In the last 12 hours, my linkedin bubble (filled with lots of great people working in the Amazon ecosphere) purely exploded with content showing this new test Amazon has launched around the globe (?)
We see this in mobile, but also desktop, we see it in the US, but also in Germany. Lots of people do see it, but not many have an opinion on it (yet)
so here is my take:
amazon is experimenting. I expect this to not stick at this moment as we see it and here is why:
What I have seen so far shows many different variations of this test.
Sometimes it shows the % of 5-star ratings, and sometimes the % of 4+ ratings.
We see this Not on all products. When I scroll through my feed I find some ASIN where it doesn’t show.
We see it on the SERPs but not on the PDPs.
Now, what do I think will this change have the biggest impact on, here it gets controversial:
I noticed -> This doesn’t show the review count anymore
Let’s assume I launch a new product and have 5 reviews and average it at 4.7 on Serp this could look exactly 100% like the product which has 100.000 reviews averaging at 4.7 with the same amount of % 4+ ratings.
Why would Amazon do this?
To reduce review MOAT and with it the „power“ of aged products.
Amazon loves competition! Competiton leads to lower prices and product innovation. Aged products with 100k+ reviews stop competitors from entering niches or make it harder to sell.
What if on the SERP the playing fields get equalized and the best product for the customer -> e.g. the one with the highest avg rating gets the most clicks?
Wouldn’t that be good for customers and amazon?
What are your thoughts?
I do have a strong vision: to build the best amazon advertising team in the world!
How did this idea emerged and what can you learn from it?
At my previous companies we always strived for the a high goal. At peak ace, we had the idea, that nobody can do google ads better than us (I have to say that was relatively naive looking back, but that’s how life is, right?)
At KW-commerce (now seller X) we wanted to become the best marketplace seller worldwide.
And I always wanted to be good at what I do.
This is one essential truth about me: I love a good competition and I love winning / beeing the best.
So it just made sense to create a big hairy audicious goal for me and my team too:
to become the best amazon ads team in the world.
This “simple” idea really changed everything for me!
With this goal, I created a purpose for my job.
Why do I do what I do everyday?
Is it for the money?
Yes, partially (truth needs to be told).
But more important the goal! I do it because I have a goal.
And as with every good goal in life: it is not really about the goal, but about the process towards it.
I am very sure it is still a long road towards the goal, there is still so many things to learn!
But that’s totally cool, because once I reached the goal. I would need a new one. And this would be very hard!
So what can you learn here?!
The goal enabled me to tell people what my personal vision is and guess what: it opened many doors!
The job I have right now would have not been possible without it.
Now for yourself: create a vision of what you want to achieve in business. Not everyone need to become the best at his craft in the world.
Maybe your goal is to understand something better than your competitors.
Maybe your goal is that you create things faster than others.
I am not super creative with these goals, so you’ll have to come up with them yourself. But Money should not be the goal. Money will follow your goals!
Once you have an idea for you for the next 5 years or 10 years, you can start working towards it. And don’t worry: you can shape that goal along the way, that’s half the fun!
Am I there yet? Abolsutley not!
Does this long term goal give me resilience? Yes!
Does it make me proud? Of course!
Do I get self-consciousness from it? Yes, 100%
Do I fear that I can’t hold true against this goal? Yes, but everything meaningful in life should give you that feeling. If not, it doesn’t mean anything for you.
What’s your goal?
Tell me in the comments!
PS: picture 100% unrelated, only a very long stair on which I stand at the beginning.
#advertising #amazon #ads #ppc #goals #bestteam
Sponsored Brand Video campaigns with the destination to a Brand Store received an Update yesterday and many people already posted about this (e.g. Joe Shelerud and Santhos Thiru )
The new Update is available for the Mobile & Desktop Inline and Bottom of Search Placements and includes the option to Show 3 different Products.
That’s what you all should well know from SB headline ads.
In the setup phase, once you have selected the Store Page you want to target and go to the creative section at the bottom, you can add your video, logo, and headlines as normal and you can now choose up to 3 products to show alongside your video ad.
𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁: The very interesting part is just coming and I have not seen anybody talking about this yet:
If you click on any of the 3 Products you will be forwarded to….. yes, the product detail page.
If you click on the video you will be forwarded to ….yes, the store. But wait: The Store doesn’t look like your usual Store anymore.
🆕 𝗜𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝘄𝗶𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘂 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 „𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵“ ✅
Which shows a carousel-like style of the 3 products with deal badges, coupons, SnS Coupons, and other badges as well. You have the option to either add to the cart or see buying options depending on the products. And just below this new Widget, you’ll see the text „Scroll to Explore more in the Store“ as an Indication for the normal start of the Store.
You can see all these previews once you click on your ads in the campaign creation mode and therefore I have decided to not post any additional screenshots.
Now, what should you do with this information?
Start exploring this new type and play around! 🐁
❓ How do I see the general development:
➡️ With SBV getting more and more similar functions to traditional SBs I am seeing this type actually losing reasons to exist. Currently, they still have a very strong reason to be used. But as SBVs are taking the same placements and now also capturing more and more unique features from SBs I can’t currently see a world where traditional SBs would be used anymore, as SBVs usually have much higher CTRs and if the placements, targetings, and other unique creative feature are all equal: Why should I build SBs still?
Amazon announced some months back that Posts will move into the ad console, the due date was the 15th of May. I remember looking for it this and the following days. Couldn’t spot it.
Yesterday evening Christian Otto Kelm posted that they are now integrated.
Feels great to have this directly in the ad console!
Here are a few things for you guys to learn, as it also came with some updates:
✅ New Features / Limits with this Update:
• Caption Limit decreased to 300 characters (before we had 2200)
• Promote Up to max. 5 ASINs (Before we had 10)
• Set an Optional End date for a Post (New)
📝 What you need to have in order to start with posts:
• Brand Registry
• Brand Profile
• some lifestyle images of your products
• Ideally also a Brand Store (But I am not sure if this needed to start with posts)
Not much more to say about this update other than I am interested to see how the end date on posts will play out. Will they be invisible to customers after the end date was reached?
Are you using posts now more frequently?
Btw I’m also talking about this update in my podcast from today
The Call it Customer Engagement and you can find it here:
𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹 > 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 > 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
This tool was available to some Brands already since Q3/Q4 of last year as a beta and enables you to send „custom“ emails directly via Amazon.
This is exciting news, as you can directly connect with your customers
❓𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱?
1. 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀
Customers who have ordered your brand’s products more than once in the last 12 months. These are your loyal customers. Engage to reward loyalty, deepen relationships, and grow repeat purchase
2. 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀
The highest spending 25% of your brand’s customers in the last 12 months. These customers spend the most on your brand’s products. Engage to strengthen the relationship, build brand advocates, and grow repeat purchases
3. 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀
The most recent 20% of customers who have purchased from your brand. These customers have purchased from you most recently. Engage to grow your relationship and inform them of other brand offerings
4. 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀
Brand followers have clicked to “follow” this brand on Amazon
❓𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗜 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀?
Tailored audiences are currently in beta and are available to a limited number of brands based on previous customer engagement campaign engagement. Amazon is actively expanding the beta to more brands.
To be eligible for tailored audiences, your brand must have:
• Sent 10 or more customer engagement campaigns with at least 1000 total emails sent over the last 10 campaigns
• Average opt-out to click rate less than 1% over the last 10 customer engagement campaigns
❓ 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗜 𝗱𝗼?
Not so much. The limitations of this tool are on what you can promote and how. You can choose the audience first and then you’ll select an ASIN you want to promote. This ASIN has to be eligible for the promotion
You can add a product that you want to feature prominently in your email campaign. It can be a new product launch, a gift idea, and can include promotional details if the product is part of an eligible promotion.
Once you choose your ASIN, you can either choose an image from the Product Detail Pages Main Images or upload your own custom Image. You can select a Start Date and The Email Title & Subtitle and that’s it.
Currently, the primary use case is to promote new product launches, but maybe you’ll have used the tool already for other purposes?
Let me know in the comments!
This picture of me is from 2017. So a very long time before everybody was „forced“ to work remotely and before most companies started to do this trendy topic workations. I even believe our company back then ( Peak Ace AG ) was one of the first companies to bring this as a perk to the employees. We had a very nice villa in Cyprus booked for a couple of weeks for all teams to enjoy working from a place where the sun is still shining while the weather in berlin gets wet and grey (October). People needed to buy plane tickets themselves, but the company organized the place to stay and made sure we had great wifi to still have calls with clients, etc.
I really enjoyed the time I was there as you might be able to see from this iconic picture of me (obviously staged 😅) and here are the reasons why you should adopt this in your company as well:
Work needs to be fun (at least from time to time). This can happen in the office, sure. This can happen remotely (it might just happen less often I believe), but it will definitely happen if you travel somewhere and work like a small young startup all together from the same couch.
Connecting Fun & Work boosts a lot of positive energy. People are more motivated and less anxious. Ideas can spark better and people can have more meaningful connections. And isn’t that was life is about? Meaningful connections?
What I am aiming for in my life: At Least travel once a year somewhere and work from there. I know this is a huge privilege for me, to be able to work from anywhere in the world basically. But the truth is also, I am not making use of these possibilities. Most of my life is spent in the office/home office. While there is so much opportunity in front of me, I am not making use of it often.
Gladly I have a team Thrasio that thinks very much like me on this topic. So this year, we have organized already our 2nd workation as a group and will travel to Valencia. We will work hard and let’s see: party hard as well (eventually). But one thing is true so sure, we will connect. We will learn from each other and we will grow as a team!
The best thing: the whole trip is completely self-organized from us. Some quick polls over slack about the date, the location, and the actual house and done ✅
So if you are an employer, think about the possibilities you can open up for your teams.
Fixed Bids on Amazon is a campaign setting available for Sponsored Products campaigns. Unlike the other two options (up&down ; down only) it doesn’t allow amazon to algorithmically adjust your set bid. So you have more control over the bids.
➡️ 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗜 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝘅𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗶𝗱𝘀?
There are a few occasions on which I think dynamic bidding is not the right approach.
✅ A / B Testing
Whenever we are coming up with ideas to A/B Test something, e.g.we want to see if product targeting with exact products works better or worse than with expanded products. In such a scenario, we already have a lot of variables that we can not influence, so setting a fixed bid for the period of the test decreases the number of dynamic inputs, which should help us get clearer results.
Whenever somebody runs a test in our team, my first question afterward would be: „did you had fixed bids or not?“ If bids were influenced by a bidding system and/or the amazon campaign bidding settings and therefore can be different each day, I have a strong doubt the results will tell us a meaningful story.
✅ new campaigns
Usually, I like to give campaigns some „exploration“ time. This translates into a certain amount of data gathered (clicks, conversions, etc.) before actually making a call to increase or decrease bids. If new campaigns are run with automation there is a chance that the automation is either pushing too much or reducing too fast. Both directions are undesirable for me in the first days. Therefore I would rather have fixed bids with new campaigns and change them after some exploration time. The actual time of exploration depends on the campaign. What is our CPC and how is that looking against our avg. CPC for similar campaigns and what is our avg. CVR for similar campaigns. This will tell me, how many clicks I should expect at least to get before a conversion usually appears and how much this will cost me
What other use cases do you have for fixed bids or do you never use them at all?
Have you ever compared your Search Query Performance Report against the Search Catalog Report Data?
Well, if not, here are some insights, you might find helpful.
✅ 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁: 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀?
They are both under Brands > Brand Analytics >
Search Catalog Performance
Search Query Performance
✅ I did download April Data for one of our Brands and I did download the same date range for some (6) ASINs of that brand from the Search Query Performance Report and then I did compare both report metrics with each other.
As you can see on the screenshots, there is a gap between both reports on all metrics.
The interesting part here is that this Gap is closing and get more narrow the closer we are getting to Purchases.
While at Impression Level we saw on average only 35% of Impressions in SQP compared to Search Catalog (SC) it was close to 80% on the Purchase Level.
❓𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲?
Because it is important to understand that Amazon is only showing you a fraction of your truth on these reports. Never take these as 100% accurate and only take them as directional.
You can see this especially when looking at CVR measured in these reports based on the clicks and purchases. There is a huge difference in CVR between the SQP and the SC Report.
❓𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲?
Well, SQP is only showing us the top 100 (ranked by Amazon) search terms and this is already a limitation in itself as I am not seeing 100% of searches. Also as most of you know we only have SP and Organic searches appearing there and we do miss lots of different traffic channels.
Search Catalog does show a much broader picture on the ASIN Level but without any breakdown into specific Search terms. Therefore this report could serve as a starting point with MoM comparisons and the SQP report would be used as a deep dive.
That’s All I got for today
𝘏𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘺 🏇
PS: All ASINs have been blanked out. But the order of ASINs is always the same in each table
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