Pathfinder Bulletin - February Recap 2022
AMZ Pathfinder
We help great brands scale with Amazon advertising | Amazon PPC Management | Amazon DSP Services | Amazon Store Builder
Company Updates
This year, Amazon businesses should take advantage of the new opportunities that Amazon DSP has to offer. As a platform ADSP continues to evolve and when paired with Sponsored Ads the caliber of data we're able to see regarding the actual impact is improving. Next up for us is Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) which takes that to another level.
To guide you through these opportunities, we’ve detailed several functions that can aid our clients during their Amazon advertising journey!
AMZ Pathfinder’s expertise in the Amazon space combined with our client's deep knowledge of their products and market can make for a powerful duo when both parties communicate effectively.
This article is a deep dive into how we communicate with our clients, what we value in communication styles, and how we strive to effectively keep partners’ in the loop with our strategies, action items, and results to maintain alignment with their goals.
For us here at AMZ Pathfinder, it takes about 31 questions to determine whether our agency is a good fit for a potential partnership.
It might seem counterintuitive, but we think it’s important to be radically honest (per our core values) and provide our clients and readers the tools they need to prospect the best partnerships for their business.
Podcast: Amazon Advertising Search Term Impression Share Report [Online Seller UK - Amazon & Beyond]
The Search Term Impression Share report shows how your account-level exposure to Sponsored Products search terms compares with other advertisers (you didn't think we'd be getting into something this technical this early in the newsletter?) and deserves more attention. We use data from the STIS report more and more at Pathfinder to help us guide decision-making and ad spend allocation.
If you want to understand the value of this report then give this quick episode a listen. We discuss the following:
Amazon News
When you first read this headline it seems like a bit much, but when they dig into the details it feels justified???
I appreciate the experienced perspective that Bill brings to the table as he pulls back the curtain on some of the less-than-honest things that can happen during an Ecom business acquisition. As a veteran of many such transactions and someone who is not afraid to speak out, he makes the perfect guest for this episode.
If you’re even considering selling or are just interested in learning more about all the dimensions of it, this episode is a must-listen.
We work with a few aggregators presently and hope to work with more in 2022. I’m happy to say they’ve proven to be trustworthy and ethical operators, but this episode did give me reason to pause and consider how we approach these companies going forward.
This is a fairly new feature but I know several of our clients are using it. Amazon is expanding the?Manage Your Customer Engagement?tool functionality further despite still being in Beta. Everything old is new again: you can email your followers directly.
I don’t know if this is wishful thinking on Amazon’s part but I hear?mostly?skepticism from our clients and in seller groups. What incentive does a shopper have to follow a brand long-term unless they are looking for a specific deal on a product to show up? At any rate,?this is why when we built Amazon Storefronts for clients we consider how to best guide shoppers to click that "follow" button in addition to making purchases.
If you have any experience with this I’d like to hear from you. Have you run one of these campaigns successfully??Heres the Seller Central Page to get started
Businesses with an IPI score between 350 and 400 are being offered the ability to bid for additional storage space in Amazon's warehouses. The bid price can be offset by "performance credits" if you're able to sell through the stock that you put in that additional space. A pretty novel idea.
This story from Planet Money is an interesting look at what happens to all of the returns that we as consumers are responsible for putting back into the stream of products flowing around the world.
Nothing related specifically to advertising but we get to learn from the perspectives of people hustling at this end of the product food chain to make a buck.
If you’re selling in the European marketplaces this is a?time-sensitive?matter. Amazon is trying a spring sales event (another Amazon sales holiday?) and you have until March 28th to submit your Lightning Deals and 7-Day deals if you wish to take part. We'll be carefully watching what happens with ad metrics during this period.
领英推荐
An in-depth look from the WSJ at the fallout from iOS privacy changes and how those have caused ad budgets to shift from Facebook (err Meta) to other ad platforms including Amazon.
Nerd Zone
Country-Specific Image Upload
This has been around since late last year so while it’s not?breaking news, I don’t often see this feature being used.
That’s a shame because I’ve been wishing this into existence since 2017 and I’d like to see it benefit our clients as much as possible.
Amazon has given businesses the ability to upload?country-specific images?into their product listings.
Finally, no more German images showing up in the French marketplace!
Simply login to Seller Central > Click the Inventory tab > Select Upload Images > Navigate to the Global Image Upload section by country, or just click this link:?https://sellercentral.amazon.com/imaging/upload/country?and use the dropdown on the right side of the page to select the target country. You must pay close attention to the naming conventions when uploading the files.
Note that while you can do this from the .com URL as a?feature?it is not supported in the US. It is for the benefit of your catalog in non-US marketplaces.
In the past, the only way to accomplish this was to open?dozens?of cases and wrestle with seller support which was an absolute nightmare. Even then this didn’t guarantee that the job was done correctly and would often result in mistakes that harmed conversion rates. Not ideal!
Treasure Truck
Amazon is a huge company and there’s always something new to discover.
Earlier this year I stumbled across the?Treasure Truck?page which is a promotional limited-time offer deal page in the US and UK based on what was (and are)?actual trucks?that drive around and appear randomly in major cities. Seriously, Google image search one of these things they are strange looking.
According to a few articles I found from a quick search they blast "dope beats", blow an excessive amount of bubbles and people will line up in the rain when the notification goes out that one is nearby.
Besides this?FAQ page?Amazon doesn’t do much in the way of explaining them which is maybe the whole point: keeping them shrouded in some sort of mystery builds the excitement. They are pure on-the-go chaos and commerce.
As a test, I signed up for the treasure truck text notifications and gave my location as a Philadelphia zip code. Here’s a text message I received recently:
Jet over to Treasure Truck for 40% off the Samsung Jet 60 Cordless Stick Vacuum. Start spring cleaning at?https://www.amazon.com/ttgo?now.
Since these deals are online it’s not clear what difference the zip code I enter makes when signing up but maybe they’ll let me know about a Truck if one is nearby. Maybe that has been put on hold for a while thanks to COVID.
Why do I bring this up?
I heard from an agency owner that one of their clients had a Treasure Truck deal go live and sold their?full allocation of 35k units in 25 minutes.?It sounds like a Lightning Deal on hyperdrive, which if executed properly could be beneficial.
At the very bottom of the FAQ page I linked to above there is a section with "I'm interested in selling my product with Treasure Truck. Who can I talk to?"?with a link to submit a form expressing interest. Let me know if you give it a shot!
That's all for this month. Thanks for reading! - Brent
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