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Enhancing Amazon Performance Through Ad Innovation with Abe Chomali · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

0:14
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Selling on Giants.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Today I'm joined by a true veteran in the marketing and advertising space, Abe Kamali, CEO of XB Strategy, with over 30 years of experience under his belt and a track record of driving hundreds of millions in sales for his clients.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Abe brings a wealth of knowledge to the table.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: He's been navigating the complexities of Amazon advertising as an agency owner since 2018, drawing on decades of experience and innovation, adapting to the fast-paced environment.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: In our conversation today, we'll delve into Abe's deep experience, translating into actionable strategies to help you maximize your Amazon potential and stay ahead of the competition.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: If you're looking to elevate your advertising game and overcome the challenges Amazon throws your way, this episode is for you.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: As we dive into the key takeaways from my conversation with Abe, I want to highlight some of the most impactful insights we discussed around advertising innovation on Amazon.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Abe's deep experience brings a unique perspective on how to navigate and leverage the latest tools and strategies.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're looking to refine your current approach or explore new opportunities, these takeaways offer valuable guidance to help you stay ahead in the ever-changing landscape of Amazon advertising.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Let's break down the most critical points.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Takeaway one, cautious of adoption of new features.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Abe advises waiting to see how new Amazon ad features perform before fully committing, helping to avoid potential pitfalls and making smarter investments.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Next, we talked about exploring streaming TV ads.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Amazon sponsored TV ads offer significant potential, but Abe stresses the need for patience and a long-term view to see real results, especially in tracking branded searches.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Next, we talked about balancing innovation with strategy.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: While embracing new tools, Abe underscores the importance of staying grounded in proven strategies, ensuring that innovation enhances rather than disrupts success.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: And last but not least, we talked about rigorous software vetting.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Abe carefully evaluates software for customization and alignment with his agency goals, advising advertisers to test new tools on a small scale before full adoption.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: These takeaways offer valuable lessons for anyone navigating Amazon's dynamic advertising landscape.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Now let's jump into our full interview with Abe Kamalli, where we explore these insights in more depth and discuss how to apply them to your Amazon strategies.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Hey Abe, thanks for being here.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: We're super pumped to have you.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: On that note, I would love my audience to get to know you better.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: So can you share your journey that led you to become the leading expert in Amazon advertising, starting from your early days being in products and now running your own advertising agency?
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Oh boy, this podcast is only an hour, right?
3:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure, I'm not sure I can fit it in all there.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: But uh I'll give you like the Cliff Notes of the Cliff Notes version.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: So uh I started out in 1991.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: And uh no, that's not a typo.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: Actually, 1991.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: I started working in mail order sales for someone else, uh, did that for a few years, and then started my own business because of course I thought I could do it better.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: And I thought instead of making profits for the man, I could make the profits for myself.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, that led to the entrepreneurial journey for the next like uh 28 years.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, we started out as a business owner selling through magazine ads.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: Of course, the internet came along, and the first marketplace that we could sell on was Yahoo Stores.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Then, of course, we built out our own site and started doing enormous amounts of business on our own website.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, we spent six figures a month with Google.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: We were actually one of the first people to ever get a credit line from Google for our ads because credit cards could not support the spend, and we kept running out for seven hours at a time until we could wire another payment to American Express.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: So they actually we actually negotiated a credit line with Google at the time, which they didn't even know how to do it in their system, not for a small business, at least.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: That's so that was super interesting at the time.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, Google sort of leveled out and the marketplace changed.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: eBay had like a minute in 2007 and 2008, where it was really the main place of e-commerce.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: And then from there, since uh 08-09, Amazon has been the main place to make sales.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: If you have a brand you're bringing into the world, there is an angle for D2C, but the biggest and easiest angle for getting traction and hopping on a system that someone else has built is Amazon.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: The traffic is there.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: Um built out my sales there.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: At one point, I had the opportunity to lean into the thing I always loved best when I owned my business, which was the advertising and marketing.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: I left the business where I was, you know, it was amicable, but I had the opportunity to lean into just running advertising for brands.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: And for the last six years, since 2018, I've exclusively been working with brands, helping them scale their sales on Amazon.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: And well said, and Amazon continues to change.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: And then note too.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: So you you've had all you've led all these different lives, which is amazing since 1991.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: That is is crazy.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: And mail order, like I remember my mom used to get those Sears magazines and and do a lot of shopping through there.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: What connects you with the Amazon community so much?
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Like of all the different advertising avenues, what about Amazon uh or about the sellers or the community that inspires you so much?
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Oh boy, so inspire is an interesting word word.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: When you've been around the world long enough, you've seen a lot of things happen.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: And inspiration sort of levels out, I think, but it is always rewarding.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: And I would say rewarding is a better word than inspiring.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: It is always rewarding to see somebody come into the marketplace and do well.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: It's always rewarding to find a thorny situation or a situation which has been stuck and take the action to turn it around and actually see the turnaround happen.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: I just started working with a brand that has been on Amazon for a couple of years.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: They were having a lot of challenges.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: They were losing a lot of money.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: They came into the relationship pretty skeptical.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: The first month that we were working together, we took them from losing close to$10,000 a month, which adds up to six figures in a year, to running even the first month.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: And in 30 days, they saw a thing they hadn't seen in a very long time, which was a direction to success.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: So that is that is definitely rewarding.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: That is definitely inspiring.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: It feels good to get on a call with them and they're actually smiling as opposed to being grumbling and suspicious the first few calls we had.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great story.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: And it's so true, like especially specifically with advertising, because you invest into it, you can either accelerate your losses or accelerate your wins.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: So it's definitely something that if not done correctly can be very costly.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: And it is a very delicate balance because a lot of times, in order to sell, you have to invest money.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: And if the money hasn't been spent well up until now, explaining that you will have to pour more money and just do it correctly is not intuitive and doesn't feel good to the person hearing it.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: So you have to be you have to explain with conviction that you will be steering things in a better way.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: And telling, giving the explanation properly, showing individual things that you do differently helps that move along properly, I think.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: That's well said.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: 100% agreed, too.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Because obviously, if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you're gonna get the same results.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: So it does require some innovation in the space.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: And that's actually per a great segue into our main topic: enhancing Amazon performance through ad innovation.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: So with that being said, let's dive deep into advertising.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: How has your long-standing experience in marketing and sales influenced your approach to Amazon advertising, particularly when it comes to innovation in the space?
8:40
SPEAKER_00: As we both know, it's changed so much in the last couple of years from the data side to like what we can actually do.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: So, how do you view the innovation in the space in general?
8:51
SPEAKER_01: So the innovation is really interesting.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: We use software as part of the tools, you know, as part of the tool set that helps run advertising well.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: The tool set is always changing a little bit.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, we obviously we actually started having our first conversations together, talking about a tool that I was interested in.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, so that's that's how we actually started the our first conversations together.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: So we're always looking at new tools that will help do things better.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: And we have tools that can do more, we have tools that can do things differently.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: Everyone is coming to the space with their own spin and twist on things, but the opportunity is there to do things a lot better, but there is so much that the challenge is in finding the right things, the challenge is in removing the noise and picking out the essential parts.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: If someone shows me a piece of software and there's a feature list, 200 features long, I already know I'm gonna focus on like seven of those bullet points.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: The other 93, 193, I might use them once in a while.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: The seven core things I need need to be done really well.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't invested all of your resources into doing those things well, and if you're new to doing it in a novel way that can be proven to be effective, you can already tell that they're not looking at things properly or that they are.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: That's a really good point, too.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: And to your point, like there is so much innovation around it.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: What do you consider the right thing?
10:26
SPEAKER_00: So we have a lot of brands who listen to this, and they may they may be vetting softwares now.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: So personally, Abe, when you're looking at some of these software solutions, like what features are most important to you and your team as you're building and creating these great case studies with the brands that you guys get to work with.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: So the number one thing is ability to customize functions.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: So, for example, most tools give us the ability to take keywords that aren't doing well and make them negative.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: And the the way it happens is different in each tool.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: Some tools do it in an automatic way, some tools do it in a manual way, some tools a combination of both.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: And a key will be how can I customize the way that feature works for me?
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Because if I'm managing many accounts, they all have different goals, they all have different um restrictions.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: They might even have different goals and restrictions in the same account because they might have a product that's being launched versus a product that has been around a long time.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: The way we the way we work with each is different.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: And the tools have to be flexible so that I can handle a lot of different scenarios.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: That's the first thing, which is important.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: The ability to customize for different scenarios.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: The second thing, which is really, really important to me is I need to know that there is a philosophy behind how the developers and creators look at Amazon.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: And I need to know what that philosophy is.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: So specifically, I know that there are many tools.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: I know the developers and the creators of many of the tools.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: And in some cases, I'll agree with how they look at Amazon.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I don't always agree, but I usually understand the methodology.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: They might say, we focus on this piece of information and we think that this is the key that everything revolves around.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: And it's not the place that everybody looks.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, that's interesting.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh, let me think about that a little bit.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: And if I agree, you've got me on board.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: If I don't agree, I give you credit for looking at things in an interesting way.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: Not ready yet, you know.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: But it's important to know how they look at things because when I'm going to use the tool, I'm going to be using my brain and my framework for how Amazon works.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm making adjustments based on my thinking and the tool is fighting with my thinking because it has its own focus, everything goes off the rails.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: Now, number one, it is important for them to have a viewpoint and for me to understand it.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: The flip side of that is I have actually seen one or two tools in which the developer tries to be a uh jack of all trades.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: They don't have any philosophy, they just try to do every single thing that any person wants.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you want to do campaign creation?
13:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we'll do any kind of campaign creation you want.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Here's a tool that does anything.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Like, all right.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: Or, oh, you want to um move your bids around?
13:27
SPEAKER_01: We can move bids around in any direction.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: You can just tell us which direction you want to go and we'll do it for you.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: I look at those couple of software developers, and the software is uninspired.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: The software does not get great results because part of what gets great results is the is the unconscious focus towards the goal.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: And if there is no unconscious direction or conscious direction, you're not going anywhere.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's really a key there, also.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like key to have a mission too with these brands you work with.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: So the philosophy, the flexibility of the software, but from the owner perspective, like what's the mission of the software?
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Everything that everyone is not a good philosophy or mission for some of these businesses.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, um, absolutely not.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: And there are situations where I will use two competing softwares within my agency because one is a better fit for certain scenarios, one is a better fit for other scenarios.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: And the accounts have very different goals.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: And one software works really well with one type of goal, but not so well with the other, and vice versa for the other one.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: There's no reason not to have both types of tools in my arsenal.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Split testing and testing.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: That's really smart, Abe.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: And in that note, so we can dive a little deeper to that.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: So some of these are brands who may be looking at software solutions, like you get these people on the phone.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: How do you do you actually test a lot of this software?
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do the steps look like as you're considering some of these partnerships?
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Especially for you who's in the advertising space and you do this every day, putting on a software that doesn't align with your framework can be detrimental to the businesses that you're representing.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: So, what does it look like?
15:08
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you vet these people out so you can smell the winners from the losers, if you will?
15:14
SPEAKER_01: So we live in a world where we can know about people before we meet them, and that's really important.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: So if someone comes to me with a cold pitch for a software or I see an ad that pops up, 99.98% of the time, not interested, not even going to dig into it.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: Because if within my network of Will Hare and all of the other people that have businesses and know what they're running, if I haven't heard of you at all yet, and you've been so under the radar that nobody has heard of you, that's already concern number one.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: If I haven't heard of you until now, how am I going to find you the time I need you?
15:54
SPEAKER_01: So knowing that a person exists is step one.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: Step two is beyond knowing that they exist, really having a good idea of how they think about Amazon, knowing what they've done up until now, knowing how they're building that tool to accomplish a certain goal.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: Those two things are really the foundation before I'll even look into it.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: The next step will be a conversation with the person and like a quick demo of sorts.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: And then step three is vetting.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: So I'll I will want to speak to other people who use that tool being introduced to me.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: I will want to hear about the good things and the warts.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: And if somebody tells me there's no warts, I'm all that's also a big red flag.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: No such thing.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: So I will I use typically won't believe that.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I will want to hear about the goods and the bads that people are experiencing, and I'll want to test it myself.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: I will typically want either a demo account that is not connected to anything, but lets me play with the clicks and see what screens look like and how I can build things out, or I'll want to test it out with an account that is open to testing.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: A couple of the brands I work with, they have a lot of flexibility and a lot of latitude.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: And they tell me, Abe, um, I'm willing to let you try things out if you think that there's a potential we might do better.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: I sort of understand that it won't always work out, but I know that most of the time these experiments do lead somewhere good.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: So you have flexibility.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: And I'll try these tools out with those kinds of accounts.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: Those are great partners.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: And it says a lot about your ability to establish report with some of these brands, that they have that level of trust with you.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: And just to kind of summarize, I mean, you hit some really great points there.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: It's like, do they exist?
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Can you find them in the space?
17:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh, what is their software?
17:41
SPEAKER_00: How does it align?
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Getting that first demo call and then going deep, playing with the screens and all that other stuff.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: And on that note, like, how important is data visualization with the tools that you use?
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Are you using a lot of the reporting function?
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Do the brands you work with get value from some of these tools?
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Is only your team have access, or do you give brands access to these tools?
18:03
SPEAKER_01: So this is an interesting question.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, data visualization is almost like the holy grail of working in marketing.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, everybody has different priorities, and that filters how they look at information.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: So trying to get things that communicate what we want is always a challenge.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: At this point, we have settled on one tool that is our overall reporting tool.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a tool called Merchant Spring.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: They're focused on agencies.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: They basically let us look at a lot of data points in a clean way.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: And as part of the tool, they let us build out portals that our brands have access to also.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: So they can actually visualize things, the same screens that we have, and they love it.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: At first, I was hesitant.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: Is it going to lead to 86,000 unrelated questions to the work?
18:56
SPEAKER_01: As they look at an unirrelevant piece of information from three years ago, but it has worked out well.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: Brands love the ability to see things, brands love the ability to catch things that they didn't weren't able to look at, you know, otherwise.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: And it really, really is a nice tool for visualization.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: It's not perfect.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: There are still people who need to see things in a custom way, even internally.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: We need to look at and frame things differently in some situations, but that gets us probably 85% of the way there.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: And the last 15% are things that we do in a customized way.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: We build out customized sheets, customized um, you know, uh Google Data Studio visuals, things like that that are situational for the brands that need it.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And then shout out to James and Paul over on the Merchant Spring team.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: We use them as well.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Really great tools, super easy to work with.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: And uh all the benefits you laid out, it's it's true, given your clients the ability to go in and view those dashboards.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: And uh, what we find is they're able to take that information and bring it over to stakeholders so everybody understands the strategy uh that's being implemented.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: So visualizing is huge.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh, let's pivot over to some account information now, and just like in general, uh how you look at advertising and and how we can dive deeper.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: So some of our brands maybe maybe hands-on keyboards.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: We have maybe some specialists working on the account.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: What are some what are some of the common mistakes that you see brands making that come and come work with you?
20:29
SPEAKER_01: Oh boy, well, the two common things where somebody wants to come work with us is sales are not high enough or costs are too high.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: That's it's really number one and number two.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: Some flavor of the two, some extreme of the two.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: And in the worst scenario, both things are happening.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: But uh, one and two are typically the reasons people will want to work with us.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: And the value that we bring to the situation is number one, we are flexible and we look at each account according to the goals that they have.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: We do not use a cookie-cutter approach or a fixed system that everyone has to fit into.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: We start out with an interview, we talk about what has been working, what hasn't been working, and when we audit an account, we don't just plug in an account and extract 71 metrics.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: It's not useful because it doesn't pertain necessarily to what that brand or account needs.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: We filter everything through the viewpoint of how are these metrics fitting where they want to go to.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: So someone might have a very high A cost in their account, but their goal is to capture a big piece of the market.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: And their issue has not been the high A cost.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: That hasn't been their concern.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: It has been that sales are not where they needed to be.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: They have 7% of the market share.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: They're positioned in retail with 23% of market share.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: They don't see any reason why they shouldn't have 23% or more of Amazon.
21:58
SPEAKER_01: All right.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: And that's Case, we will look at the pieces of information that have to do with your sales volume, and we will put less focus on the costs involved because we know that there is room to spend on acquiring market share.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: The other thing the other way happens also.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: If someone has strong sales, but they really have a need to control costs, everything will get filtered through that to an extreme if that's what the brand needs.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: And of course, those are two extremes of sales and costs, but most pictures have like 16 different considerations being balanced.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: And we try to balance all those considerations properly.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's well said too.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like specifically in advertising, like you're really doing one of two things.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: It's you're either growing the account and you're you're loosening that efficiency standard, whether that's a tacos, an ACOS, whatever you're looking for, or you're contracting, you're saying, I need to be more profitable.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: So you're you're closing in those reins and you're saying, hey, you know, we're gonna downbid, we're gonna make sure we have negative keywords in place, we're not gonna bid on category as much.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: So it sounds like that there's a lot, a lot of that going on, and that's the struggle with what you're working on.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: So, how do you communicate some of that information with the brands you're working with?
23:12
SPEAKER_00: So the perfect case scenario you just discussed earlier, you came in, this brand was not making money, they were losing$10,000 a month.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: So, can you kind of share what that journey might have looked like, where you you enlighten them with you know your philosophy, how it's working, and then showing the proof in the pudding?
23:30
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: So, in the most simplified version of what we'll do, we will try to put the spotlight or the flashlight on the biggest holes.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: So if we say this piece of information, this piece of data or this feature is not running effectively, and we think that this is the key that connects everything else, we will shine the spotlight on it.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: We'll say your conversion rate is causing a lot of people to come to your product page and not end up making the purchase.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: We have to invest some time into increasing your conversion rate.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: You already have a hundred people coming to your product page, but only one out of a hundred make a purchase within your space, 11 out of 100 make a purchase.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: So if we keep all your traffic the same and get your sales to 11 out of 100, that's just average.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: We're not even talking about going past average.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: If we get you to that 11, we have already increased your sales 10x.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: If we can even get halfway there, we've increased your sales 5x.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: And because we have identified that point that needs the flashlight, every single period that we are reviewing things, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, that's the place where we start our conversation.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: We'll say we've been focusing our efforts on conversion rate.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: You can see that conversion rate went from here to here.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: You can also see that we maintained traffic.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: And because of maintaining traffic plus increased conversion rate, this is where the rest of the numbers went.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: Or more commonly, this increased, but then a different challenge came into play.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: And this is how we're balancing the two.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: But between those two, we're always starting out with the flashlight point and building out all the rest of the work from there.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: I like the analogy, covering up the dark spots, using the flashlight, because uh you could go into any advertising account and always find these gaps and opportunities.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: So it's great that you're able to go in and it's not always ad related to your point.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: I we start with a lot of accounts, we do agency stuff too, and you know, we'll find that um they're so focused on ad spending efficiency, and you're like, hey guys, one percent conversion rate's pretty bad.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: Why don't we start over here uh and see how we can make improvements on the account, and then you know, the money will come.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the money will come is always a great way to say things.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: I try uh I try not to make promises.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: We we say this is what we could hope for.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: Um we make it clear that this is what we expect, but guarantees are like famous last words, inevitably.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, amen for that.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, then note, you know, we're talking a lot about ad innovation today.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the new advertising features in the the console, whether it's pay-per-click or DSP that you guys are most interested in, that maybe you're doing some tests around and building case studies?
26:22
SPEAKER_01: So we tend to be cautious when it comes to new features that Amazon introduces.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: Amazon is always introducing a new thing with a lot of hype, a lot of attention.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: Our internal Amazon connections will tell us about a thing a couple of weeks before the press release, and they'll say that Amazon wants to lean into it.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: And we'll always say, uh, let's wait a week to see how things bear out, you know, for bugs or whatever other thing might cause it to work differently than how it's described.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: So we tend to be cautious in terms of development.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: We are comfortable letting everybody else make the mistakes.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: We're comfortable with knowing a few people will have success, but the overall balance is adjustments were needed before implementing.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: That said, the big shift where we see Amazon moving, and the biggest shift where we are telling brands to invest in testing is absolutely television advertising.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Amazon is putting a big focus on sponsored TV.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: They are investing a lot in bringing at people to Amazon Prime video.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: As you watch shows on Prime, you see ads more and more often.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: As Amazon invests in different sports packages, people are coming to Amazon that were never there before.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: And Amazon has a lot of data about what to serve.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm belying my age, but when I used to watch Friends on Thursday night, me and all of America saw exactly the same ad.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: Everybody saw the ad for the thing.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: On when it came to the Super Bowl, everybody was talking about the same seven advertisements the next morning.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Right now, on Amazon Prime, if 200,000 people watch a show, there's 142,000 different ads being served based on what Amazon knows about those people.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: A person expecting a kid will see ads for baby furniture and they'll see ads for prenatal vitamins.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: Somebody else who just bought a car and Amazon knows he's buying all these parts for his new Jeep.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh, they will show him ads for accessories for his Jeep.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: They know, and it is much more focused and granular.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: So that is a place which has opportunity.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: It's still very early in the situation.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, conversion rates are typically not great.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: We do see effects from running these ads, but it requires a good amount of investment before we get to the goals.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: So we're still very much in the testing phase.
28:52
SPEAKER_01: We've had some wins, we've had a lot more situations where results need more evaluation.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: So it's interest, it's interesting, but we are investing our brainwaves and our you know our cycles into that.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I'm so glad you mentioned streaming TV.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: We are also bullish on it.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, 115 million monthly Amazon Prime video watchers, and what they're putting into the shows and the quality of the shows says a lot about how they're investing.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: And I guess in that note, so for some brands who are considering, because it is a pretty low, technically a low barrier to entry.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Like you don't in the past, if you were going to buy TV spots, you know, uh, I believe when I looked into it, linear TV was over$100 a CPM.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Where on Amazon, it could be as low as 20 to 25, but it's typically in like the$30,$40 range is kind of what we're seeing.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: When you're talking about this innovation with your brands and your clients, what KPIs are you're talking to?
29:49
SPEAKER_00: And like what's the biggest benefit that you're discussing with these brands that get them to invest in streaming TV?
29:57
SPEAKER_01: So the number one thing that I tell them to see to expect as an increase is going to be granted searches and searches for their product.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: Typically, people who see a TV ad don't buy the thing right from the TV ad.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: People are not jumping and putting their phone and scanning that barcode and clicking the thing or moving their remote to move it over to the thing and click on it.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: That's not typically the way they purchase.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: Typically, what ends up happening is they'll see it, it'll sit in their head.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: They'll need to see it a couple of more times.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: They'll actually go to Amazon and then the ads will start to follow them with retargeting.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: And that should lead, in theory, to more people searching directly for your product.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I saw this thing.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: Let me search for it directly on Amazon now.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: And in the cases where we're seeing success, that's what we're seeing.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: We're tracking how many people are searching for the brand name, how many people are searching for what with the unique description of the product.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's what we're we're seeing the lifts in traffic and in sales.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: And discussing, like, we have a variety of brands who could who are listening to this.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Some are are large or enterprise level, and they're going to have the ability, and they probably understand a lot about the streaming TV.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: And then we have on the smaller side some startup sellers.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: So, like, who would you say is a good fit for streaming TV?
31:21
SPEAKER_01: The best fit for streaming TV, there's two best fits.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: Best fit number one is a very large brand, you know, enterprise level or somebody selling, you know, eight figures or more on Amazon, in which they have very sophisticated ways of tracking information, even beside even past our reporting.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: They sell on 11 different channels.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: They bring all of that channel data into their own internal systems and they're able to measure things very carefully.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: So if we are advertising a product which is most commonly purchased in retail, they'll actually be able to track the bumps to events that are being advertised.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: So that's number one.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: The number two avatar are people who are spending a significant amount of money on Amazon and are willing to commit a piece of ad spend to experimenting.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: So if you're spending$25,000 a month and you're willing to invest an extra 10%, that might be a place, that might be a good situation to invest a piece that you know might not pay off, but it might.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: It's the experimental money.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: And 10% is a nice piece to invest.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: I like that you have the percentages there and 10% of$25,000 is not crazy.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a reasonable budget.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: And then what's what's the timeline these brands should look at?
32:40
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you're probably not expecting a brand lift within the first 90 days as you're running linear TV, spec uh sorry, streaming TV with a smaller budget.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: So are you looking at it from a certain impression threshold, or is it kind of just, you know, hey, we need to run this for nine months a year, and then we're we're kind of we're analyzing and making recommendations.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we basically we basically suggest that a 12-month window is really the right time frame to watch.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: You should have already a steady point that you're starting from to be able to see what's happening.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: And then from there, you'll be able to see what the lifts look like over time.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: When an ad has been served for 90 days, what does that look like for your traffic in the next 90 days?
33:25
SPEAKER_01: When a season is starting to ramp up and you're investing in ads before the season, what does it look like compared to the year before when you didn't have that ad spend?
33:34
SPEAKER_01: So working over a full 12-month period gives you a lot of information to work with, a lot of things to compare to from the past.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: That's really eliminate seasonality too, and a lot of other benefits.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: So that's a really good point.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and also for our listeners, uh, obviously, streaming TV, top of the funnel, these are long-term investments.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but to your point, uh, Abe, you don't have to invest a lot to get that exposure.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: It's so much different than the linear world where you had to buy these cable packages and you had to stick it out.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, here you can be flexible.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: And agencies like Abe's agency, um, they're not going to pin you down to, I mean, what was it?
34:13
SPEAKER_00: It was$35,000 a month not too long ago to have Amazon run it and you had to commit uh, I think six months.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: So it ended up being a very expensive endeavor, which is really, you know, only useful for enterprise level uh type brands.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: They were phishing basically.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: They really wanted to see that somebody had uh the ability to make a financial commitment.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: So it's almost like they made up numbers.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, in some cases, you couldn't even get that money to get spent.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: People would make that$35,000 commitment.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: And once they plugged in their audiences, there wasn't even enough audience traffic to fill out that spend in some cases.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: So I think Amazon was just shooting higher at one point.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know, you can't you can't take the shot.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: You don't hit the shots, you don't shoot, I guess.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: But you know, good.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: And to your point, Amazon will do that.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: We get a lot of inquiries on like, hey, the latest and greatest, try this out.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Amazon's bullish on it, and then you know, a year or two from now, they're folding it up because it just wasn't a really good uh innovation.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: It didn't lead to sales, and sellers had a bad experience.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: So I know on our end as an agency, you can't say yes to everything.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: You do gotta be cautious on where it's going.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: But um before we kind of wrap up and talk more about XP strategy, I'd love to get your opinion on AI, how you feel about AI and its contribution to the ad space.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: So I'll leave it kind of general and we'll kind of go whatever direction you take it, A.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: But what are your feelings with AI?
35:36
SPEAKER_00: What do you think of AI software solutions?
35:38
SPEAKER_00: And are you guys currently leveraging any AI as you're building advertising strategies and working with brands?
35:44
SPEAKER_01: All right.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: So today, AI is hype.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: That's that's my perspective.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, when it comes to advertising, AI is generally an enormous set of rules that have been built and they're let to run on their own.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: It's not generally, it's not genuinely looking at a situation and making a new decision.
36:06
SPEAKER_01: It is just repeating one of a hundred thousand decisions that it's seen in the past, which our own brains do just as well at this point.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, the human brain has a big capacity, and we can look at a screen of things happening and feel the direction.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: And with somebody experienced, that feeling is better than what AI is going to tell us.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Now, there, of course, there are specialized situations where AI is great.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, to give it a mountain of information and predict a trend, definitely there's usefulness there.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: But at the micro level, it's definitely not there yet.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: The two places where we see AI having an impact is ease of creating content with AI.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: So, for example, in sponsored brand ads and in sponsored display ads, we have to, we have to provide creatives, different images for our ads.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: And if we want to do a lot of creating images and a lot of testing, AI is fantastic for that.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: We can tell AI, hey, we have a pair of ice skates.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: Do me a favor, show me ice skates on uh, you know, in a in a skating rink.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: And the pattern on the rink, give me like 26 different national flags.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: And uh we can train, we can like show it to 11 different markets with the different flags on the ice.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: There's your AI.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: If I would tell a graphic designer that, I'll see you in two weeks.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, here I've got it in like uh 97 seconds.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh, a hundred other scenarios in which we can swap in variations to uh to an image and again tailor that for each one.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh, one of my brands sells um an outdoor pet product, and they have licenses.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: So they've got like all the NCAA teams.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, I can serve up all the teams and say, hey, put this in a backyard, one with every team.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: So I can either swap in the product or I can swap in the background and put out a ton of creatives, and I can also tell it to use its imagination in a ton of different ways.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I've got this product, it's this season.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Sh tell me what you got.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: And it will be very much a tool that helps productivity.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: That's not strictly ad-based, that is creative-based.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: The other way we see AI um having an influence is with Amazon's Rufus tools, in which it is making determinations about what to do with our ads based on the content.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: That's not something we specifically influence in the ad console.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: I can't change my I can't change a bid the same way I can change a keyword in the back end.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: But knowing what Amazon's AI is looking for lets us steer what the content looks like on the back end, and that has small differences in performance.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: Small differences add up across an account and across time.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: Incremental improvement.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: I think if we could like the common denominator, too, like there's a human element in there guiding the AI through these different iterations.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: And to your point, you know, what we see too is like we can beat any AI solution out there because it it just doesn't conceptualize like we do.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: And to your point, an experienced advertising manager is gonna know real quick what to do and how to innovate.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: And what you made your point earlier, like what a quality about software that isn't very good is that they try to stick you inside a framework that doesn't necessarily work for uh all your different brands and accounts.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: And so uh AI is great at spitting out generic information and it saves you a ton of time with these creatives and inside the creative market, but uh nothing's gonna beat human intervention.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: Right.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: And that's that is very much what we see.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: Um the adding us plus AI is the best combination, and it's a much better combination than just letting AI run on its own.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Amen to that.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, this was uh super, super useful, it's super impressive, and I think all of our listeners took a lot of value from vetting software, how to look at different frameworks to you know, streaming TV, talking about AI.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: So we had a lot of advertising innovation on this conversation, but I want to turn the table a bit.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about XP strategy and what you guys do great.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: Abe, if anybody's not following Abe, uh his link and his information will be in the show notes.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: Highly recommend.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: I follow you on LinkedIn, so I get a lot of your updates and uh I love stalking you.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: You have tons of great content and you got a great team you're working with.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: But you know, so what sets XP strategy apart from other agencies in the advertising space?
40:35
SPEAKER_00: And how do your methods uniquely benefit your clients?
40:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think there's two places we try to set ourselves apart.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: The truth is, you know, we're both in the same space, and there are other people who do what we do as well.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, and the we have to find our own ways of being special.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: The we have two things that we do which set us apart a little bit.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: The first one I alluded to a little bit earlier is that we take each account we work with, we really spend the time to create a custom solution for them.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: Every brand is different, every brand has its own needs.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: They might be similar to other people who have a goal of growing sales, but there are things about each brand which make them different.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: We invest a lot of time to create to understand that and to create strategies to hit those goals.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: That's the first thing which sets us apart.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: The second thing which sets us apart is communication.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: I hear from a lot of people that come to me.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: One of the reasons, one of the things they're unhappy about with whoever they're working currently is waiting a long time to get a response or getting a response which isn't even exactly the thing they asked about.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: We put a lot of resources into getting a team connected to each brand we work with and into building out tools that let us communicate effectively.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: Of course, we use email, but we also use Slack as a channel.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, and Slack has been a game changer.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: Giving every brand we work with their own Slack account and a way to instantly message and get a response quickly on the smallest of things has improved communication a lot.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: And in a lot of cases, it has improved performance a lot.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: And uh coming from a boutique agency experience as well, communication is key.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: It's a big differentiator.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: And to your point, a lot of times it's miscommunication that affects expectations, delivery, timelines, like all these are simple problems that can be fixed if you have good communications in place.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, on that note, Abe, I want to dive a little deeper.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: So some of our brands may be shopping around for different agencies or they're hearing what you're saying and it's like really resonating.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: And I know from the agency experience, onboarding and the first 90 days is the most crucial aspect of starting a relationship with some of these new brands.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: So, if you wouldn't mind, what what does it look like if if we're a brand and we're deciding to work together?
42:59
SPEAKER_00: What does your onboarding look like?
43:01
SPEAKER_00: What is the first 90 days of working together look like if I'm deciding to work with XP strategy?
43:07
SPEAKER_01: So onboarding typically looks like an introduction to the team.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, we'll have up to seven, eight people on a call with the brand's own people.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: We'll be introducing everybody who will touch the account in any way, from a client success manager to specialist to strategist.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: The person at the brand we're working with will really have seen with their own eyes each of the people that might touch an account, or most of them at least.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: So they'll know, hey, uh can I can I take a little bit of time with this person or a little bit of time with that person?
43:42
SPEAKER_01: And obviously, we'll try to uh facilitate the things which get into the smallest details of an account.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: So we start off with that interview, we start out building building all those communication channels, we start off with setting medium term goals, stretch goals, and of course the most immediate term.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Goals.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: So we start out by digging into an account together with the brand in a deeper way than we did during the first conversation process.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: We say, all right, let's dig into this brand.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: Let us say, let us get into a lot of detail about what you'd like your best version of the business to look like.
44:18
SPEAKER_01: Once we visualize that, we say, all right, how long will it take us to get from here to there realistically?
44:24
SPEAKER_01: And we'll agree on a timeline together with the brand.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: And from there, we say, all right, what things can we influence in the first week and in the first 30 days?
44:34
SPEAKER_01: And then we start to get those things done.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: We and we start to communicate with the brand as frequently as needed to give the updates.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: Some brands need daily updates, some brands need communication a little bit less frequently than that.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: It's not exactly a set time, but the goal is for the brand to really understand that we are working on the account and to understand what's happening and what things are looking like.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: And that's the biggest key.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: Essentially, over the first 30 days, you should start to see movement in movement in some direction, not just an account sitting there as though nobody ever changed who's managing it.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: And of course, over the first 60 to 90 days, you should begin to see significant movement towards the goals that you're looking for.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: That's typically what it looks like as we run.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: Well said.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, I can hear the boutique experience, and you guys are really focused on strategy and delivering results.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: And you guys have a really good methodology.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: And you got a really great reputation in the marketplace.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not surprised you got your processes buttoned up nice and tight.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's uh I I'm probably harder on myself than than what you just described.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: I always look at things as endlessly improvable.
45:52
SPEAKER_01: But yes, you know, we we've done a lot of work up until now.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: We've created a lot of processes and um it's it's always a moving target in terms of perfection.
46:01
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't think I'll ever get there.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's all about the journey though.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like you guys are making progress.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, if anybody who's listening is interested in working with Abe or XP Strategy inside the show notes, you can find a link to their website and you can message Abe directly on LinkedIn.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure he'll follow up with you guys uh as soon as possible.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: And Abe, I want to wrap this up.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: This has been a great conversation, and I'd like to end all our conversations with the future of e-commerce, and we're gonna pull out our little crystal ball.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, and given your extensive experience in marketing and sales, how do you foresee the future of e-commerce evolving?
46:36
SPEAKER_00: And what role will innovation uh innovative advertising strategies play in helping brands stay competitive on platforms like Amazon?
46:45
SPEAKER_01: So we were talking about this a little bit before the call, before this uh podcast started, and I don't think my answer changed much from over the course of the last hour.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh the biggest thing I see in terms of direction, and the biggest thing I see in terms of what to do is change will always be happening, and to be aware and roll with those changes.
47:09
SPEAKER_01: So, depending on when this podcast runs, um, we will have a different president than who the president is today.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it might be one person, it might be another person, but it will be different than whoever it is today.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: And with whoever it is, there is very likely to be differences in how those people approach business in general and in terms of how they approach e-commerce in general.
47:32
SPEAKER_01: The leader of the FTC might be different, taxes might look different, tariffs might look different.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: A hundred pieces of the e-commerce picture will be different in one way or another.
47:43
SPEAKER_01: And our job as a business owner is simply to not complain, to understand those changes, and to maneuver within those changes.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: If you spent four years complaining up until the next person gets elected, you will have wasted four years of your life.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: If you roll with whatever the change was, you have the opportunity to be successful no matter who's in charge.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's all we have to do as a business leader.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: That's beautifully said, too.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: And change is inevitable.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: It's the one thing you count on, and it's it's always happening.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: So uh I know when we talked earlier, being on the side of success.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: And what I love about you, Abe, you really have a way of spinning things to a positive, an optimistic view, and uh it's contagious.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: So great.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: Well said, sir.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, Abe, thank you.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here and sharing invaluable insights and your expertise with us today.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure having you on the show.
48:37
SPEAKER_00: Before we wrap up, could you let our listeners know where they can find you and if you have anything else you'd like to share about any upcoming projects?
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sure.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate that.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: So, as you said earlier, you can find me at my company's website, which is xpstrategy.com.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, I am pretty active on LinkedIn, which is one of the best places to learn how I view the world of e-commerce and Amazon, and it's definitely a place to get in touch with me for inquiries.
49:04
SPEAKER_01: Of course, we have all the rest of the socials, I'm on all of them.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty flexible in terms of the kinds of projects we take on.
49:14
SPEAKER_01: I like variety and I like challenges.
49:16
SPEAKER_01: So if there is something where you want to do differently, where if you want to do better than what's happening now, definitely get in touch with me.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to discuss it.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: Abe, well said, and thanks for being here, sir.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, man.
49:30
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you.
49:31
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
49:32
SPEAKER_00: And that's a wrap.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: Abe, thanks, man.
49:34
SPEAKER_00: That was awesome.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: We went deep, dude.
49:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was uh I didn't know what to expect going in.
49:41
SPEAKER_01: Like every every every one of these is a little bit different, but this was definitely a lot of fun.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, man.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: That's I love talking to other advertisers.
49:50
SPEAKER_00: So uh this is great.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna be at the Walmart event next week?
49:53
SPEAKER_00: Or you said you're only gonna be in Accelerate.
49:55
SPEAKER_01: No, so so interestingly, there is two different events happening at the same time as Walmart.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: There's Walmart and there's AMZ United in New Jersey.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be at M AMZ United.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be one of the MCs for the event.
50:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, congratulations.
50:09
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I get to I get to add MC to my list of accomplishments in life.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: And uh these AM AMZ United guys, they were pretty upset at Walmart because they announced the date before Walmart.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: They had 700 people that came last year, and something like 200 of the people that came last year will be at Walmart this year.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: So it's attendees lost, but they still passed last year's number, so that's pretty significant.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: Good for them.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: I like the Amazon community too.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: This is my first Walmart event, but we're trying to break into the space.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: So gotta shake hands and see who we can meet.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that is definitely true.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, Abe, thanks for being on here.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: I'll catch you at the accelerate event and let's keep in touch.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: If you ever need anything, man, you know where to find me.
50:53
SPEAKER_01: You're amazing.
50:53
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it, Will.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Abe.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: Catch you around.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: Cheers.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: See you later.
50:57
SPEAKER_00: That was an insightful conversation with Abe, where we uncovered some of the most effective and innovative strategies to enhance your Amazon performance.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: Abe's extensive experience in marketing and advertising truly sets him apart, and his ability to adapt to the ever-changing Amazon landscape offers invaluable lessons for sellers at any stage of the game.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: As you reflect on today's discussion, think about how you can apply Abe strategies to optimize your own Amazon advertising efforts.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget to check out his work at XP Strategy for more insights.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: And be sure to tune in to the next episode where we continue to bring you expert advice to help you thrive on the Amazon market space.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: Be sure to like, subscribe, and follow wherever you're tuning in.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, stay classy, people.