XP Strategy, Amazon PPC & Marketing

Yesterday I followed LinkedIn’s advice and took a bunch of pictures. Did I do it right?!?

Day 1 (Day 0.5?) of Amazon Accelerate is in the books. Making badge-pickup day into an exhibitor day as well was GENIUS, and a full day where we didn’t have to be in a particular room at a particular time was great. I was able to stop by booths, to walk the floor, to have longer conversations. Networking, connecting, and reconnecting are the top reasons to attend any event that requires traveling, so if Amazon can figure out how to build on this, it would be great. I must say though, I’m not sure i understand the point of having lots of floor space dedicated to arts and crafts - so much that I was shooed from a picnic table mid-conversation because a doll-stuffing activity was about to start. Um, what? Looking forward to Day 2, especially the keynote!

Entertaining, horrifying, and viral. What a combination. https://lnkd.in/eWf6yb-C

Just spent an hour presenting to the esteemed members of the CORE® Community. These are some of the smartest people in PPC, and giving them things to think about and implement and improve on (and vice versa) was an intense experience! Thanks to Brent Zahradnik for co-hosting and keeping my head screwed on straight. Michael Erickson Facchin Gonza Martinez Elizabeth Greene

I’m thinking of creating an Amazon PPC course. (Yes. I know. Another one.) I take lots of other courses, and keep seeing things I’d organize or present totally differently, including my framing and philosophy behind ads. So… - Should I? - What things should I include that are currently missing from all the content floating around?

Amazon is going to become an ugly warzone over the next six months. For years I’ve shrugged off complaints that Amazon fee increases are excessive. I’ve always said that costs go up in the real world, so do Amazon fees, and brands just need to maneuver appropriately. I think that Amazon has finally gone overboard. The new Amazon inventory placement fees are killing sellers, and my clients are really being affected by this. All month, every seller that’s on top of their costs has been telling me that these new fees make some amount of their product selection just not worth it anymore. Here’s the real problem: At most, 25% of sellers understand their fees, and the other 75% just get their batches, do business-y stuff, and get the next batch, not understanding their profitability at all. They have no idea how much money they are now losing regularly. Normally when costs go up, so do prices. We see it at the supermarket, the clothing store, etc. However, on Amazon, if 75% of competitors don’t realize their expenses have changed, they keep their prices the same, and the other 25% of sellers need to remain competitive. Prices stay too low and everyone suffers (but not everyone realizes it). So, a prediction: - for the next six months sellers who understand their costs will suffer as they try to remain competitive with sellers that are losing money. - the six months after that will see all the clueless sellers crashing and potentially going out of business - this might look like prices crashing as sellers suddenly need cash, it might look like huge spikes in price, it might look like a lot fewer advertisers as sellers cut out costs in extreme fashion. December spikes might prolong the last gasps a bit. - after those two phases, the sellers who have been carefully managing their businesses will be the last ones standing, and will be able to raise their prices and recoup their losses with appropriate price raises. Am I being overly dramatic here?

This is what it looks like to win the Prosper Show AI Hackathon! brent wees,RECC thanks for the pregame pep talk, and thanks to all the amazing people on my round table that did all the real work!

Amazon isn’t the only place where Private Label is a huge part of the picture. Apparently Kroger/Albertsons has a combined 40,000 private label brands in their portfolios. I don’t know how accurate this is - some googling suggests that the number may refer to SKUs instead of brands, but even that is massive. Looks like 22% of sales for Kroger is PL, which is also a lot. I don’t really need to shoehorn everything I ever read into an Amazon context, but if I had to do so here, I’d say that all big brands are ripe for poaching sales from. (I was going to say that 60% of Amazon sales are PL, but I think that’s incorrect. I believe that number is 3P sellers, many of whom are wholesalers. Does anyone know the correct number here?) Anywho, Matt Stoller’s BIG is one of my favorite non-Amazon business reads, I highly recommend this one. https://lnkd.in/eMkCSXTC

It’s midnight. I just shot off a message to my EA before falling asleep, I didnt want to forget something (I also don’t expect a reply until shift starts) Within 2 minutes she replied that I’m up too late and I need to get a full nights sleep. Apparently, executive time management has just been taken up a notch.

Currently attending Kevin King’s virtual BDSS event. My brain is on overload with the quantity and quality of actionable items. (And I’m pretty jaded) Can’t recommend this enough!