you also want to check out Patreo on, but you are going to get stuff like a fantasy bookmarks or how about a amwritingfantasy t-shirt or even you'll have the possibility to get custom made fantasy maps. But enough of that, let's get into the topic of Amazon ads Amazon ads used to be called Amazon marketing services or a M S. Jesper (1m 52s): S some refer to it and I still do from time to time, but they've still rebranded and they are now known as Amazon ads. It used to be so that these ads were only available for those who were selling physical devices or components and it wasn't even possible for authors to Euston. But nowadays you can fortunately run Amazon ads regardless of whether or not your books are released in the KDB select meaning if you are exclusive to Amazon on not even that they didn't use to do so. Jesper (2m 26s): In this case, the good news is that everyone is on a level playing field, but there's obviously also means that there is a another thing to learn. Fear. Not though because I'm going to give you an overview here to make things easy, but a good place to start is why you should even care about Amazon ads. Well, the thing is that these ads are served on the Amazon website and when people browse the Amazon website, they do so because they are looking to buy something opposite. Jesper (3m 4s): Something like Facebook asks, for example, where people are busy interacting with friends and family or checking out a group that they might belong to or something like that. At any rate, people are not on Facebook because they want to buy something. If Facebook I had has to catch the person's attention, then it has to get them to click the app. It then takes the PO, a person off of social media and onto a store like Amazon folks sample hoping that they will then make a purchase and as you can see, that's quite a journey with multiple clicks and the risk of losing the person's interest. Jesper (3m 47s): All along the way with Amazon ads the people seeing the ad is already there with the intention to buy something and they can do that within two clicks only, you know, one click on the ad and then the bike click. That's it. You've got two types of ads at your disposal, the first SD sponsored product ad and then the other is luck screen ads the lush green ads is a fairly new thing. Jesper (4m 21s): It has replaced the previous product display ads and the lush green ad will show up on uh, you know when people unlock their Kindle eReader. So right there on the home screen before they start reading, they can be shown an ad of your book opposite the product display ads. The luxury Nat is also capable of showing up on the new Kindle fire tablets. So, uh, sort. That's pretty cool. Let's take a closer look at the effectiveness of these lock screen ads now that we are already talking about them and then we will circle back to these sponsored product ads in a moment. Jesper (5m 4s): One would think that these ads should work really, really well. After all, they are showing up right there on people's Kindle, but overall and in my experience and I can only speak from personal experience, they're not as effective as the sponsor product ads. In fact, I would say very far from it. Now keep in mind that when I talked about how you have to run ads in 2019 I also said that you have to experiment on your own. Jesper (5m 39s): You know, just because I can't get these ads to work, then it doesn't mean that you will experience the same results. I do know of authors who have churned significant profit with lock screen ads or product display ads as they used to be called. In my case, I haven't been able to it though. Perhaps the fact that it's that the ad is showing to potential readers, right? Windeyer lying or sitting down to read is what makes them less effective. Jesper (6m 9s): I don't know, but at least for me, that's not the time that I'm thinking about buying a new book. I don't know about you. I think in that particular moment it's much harder to convince someone to buy a new book. Old McGrumpy (6m 23s): It is because you worthless. Humans are too lazy. Jesper (6m 28s): Well, hi there, all my grumpy. I'm glad to see that our resident co-host decided to show up today. Well, at least if you have something insightful to share today, a old my grumpy, do you have your something insightful to share? Otherwise, feel free to leave always. Well, maybe you think it's insightful, but it has to pertain to Amazon. Ads. Old McGrumpy (6m 53s): You should just find to advertising company and ask them to run your ads for you than you do not even have to worry about all this stuff you are babbling on about people could be writing instead of watching YouTube videos, Jesper (7m 8s): advertising companies, you say, well, if you do find an advertising company who wants to run your ads for you, I would advise that you think about it before you jump in. Why? Well good that you ask because an advertising company will never care as much about your books and your sales as you will besides with a bit of patience and practice desk. Nothing that they can do for you that you can't do yourself. So I would say save your money. Old McGrumpy (7m 40s): It always comes down to Monday with you, worthless humans. Jesper (7m 44s): Well, not always, but I don't think that's true, but, but many is important to us that much. It's fair enough to say, but with that set, we can move on to the sponsor's product ad because those I have been able to turn profitable first. Where do the sponsored product ad appear? Well, if a reader goes to Amazon and type in, say, fantasy book in the search bar off the Kindle store, then the results will be displayed. Jesper (8m 15s): However, if you as an author, I have created a sponsored product ad with the keyword fantasy book, then your ad will compete with all other ads for that specific keyword. The one with the highest bit will win the auction and be displayed as one of the search results. You can test it out yourself by going onto amazon.com for example, select the Kindle store and then search for something and when you hit enter, you will find that the top results, we'll have a little sponsored text next to them, so it says that little labeled sponsored and that's because these are sponsored product ads. Jesper (8m 58s): To be honest, as long as you are book is relevant to the keywords that you are betting on. I don't really think that readers care one bit about it saying sponsored on not if they are looking for a fantasy book and that's what appears at the top of the search result, they will click it. If you then done a good job with the cover, the book description, and you have some reviews to serve a social proof, then there is no reason why they wouldn't make the purchase as well. Jesper (9m 32s): So when you create these ads, you are asked to tell Amazon how much you want to bid per key word. Essentially every time somebody clicks on your ad, Amazon will then charge you up to that amount that you're bidding, not necessarily the full amount. It all depends on the competition for that particular keyword, but to be on the safe side, you better expect it to be the full amount when you are sort of budgeting. But don't worry, these ads are not expensive as long as, and only as long as you don't go crazy with your painting. Jesper (10m 9s): Of course, if you start bidding $2 per hit, then it's going to be expensive pretty fast. However, my advice is to completely ignore the suggested bit that Amazon gives you and then keep your bidding at between 30 and 50 cents per click instead somewhere in that range. Now, it obviously depends on how much you're selling your book for, so if you're selling a box set that you sell for, let's say nine 99 uh, then you can afford to bid a bit more. Jesper (10m 41s): Conversely, a book being sold for two 99 or 99 cents can't sustain as high as a bit as the one we talked about before if you want to turn a profit. I think the main reason for these type of ads being so incredibly effective is because that they're showing up right in the middle of the buying process. It's basically right when the reader has typed in fantasy books. If we use that example and then they're scrolling through the options to see what they want to buy, and you will add a P S right? Jesper (11m 11s): They're very effective in terms of the keywords. Keep in mind that you are only actually paying for the keywords that gets clicked. Therefore, the only logical course of action is to load as many keywords as you can to get maximum exposure. Eats app will accept a thousand keywords and I always recommend to include as many as you can. Most of my aunts has a thousand keywords in each of them. So you might be thinking a thousand keywords, are you crazy? Jesper (11m 45s): There was no way I could come up with a thousand keywords and no, I can't come up with a thousand keywords either. So that's why I will, uh, some stuff about KDP rocket within the next few weeks. Uh, it's a piece of software that will help you out tremendously when it comes to keyword research. Otherwise, you can of course use Google ad words to generate a list of keywords. If you're on a budget, at least that's free. It's not the KTB rocket ex expensive either. Jesper (12m 15s): But if you're looking for something free, then we'll use Google AdWords. In order to create a winning ad, you have to test out different ad copy. So test out different variations and keep loading the system with more and more ads and more and more keywords. At this point of time, I'm probably advertising something like 20,000 keywords on on Amazon and that might sound like a lot and perhaps it is, but if you are just creating like one or two ads every week, you know you'll get there sooner or later. Jesper (12m 51s): Oh, and something else worth mentioning to the Amazon dashboard that shows the results of your ads are, it's quite slow to populate. Sometimes it can take up to two weeks for it to show all the sales. So don't make your decisions on whether an ad is successful or not. Based on the app dashboard, you can use the a cost score, which just shows in the at at board to get sort of a general bearing about the results. So as long as you are under 70% in eco score, you're turning a profit. Jesper (13m 26s): Since Amazon gives you a 70% royalties. However, the only sure way to determine your success is to check your sales by the KDP dashboard and then compare your revenue with the invoices that you're getting for your ads. That way there is no second guessing. You know, if you have any questions, you know, just fire away in the comments section below. Uh, I've tried to condense this topic around ads into something that is fairly easy to understand, but I am of course also having to take the assumption that you know how to create these ads and, uh, how to operate the dashboard and so forth. Jesper (14m 8s): If that's not the case, well, as I said, make use of the common section. See you next Monday.

In episode 244 of the Get Published Podcast, Host and 13-Time Bestselling Author Paul G. Brodie interviews James Kademan about his author journey and the benefits of using KDP Rocket for Amazon Marketing Services.

Amazon Advertising recently launched two new ways to reach shoppers as they search on Amazon and browse product detail pages. On this episode, we'll break down the new options and outline strategies to use them. This includes: Product Targeting for Manual Ads New Targeting Defaults for Automatic Ads Black Friday and Cyber Monday Analysis And More! Be sure to listen to the end to find out who we decided to call out this week! Check out more! (https://genevasupply.com/gsonmarketing-podcast/)

How effective are your Facebook ads? How effective Amazon Marketing Services ads? Have your sales imporved in past 6 months?

In this episode, we'll discuss the switch Amazon made from Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) and Amazon Media Group to Amazon Advertising. Find out what else changed besides the name and how you can take advantage of the merged platform. Episode includes: What type of ads are included with Amazon Advertising What you can do with the new layout What changes to expect in the near future Google Ads vs. Amazon Advertising How to use Amazon suggested bids Day parting strategies with Amazon Advertising Taking advantage of bulk upload sheets And more! Sign up (https://genevasupply.com/gs-podcast/) have the show notes delivered right to your inbox.

In episode 40 of the Get Published Podcast, Host and 13-Time Bestselling Author Paul G. Brodie interviews Oscar Segurado about his author journey and using Amazon Marketing Services when launching your book.

EPISODE PREVIEW: The consumer decision journey most certainly begins online today and how we engage and nurture our target end consumer across their devices is the secret to continually creating loyal brand fans who convert. I have an episode for you today that brings the very latest digital tactics and strategies to you, Channel Masters. And, my secret weapon has a name: Carter Jensen. You first experienced Carter earlier this year in an audio podcast, and now, he joins us again in our new video format (his episode is also going to be available on iTunes and our other audio platforms, not to worry!). Customers want their experience with your brand or your shop (online and brick and mortar) to be special. Today’s episode will share with you what’s working today for the best consumer-centric brands as they work to create brand experiences that are both memorable and shareable across multiple channels. Carter also gives us an Amazon Marketing Services update at the end of this show, so be sure to stick around for the entire episode! GUEST BIO: Carter Jensen is a digital educator and a modern-day ad man. While his official focus is on emerging media and platform innovation, that only just begins to cover his passion for the newest and most technological parts of the advertising industry. He encourages and guides clients to push the boundaries of advertising and bring new and innovative communication tactics to life. He’s also a co-host on the Omnitalk video podcast.

One of the perks of working so closely with Amazon is we get to meet with key employees in Seattle. In this episode we'll discuss our trip and fill you in on some of the new things we learned. This includes: Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) new UI and its benefits AMS suggested bids and strategies Amazon Go Competitor analysis tactics you can implement Goal setting And more Subscribe and leave a review on iTunes! See more of our podcasts here: https://genevasupply.com/blog/ (https://genevasupply.com/blog/)

Evan and Red Beard finally recorded their first episode of the GS On Marketing podcast. Every episode provides you with the latest strategies in Digital Marketing. Topics will include: SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Email Marketing, Social Media, Amazon Marketing Services and more. Brought to you by Geneva Services, a division of Geneva Supply, Inc.

Amazon's great, and you know what we love about Amazon Marketing Services, specifically? If you look at all these different advertising channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Those are all great tools and all great platforms, but there's not a single advertising platform that's out there right now that is targeting buyers with the same intent to buy than Amazon. We discuss AMS strategies that help you spend smarter and increase sales.

Advertising your Kindle eBooks where people are already buying them is a great idea! Luckily, Kindle authors can take advantage of advertising opportunities with Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) that are integrated into the Kindle Direct Publishing platform. In this episode, I explain the basics of the program. To connect with me, visit my website at https://HeidiThorne.com. And if you'd like to read my books, eBooks and audio books, visit my author page on Amazon at https://amazon.com/author/heidithorne.

SHOW NOTES Caitlin Halpert is the Growth Engineer at 3Q Digital. She’s responsible for driving growth, efficiency, and new ideas to enable 3Q to best serve current and future clients. She has worked in digital marketing since 2011 and held positions at Dealer.com and iSearchMedia before joining the 3Q team in March 2014. Her experience includes management of paid search, paid social, comparison shopping, Amazon Marketing Services, YouTube, and Display. She’s worked with a variety of clients from eCommerce to subscription services to B2B lead generation. Caitlin specializes in data-focused digital marketing experimentation to push past “best practices” to drive the performance for agency clients. As an industry thought leader, she has spoken at HeroConf, SEMpdx, and SMX East, West, and Advanced. Listen and Learn: What leadership qualities are needed to navigate a team through a changing business climate What the ins-and-outs of a pay to play market are Why you must be nimble to be successful with digital marketing How to design your campaigns around who your customers are Why it is imperative that your marketing team and sales team are aligned TO FIND CAITLIN ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT 3Q DIGITAL, CLICK HERE.

In diesem Interview findet der Amazon Dorf Talk einmal als Digital Confession Drive statt, in diesem Jahr in Hamburg auf dem Online Marketing Rockstars Festival. Christian Otto Kelm und Nils Seebach besprechen das Thema Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), also Amazon als Werbekanal und verweisen auf die Dos and Don'ts der Autokampagnen.

Ian Lamont of i30 Media discusses strategies for using Amazon Marketing Services to make your book pop to the top in Amazon searches. Covered here are key concepts like bidding and budgeting, and a real-world assessment of what works and what doesn't when working with Amazon (or with Facebook and Google ads). Here’s the YouTube how-to video Ian mentions in the podcast: “How to Make Amazon Marketing Services Product Display Ads”: https://youtu.be/oQvAsSQ3tV4 Mentioned in the members’ question portion of the podcast are new classes in Copyediting and Developmental Editing at UCLA Extension. For information, go to https://www.uclaextension.edu/. Participants Ian Lamont is an award-winning technology journalist, author, and publisher, and the founder of i30 Media Corp. and IN 30 MINUTES Guides. He is also a director and treasurer of the Independent Book Publishers Association and serves on IBPA's Executive Committee. His books include Twitter In 30 Minutes and Lean Media: How to Focus Creativity, Streamline Production, and Create Media That Audiences Love. A graduate of Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he lives in the Boston area with his family. Visit https://in30minutes.com. Peter Goodman (host) is publisher of Stone Bridge Press in Berkeley, California. He began his publishing career in Tokyo, Japan, in 1976. A longtime member of IBPA, he has served on the IBPA board and as IBPA board chair.

Zu Gast: Will Tjernlund - what exactly is it? - how do you use it? - different add possibilities - funnel - advantages - disadvantages - reporting - budget for each way? --> goatconsulting.com --> williamtjernlund@gmail.com --> fbamastermind.com

This week we have a fantastic interview with the delightful Brian Meeks, who talked to us about creating and making money on Amazon Ads. Brian recently published a book on how to master Amazon ads, and runs a very successful Facebook group on the same topic. He was kind enough to break it all down to the simple version for us, and run through the basics of creating and running a successful Amazon ad. If you've never been on the inside of an Amazon ad, this episode will give you enough information to get you clicking over to the Amazon Marketing Services website. If you're a bit more experienced, don't worry, the insights on copywriting and the tips for creating successful ads will be enough to keep you listening. We learned so much from talking to Brian, and we know you will too. :) 

In Episode 19 of Beyond Writing, host Dachary Carey talks about platform bugs and issues, specifically: Amazon bugs Kindle Unlimited...

In this Learning Lab episode, Chris and Becca host Honoree Corder and Brian Meeks as they discuss why getting a grip on data will equate into more money in your pocket. The lab is about an hour long. Links & Show Notes: -What is ROI and why do authors need to understand it? -Why being afraid of the unknown will keep you from making more money. -How data can help you sell more books. -Why feeling overwhelmed by data is often the first step to learning. -Why a $20 book promotion is more expensive than a $1000 Book Bub ad in terms of return value. -How to figure out if your ad is cost effective. -Why having the right mindset will help you sell more books. -How better book descriptions can make you more money. Links: -Get your copy of The Prosperous Writer's Guide to Making More Money here. -Get in on the Kindle Countdown Deal for Chris' book SMART Social Media For Authors here. -Four copywriting book recommendations: How To Write a Sizzling Synopsis by Bryan Cohen How To Write Copy That Sells by Ray Edwards Words That Sell by Richard Bayan The Adweek Copywriting Handbook   Three Facebook groups you should join to get answers about your book marketing:   The Prosperous Writers Mastermind (Honoree Corder) Smart Marketing for Authors (Chris Syme) Brian Meeks Amazon Marketing Services Lab Group. This is a beta group for Brian's new book on Amazon Marketing Services ads. If you're interested in taking part in a research project and learning more about how to put AMS ads together, Brian has a closed group on Facebook you can join. Part of the buy-in of being in the group is consenting to be part of a control group that buys a copy of his new book to test some points of data on Amazon. This group is specifically about Amazon Marketing Services. Here is the link to join.

Derek Doepker is the first guest to come back on the show for a third visit. In Episode 24 we talked about creating a great book marketing strategy for long-term success and some awesome tips on saving money when you self publish, and in Episode 94 we talked about developing a success mindset and some […] The post 129: Amazon Book Ads and Amazon Marketing Services with Derek Doepker appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Once again we have with us Brian Johnson of PPC Scope and Sponsored Products Academy. Today we will be talking about Amazon Marketing Services. Brian Johnson of PPC Scope If you haven’t already, please listen to the first two parts of this interview, where we address PPC for Amazon Seller Central. Just head on over to amazingfba.com/brianj for all the episodes as well as some great resources, including Brian's proprietory PPC Cheatsheet. Amazon Marketing Services Brian is going to teach us how to hack into your competitors’ listings, and ethically steal their traffic and sales. Sounds crazy, right? There is an Amazon platform that most people are not aware of called Amazon Marketing Services, AMS. It’s the banner ads that appear above every ad when you search on Amazon. It’s the ads below the “Add to Cart” button on a listing. Amazon Marketing Services is a gated advertising platform where you have to meet certain qualifications to join. Once you do, you get much higher visibility, much lower cost-per-click, and you can target your competitors and defend your own brand by having ads on product pages. It’s below their description and offers you the ability to show off your product to their customers. Get Started with Amazon Marketing Services AMS is gated by Vendor Express.  Once you get past the stage where you send Amazon a sample order, then you can begin using Amazon Marketing Services. For Free video training from Brian, click on the video image below: Once you’re in, you have to structure your AMS ads to proper way to make sure you pack a punch. It doesn’t work the same way as sponsored products. AMS has three aspects: Headline search ads which are the ads at the top of the search results. Product display ads which are below the add to cart button. Sponsored Products ads which are not the same as the sponsored ads we’re used to and they show up in different locations than the classic sponsored products. The best case scenario is to use both types of sponsored products. You can use AMS to help filter down keywords based on what Amazon thinks will be relevant. There are ways to streamline the process of getting approved for Vendor Express. However, that would be way more than we could cover on this episode. It is something Brian teaches in his course. Many people are confused about what you can advertise for on AMS. They think you can only show ads for products you submit through Vendor Express. That is not the case. You are only using the product to get approval. AMS allows you to show ads for all your products. Brian’s course covers all that and more. Brian will teach you how to get started, how to get un-gated, and how to make the process very simple. Get More Information The best place to get more info is in Brian's free training at Sponsored Product Academy. There are 4 free videos about this whole area. Just click on the video image below to access that: The Academy full course itself It is very in-depth training. It’s about a 5-week course. It’s the best place to start if you want to dominate your competitors in advertising. You can start with the free videos and take it from there.  For the cheat sheet and other resources, including instant access to training videos, just visit the link below:  amazingfba.com/brianj Watch Amazon Marketing Services with Brian Johnson Part 3 of 3

AMS - Amazon Marketing Services It’s offers more robust to you PPC advertising. The top banner ad on Amazon, that is usually a link to someone’s storefront, that’s Amazon Marketing Services. Sometimes there are ads under the Buy box, those are Amazon Marketing Services ads. It’s more exposure and drives more customers to your products which, in turn, could lead to more sales. Getting Started With Amazon Marketing Services It’s only accessible to vendors. This used to be invite only until Amazon started Vendor Express, which is open to everyone. Now you can get access to Amazon Marketing Services once you have a purchase order. So once Amazon orders product from you, then you have access to AMS and all the benefits that come with it. To learn how to get started with Vendor Express, please check out my interviews with Will Tjernlund. AMS Workaround If you don’t want to go down the route of Vendor Express, there is a work around. You can sell Amazon a product that you don’t intend to keep in stock. Go to aliexpress and buy 10 units of some item. Tell Amazon that you want to sell it to them and they will request samples. Once that process starts, you should be able to then sign up for AMS. Once in Amazon Marketing Services, you are able to advertise any products, not just the ones you have in Vendor Express. Not only can you advertise products that are in your Seller Central, you can advertise products for items that Amazon doesn’t list you as the seller of. This is very beneficial if you have a Merch by Amazon account. If you sell Merch, you don’t have access to ads. With Amazon Marketing Services, you can then run ads for you t-shirts. You can check out my interview with Chris Green if you are interested in getting started with Merch by Amazon. Issues with Vendor Express It may not be worth it, for everyone, to utilize Vendor Express beyond getting your foot in the door. There are many issues with it because they take over the listing and they tend not to optimise it so it converts. However, it’s almost a necessity for some. For example, Anthony has a friend that selling a health and beauty product that he makes from home. Since he makes it from home it is impossible for him to get ungated. However, by selling through Vendor Express he is now able to get past that since it’s technically Amazon selling it, not him. Vendor Express is making strides to improve the listings by making some of it available to the sellers to be edited. Some aspects, like the title, you may need to ask Amazon and jump through hoops for, but it is possible to optimise your listing. Get in touch with Anthony: He has written two books about selling on Amazon: Bootstrapping E-commerce: How to Import and Sell on Amazon Bootstrapping E-commerce: Advanced Amazon Tactics You can contact him at he publishing company anthony@reidandwrightpublishing.com Zonblast offer an optimising service which is a great place to start. You can get more information by emailing support@zonblast.com. Watch Amazon Marketing Services with Anthony Lee Part 3 of 3

Author Zoe York returned! She joined Chrishuan Keller Hanna and Erica Conroy to discuss the below topics: - Amazon Marketing Services for all! - Computer algorithms picking books for publishing - Booktrope closes its doors - Goodreads introduces Kindle giveaway program

There are very big companies that have made private labeling on Amazon their sole source of income and revenue. Wouldn’t it be great to get a behind-the-scenes look at how these big companies that create multiple brands go about doing business on Amazon? Well in today’s episode of The Amazing Seller that’s exactly what we have. Scott’s guest is Jason Brunson. Jason is not only an Amazon Private Label seller himself, he’s also worked for one of those large companies for a number of years and walks us through the step by step process of how these companies go about doing everything, from product research, to optimization of their listings and product fulfillment. It’s a great episode with lots of tips and encouragement. Be sure you give it a listen! Getting started on Amazon with Arbitrage through used book sales.   Jason and his wife heard about the possibility of selling products on Amazon and decided to give it a try. Their first venture was using the arbitrage model. They chose to find good used books to sell on Amazon and actually made a decent amount of income each month. That’s when Jason saw an advertisement on Craigslist that was offering positions to people to work for a company that sold a variety of products on Amazon. He applied and was hired. At first he worked in the customer service area but very quickly was moved to marketing, where he worked on Amazon listing and product sales. He eventually took what he learned at his place of employment and started applying it to his own Amazon business and now is doing his own private label sales. As usual, Scott’s got lots of questions so be sure you listen so you can glean from Jason’s experience.   How does a company with 8 brands and 1500 SKUs operate on Amazon?   Believe it or not, the larger companies appear to do their product selection and research as well as their marketing and product sales very similar to what the “little guy” Amazon sellers do. The main variables have to do with the company’s willingness to try products and order larger batches to find those winner products. But in the end, the result is the same. They eventually find products that will sell consistently and use them as a basis to build a new brand. From there, you guessed - they add products to the product line and build out the brand. What do they do with all the products they’ve tried but haven’t turned out to be good sellers? You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out, PLUS hear lots more tips and insights Jason gives us, on this episode of The Amazing Seller.   Filling in the income gaps during slow times of the year.   One of the things Jason Brunson shares with Scott on this episode of The Amazing Seller is that the larger companies are pretty strategic at making attempts to balance out their product sales throughout the year. That means, for example, that since fall time is a slow part of the sales cycle, they’ll intentionally search for products that sell better in the fall time to add to their product line. This enables them to start generating income during a time when sales are usually down. Naturally, that balances out their income stream. Can you do this in your business? Scott thinks it’s not only possible, but necessary. You can hear his comments and Jason’s insights from what his company does by listening.   How can you find gaps in a market that you can fill?   Today’s guest, Jason Brunson, has worked for a company that has over 1500 SKUs in their Amazon account. They’ve worked hard to choose products that fill gaps in their existing markets. This enables them to get sales that others are missing by offering something unique but potentially in demand. Jason said that in order to figure out what those products are they look at a number of things going on in a particular product niche. What are those things? Well, they’re too many to list right here so set aside some time to listen tot his episode and you can find out. Grab your pencil and paper, you won’t want to miss any of them!   OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER   [0:03] Scott’s welcome to this conversation about Big Amazon businesses. [1:48] A quote shared inside the TAS Facebook group. [3:37] Introduction of today’s guest, Jason Brunson. [4:44] Jason’s first moves on the Amazon platform - selling books - how it worked or him and why they chose that path. [7:15] The margins to expect in used book selling on Amazon. [8:14] Jason’s job with a larger company - handling over 1500 SKUs. [11:08] How the company operates - 5 brands - broad niches [11:47] How this big company does product research. [15:09] How does the company determine the number of units it should start with? [16:25] Using seasonal items to fill in sales gaps within the year. [17:47] What does a launch process look like for this company? [19:16] The use of Amazon PPC for this company’s strategy. [20:26] Jason’s move into Amazon Private Label on his own. [21:42] The things Jason has done in his own company that he doesn’t do at the big company. [22:42] Jason’s product launch process. [24:09] How long does it take Jason to see consistent sales? [25:31] Jason’s business currently runs on 8 SKUs. [26:45] Finding gaps in a market. [28:32] The importance of ranking in Jason’s mind. [29:42] Jason’s thoughts about the new Amazon PPC. [30:24] Is bundling a good way to make more sales? [32:01] Is Amazon becoming too saturated? [34:00] Jason’s thoughts toward the future. [36:11] The importance of reinvesting of your business. [36:56] How do you get rid of products you’re not selling? [38:29] What is Amazon Marketing Services - and how does it work? [46:47] The best place to connect with Jason. [47:80] Scott’s summary of the conversation. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE   Scott and Chris’ free workshop  - http://www.TheAmazingSeller.com/workshop   www.TheAmazingSeller.com/FB - the TAS Facebook Community