Ep. #1090 - How to Advertise More Effectively on Amazon

Andrew Morgans 00:01
What’s up, Hustlers? Welcome back. This is Andrew Morgans, here as today’s host of Startup Hustle covering all things: startups, Amazon, e-commerce marketplaces, advertising, media buying, you name it. Today we’re gonna be talking about how to advertise more effectively on Amazon. And before I introduce today’s guest, shout out to our sponsor. Today’s episode of Startup Hustle is sponsored by FullScale.io. Hiring software developers is difficult. Full Scale can help you build a software team quickly and affordably and has the platform to help you manage that team. Visit FullScale.io to learn more. Vince Montero from Trivium Group, welcome to the show.

Vince Montero 00:39
Hey, how’s it going?

Andrew Morgans 00:42
That was fun. No, welcome to the show. Montero is actually my first, like, honestly, vehicle. I have this dream vehicle. It’s the Mitsubishi Montero because I grew up abroad in Africa, and you don’t see it very much. I don’t see it very much in the Midwest.

Vince Montero 01:02
Yeah, when that car came out, I wouldn’t say my name. I’d say the man, like the Mitsubishi, but I had it first.

Andrew Morgans 01:11
I love it. We’ll leave it at that. But we’re in a war zone, like in a crazy place. Like, we had a Mitsubishi Montero, and I can just rip that. My safety zone in the jeep. We couldn’t be messed with, you know, kind of thing. So, no, I’ve always been wanting to get a kind of one of the classic ones that pick it up. But do they do it? Well, I’m super glad we’re getting to connect. Obviously, Trivium has partnered with Marknology several times. And yeah, well acquainted, but we have yet to get you on the show. And just super excited to introduce, you know, our guest, your story as well, as I learn more about, you know, how to think effectively about advertising on Amazon. Let’s go back even before e-commerce. I know you’re there in California. Let’s get back to your story, though. Like, have you always been kind, entrepreneurial-minded, or business-minded? When did you first get into entrepreneurship or business?

Vince Montero 02:09
Off and on, I’ve been an entrepreneur for about 20 years. I’d say, I’ve really kind of been lucky in getting in early into some different fields, digital marketing, I’ve been in basically since 2005. And that was kind of by accident. And I was a bank teller at the time. And somebody who was one of the people that were there said, Hey, I have this digital marketing company, come check it out. And then two years later, I launched their office in the UK from 2007 to 2009. So digital marketing has really kind of been a big piece of my career history. So yeah, since 22,005. But then what are you doing?

Andrew Morgans 02:52
What are you guys doing? Oh, 509.

Vince Montero 02:54
So this is back in the day, when affiliate markets were like affiliate marketing was still brand new, and the networks that were new were the connectors between the people that own the websites and people that were creating content, like Liftshare Commission Junction?

Andrew Morgans 03:05
Yeah, exactly.

Vince Montero 03:09
So in the company that I was working at, what I went over to the UK to launch were co-registration pages, co-reg pages. So if you remember back in the day, you’d be on a website, and you’d complete a purchase. And then you’d see a list of other offers. And then, because we had already collected all the information for that purchase, it was really easy. If the shopper just clicked on the other offer, you know, maybe 10 of them, and they just rotate through it, click them all, and everything was prefilled. There might be a couple of missing data points from the previous purchase. But basically, it was a really easy way to upsell at the end of a different end. These companies didn’t. They weren’t the same companies. Basically, they partnered with us to create that listing page, and then they’d share, you know, a commission to the owner of the original website. So that’s what I kind of launched in, in the UK back in the day. So I’ve seen the early days of display advertising and social media advertising. I worked for a very large app company. So mobile marketing was what I was doing, actually, before Amazon stuff. So it’s funny. The only thing I never really dove deep into is SEO in general. But that’s all I do now for Amazon because it’s basically just SEO within the Amazon ecosystem. If you think about it from that, you’re covering them all a little bit now. So yeah, I’m covering them all. So people Oh, yeah. Did you do SEO? I’m like, well, never on Google. But Amazon PPC is pretty much learning how to do SEO within their ecosystem or some search engine.

Andrew Morgans 04:37
I personally think having that background and then coming to Amazon later is a better way to go. Then starting with Amazon expertise and going the other way, I was super lucky.

Vince Montero 04:46
Again, these things kind of just fell into my lap. So I was working for a PR company at the time back in 2017. One of those clients was like, Hey, I’m doing Amazon SEO PPC. I don’t know what I’m doing. Can you Take a look? Because I had been looking at and working with so many ad tech companies. Before that. I was looking at the I mean, this is 2017, the Amazon ads console. This was before the sponsored brands were even launched. It was just sponsored product ads.

Andrew Morgans 05:14
But now, like two years, yeah, I figured that out in, like, a couple days.

Vince Montero 05:15
I’m like, oh, yeah, I can do this. And I started managing his PPC account in 2017. He’s still my client, right? And then word of mouth, he started telling people, and then slowly within, like, within two years, right, within a year, like all my clients, we’re just Amazon sellers. And so yeah, I was an early adopter of the headline search ad launch, which is not sponsored brands, all the different sponsored display campaigns. I’ve said I’ve been there at the launch of each of those, which is cool because then I was able to do case studies. Yeah, I was able to launch certain campaign types and compare them against each other. And then that’s, that’s when Helium 10 Tip picked me up, and then that and that’s a whole, then that’s a whole story.

Andrew Morgans 06:00
Okay? So Startup Hustle is not just Amazon sellers or Amazon, you know, e-commerce Focus listeners, although a lot of people listening to my show are, let’s give a little background on Helium 10, one of the larger players in the space. And for anyone listening who doesn’t know what that is. Let’s give them a little context.

Vince Montero 06:18
Yeah, so Helium 10 is pretty. It’s probably one of the largest, most effective software solutions out there for people that are Amazon sellers, Walmart, they’re expanding into different areas as well. But they’re really good for product research and keyword research. I still leverage them when I’m taking on, you know, looking at different accounts, seeing, you know, are they targeting the right keywords in their listings? Are they targeting the right keywords in their PPC, so, you know, having these kinds of tools to do keyword research, product research, as in research, really, really powerful stuff. Helium 10 is a great company that was there for, you know, almost three and a half years and built up the PPC side of their business. But yeah, if anyone is looking to get into, you know, either the Amazon space or Walmart, those tools are really kind of second to none.

Andrew Morgans 07:06
Yeah, here at my knowledge at our agency, we definitely have, you know, a well-won partnership with helium 10, but also just have user tools, you know, for a very long time as part of our suite. We honestly dabble with almost every tool out there. Just to be able to keep everybody honest, but then also just be able to pull little things from each of these tools that are like, better than the others, you know, some might do better than others.

Vince Montero 07:29
I’ve tested quite a few out there. 100% If you know, I know I am a big fan of Data Dive too. I like them as well. So yeah, whatever works for you, but Helium 10 is really good because they’re really good at training. And so for people that are, you know, really want to learn more. They’ve been a lot of content. I will say that it’s one thing they did. They probably do better than any other software company out there in training. And that’s what attracted me to working with them. And that’s when that’s one of the main things I’m known for. I used to have a show called tacos Tuesday. And even just at this last prosper, which I saw you at, we were dancing with Isabella Hamilton at the Yeah. The last party was fun. But I heard someone say, oh, it’s the tacos guy. It’s Mr. Tacos. So my thing was, and whenever I hear that, I’m like, No, that’s Mr. Tacos to you. Right? Or sir. Yeah, sir. Tacos. And so now I’m learning the trivium. I launched my monthly PPC AMA. And now it’s called Sir tacos Tuesday.

Andrew Morgans 08:31
Okay, so, so Helium 10. So you have like, so we kind of went in somewhat of the same path. I mean, I’ve been doing Amazon and EECOM for 12 years now. So my goodness. Yeah, that was an 11. Really, you know, so it was dabbling with Amazon almost four years before PPC came out?

Vince Montero 08:53
Oh, yeah. Before it was the backend search terms.

Andrew Morgans 08:56
Was everything right? Most listings on Amazon didn’t have trademarks or brand registries. So you, if you put the product up first, you could impact the keywords but then absolutely, if not, you couldn’t, you know, so. Seo was like, but you could always kind of change the backend search terms and like, Yeah, where are you using commas? Where are you using plurals? Like, yeah, where you W? Words? Yeah, yeah. So okay, so then it just started where I would like to get some clients, like through Freelancer sites. And then they started referring me to others that needed help because, through the forums, and have been very naturally like that. I just went to build an agency. Instead of joining a team, I think partially some of that has to do with location. Yeah, just simply like where I am, things like that.

Vince Montero 09:40
So at the time, I was 20 minutes from the helium 10 office. So that’s why they reached out to me actually was proximity, right.

Andrew Morgans 09:47
So here in the Midwest, it was just like, there was nobody around here. I think Lowe’s, oh, eventually came out here. Yeah, at 1.2 1019 or, you know, something like that. But software comes with money. There’s just not really a community out here. For the most part, there are some big sellers, and there are some great brands, but they do not really like a big Amazon community. And so the way for me to grow looked a little bit different. But not to spend too much time on it, but you go from essentially having a consultancy, running PPC, to getting hired by Helium 10 to build up their course, coursework, or like PPC tech.

Vince Montero 10:24
At the time, they didn’t have the tech, and there was no software tool. So they wanted somebody that was, you know, doing it. And so that’s why I came on board, basically, to build out the PPC side of their business, including the tool. So luckily, the great team again, over they’re really good developers. So I just directed them and said, Hey, here’s everything I’m doing manually. Let’s create this in software. So luckily, I had all the spreadsheets and things like that and the macros, so they were able to build it out, and then we iterated it, they bought the purchase presses on, they combined it with the platform, my headlines, then atomic was born and atomic is now what’s still there at Helium 10. But they do a really good job of onboarding people, like how to really get the best out of the tool, which I had a part in doing. And then training and marketing, kind of were all hats, as you do as a young company. You founded a software within a software. Yeah, exactly. And I was doing my best at that time, right. And now that there’s, they have more people in there, but at the time, it was just me, so I kind of had to wear all the hats till the tool was built. And then even after that had, you know, luckily, I was able to because I built it into my contract, I maintained at least a handful of my clients, I had a bunch of clients before, and the antenna knocked out a bunch of them. And I held because the only way to really iterate on a software tool is to visa in it is to stay in it right and stay and stay in the thing that you’re trying to improve upon, which is the Amazon ads console. So I was able to steal a hand, you know, a small handful of clients in the Amazon ads console, and then okay, well, this is what’s needed in the tool now that it is at Helium 10. So it kind of was the best of both worlds. I was really lucky to be able to do that. You know, and now I’m still able to do that. No content and no marketing training now. That’s when Mina, you know, picked me up at the beginning of this year to say, hey, you know, you’ve done a great job with the content marketing, a helium 10. Would you like to now do it for Trivium?

Andrew Morgans 12:25
Yeah, no, I think it’s awesome, I think it’s an awesome move for you. Amina Amina is a close friend of mine. Yeah. Just like, my sister and him have a lot of likes. So a lot of people don’t know my sister Veronica, but she’s, she’s been with me almost since the beginning of technology. Her background, she had a master’s in engineering. In quality, yeah, Amina and Mina, you know, you know, kind of communicate the same and stuff like that. So, you know, fast and with numbers can be awesome, like an executor, you know, and getting it done. But sometimes, like educating to the lowest common denominator, or like, you know, can be difficult.

Vince Montero 13:01
Yeah, and I’m really good at, say, seeing the spread, especially if I know the audience ahead of time, and being like, Okay, this is where I need to speak from and teach from. And, again, that’s one of the reasons why he brought me on. So I’m super excited to be here with you. We are under his belt. He’s a great friend of mine. I’ve known him for, you know, a few years in this space, they are pretty sure I was one of the people that told him he should launch a PPC agency.

Andrew Morgans 13:28
So it’s kind of like you’re like, I’ll be there a couple years, build it, build it. I’ll be there in a few years.

Vince Montero 13:33
Build it up, and then they’ll come right.

Andrew Morgans 13:36
No, I love it. Well, I have some more questions for you. Before we do, finding expert software developers doesn’t have to be difficult, especially when you visit FullScale.io. We can build a software team quickly and affordably. Use the Full Scale platform to find your technical needs, and then see what available developers, testers and leaders are ready to join your team. Visit FullScale.io to learn more. Okay, so we know that advertising effectively on Amazon is super important for success on the platform. Both of us being tenured, you know, Amazon consultants, we know that the keywords in the listing matter, we know that the images and the content matter. We know that price point and reviews matter. These are all like dials, you know, that are part of the ecosystem, every single one of them being a live part of the ecosystem, in my opinion. And to me the advertising is not only what goes out there and gets sales and brings in new customers. It’s also what validates everything else. Absolutely. If we have educational content in the images, like we’re selling a product or have some educational aspect to it, and we’re driving PPC that has those educational terms in it or and those terms aren’t converting well, maybe we need to change the content, you know, things like that. So they’re very much related to what everything is going on. And one of the reasons why, you know, I’ve always harped you know, my years of speaking to people You see, and all these different things is like the software is a great tool. But you have to use it in tandem with a human mind and a marketing line. And so it’s the, you know, if you just set it on auto cruise control, it’s not going to tell you these types of insights where, hey, your images are not really reflecting what keywords are converting over here, it’s not going to give you the whole picture. Exactly.

Vince Montero 15:21
I 100% agree, even with the tool I’ve built, I’m like, I will never say it’s a set it and forget it type situation.

Andrew Morgans 15:30
It just isn’t. And I give a talk right now where I’m talking about a brand launch I did with a single SKU brand, over like 12 weeks of running the PPC and what I was learning and my takeaways and just like, you know, it wasn’t working well. And so we had to really just like, dig in and pivot and try different strategies and you know, using advertising to do so. And so just taking people through the kind of my thought process doing that. So very top of mind for me, let’s talk about for our listeners, let’s talk about, you know, so how do you effectively advertise on Amazon? I think it comes down to a couple of things. One of them being your setup, how did you originally set up from the beginning? Why don’t we do what, you know, why don’t you share on that kind of like what Yeah, well, so what are your frameworks looks like?

Vince Montero 16:17
You know, I get common questions like that, you know, what, I get tons of questions on BBC, the one thing that I want to say at the beginning is, and we kind of touched base on mindset is super important. The mindset when it comes to advertising is important to a lot of people, especially if they’re new, that they’re gonna launch PPC and just make a shit ton of sales. And I’m like, not necessarily, and that’s really not the point of PPC, PPC is your commercial. It’s your advertisement, right? So I like to tell people, the most important factor is understanding what PPC is supposed to do, what it is and what it’s supposed to do. If you come at it from that angle, then some other questions get cleared up. But, you know, again, I like to think of it as, you know, browsing, when shoppers browse, they’re browsing a lot on Amazon. Now, they used to browse on Google and then go to Amazon. Now people are just browsing on Amazon. And you know, there’s a two week pixel on two of their main campaign types. Why is that? Well, because people are taking longer to make purchase decisions. So they’re, they’re browsing.

Andrew Morgans 17:18
So the browser is getting better. Yeah, I feel like there used to be a pretty poor experience.

Vince Montero 17:22
Yeah. And I like to tell, you know, new new people too, it’s like the browsing is kind of the the road, that your PPC is the the billboard on the side of the road as people are driving by and the better your billboard is, or more or more times they see it, right, because it’s also repetition, because they might not need it right away, but they see it again, and again, they might remember you, and then go in and type your brand name directly. Because I’ve seen it so many times like that is kind of the point. But once they’re off the road, once they’re done browsing, and they get to your store, right, or your PDP or product detail page, it’s really the store’s job or the listings job to actually make the conversion. Too often I see people trying to say that PPC is supposed to make conversions, and they don’t know the listing makes the conversions. So yeah, like you said, if your listing isn’t set up 100%. And it’s a very simple thing. If your listing and price do not look as good, if not better than your closest competitor, you’re not ready. So it’s a very simple thing to do. All you have to do is figure out your closest competitor is look at their page and be like, Oh, okay. And this even works actually, for people that have been running for quite some time. One of my clients has a copycat product out there. And the copycat product has a better listing than my clients. So they’re like, Oh, crap, look at this listing, this is really appealing. Now we got to, we’re going to incorporate these things. So at the beginning, and then also continuously, especially if something like that, you gotta be checking yourself against your competitors. So you can’t you can’t put lipstick on a pig and call it anything else but a pig, right? So saying that PPC, the PPC is not going to fix a broken listing, bad images, no videos, which is super powerful. I love talking about videos. Wrong price point, right. So mindset number one is important around PPC. The other mindset issue that I think people fall into the trap of is just not spending enough, right? Especially at launch, you have to be the mindset, I’m going to lose all the money that I’m I’m going to not get any money from this PPC I’m gonna spend and make your goal is breakeven. Right? The last episode Nina was on, I listened to what you said you said you make 700 But you spend 700, that’s 100% A cos like people need to go into it with the mentality of the correct target the correct expectation, expectations. Also another big one, like people come in and go Well, I want I heard that 20% A cos is good. So that’s my goal. No, no, that’s after tons of data collection. Like you can’t optimize what you don’t have. You got to pay upfront for the data. That means break even costs breakeven means knowing what you know some of your other costs or things like that, but if you just want to say 100%, a cost, I made 700. I lost 700. That’s okay. Because you’re in data collection mode, then the longer you can do that, the better. Like, that’s another thing people try to their data collection windows are too small. Right? So they’re like, Oh, well, I got this week’s worth of data. Yeah, that’s not enough. And especially, budgets are another issue, like you got to be in budget, right? That’s why I was saying you gotta you got to put the right around and budget got to make sure your campaign is on 24/7, at least two to three weeks a month, if you can really afford it. Like, I like to tell people just do it a month. Don’t even look at it like you, if you did your PPC keyword research ahead of time, your asin research ahead of time, you drill down into categories and said, Okay, I’m gonna refine the categories, then let it run, and then see what see what happens. Then after that, take that big chunk of data, then that’s when you optimize down to like a target a costs. And you do the same thing, when you launch a new product. Same thing, you start over again, with that whole data collection mode, because you might think that you know, something, but you really don’t know until you actually don’t know, like, especially with the auto campaigns, auto campaigns are brilliant, because just lets Amazon do all the work, which is also a bad because it means there’s a lot of stuff come into it.

Andrew Morgans 21:23
But getting information around getting information around what not to do is just as important.

Vince Montero 21:28
Exactly, exactly what not to do is just as important. So getting that data collection is super important, especially when launching a brand new product, even if you’re a new seller or not a new seller, I’m saying if you’re launching new products, data collection mode is actually the key that’s looking at PPC correctly making sure you’re right. Have you had the right budget, making sure your expectations for a cos is correct like that. Those are the kinds of things that really are powerful that if you just get those set up, you’re gonna have a great year stock is another thing, which I know you Amina touched on too. But make sure you don’t run out of stock, because that is not only does it kill the algorithm, just whatever you want to call it basic algorithm, Amazon’s algorithm, but it also messes up the PPC algorithm because there are two algorithms, algorithms running right. You got to there’s all types of stuff. So people don’t often talk about that. If you ran out of stock, yes, it’s bad in general, but it’s actually super bad for your PPC, like, I used to back in the day, I would say that a seller could be out of stock for like, a month. And then their PPC, the stock came back in and the PPC came back on and they were fine. Right now it’s like no, you if you’re out if you’re out of the algorithm for like a week. It’s almost like starting your PPC all over again. Not super, that dramatic, but almost. Right.

Andrew Morgans 22:52
It’s hard because it becomes almost like a finger pointing type of situation, right? So a lot of times on the agency side, like we’re not in charge of the brand’s stock. Right? You know, and so they’re like, look, we fix this, we’re back in stock, we should be selling again. Well, this isn’t Facebook, this isn’t. I’m not saying it’s exactly the same or whatever. But I’m just like, this isn’t exactly the same.

Vince Montero 23:14
We’re coming because they’re doing DTC directly to consumers on Facebook and things like that. So yeah, you just turn that back on. That’s okay.

Andrew Morgans 23:21
Let’s ship it out. Let’s get it going. No, it doesn’t work like that. This is like a system that all works together. Yeah. And you want to, you want to think that they’re mutually exclusive, like these different these different areas, but they’re really not. And that’s why like, you know, the reviews matter with the PPC, like if you get but if you get too bad reviews, your PPC might tank for a while, right? It could, essentially the conversion rate, these are the two newest reviews, they’re bad if you don’t have that many, correct, right. So that’s just an example of like, you know, all the little things that work together to make that happen. And I think you know, what you’re calling is like data collection mode. We do this all the time, I would consider it like a growth mode and lean mode, right? So like at the beginning, you’re in Grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, gather data, grow sales, figure out what what’s what can sell, even if it’s not sustainable, figure out what all the keywords that can sell. And then once you’ve got all that data, you start leaning up, okay, where can we cut the fat like, same thing in like personal fitness a lot of times it’s like, there’s sure bulk mode where you’re trying to put on some weight and then in the end, you try to cut it back, right and then maintain, how do I maintain, maintain? Exactly, and I do the same thing in my business where like, we’re growing, I’m trying all these different things, and then it’s like, okay, all those different things we’re doing, which ones have some sticky to them, or which ones seem like we’re getting progress and let’s cut the ones that are, you know, the lowest of the lowest hanging fruit so right great, great, great insight on just like the mindset you need to have coming into PPC. Talk to me about you. You mentioned this several times, like budget and spending enough and then like you know, starting over if you have a different asin or a different SKU coming to market. So many times, brands or sellers asked me, Well, how much PPC do we need to start with? Right? And so for me, it’s always been this balance of like, yeah, okay, I don’t want to like, tell them what I really want in regards to PPC spend, because I don’t want them to feel like this is an impossible and impossible leap. And I’m like, okay, so technically, if we get a little bit here, we can prove a concept and like to grow it. But it’s obviously not the best case scenario. How do you come up with essentially like, you know, a brand launching with like, let’s say, less than five skews, five skews? Or? So? Is it? Is it per Asin? Is it like, by category type? Like, What’s your thinking around?

Vince Montero 25:41
Yeah, absolutely. Is by category, it’s the product, right? How competitive is the product, if you if you’re launching a, in a very competitive landscape, you’re going to spend more, if your product is super niche, you probably don’t need to spend that much. So really, that’s when you know, that’s when looking at, you know, keyword research search term research, looking at volume to see what is actually going to have a lot more competition than another product. That’s where that so I get asked that budget question a lot. And I might have, you’re nicer than me, my typical answer is how much can you afford? Right? So I don’t, I tend not to give them a number really, because each client is different, too, because depending on the price point, so I wouldn’t give the same answer to someone whose product is $199. Just someone that’s there probably is 20 bucks. Right? So it’s, it’s really, if you if you know what their margins are, which is a question that I often asked at the beginning, then you can kind of formulate a budget for them. But because it’s really based on that it’s really based on what are their margins? How long can they afford to go on 100%? A costs, right. And based on those conversations, we tend, I’ll set up a budget, but I always go higher. So I always ask them for more than what I actually think it’s going to spend because that in that way, then it looks like I’ve done them. I’ve helped them out because I didn’t actually spend the full budget that I suggested that they do. But yeah, I don’t want to give you like a certain, like, key number or anything like that. But I said that the most important thing is what’s your margins and that competitiveness in the marketplace, that should dictate and then timing, knowing that you’re gonna have to run it for three weeks, four weeks, you know, if you’re doing some keyword research, looking at CPMs average, you can average them CPMs by looking at Amazon and be like, Okay, this is how much this is going to be. You can kind of calculate, but it liberates a per product basis.

Andrew Morgans 27:38
So let’s go a little bit deeper. So let’s say you’re like, so it depends on someone’s margin. So let’s say their margin is, after everything is said and done, like meaning Amazon fees come out after the products have been sold tight margins, not like before it’s sold, or they’re coming away with like 30% profit. What does that say to you versus a product that’s 10%? Or a product that’s, like, you know, 75% profit, or something like that, like, low? Or what’s it telling you? So if you’re low if you’re lower profit margins, is that like, spend less.

Vince Montero 28:11
Yeah, that, well, that tells me that what, what they most likely are going to be able to afford, right? If they’ve got some backing, and they got some, you know, financial capabilities to spend more like you can typically, like we can set budgets at the beginning of running campaigns, but you can tell typically, within a week, okay, this is how much this is gonna run on a weekly basis at a buffer. Okay, this is the projection now for this full 30 days of collecting the data. So, yeah, but it’s kind of like that, if you know, you have a lot more margin than, in my opinion, I’m going to tell them you need to, you can spend more.

Andrew Morgans 28:50
Because you’re gonna learn more because more sales are going to be looking okay, because you can afford to, so the quicker that you can get to sales velocity in the algorithm, the better it’s going to be for you.

Vince Montero 28:53
So you’ve got that super high margin, let’s spend it, let’s put that margin to work for you in data collection mode, right. So that we can trim it down quicker than you for the one that’s only got a 20% margin. Yeah, that’s going to take longer to do, it’s going to take longer to get the data slower.

Andrew Morgans 29:14
Otherwise, we’re going to be just like leaking money. Zack. Yeah, understand? Yeah. Okay. Good. Good stuff. Ben says I think this is really helpful for a lot of people. Okay, so you’ve got your expectations in line, you’ve got your mindset, right. You’re in data. You haven’t you know, you haven’t said no, I can’t spend this money. You know, you’re like you’re willing to go all in. And you feel like you’ve got a strong setup with the right mindset. Yeah. What are some other things that maybe a lot of sellers miss or aren’t thinking about that can really lead to a lot of efficiencies in your eyes?

Vince Montero 29:46
The biggest thing that I think a lot of sellers kind of feel is I’ll talk about video again, that video is kind of out of the reach, right? So it’s such a huge misconception. So I was Looking at my client’s videos, and literally something that she shot herself using and putting the product in, it’s a bike rack thing that they sell. I was looking at the year to date. And it has the highest PPC sales. That’s a super simple video that she edited herself versus the fancier videos, because it’s a pretty big brand. So they have some fancier videos. And I was like, Look at this. This is the type of video you guys need to create more. And they’re like, oh, cool, we don’t have to work so hard. So I think that what I want to say is, if you haven’t launched a video, do it because video is the most powerful, in my opinion, the most powerful campaign type out there. It’s got the highest CTR that I’ve seen. And Amazon keeps iterating on it right to keep finding different places to put video. They’re adding video onto product detail pages. Now it’s a sponsored display. So really, I kind of feel like launching the right, launching new campaign types is another thing too. So a lot of sellers come at it from the perspective of, well, this campaign type is new, I’m gonna wait and see. No, no, if that’s when you should jump on. It’s when you should jump because you’re an early adopter. Right? So again, since I was at the beginning, when the video campaigns came out, like all my clients, I’m like, we’re making videos. What do we need to do? Because I need to get them out there. Right? And, of course, because of this video, well, they crashed. I did a case study on Amazon, it was up on the Amazon ads blog, I think it’s still there. So I’m a big proponent of early adopters. So that being said, I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet. But there’s a brand new campaign type for video where it’s right below the search bar. So you’re just typing like you type in the word crutches right now, you’ll probably see a video that’s one of my clients, you’ll see, you’ll see a video and it’s like, Whoa, that is crazy powerful, because it’s literally the first thing that you see, imagine you’re on your mobile phone, right? You’re doing a search, and it’s all filled the whole screen, and it’s an autoplay and that you’re just boom, you’re right there looking at everybody that’s a product. Yeah, that’s thinking about whatever search they put in giving them the ability to, you know, share how it’s used, you know, the lifestyle imagery, making sure the shopper can see themselves using the product, three benefits, three features. It’s super powerful. So video is one thing that I think number one, a lot of sellers are intimidated about. Amazon has an Amazon video builder. Now. I think it’s available everywhere. It might just be North America, but they have a really simple video builder in there, some you know, some static images, some graphics, and throwing some music doesn’t have to be complicated. If you’ve got a complicated product, yeah, you might need more or super competitive, you might need, you know, more commercial quality type videos, which are theirs, but still, they’re worth the investment and be an early adopter, because I’m still seeing, you know, some of the search terms I look for. There’s literally no videos playing there. And it’s because I still find it difficult to find videos on the detail pages, which is the sponsor, the sponsor, display video just launched last fall. So people are not adopting it. So I think that, you know, there’s two answers there one, do video, if you haven’t done it yet, if you’re if you’re scared of it, there’s no reason to be, can be super simple until you get something more advanced. And number to be an early adopter of new campaign types. Amazon does a pretty good job of finding out new ways to make money, right? As we all know, and maybe you know, Amazon ads is their largest money earner. It’s not the money they get from the sales of products. It’s not, you know, AWS, it’s literally Amazon ads. So they’re incentivized to make sure that they are going to convert, right? So they test these placements out before launching them. And then well, I know that only because I used to work with them. They told me that, you know, it’s not something to be afraid of like in other instances when it wins. And then there’s beta on software. Yeah, I can see that. And I know this is dealing with your money and your spending. But the upside is, you’re an early adopter, and then you get to if you’re whenever you’re an early adopter for anything, you Amazon looks at you different, like, I’ve got campaigns running right now that if I launched right now would not perform as well as they is when you actually is when I launched them like last year, two years, three years, four years, five years. And at this point, like so when you’re an early adopter, you don’t know how the algorithm works, but it gets you in a really good position. And, and as long as you’re continuing to make sales, Amazon’s gonna love you forever.

Andrew Morgans 34:34
I think age campaigns matter. Like, like how old the campaigns are. So you’re in a new campaign type and you’re one of your early adopters. You’re one of the first well your campaign is gonna be older than everyone else’s starts after. Right. So the type of feedback we give clients around like, even if you’re trying to dial a campaign down, it’s like, never stop it. Right. You’re never trying to stop it. Never pause it because you’re going to lose that age.

Vince Montero 34:59
Yeah, I do that with auto campaigns, right? Because auto campaigns when they’ve been running for years, right, like, you probably got all the terms that you’re gonna get. So I’m like, I’m not going to turn it off, it’s got that relevance, got the history, I’ll just turn it into a little bit of an auto campaign, right? So it just gets all the low hanging fruit, the two o’clock in the morning traffic, right. And it’s still converting and doesn’t have as many sales as it did in its heyday. No, but it’s got good sales volume at a very low A costs, because it’s been running for years. Right. So and, you know, you can look at different campaign types. That way, if you’ve got campaigns running, where you’re just using category targeting, like you’ve isolated, I’m just gonna run category targeting for, you know, product targeting campaigns, you can kind of do the same thing, because category targeting is kind of like, I was gonna be there, it’s always gonna be a campaign. It’s like you’re telling Amazon will just feature me in this particular category of products? So yeah, run it. And, you know, if you’re using that kind of campaign to pull ASINs from so you can run it maybe to like a direct campaign that directly targets those ASINs. Same way you do with ASINs that you pull from auto campaigns? Yeah, eventually, over years and years and years, you might be able to reduce that product targeting category campaign to like a low bid campaign, and it will get that, you know, low hanging fruit traffic. That’s, that’s not prime. But campaign history is a huge part of the algorithm. I will say that I do know that it’s a huge part, because I’ve seen it over the past five years.

Andrew Morgans 36:30
Sometimes it’s like, look, I don’t have something written from Amazon telling me this like, but 12 years in, I’m like, I don’t, I don’t really have to have that to tell you that I know that to be true. You know. And so if you’ve truly been in there operating and tinkering, like for us as a team. You know, I realized early on that there was so much new stuff coming out on Amazon that I had to build a team to be able to keep up. There’s just no way I could know everything about feedback emails, PPC and SEO and content. And just it was never ending, right. So I’m like, okay, cool. Build a team as quick as I can. That can also be learning all these things with me along the way. You know, I wanted to get your opinions just because we were talking on video. Amazon Inspire. Right. So that’s not paid right now, at this time. It’s not paid media, right? You’re not paying for a sponsored video ad. But it is different from Amazon live in that it’s living, like a shoppable feed on Amazon. And he’s obviously following you know, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, tick tock kind of style. Yeah. Graham, correct. But think about it. You’re an influencer there. Or you’re an Amazon brand. That’s like, Look, I know, this isn’t as big as tick tock, or these opportunities here. But if I figured this out early, right, if I figured out how to work with Amazon influencers early, and really dominate the shopping feed, well, maybe the shopping feed is only 10% of what sponsored video can be, but it’s essentially a 10th of the price and you dominate that 10% huge opportunity.

Vince Montero 38:08
Yeah, it’s massive. When people when clients ask me about, you know, those types of things, I’m like, Look, if, if it doesn’t take anything away from or doesn’t take any more time to do like, with posts, like, if you’re already running an Instagram feed, you’re creating content for Instagram. Right? Cool. Also put it on posts, right. And so now with inspiration if you’re already doing videos, if you’re already doing, you know, maybe user generated content, if you’re already doing reels, cool. Now, this is a new way that you can use it. And I always have the problem that I always get the question, well, how is that going to affect my sales? I’m like, we don’t know. We won’t know until you get in there. It’s when it’s new like that, it’s like it’s all about testing. Right? It’s all everything. Amazon really is testing, you know, from videos to images.

Andrew Morgans 38:58
Yeah, if you’re not, if you’re not in a test, like, if you don’t like testing, if you don’t like testing, if you don’t like innovating, pivoting, iteration, changing iterations of stuff, like honestly, just get off the platform. Like, you’re not, we don’t need you as consultants, we don’t want to work with you, honestly, you’re not going to be happy on this platform anyway. Yeah, that’s, that’s my message. Okay.

Vince Montero 39:24
I have had to let go of a couple of clients, because they just did not want to iterate you just didn’t want they didn’t see the need and like, but you need to or you grow or you die. Or you die like Amazon’s coming out with all these different ways, you know, all these new campaign types. And you still got the same title that you and you haven’t tested. Once you still get the same images that you haven’t done any AV testing on. You’ve got these new creative options for sponsor brand sponsor display to add images to be you don’t have any lifestyle images to include, what does that mean? You’re gonna fall behind, behind the people that are doing those things that are taking advantage of those things. And then that’s gonna affect your PPC and then you’re gonna come to get mad at me. And it’s like that. No, you didn’t iterate. You didn’t test you were doing great.

Andrew Morgans 40:11
But you need to get comfortable, like you got too comfortable. And your resistance to change or resistance to try something more.

Vince Montero 40:21
Like, yes, yes, it’ll cost money to create videos, yes, no cost money to generate some lifestyle images. But if you don’t, you’re not you’re, you’re gonna see your sales basically dry up.

Andrew Morgans 40:31
It’s like, you know, it’s like a rental property, like, you know, just I’d like comparing it to other things. Because sometimes people just can’t get their head out of it. But it’s like, you can have a completely rehabbed, you know, rental property. That’s just gorgeous, right? Well, five years from now, and maybe even one year from then, yeah, there are other fixes you have to make. And you might even need not just to get it back to where it was, but it might need to even be better based on the neighborhood, maybe what was good isn’t good. Now. You have to continue to invest in your business, are you?

Vince Montero 41:02
You painted it like a really popular color, like back when it was popular? Like, you know, salmon? And now, people look at that color, like, oh, no one wants salmon, right?

Andrew Morgans 41:11
Change the door, change the trend, you know, like you’re having to constantly like, it’d be like, if I still dress, like, you know, I was born in the 80s, reasonably 90s. If I still dress like I was stuck in the 90s teaching the wrong, okay, to each their own, but at the same time, like, you know, I’m trying to market myself, my company, my brand, and like, you know, you’re stuck.

Vince Montero 41:33
You’ll look stuck, you know, and that’s, and that comes across that will come across to the shoppers, if you’ve got a landing page that kind of just looks bold, like, there’s a vibe, there is a vibe that I get when I look at different listings, right?

Andrew Morgans 41:50
And an emotional like, yeah, you know, you feel something and that you know that we’re in sales, right?

Vince Montero 41:55
This is sales, sales is an emotional thing. You’re trying to convince a shopper to buy your product amongst a myriad of other products, like most likely they’re the same. So you got to get them to feel, you know, feel like your product is a better option. That’s an emotion. So and that’s why Amazon has done a great job. You can now put video in plus content, right? I’m like, as soon as I heard that at prosper, I was like, Hey, guys, this video needs to go here, here, here and here. Right? Because video tells a story. Creatives don’t tell stories. That’s why the plus content is so popular, that’s why the video is so popular. That’s why Amazon to their credit, like they’re iterating on it because it works because it is emotional. And that’s what sells.

Andrew Morgans 42:43
Yep, change is hard. But like, if you don’t do it, you’re gonna die, especially as a business. And that’s just what I’m saying Amazon’s not for you, me and Vince don’t really want to work with you either. Just save us a time I struggle. At the same time, I’m so grateful to the clients or brands I’ve had with me along this journey. Some of them I’ve had seven, seven plus years, like nine years. And the ones committed to testing and innovating and growing and letting me sharpen my skills. Absolutely. Using their brands, you know, yeah, learn those things. They’ve always I’m saying, Hey, this is a new opportunity. We got to try it like this is what I’m thinking. And I know, I know those two or three people I’m gonna call. But they also get the benefit of, of when we do hit those when we are first mover on something, we hit the sweet spot like video ads when we had them, or simply another cost like it’s not tied to ads. But all the brands didn’t listen to me about being FBM and FBA as a backup. Oh, did we use a pandemic? Right? That’s a moment where I’m like, I told you so. Yeah. Right. Like, and maybe my reasoning before that was like, slow checking times or like, you know, q4 holiday, I obviously didn’t see a pandemic. But yeah, I knew that like when stuff happens. Yeah, foresight.

Vince Montero 44:01
It’s just, it’s a no brainer, because especially when pandemic aside, you think about Amazon constantly changing quantities, right? That you are allowed to put in, right? So if that is constantly in flux, you have to have backup, you have to have FBM, as well as FBA. That’s pretty much how I sell it by saying, with FBM, you have more control, more control, you know, you can put as much stock in there as you want.

Andrew Morgans 44:27
Something happens, it allows us to at least, like operate at 30% speed to zero, or whatever the case, and that is key.

Vince Montero 44:34
If you only got an FBA, you ran out of stock. Your campaign shut down. No bueno. Right? Because you’re no longer in the algorithm, what does that mean? All your competitors are in stock in the algorithm, right? And if it’s for a long period of time, like I was saying before, if it’s too long, you almost have to start over. So, simple, have FBM stock in there too, right so that doesn’t get shut down, and FBA as soon as it comes back. pack. You know, I always get the question, well, is that gonna mess up? You know, because we can see FBA converts better and blah, blah, blah, I’m like, is it gonna stick on FBM? I’m like, No, Amazon also knows FBA converts better so they’re gonna also it’s there, it’s in there, they’re gonna prefer that so it’s not when it comes back into FBA, it’s gonna it’s gonna be good, it’s gonna be fine, it’ll go back to the way it was before he ran out of stock.

Andrew Morgans 45:23
Okay. My crazy thing is just like, you know, a lot of times you’re having these conversations with people that might be like on Amazon a year, six months or something. And not to say like, oh my god, ego, nothing like that. It’s just like, Listen 12 years, that’s why you’re paying me to be here. Right? No, I’ve been obsessed about this for not other things, not other things for 12 years, like Amazon and EECOM. 14 I’ll be on 100 hours a week. For 12 years, right? We’re talking like 20,000 hours. Wow. Yeah, even if I can’t if you’re morning, I can’t explain it, you’re like, if you can’t explain it, you’re like, it’s like, I’m dialed in, like, you know, you know, these things without knowing. And it’s like going against that advice. Sometimes. It’s just, it’s silly. So I’ll stop throwing enough shade. Because I’m talking to the invisible listener, that’s just bad for change.

Vince Montero 46:13
But it is known that when talking about e-commerce in general, and not, this is an entrepreneurship podcast. Yeah, you need to have a mindset of I’m gonna roll with the flow or the changes, I’m going to iterate because if you don’t grow, you don’t you die. So that is entrepreneurship 101.

Andrew Morgans 46:32
We’re not asking for 100% like changing 100% of your ad strategy. It’s like no, but have a 20% of your ad set your ad budget, or whatever the case is, that’s for r&d, that’s trying new things. That’s right, that’s investing in a video that’s started with a little motion graphic, or like, you know, images turned into video, and then if it starts doing okay, go invest and get the good one. You know, like, there’s, there’s so many ways to go into it. I’m not saying like, go extreme. But if you don’t have that, like test, test, test, reiterate, reiterate, reiterate it, that’s just what Amazon is, as a platform.

Vince Montero 47:04
So it absolutely isn’t. And, you know, if you’re new to this, you know, connect with people and hire people that are in it, right. So you don’t have to like you were saying, it’s, I get it, I get clients apprehension sometime, because they’re not actually in it regularly, you’re not in the data, they’re not looking at, they don’t know, they’re not comparing it against any other data, which we are because we see access to we have access to multiple clients. So we can see trends across different countries. Right. So that but that that is what that’s why it’s so important to align yourself with people that are specialists in you know, whatever it is that you’re looking to do that, again, is a key entrepreneur one on one lesson, I think, yeah, I just thought of something shortly.

Andrew Morgans 47:43
And then I have a question for you as we were hatched out. But like, through the years, like launching brands internationally, like once the aggregators have come out, and the aggregator is a push so much content, like it’s changed so much in the last couple of years, as far as like what everyone knows, and like, the what’s been spoken about, and it’s just gone to scale, right? Yeah. And you know, in the early years, like launching in Australia, or Japan, or Canada, or the UK or Germany, there weren’t tons of people talking about it, and it was more so like consultants like ourselves being like, hey, this could be an opportunity. And, you know, a lot of a lot of times the brands or the seller’s it’d be like, well, you know, there’s VAT and there’s like, but what is there really a customer market there? And like, you know, it’s gonna cost extra to get it to the US and then get it over to Canada, or AU. And, you know, what experience tells me even in regards to the advertising is, I’ve done a few brands before now we’ve done quite a few and not sure, maybe it costs you a little bit more to export, maybe takes a little bit more time. Maybe the markets are a little bit smaller. But did you know that PPC is a 10th of what it is in the US, you know, at those times when those new markets open up, just kind of like video ads. So all that effort simply comes down, and you wouldn’t know this unless you’ve done it. But wow, PPC comes in like I mean, I used to think it was broken. In Italy in Germany when I first started advertising because it was so cheap. I couldn’t get to spend 10 bucks.

Vince Montero 49:11
Yeah, you know, it was like it was just like, I struggled in the same way looking at the UK even though I’m like wow, it’s like, you know, his broke too cheap.

Andrew Morgans 49:16
Like, you know, so, anyway. Yeah, no, no, okay. Yeah. Do you have to give sellers like, you know, we’ve talked about setup, we’ve talked about some of the key things, they’re not thinking of whatever, but like, one last one last tip that you’re like, you know, how to really think about making your campaigns more effectively. Yeah, some strategy and then and then to tune that out. What’s one thing that you’re working on personally, as Vince Montero you know, this year that you’re working on that you’re excited about?

Vince Montero 49:51
Okay, so, tip strategy, and we kind of talked about AB testing, but I want to take it a little bit further, a B test based on data that you already Have a lot of people don’t look at their data. And think about it in this way that I’m going to explain. So if you’re looking at your data, let’s say you see a bunch of long tail keywords that are converting, right, they’re not going to get the most amount of sales because they’re, they’re longer tail keywords. And by that I mean like three or four search terms, right? If you see a significant number of terms like that, you might want to, if you can afford it, you might want to break that out and create a custom that just speaks to that term. Right? So a great example I heard it prosper from my friend, Rob Whitley video fresh is like let’s say you have a you have luggage and it’s foldable right it, you know, one of those rollouts, but all your creative in your video doesn’t show that feature, it’s just listed as a bullet. Well, let’s say you look at your data, your PPC data, whatever it is, and it’s in you can see full foldable or fold out or roller luggage, you’ve got quite a few different variations of that. And that should tell you, Oh, if I actually created a campaign that was specific to those long tail keywords, and put maybe, maybe add some rollout video footage, or maybe create a creative for your sponsor, brand new responsive display campaigns, that shows that feature, you can run a campaign just targeting those search terms, right, or keywords at that point. And you pretty much increase your conversion, and you’re guaranteed success, because you already have the data that speaks to these terms, or what is selling. So if I can visually show them that in a video or creative, you know, AB testing is key. But I really think that drilling down into data, and then actually starting to think of ways you can AB test based on what’s working, is it to me, that’s something that I’m looking forward to doing.

Andrew Morgans 51:49
No, that’s brilliant. That’s brilliant. And I 100% agree with that tip. I think people like expectations wise, it’s like, if we were doing Facebook or Instagram, like Facebook, you’re paying a Facebook agency to run media for you. The main thing with Facebook ads is lots of ad creative, creative and creative and creative and creative the carousel like. And everyone knows this isn’t aware of this and doesn’t think twice on the Amazon side because most of the ads use that first main image that they’ve already paid for right like that, that first image with a white background, it’s like they lose the concept of being able to test ss, ss ss to get different results. A Facebook ad marketer would be like, that’s insane to use the same image across all my campaigns like exactly what are you talking about, right. But on the Amazon side, we don’t think that way. Because it’s kind of like a done for you system. And a lot of times the Amazon sellers that are listening to this or they’re thinking this way are not creative themselves. So content is the one thing that they kind of, like, shy away from, you know, or it’s like they’re hiring it out, or it’s always a chore or a task or an unnecessary expense. But really getting your mindset right to understand that simply changing out a photo or adding a custom creative can be the difference in a campaign being that negative or net positive, you know, so. Okay, and then lastly, something you’re working on this year 2023, that you’re just you’re excited about, whether it’s work or personal doesn’t really matter.

Vince Montero 53:15
Yeah, so I’m really excited workwise you know, to be working with Mina, Elias at Trivium group, he’s got a great team there, which I’m now a part of, and super stoked to be able to, you know, create more content, create more trainings, and, you know, get people that are, you know, ready to, you know, jump into having somebody else manage their PPC, you know, Trivium is a great option out there. So, super stoked about that, I was super stoked to have told you this earlier, I’m super excited for a trip to Australia that I have coming up and at the end of the year going to mount Uluru, which is kind of a sacred place to the Aboriginal people. So I’m trying to go to a sacred place like once a year for the next few years. I was in Machu Picchu last fall. So I’m kind of super so I love traveling to begin with.

Andrew Morgans 54:01
But it helped so much to have something, I think, extra something to look forward to that’s like a little way out there. One of the things that really hit me during the pandemic was simply anything that you might have thought was going to happen could cancel at any moment, you know, you think you’re gonna get chicken fingers that cane, canes drive-thru or something, and then they’re just like, we don’t have chicken fingers today, just the toast, you know, it’s like, it was just like, expectation killer kind of thing. And, you know, you just couldn’t even get excited about stuff because it would get canceled or moved or, and I started looking just like, What do I have to be excited about getting up and working tomorrow? You know, like, and so I think sometimes even those trips or those shows or those events or those conferences like simply having a way out is really healthy and good for you to just like, you know, build up anticipation. I know. I know we talked about keeping expectations low, so you’re just happy with whatever. Sure, there’s also this added benefit of really looking forward to something absolutely that I think makes it a little bit more special. Do you think you’re gonna think you’ll do any kind of Amazon events while you’re in Australia, or is that not something structure minded?

Vince Montero 55:03
You know what, I haven’t even looked at it. I have friends out there, and I have a client out there. Two of which have a friend and a client in Perth. So I am building it into a business trip as well, which is, if you can do that, that’s awesome for tax purposes. But no, I haven’t actually thought about that. And Australia shows. I will take a look at that after this call, actually.

Andrew Morgans 55:26
Maybe get a little bit of your trip paid for if you plan it. Right. So I don’t know, you know? Yeah, maybe. Well, that was awesome. Vince, you’ve been a source of knowledge. I really appreciate you being on the show.

Vince Montero 55:39
Just find me on LinkedIn. I’m pretty much one of the only Monteros out there, I think. But yeah, Vincent. Oh, yeah. It’s Vincent Montero.

Andrew Morgans 55:46
It’s okay. And we’ll have all of his links in the show notes as well. For anyone that you know looking at the show, either Spotify or Apple iTunes, we’ll go to your links and shout out again to our sponsor, Full Scale I O. Do you need to hire software engineers, testers, and leaders, and let Full Scale help you do the job. They have the people on the platform to help you build and manage a team of experts. When you visit FullScale.io. All you need to do is answer a few questions and then let the platform match you up with a fully vetted, highly experienced team of software engineers, testers, and leaders. Full Scale specializes in building long-term teams that work only for you. Learn more when you visit FullScale.io. Vince, thanks for being on the show and Hustlers. We’ll see you next time.

Andrew Morgans 55:47
Sounds good. Thanks, Andrew.