Latest / Talk Commerce / Prime Day Strategy and the Evolution of Amazon Advertising: Insights from Will Haire
Transcript
- Brent (00:01.314) Welcome to this episode of Talk Commerce. Today I have Will Hare. He's with Bella Vicks. Will, go ahead and do an introduction for yourself. Tell us your day-to-day role and one of your passions. Will Haire | BellaVix (00:12.118) Awesome. Yeah, so Will Hare. I'm the co-founder of Bellavix. Bellavix is a marketplace and marketing agency. We help brands scale on Amazon, Walmart and Target. And to date, we've done a little over half a billion dollars in sales. So pretty exciting. And I have lots of experience working with brands. About myself, I am a father of two. I spend lots of time with my kids. We're into basketball. Pokemon cards are like a crazy thing right now. So I don't understand them. And my kids are funny because they'll get a brand new pack of these Pokemon cards and they open them in front of me and they're like, this one's fake. I'm like, you know, game freak. I guess it's part of their business model. Just throwing a couple of fake cards. But either way, it's very entertaining and I'm living in Raleigh, North Carolina. Brent (00:56.846) That's awesome and my kids were also into Pokemon cards. They're a little bit older than you. fact, yeah, we won't go into that. So Will, besides the fact that I'm willing to have hair at some point in my life and it's probably too late, you have volunteered to be part of the Free Joke Project before we get started. So I'm just going to tell you a joke. Just give me a rating 8 through 13. So here we go. Will Haire | BellaVix (01:08.56) Ha Will Haire | BellaVix (01:27.814) I'm gonna give it a solid 13, because there was no sound and why not. Brent (01:34.478) All here we go. We'll do it one more time. No, no. All right, we'll do it one more time. I apologize. Yeah, I must have unmuted or muted halfway, right? All right, well, here we go. Re- redoing it, here we go. try, here we go. All right, here we go. I tried to come up with a carpentry pun that would work. I think I nailed it, but nobody saw it. Will Haire | BellaVix (01:36.619) thought that was the joke! He totally duped me! Will Haire | BellaVix (02:00.134) The first joke was better. I'm gonna give this one a 10. Brent (02:04.47) All right, thank you very much. right, yeah, apologize for that. All right, Will, so we're gonna talk about Amazon retail media networks, Walmart, Target. Why can't Target ever do anything that seems to work? There you go. Tell me a little bit about Prime Day that is coming up for us, during this podcast, it's already happened. Will Haire | BellaVix (02:14.18) Let's do it. Will Haire | BellaVix (02:21.83) Keeps us gainfully employed, that's why. Brent (02:34.274) Tell us what people should expect post-Prime Day and are we going to have a Prime Day every day pretty soon? Will Haire | BellaVix (02:41.062) I hope so. at this point, you never know. Prime Day is a, we call it a 10 post sales event for Amazon sellers. And essentially it is, I've been in retail a while. It is one of two times a year that products tend to be on sale at the lowest prices you're get them. So I tell my mom, my aunts and uncles, everybody support my people, go shop on Amazon. But as sellers, this is a great time to move giftable items. Typically what we see is like, People shopping during this period are shopping for themselves. So like beauty products, supplement, even a lot of like the household items tend to do really well. So if you're a brand and you're considering participating, you probably already noticed that your cost per clicks have increased and we're getting a lot of people add to cart. Amazon has given us a ton of new advertising features to better target these shoppers that add to cart but don't make a purchase. And it's a great time to kind of get in front of shoppers and get some sales velocity up. Post sales, post prime day is kind of challenging because like everything kind of needs a reset. And typically for most categories, if you're not selling some block or something like that, July, August, September tends to be a lull. That's kind of like how prime day came to be about. So typically what we tell our brands that participated, they're still shoppers. They're the FOMO shoppers I'd like to call them. They're the ones who come a little bit after. So it's good to run some type of sale, maybe not as aggressive as you did during the prime day, but understand that people will come on, they'll continue to shop as usual. But the biggest thing is to make sure that you're scaling back your CPCs, you're eliminating targets that aren't needed. If you're running programmatic advertising through the demand side platform, you'll wanna use that new data and try to build audiences. So if you're a newer product and you didn't have enough volume to your listing, to in order to create an audience in the Amazon display, DSP. This is a good time to retry those audiences, because you'd be surprised the uptip in traffic generally helps. And then it's business as usual, run your promotions as you normally do. And by September, we're gonna be talking about best deals day and Q4. So don't worry, it'll only be a couple more months before we're rediscounting products and trying to sell more stuff. Brent (05:00.536) So going into Prime Day, should you double down on your ads going into Prime Day and then after Prime Day, kind of learn what you've received from all that traffic and then kind of work on your ads going into Black Friday? I'm assuming there'll be a bunch of pre-Black Fridays with Amazon as well. That's kind of the learning curve for merchants on Amazon. Will Haire | BellaVix (05:23.6) Yeah, so you nailed it. we, at the end of the day, you can only be as aggressive as you could afford. Like I will never tell a brand to be like, spend more money than you're gonna make on a product. Like it doesn't make sense. So have an allocated budget or like an efficiency KPI, but understand two to four weeks leading up to prime day, conversion rates dip, cost per clicks go up, cause everybody is getting ready for prime day. But the opportunity is that you're building the audience. And ideally like typically when we run it, it's like, two week run up period where we're just getting a lot more traffic within reason. And then we're going hard during the prime week now, it's four days, Tuesday through Friday. And we're just hitting them with ads on display networks, on pay per click. A lot of our partners are syndicating on their social media or hitting up their email list. But we're all driving traffic to the big brother so that they can make their money and we can get a piece of that pie. That's kind of how it works. And then post prime day, it's correcting that. A lot of times we're pausing a lot of campaigns and we're just, then that data, Amazon will have its deals days, which is like prime day light in October. And you can take what you learned from there and apply it. A lot of times we have seasonal portfolios on the backend. So it's just a matter of turning some of them on, maybe adding some negative keywords or killing targets that didn't perform well regardless. then, you know, using that data to inform you as you step into deals day, the Black Friday Cyber Monday, which is the next big shopping event extravaganza. Brent (06:58.51) had a guest on earlier that said that Amazon is still like Google was 20 years ago, or Google Ads were 15 years ago, where you could spend money and actually get traffic. Is that still true? Do you think that the ads on Amazon still get you that instant feedback like Google used to do? Will Haire | BellaVix (07:18.48) Yeah, so I'm a recovered Google ads manager and I was stolen away to the Amazon, but that's like when I transition over, that's one of the strangest things to me. It's like your advertising spend and sales velocity influences organic ranking. So it's still a really fun place to be because your advertising influences so many other aspects of your listing, which helps with sales velocity and everything else. So yeah, it's still, it's still very relevant. I'm waiting to get replaced by AI and probably next three to six months, so then I'll be looking for a job, so I might come work with you, Brent (07:52.002) There you go. tell us about how Walmart fits into this picture and then Target and whoever else is coming up the line that maybe is trying to compete with Amazon. Will Haire | BellaVix (08:03.44) Yeah. So I'll speak to Walmart. I can speak to Target and then I can talk philosophically about like social and where it plays. typically Amazon, you know, give or takes like 50 % of e-commerce. A lot of search starts on Amazon and whether you like it or not, you're doing TikTok ads or Instagram ads. They're going to hit your website and then I'm going to check on Amazon. Could I get it faster? Can I get it cheaper? It's just, it's a, we're an omnichannel shopper. And a lot of people like millennials like I do most of my shopping on Amazon, but I drink the Kool-Aid, so take it for what it's worth. When it comes to Walmart, Walmart's ideal shopper journey is buy online and pick up in store for its e-commerce users. So if you're using WFS and you're still a third-party seller, the volume is a lot lower and it's still pretty competitive, because you're competing with all those products that are cutthroat for shelf. So not only are competing with you know, your Johnson's and Johnson's, like your big brands, you're also competing with other three P's and you're less prioritized than the one P's because they want, they want you to go into store. They want to maintain that shelf space. And so typically for three P, not one P, for three P sellers, you can expect to do like 10 to 20 % of whatever you're doing on Amazon or your website, depending on where you're emphasizing at the moment. So it's a nice to have. We do participate in these deals. We run promotions, we run ads, but we're very strategic with how much we're investing. We've helped a pet brand, but why would you want to be on Walmart? It's still a first mover marketplace. Amazon's 10 years behind Google. Well, Google, sorry. Walmart is 10 years behind Amazon. Like it's still very rudimentary. And if you go to the Walmart seller summit, like I do every year, they're rolling out everything that Amazon is doing two years ago. So like they're adding all these new features and it's great. I already know about them because I've been using them for two years on Amazon. So we get to use them on Walmart. So they are trying and they're giving us new features and stuff, but it's just like their priority is one P there. You know, there's a Walmart 10 miles of every major city. Amazon doesn't have that type of infrastructure. So I think it'll take some time. Will Haire | BellaVix (10:25.99) Should you invest? Sure. And the long-term benefit is if you can scale sales to a certain point, you can get into brick and mortar. So like a lot of times when the buyers are looking around, they're gonna look on their website to see what 3P products are actually moving and they'll reach out to you. And we've had a pet brand in a really unique niche that, you know, the product was a good fit, the price point was a good fit. and we were able to scale their sales to a point where an Amazon, Walmart buyer reached out and they got in conversations and right now they're in the phase where they're testing a certain region, but we got them into brick and mortar and that's something that they wanted. Not everybody wants that. So like that, that's the Walmart advantage, if you will, but it's still a very small piece of the pie. And Target, I can only speak to Target from an advertising perspective. We've never managed operationally. been brought on through like Citrus ad or Credio and we use those to kind of scale their ads. Advertising is a bit challenging on target. We're talking like, geez, I don't even know, whatever pre-Google was for display ads. That's pretty much like what it is on target. It's very rudimentary. It's very difficult. The data is not very good. But if you use a platform like Packview that ties into it, you can get more of a holistic picture and it's It's actually easier to work through something like PacFew than it is some of these other third parties, but only speak from advertising. It's a use advantage and the like what's nice about Target, it's limited competition, it's not an open marketplace. You have to be invited into Target. It's very specific on who gets in. So advertising tends to perform pretty well and you we kind of know who we're competing against. So it's a good platform, but you're really limited on what you can do. Brent (12:17.656) Does that limited availability maybe lend better to the consumer because they're not seeing 50 billion different choices on one thing? Especially on Amazon, sometimes you have way too many choices and limited availability helps you to choose easier. Will Haire | BellaVix (12:34.864) Well, know, as somebody in the advertising space, absolutely not. I need to tell these people what they need to buy and try to play the puppeteer where I can. it also it is a better, mean, my we like the shop at Target. It is a better user experience. And the fact that like they're the barrier to entry to get in and the lack of competition does make it a better consumer journey. And they have like almost like Amazon like that, almost that built in trust that it's probably going to be a pretty decent product if I'm buying it at Target. Brent (13:07.31) I read something that's still 80 % of all transactions are done offline in brick and mortar. Is it a good strategy to make sure you're on one of the big box stores to ensure that you potentially would have a future place for your product in store to take advantage of that 80 % that's buying in store rather than just online? Will Haire | BellaVix (13:29.03) Yeah, that's actually really interesting. you know, it's a bit separated from what we do being in the e-commerce space. a lot of brands, like 60 % of my brands aren't in brick and mortar. We focus a lot on digital brands only, but I follow the operators and they, you know, it's, geez, I always say Molly, but they do, I've got the name of the supplement, but they do like, they're really big. They're eight. nine figure brands, they're huge. And one of the things that they said, I caught them at a talk and it really resonated. It's like, when you pay for CPMs, you know, and you're paying for millions of views and it costs you whatever it costs you. But when you're in Target, when you're on a corner aisle, like one Target store per day is gonna get like, you know, 10,000 people walking past that aisle and seeing your product. And like, you can't directly tie that digitally, but like it has an impression and not only that but like the instant validation of being like Seeing it in brick and mortar seeing a TV ad for it and then seeing it in these different marketplaces Like that's what helps these brands get from that seven figure to that eight and nine figure so when they explain to me like how Retail works and like the impression share you get from being on a shelf. You're like, like as an advertiser. I'm like, I I never thought about that, but that makes sense. So it has a huge advantage. And if you could get into it, sure. But like not every business is set up to do wholesale. Like we work with a lot of people that are like, Hey, I want to operate my website. I don't want the headaches. You know, it's very cash intensive to get on shelves and get all that inventory out where, you know, if you're, if you're working consignment essentially with Amazon and on your website, like you could control your cashflow and I guess it depends how much money you want to make. Brent (15:26.926) I know that all of those, all the brands have an entry point and then there's days and weeks that you should be in there. Give us the days that are, actually let me back up one step. Amazon has Prime Day. What are all the other days that merchants should pay attention to? Will Haire | BellaVix (15:51.494) So it's hard to say because it's seasonal. Like if you're in a pet area, like pet day I think is in March, you have Earth Day if you're you're doing green products. But like honestly, typically we are trying to scale sales with things like Amazon just has a lot of demand. Sure, they're going to run sales days, they'll be beauty events. And if you're invited to participate, you should always participate. If you can't afford a big discount, don't do a small discount. Some discounts better than no discount. And you don't always have to discount. But in terms of like, when I look at the portfolio brands that we manage, know, Amazon Prime Day, Deals Day, and then how can we support Turkey Five essentially, Black Friday through Cyber Monday, and then Christmas from, you know, pretty much right after Cyber Monday to December 22nd for most products. That's where, you know, we're building our strategies, we're building audiences, and we're concentrating on moving it over. So. Are there other events you could participate in? Yes, but like I haven't been part of another event that like we would do a ton of prep that we see a ton of demand. Amazon doesn't, Amazon, Walmart, Target, like they don't do a good job of promoting these other events. They're like nice to haves. And if I happen to be shopping, I'll notice it and be like, great. I get my dog food at a discount. But for the most part, you know, just operate as you normally would be conscious of your profitability and your cashflow and then understand when to invest. leading up to these big tent pole events and then knowing when to pull out and invest in other places. At the other day, I think what's missed by a lot of sellers who only do Amazon, it's like Amazon's more demand capture and there's a whole demand generation that needs to go on that feeds into Amazon. Amazon, we could do demand generation and I do it. DSP, streaming TV, creator connections, they have some affiliate marketing programs, but it's expensive. You're gonna pay a lot more using Amazon DSP to go mid and upper funnel than you are to just go on TikTok if your audience is there or go on Instagram. But the benefit, and I'm not even saying driving it to Amazon, the benefit of driving it to your website is retention marketing. You own the customer data. And like that's the biggest drawback of these marketplaces. Like you don't own that customer. If you reach out to that customer you're not supposed to, you're gonna get kicked off the platform. And there's lots of people who, Will Haire | BellaVix (18:16.538) who cheat, they cheat the system, they buy reviews, they do these things they're not supposed to. So the brands that I see succeed, they understand that marketplaces are just a part of the journey, but they understand that their brand building comes from outside of Amazon and it comes from where your audiences are, which nowadays it's social media and YouTube. That's where they live. So we're a small piece of the pie. Brent (18:39.566) Do you see people doing social media to get them onto Amazon or do you think they do social media to do direct selling? Will Haire | BellaVix (18:47.11) So, depends what you're going for. I believe in platform mastery. So if your Shopify isn't doing the sales vom you want it to do, you shouldn't be driving traffic to Amazon. You should be focusing all your efforts to you can get predictable sales and predictable outcomes on a single platform before you move over to another platform. Because you're going to spread yourself way too thin and you're never going to achieve scale. Like that's the biggest thing is like how fast can you get the seven figures and how fast you can get there is like how focused you can be. on Platform Mastery. So if you are in this stage, no, drive it to your website. They're gonna cross over. I guarantee it. You'll invest money in Facebook ads and you'll see an uptick on Amazon, because it's just, we're omnichannel shoppers. Now, if our goal is to improve BSR, we're comfortable with our Shopify sales and we now wanna conquer Amazon or Walmart, then yeah, drive it. We'll give you a link, you save money through the brand referral. bonus program, you save on some fees, we can get attribution links to see how well it performs, but like it's never gonna perform as well as driving to the website or being able to purchase directly on the platforms like think TikTok shops or Metashops, whatever they are, not my cup of tea, but that's gonna have the best conversion rate. You're gonna get drop off when they land on an Amazon page and that is not the journey that they're looking for. So yes, depends where you are as a business. Brent (20:13.51) Will, we have a few minutes left here and as I close out the podcast, and by the way it's been fascinating, it's gone so quickly. As I close out, I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything they'd like. What would you like to plug today? Will Haire | BellaVix (20:26.758) Yeah, you know, we're a young company, we're a boutique agency. So like we're hyper focused on customer service and being really selective with the brands we work with. But I do put out a newsletter that I'm trying to build an audience. It's on LinkedIn. So if you follow me on LinkedIn, Will Herr, like on your head with an E, you can check me out. I do no salesy stuff. I follow the news across Amazon and Walmart. and I write about how some of the updates impact e-commerce sellers and what they can do to stay ahead. And I'd appreciate anybody who hears what I'm saying and they haven't rolled their eyes and they're still listening, come check that out. And if you can support me there, that would mean a lot. Brent (21:06.606) That's great, and I'll make sure I put everything on the show notes. How would they get in touch with you directly? Is the best way to go through LinkedIn, or do you have an email address that you could pop? Will Haire | BellaVix (21:14.896) Yep, you could definitely go through LinkedIn or could email me will, W I L L at bellaVix.com. Brent (21:21.762) That's perfect. Will Hare, it's been such a great conversation. Thank you so much for being here today. Will Haire | BellaVix (21:26.32) Thanks having me, Brent.