Amazon Marketing Agency

Building an Amazon Marketing Agency: Lessons Learned the Hard Way

As an Amazon Top 200 seller and eCommerce Top 1000 brand from 2003 to 2019, I hired and fired every kind of agency imaginable, including Google PPC agencies, Facebook and social media agencies, affiliate agencies, SEO agencies, CRO Agencies, Branding Agencies, Product Listing and content Creation Agencies, Account and ASIN Reinstatement Agencies, and even call centers that tried to manage our customer service. Ultimately, I never trusted that any of them cared about my business as much as I did. In retrospect, many deserved to be fired, but I could have been a better client to others. I see that now, after building a successful Amazon marketing agency.

After exiting my Amazon business, I thought long and hard about my next move. I had experience selling direct to consumers on my dot com and several online marketplaces, like Amazon, Walmart, Houzz, Wish, eBay, Wayfair, Jet (bought by Walmart), and many others. After much thought and counsel, I zeroed in on the agency model. Marketplaces and ad platforms were getting more complicated with more metrics to manage and act upon. I wanted to start the kind of Amazon marketing agency I wish I had worked with as a brand. I launched Avenue7Media in 2019 helping brands grow on the biggest and baddest marketplace of them all, Amazon. Not only was it the fastest-growing platform, but it was the most difficult for product brands to understand and find success. How difficult? For starters, Shopify won’t take your listings down, and Amazon has millions of Amabots that scan, suppress, or delist products 24/7/365. It was also home to the fiercest competition. I reasoned that if we could build the kind of agency that cared more about clients’ profitable growth than the client did on the nastiest platform around, then it would be special.

First, a personal pet peeve explained. Today’s full-service Amazon Marketing Agencies are not, in fact, “agencies” but Managed Service Providers (MSPs) of all the things needed to succeed on Amazon. It includes a very long and growing list of departments, required daily tasks, and hundreds of KPIs to monitor and manage to drive growth. Not only do agencies like Avenue7Media manage advertising strategy and execution, but they are brand builders, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) growth hackers, product compliance experts, listing specialists, problem solvers, researchers, and execute any freaking thing necessary (within the rules) to grow a brand. Why? Because that is what is required for success in The Amazon Jungle. So, if you ever see me bristle at being called an “agency” you know why. We. Do. It. All.

Amazon Marketing Services

I gained my initial experience the hard way as a brand making mistakes and learning from them over 17 years. I learned early to be relentless in the optimization of literally everything related to your business. Leave no stone unturned and never, ever stop. In truth, Amazon marketing services and eCommerce were much simpler and much less competitive when I was launching my brands. The days of hiring a kid out of college to run your Amazon business are over. As our CSO, Angela Murphy, often says. It takes a village of experienced operators to win in eCommerce. Last year roughly $700 billion dollars in GMV was purchased and shipped via Amazon.com, in a total US online market of $ 1.1 trillion. Do the math, smart brands know the majority of customers in today’s world have an Amazon Prime Account. Smart brands also know that it takes a large, experienced team focused on results to succeed.

After nearly five years in the agency or, rather, managed service business, I’ve learned something powerful. The relentless work we do for brands on Amazon, and now Walmart, translates beyond Amazon. What we do for brands on Amazon makes their entire business better and translates into success on other sales channels. Why is this the case? I reason that the relentless competition and continual optimization required to become a top seller and stay there is harder than any other channel. You can’t have mediocre product photography and detail page optimization nor can you sleep on your listing health. In short, success on Amazon requires experience, and high-quality work, and an effective Amazon marketing strategy done at light speed while continually optimizing. Then rinse and repeat forever. Isn’t that what business is all about anyway?

Amazon Marketing Strategy

As a brand owner, there are a million things you must manage beyond just one sales channel. Today you may be working with your offshore factory on a new product design, while tomorrow, you may be dealing with an employee issue. No matter how much you plan, there are always surprises, and there are so many areas to cover that it’s hard to “go deep” in any one particular channel or another. While I still deal with employee issues from time to time, the agency has allowed me and our teams the ability to go deep and wide across numerous categories and master what makes Amazon tick.

We’ve developed a 7Avenues strategy that groups the seven critical areas for growth in one simple-to-use Amazon marketing strategy. In truth, I never would have been able to develop this as a brand, but having founded both a brand and an Amazon marketing agency, I have a deep respect for both. In fact, the best clients and the best marketplace managers we work with today are those with experience in both the agency world and with a brand. Each side must do their part for collective success.

For example, experienced teams can work together and understand that Ads only work if the listings are high-quality and high-converting. Sales only grow if products stay in stock and are unsuppressed without losing revenue to resellers. Sometimes, a product comes to the end of its life cycle, or a rival appears with a better product at half the price. That’s business, and each side, brand, and Amazon marketing agency must do their part to constantly communicate and adapt.

I enjoyed my time building a brand, but working with many brands in many categories is even more rewarding for me at this stage of my career. The Ave7 team and I wake up each morning with the mission to change brand owners' and sellers' lives. We’ve met this mission several times, and we won’t stop. If you are a brand finding it difficult to find and afford the experienced staff needed to grow your Amazon business, consider an Amazon marketing agency. Make sure you stay in stock, keep competitive prices that allow you to gain share of voice in your category with advertising, and be willing to constantly adapt and optimize. Listen to your customer and your agency before making your final decisions. A good agency should be a strategic partner and extension of your brand, and once you achieve this, it will free you up to tackle the next obstacle on your journey to becoming the next billion dollar brand.

If your brand is struggling to keep up with Amazon’s demands or you’re finding it tough to afford the staff you need to grow, it’s time to partner with an Amazon marketing agency that can help you scale. Book a free discovery call with us and find out how Avenue7Media can handle the complexity for you, so you can focus on what you do best— building a great brand.