Latest / Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast / Fine-Tuning Your Strategy for Last-Minute Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday

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Fine-Tuning Your Strategy for Last-Minute Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, this is Telling on Giants, the e-commerce marketplace show, where we chat with experts in the e-commerce industry about the latest insights and strategies and best practices you need to succeed on e-commerce marketplaces.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Victor Dwyer, and we are thrilled to welcome our favorite guest, Will Hare.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Will is the co-founder of Velovic, an exceptional all-in-one marketplace marketing agency that's been making waves in the business world.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: But before we dive into our hot topic, fine-tuning your strategy for last minute Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday, let's have Will share a little bit about himself for the new folks that are tuning in.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Will, please share.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Vic, thanks for having me.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Great introduction.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I've said this before, but I think I'm gonna have you on all my marketing calls, and you can just do that intro and I'll start doing my TV.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my name is Will Hare.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the CEO and co-founder of Bellavics.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in the Amazon space for a little bit over 12 years at this point.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I've primarily been focused on advertising, but since the conception of Bellavix in 2018, we do full channel management, so we're plenty familiar with operational tactics, marketing, SEO, and advertising.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm super excited to talk to one of my favorite podcast hosts to chat a bit about fine tuning and your last minute Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or like to say the T5 holiday preparation.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I'd love to start out by asking what are the key considerations when fine-tuning a last-minute strategy for Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's start out there.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'll break it down into components because I think that's probably the easiest.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: But the way we would think about it here at Bell of X is like the listing is number one.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: We want to make sure that we're optimized for search and we're putting some holiday themes.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it's the gift giving season and different from like Prime Day and even Fall Prime Day, which has so many different names, but we're gonna stick with fall prime day.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: People are shopping for themselves.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: We're T5, we're shopping for others, so it's the gift giving season.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Images do play an important role.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So making sure that you're starting to give that holiday feel to your listings.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Let's put things in perspective.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a plunger seller, I wouldn't put a ribbon on that.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Plunger's a plunger, but if you're selling candy, beauty products, like anything that is giftable, you know, you're gonna want to incorporate Christmas trees or you know other holiday themes into your imagery on your listing, and then also your storefront and then other Amazon properties, like your advertising assets, your display ads, so on and so forth.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Your storefront, you should have a deals page.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't, you should actually always have a deals page.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't have a deals page, you should throw one up there, as well as updating your images similar to your regular imagery.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Inventory, if you don't have products, it's tough to do any strategizing.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to make sure your inventory is on point.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Promotions are shop, they're looking for deals.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way around it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we recommend participating.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: You don't necessarily have to, and it gets crazy during the season.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, there's a lot of competition.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it may not be right for everyone, but if you have the margins and it makes sense, shoppers are looking for deals, especially around these key holidays.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then last but not least, advertising.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: How are we gonna get eyeballs and sale to these beautiful listings that are optimized for search and the holiday?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Ads is just a really effective way to get additional shoppers who are in market in front of your products and hopefully buying them, taking them home, and leaving raving reviews on all your product listings.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that was a great point when it comes down to having more Christmas related images.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And with the adoption of AI, it's a lot easier before you had to like either get stock photos and do a really bad or a really good Photoshop job or whatever it may be.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: But with AI, you could literally make a kid like opening your box, like or opening your product and playing with your product.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I would utilize that when it comes down to like helping the people visualize would be like to give your kid, especially in the toy category.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: You for sure should be doing that, and that would drive conversions dramatically.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So AI, utilize that those tools to open, make it where people can open up your box and things like that for Christmas would be a huge advantage as well.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you said that.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I bet next year Amazon has an AI built-in component that'll just holiday theme your entire Amazon presence.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: But at least the technology's here, and you made a really great point.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's been painful in the past, so I'll take any innovation.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And going into you touched about advertising.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: How can sellers adapt their advertising approach for these like high traffic holidays?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess to manage expectations, you know, typically during the holidays, and I'm sure you can verify this, Victor.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right before the holiday, like a week or two, usually when it's announced, you'll see a dip in your ROAS.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you could expect a lot of window shopping, and it doesn't mean you should throttle back on your ads or anything, you should stay the course.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then normally when the holiday hits, you know, we see a spike in conversion rate, sales comes in, everybody's happy.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd say so.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: People are getting fatigued.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm hearing around the seller space and what I'm hearing from brands in our portfolio are that you know, CPCs get crazy, there's only so much supply to go around.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Video content drives sales, it does really well, but there's very limited inventory available, so it's just a really competitive space.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing I want to call out is like have your North Star KPI.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it's fun to get exciting, and somebody in the advertising space, like, I love to spend money and drive results for the brands that we work with, but it's important to have some type of efficiency.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Are we going balls to the wall?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Are we trying to get top line growth?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a hybrid?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Is it like a certain efficiency standard, or are we not participating?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're selling that plunger.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just focus on efficiency.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a plunger holiday, for example.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Darn.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: So just call that like to be clear like have goals, have KPIs.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's the number one thing to consider.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Outside of that, depending on what your strategies are, you're gonna want to make sure you're pushing top of search inside your campaigns.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: They have that bid multiplier you can use.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: You've seen a lot of success with top of search, especially if you're coupling that strategy with a sponsored brand, a sponsored brand video.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Also, there's lots of keywords you can rank for.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: We find that you should pick the top depending on your budget.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Five to 25 keywords that you want to own market share.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Everything else is just icing on the cake, but identifying those very relevant competitive keywords that you want to own will help kind of gauge how much you need to invest and what type of return you can expect.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then I say take advantage of a lot of the free tools they have on Amazon, like free tools, but like brand tailor promotions was just launched, manage your customer experience, Amazon Posts, like these are all technically advertising tools that you can use that are low cost.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're not gonna get a ton of volume.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: What you're doing is like you're putting your brand all over the place.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's awareness, it's getting eyeballs.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then inside the accounts, you know, depending on your efficiencies, you're likely gonna want to leverage all ad types.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, the workup period, and this is for like last minute.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: So ideally, like late, like around the time we're recording this, late October, you're already considering like your ramp up.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And November, you'll likely start getting a little more aggressive with maybe DSP campaigns.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: You'll start to get a little more aggressive with your sponsored display.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the goal is just like you're building your remarketing audience.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we do a bottom-up approach, you're still gonna want to make sure they're in market, there's some type of like contextual tie back to your product, or you know, you have some great demographic data.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing is consider remarketing and retargeting using sponsored display, using DSP.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Brand Taylor Promotions kind of has this baked in a little bit, but try to get your products back in front of shoppers.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a one-time purchase product, exclude all those audiences unless you have some type of cross-sell or an upgrade to an existing product.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of that be based on category and then monitor during the event and up to the event, monitor bids and budgets.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: We like to leverage portfolios because it makes it really easy to kind of manage promotional campaigns.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll literally have like T5 portfolio and we may duplicate existing campaigns, but it gives us the ability to be more aggressive.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then when the event is over, we don't really mess with our Evergreen campaign.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we could just pause the portfolio and we have you know locked and loaded for other events and a great way to kind of collect data.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Don't push products that have poor reviews.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: If it has less than 3.5 stars, it's super competitive.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, if you honestly less than four stars, but I'm being generous, less than 3.5 stars, I would consider other product advertised.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then, like, what are your goals?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Are we liquidating?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Are we pushing evergreen products?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Are we launching new products?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's all types of things to consider.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: But those are some of the top ones that come to my head when we're considering advertising and advertising strategies.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure there's lots of gaps.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, Vic, if you have anything to add, I'd love to hear what you guys go on.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I love to hear the holiday-related keywords that you're utilizing, like the gifts for dad or the like Christmas gifts.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you utilize that in your strategy when it comes down to keywords on Amazon?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: To be honest with you, we don't.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: I actually don't recommend it.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, some people do it, they think it's a great idea.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's too subjective.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's, you know, yes, you might get some traffic, but like gifts for dad, it's like search that it's like no man's land.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's just so much crap.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would rather take that budget and put in the DSP and build an audience or target an audience or even go a little higher in the funnel and get some contextual audiences built.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: So when we think of those types of keywords, we kind of stay away.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there's a place, like I think for like novelty products that works really well, and certain other categories that might like ties, like some something very stereotypical, might be a good bit.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: But for the most part, for our brands, we we don't really leverage that.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that there's not a place for it, we just don't use it at Belvic.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I feel like it would have to be a really trendy product, a very specific use case to be something to be somewhere in that.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then when it comes down to strategies, you talk about doing all the formats on Amazon.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: What lately has been working well for you on a format standpoint?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Has it been sponsor brand video?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is it still sponsored products that have been working well?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sponsor display, like what's been working for you lately and how has that changed your Q4 strategy?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, typically still sponsored products, and to be perfectly honest with you, for 90% of our brands outside of like our, we call them whales, but our enterprise level clients, sponsor products, and we're doing about 80% of our budget, you know, directly into sponsored products because it has the best ROAS, and like most sellers, the goal is like to get sales, and we'll put about 20% on DSP.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: It would be the sponsored brand video is secondary.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: We are seeing a lot of engagement, and something we've been pushing at Bellavics is streaming TV.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this will be the first year where we have streaming TV ads running for multiple brands.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we're interested to see the type of brand lift and what we can expect during the holiday.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, at the Accelerate event that took place in August, I think, you know, they were really pushing streaming TV.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: They had the advertising event in New York where they were talking about Prime Video and the ability of how great their shows are and how to get your products in there.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we're seeing this is a huge brand awareness push for a lot of our brands.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And Amazon has some really great programs to get your products and some of these prime videos, some of these great shows that are pushing on the Amazon side.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I also want to dive into what role does inventory management play in the last-minute preparations for Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're listening to this, which is probably sometime in November, if you haven't sent your inventory out, it should have been on October 26th.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if you don't have inventory in, I would consider those products obsolete.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean you can't advertise them, but maybe you're not aggressive on discounts or you just don't participate with those products and let the natural sales volume kind of take hold of that.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: But for everyone else who is prepared and you have inventory in, uh, inventory is everything.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to make sure that you have enough inventory.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the way we do it, we look at historical sales.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, what did we do last year?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: How much was the lift when looking at the month before and then the month to date prior?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then what was that lift during the event, which gives us some information?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And now we have, you know, we have summer prime day.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: So like if you launch and you don't have any of that data, you could look at summer prime day, you could look at fall prime day.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: So like there's lots of opportunities.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have completely no data and you're brand new, you just got up now, I would say take your daily sales velocity and on those holidays bump up at least 20%, just so you make sure you have enough inventory.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And those are kind of how we look at it.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And inventory is everything, you can't sell products that aren't in stock.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And do you have any other insights of any other strategies to make sure you stay in stock?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whether if it's like having an FBM listing or any other backups to make sure that you don't go to stock for this Q4?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: You nailed it, and obviously you saw the gap, FBM listings, have the two, toggle it on and off.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have the ability to use a third-party logistics provider, obviously have the FBM listing you know ready to rock and roll.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So if you run out of stock, you can just turn it right back on.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Cool, awesome.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then can you share, provide insights into pricing strategies that work for last-minute preparizations on promo codes and everything else like that?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, so as mentioned before, the shopper on Amazon is looking for a discount.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway you get ahead of it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: The promo codes, the sales price, promotions.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: We saw really good results summer prime day, fall prime day with prime exclusive discounts.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: So this year specifically, Bellavics is going to be pushing prime exclusive discounts pretty hard with our brands.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing is this is the season where if you're a wholesaler, if you're selling wholesale and you have lots of distributors, this is when some of those bad actors will show up, undercut your product.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: So in preparation, we make sure, you know, you have a map policy, you have a way to enforce map policy.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then it doesn't hurt to put something out to your wholesaler saying, we know holidays are coming up, we'll be monitoring our marketplaces.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure you adhere to our map policy or make sure you're not listing products that you shouldn't otherwise list on the marketplace.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the goal is to be just really proactive.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: So from a pricing strategy, you know, if you can afford it, it makes sense.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: We're not in the plunger category, you know, run some discounts, run some promos, give the people what they want.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then outside of that, keep your distribution in check.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that your wholesalers understand, you know, what the guidelines are to sell on Amazon if they're even allowed to sell on the market.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Are you an online seller struggling to navigate the complexities of marketplace management?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let Bellivix help.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Our dedicated team of professionals are passionate, innovative, and committed to excellence to growing your brand on marketplaces.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: With Bellovix, you can trust your brand where we receive personalized support and expertise that will help you stand out from the competition.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: We understand that every brand is unique, which is why we tailor our approach to fit your specific needs.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're ready to take the brand to the next level in marketplaces, contact Bellovix today.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let us help you achieve your goals to grow your brand.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Can you go into a little bit about the promo strategies before Black Friday, during Black Friday, and after Black Friday?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like you do any promo strategies like doing a 10% off before Black Friday, and then on Black Friday doing 50%, and then after doing a promo code there.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Can you go into a little bit that timeline a bit?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, typically we recommend running a discount, usually pretty small.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: It comes down to like what you could afford.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I would say on average, a Bellavix brand, this is average across our portfolio.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: The typical discount during the Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is about 35 to 40%.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's aggressive, but like it's not as crazy as you would think.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And generally, before you're gonna run anywhere between 10 and 15%, people will add it to the cart and they'll get that notification saying price dropped.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And usually that gets people super excited and they pull the trigger.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then you want them to miss out.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: You want them to be some type.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we may not cut the discount back to that 10 or 15%, but we may drop it 5% and then incrementally kind of work it up as we go through December.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because don't forget, you know, the T5 is an important time.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be lots of traffic, but I mean it is just kicking off to a very busy shopping season.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, from the T5 to about December 22nd, you know, people are shopping.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And even two weeks into January, you have the gift card shoppers.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: So there's no reason to throttle down, you should throttle down your bids and your advertising a little bit, but there's no reason to take away promotions or be less aggressive in advertising.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: You should definitely make sure you're pushing your promotions and you're pushing it all the way through mid-January, is typically what we'd recommend.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then obviously you're going to throttle the promotions, start not as aggressive, T5, be as aggressive as you are comfortable being for the entire year.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, T5 and Prime Day in the summer are where we see the deepest discounts across the brands we represent, and then kind of taper that off.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: So as you get closer to the 22nd, you know, start ramping back that discount, increase your profitability, and then don't forget about those gift card shoppers that are coming, you know, December 26th because they can't wait to spend.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And can you go into a little bit about you touched on profitability?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: We went to promos, but now let's do the opposite of that conversation, which is profitability.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we actually make profit this Q4 with the rising cost of advertising, with inflation, like everything?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I love to hear your thoughts on how a lot of sellers can be profitable during Q4.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's gonna come down to the efficiency.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, right now, you know, the FBA, the storage fees, like everything is a premium right now.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And Amazon is not helping us with their price parity and some of these other rules they have around, you know, the marketplace.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you're a multi-channel seller, you know, a discount on Walmart that isn't reflected on Amazon will kill your listing.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, lose the buy box, and it could mess up your entire strategy.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: So profitability is important.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna want to make sure your Amazon prices match your prices across online, and you're gonna want to make sure that your advertising budget, the efficiency standard, and we use tacos, total advertising cost of sale, total spend by total sales, ad sales, and organic sales.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the KPI.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So having those metrics in mind, you can be a little less profitable, like depending on where you are as a business.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like we have some launch brands that we're working with that are funded, which is great.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And like their goal right now is like top line sales.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't care what it costs, but like we want to be at X amount by the end of the year.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: That might be a different strategy.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, we're gonna want to be as efficient with the funds that we're given, but obviously we need to hit a sales goal.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the execution is gonna be a little different.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Outside of that, leverage like the brand referral bonus that gives you a discount on fees for any traffic driven off of Amazon.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a light, oh, they got rid of the small light program.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's just baked into light products.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: You don't even have to worry about that if you have a product that is like it's like under 12 ounces and 12 bucks or whatever that is.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: But that's it, it's the KPIs.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the expenses outside of operations, those are what they are.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: The price parity is what it is.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: So what you have that you can actually control is your advertising efficiency and how much you're willing to invest at what rate in order to kind of get these sales.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: But keep in mind, like these can float you into a really good Q1 depending on what your product is.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you're a supplement sports equipment fitness product, I would go pretty hard because you know your season, you're January through March, even into May.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like this could be a good diving board into great sales into that Q1 to like amplify the efforts you put in.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: But for typical products, toys, electronics, other things, you know, you want to take advantage to get that SEO and organic ranking, but also understand, you know, where am I profitable?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: What can I invest?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you might not want to participate outside of the plunger.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: You may sell some great toys, but the demand's gonna be there.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be there anyway.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get sales.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: You may not get a ton of sales, but you'll get people looking at just doing your typical advertising, being less aggressive.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're still gonna get placements, you'll still get sales.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: It just may not be great.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's profitable and it makes sense for your business, then it is what it is.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: You write it out this year.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you touched on this a little bit between the price parity across Amazon and Walmart.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's critical because as soon as like you're ready to hit the button, everything's changed, and then all of a sudden that's the worst thing is to automatically be cut.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that like if anyone had a huge takeaway from this, is like, please make sure if you're on Amazon or any of these other marketplaces, please make sure you do the same promo across everywhere because that's literally the worst thing that can happen is to be in peak season, like everything, and all of a sudden have your listing shut down.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: So please make sure it's the same across everything.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And just to add to that, too, people can double dip on coupons.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: We've had vendors forget that they have a prime exclusive discount with a coupon, and then they're able to double dip and get a really good discount, but maybe not so profitable for the vendors.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: So keep in mind that you know, if you evergreen, let's just say you always run a five percent discount.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure you're turning off that promotion if you're gonna have a prime exclusive discount that runs during T5.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: It could all be scheduled.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you can literally just end here, the prime exclusive picks up or like whatever promotion you're running, and then you could turn it off and go back to running whatever you might have run before.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: But double dipping is a thing you want to be aware of.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a big, like controversial thing.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe in promo stacking or not promo stacking?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning that having a prime exclusive discount, a coupon, like basically there's people that go for all the badges all at the same time, and there's the people that only go for one because they think it's a waste.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: What is your philosophy on promo stacking?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, typically we only run one promotion.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't done a lot of testing on promo stacking, to be honest with you.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not sure the effectiveness of a strategy like that.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: But typically we run one.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, we're pretty aggressive with the discounts that we do run.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then a lot of what we're doing is like serving, using ads to just serve those products to customers you think will buy it.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Especially if you're running like a lightning deal or something, you'll get the red call out, you'll get all types of bells and whistles.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And usually that's enough.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: There is such a thing as overkill.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I haven't run the test, I would love to see.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have experience with it, Vic?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, not really.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: I heard that a lot of people that don't believe in promo stacking that they think it's a waste.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have people that swear by it.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I never really experiment with it before because almost a 50-50, people believing it or not believing it.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like it was completely, I never ended up testing it.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I did want to ask you how should sellers balance their efforts between Amazon, Walmart, and Target during these events.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: We touched on Amazon Walmart a little bit.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: How can they like balance the efforts behind this?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd say Amazon is number one, 50% of e-commerce sales.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's a huge marketplace.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then Walmart, then Target.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think Walmart, what are they, 5% of e commerce?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're not very large, but typically 15 to 25% of what you're doing on Amazon.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: You can expect to do on Walmart.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Target would be a little less, it'd be like five to 10% of what you can do.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: The challenge with Walmart, and even specifically Walmart, there's a two day attribution.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a black box.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like you don't know what your ads are doing until two days after.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, like my Black Friday, we're not gonna know what went on until Sunday.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just difficult to do anything.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Target does, depending on which your criterio or forgot the other one, but if you're using them, it does show kind of real time, but like I don't know how accurate it is either.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times with those platforms, it's like set it up, follow best practices, and just monitor and report.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we put a lot of emphasis and effort into Amazon.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's bigger, it's more organized.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot more levers we have to pull that can deliver results.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of how we would prioritize things.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so we talked about a lot about the preparation of what it takes to go through Black Friday.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And now I want to dive into a little bit about how to what you think your thoughts of where do you think it will go?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning that this Amazon Prime Day was a really big Prime Day compared to the last Prime Day two of last year's.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so my question to you is how do you think Black Friday will be in this year?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you think a lot of people did their shopping during Prime Day number two?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think like Black Friday is still gonna be bigger than Prime Day Two?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are your thoughts?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people, like I think last year, the main a lot of people did like a 4X increase on Black Friday last year, but like on Amazon Prime Day number one, they had like a 12x was like the regular increase.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to get your thoughts on how big you think Black Friday will be this year.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I still think Black Friday will be the biggest, you know, black that T5, the but the Black Friday, Cyber Monday will be the biggest holiday, bigger than Prime Day summertime.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: I do think fall prime day kind of it kicked off the shopping season, but like I'm still not convinced.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like my wife and I, we did fall prime day shopping.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't know holiday shopping.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: We recently bought a house.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: We bought tons of stuff we needed for the house and we got it on discount.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not convinced that people use fall prime day as a way to do holiday shopping.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think most of us wait till the last minute and we jump on Amazon because it's convenient and it's gonna show up on my house, and they'll even wrap it for me.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you can't beat that.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think Black Friday will outperform.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I might be inaccurate the data I have, but I'm under the impression that generally Black Friday, Cyber Monday from a re an online e-commerce perspective, is still well above what Prime Day summer does.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I do think that there's just gonna be a lot more day, man.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: A lot more customers are groomed to shop during these periods.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: My mother still shows up to the mall and fights people with a club to get, you know, TVs and the wherever they shop.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: So like I just can't see that changing.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then when do you think the buyer intent and when do you think that's gonna happen?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that uh people are going to still wait like the last if you're a guy, like wait till like the last two days, like uh December 20th, that's when you buy your Christmas gifts?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you think a lot of it will happen during Black Friday?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'd love to get your thoughts on like buying intent and when do you think that is?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think it's gonna be before Christmas?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you think it's gonna be more Black Friday?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just curious.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think we'll see a lot on Black Friday, but I'm convinced that from December 1st to the 22nd, it'll kind of pit her off.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I think, you know, I'd expect a lot more to come in December.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I would think probably between, you know, the 12th to the 19th, 20th is probably where you see a lot of sale, a lot of last minute.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Not a bad idea to be aggressive on promotion.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't mention it, but bundles like getting creative to get products out, increase your average order value and everything else that comes with pushing products during the holiday.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I December should be it's always strong.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: So from an advertising spend perspective, you recommend that people should almost invest like the week before Black Friday and then keep pushing through Black Friday and also almost maintain that current that still spend ramp up throughout December, is what I'm hearing.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, kind of.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, we start pushing November 1st, give or take.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like we'll we'll pick up DSP.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're not as aggressive like it's a roll-up period.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: So like we'll build additional audiences.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: We may turn on keywords that we wouldn't normally have on due to like historical performance, but we want to have a presence and we want to make sure we're driving awareness because we know we're gonna get more shoppers and we might get better conversion rates.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: I would say we'll probably peak our spend, we'll be aggressive during the T5, but we'll probably peak our spend around mid-December and then we'll kind of glide it back.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And to be clear, like T5 is a busy period, so like we're aggressive with our bids and our placements, but we're gonna scale that back.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: We'll still have the budgets, but we're gonna be less aggressive on bids because after that T5 period, it is kind of about efficiency.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna we will likely not be as aggressive on keywords that are less relevant or historically have not performed as well, and we'll double down on what we know works, which is those maybe that list of 10 to 25 relevant keywords will continue to push hard, but we're all this ancillary stuff that we were doing will probably cut back.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: DSP spend at this point, we'll probably scale back anything mid and upper funnel outside of other initiatives, and we'll likely focus on just remarketing.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like at this point, let's just get the sales in, let's make money while it's out there because the intent is gonna slowly drift away and we don't want to be just wasting our spend, not investing the spend to the best of our ability.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: So long-winded away saying, yeah, we do kind of have a long tail, but like we're not going balls to the wall from November 1st to January 14th.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, A, we likely don't have the budget for that, and B, the results, you know, they'll be good, but they'll they'll pit her up.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to make sure you're aggressive during that event, because events you always need to be aggressive, and then you just want to be smart.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I like a lot of times we'll use the portfolio approach and then we'll just kill that portfolio.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we have all our other campaigns where we'll just be doing our optimization process and making sure that we're adhering to whatever tacos threshold that we're working in.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And is there anything else that topic-wise, you touched about bundles?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything else that we talked about that you want to add more clarity on or anything else that you want to mention?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're a big fan of streaming TV.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: So at this time right now, Amazon has a really awesome program.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they'll record, right?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: You got pass a credit check and some other things, but they'll record a 30-second commercial for you as long as you commit to spending$15,000 over 90 days.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the video is baked in, and you know, anybody's created video content with actors and on scene, you know, somewhere out in public, it's relatively expensive.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the fact that Amazon's eating this cost so that they can get more brands on streaming TV, based on what we're seeing within the industry of streaming TV, connected TVs becoming really big.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: I just like say if you're not considering it, it's a great time to talk to your advertising rep or your agency and you know, take advantage of these because this is not going to be around forever.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that some point in 2024, Amazon's gonna be like, you're on, you're on, we've made enough videos.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but why it's here, you should take advantage of it.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: If nothing else, you get to take that money that you would have invested in creating a video and you get to pump that directly into apps just to get build your audience and get some exposure on Prime Video and some of these other OTT and streaming TV platforms, you know, all through Amazon, of course.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: And out of everything we talked about, what would be your one key takeaway for someone out there that is getting ready for Prime Day and wanting to make the most of their Black Friday?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: What would be their one takeaway that they should do after this?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, after the Black Friday After they end up watching and listening to this episode, what would be their your one key takeaway that they should go and do to really get ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Update all your listings, get a holiday theme, make sure you have keywords like gift for him or her if it's very giftable item inside your title or somewhere on your listing.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Don't use emojis, you can get suppressed.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Amazon always waits the holiday key events before they punish other sellers.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: I swear on it.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're any rules, stop breaking them as close to the, you know, now don't do it again, obviously.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I would say listing the appeal and get some video content.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Video sells, we're seeing really great results with video, and it's only getting better.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just saw a feature in search where the search results show up on the mobile device and they have like a play button in the right corner of the actual listing.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Just saw this today, and you can play a video of the product from the search page, like right there, as long as it has a video integrated with your listing already.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought this was really cool.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously, Amazon is pushing the crap out of video, so I'm pushing the crap out of video or sellers why Amazon's doing it.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Will, thank you so much for joining today.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Please tell the audience how to find more about you and to get more in contact with Bellavics.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hell yeah.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks so much for having me.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Check us out, bellavics.com.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Will Hare.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: You can check me out on LinkedIn, hair like on your head with an E.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we have a newsletter that we like to push, seller news comes out weekly, and we talk about all the changes to the platform, advertising, and seller central and vendor central, and how it affects your bottom line.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: So highly recommend signing up to that letter with some really great content.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Vic, thanks for having me, man.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, awesome.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Will, thank you so much for joining.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, everyone, for listening.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is Selling on Giants, the e commerce marketplace show, and we'll catch you next time.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, guys.