From East to West: AMA 1.12.2023
Ever wondered why your product’s organic rank increases on Amazon after you advertise for a while? Curious what shoppers are looking for when they get on Amazon and how to drive up conversions? This AMA is for you.
Brett Bohannon, Founder of the best-in-class Amazon education platform Amazon With Brett, and Michael Maher, owner of the custom done-for-you Amazon service agency Cartology, are teaming up on the second Thursday of each month to answer all your burning questions about selling on Amazon. They’ve got details and they’re ready to spill their guts.
If you’re looking for fluff, you’ve joined the wrong event. If you have questions you need to get answered in order to drive results in your business, welcome. You’ve got 30 minutes.
Go!
Michael Maher 00:26
All right, live. In fact, from east to west, Amazon ama asked me a lot of questions. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Michael Maher. This is the other host, Brett Bohannan. And it is 2023. We do not have flying cars yet. It hasn't happened. But I'm hoping that at some point, it will happen. Welcome to the Showbread.
Brett Bohannon 00:56
Flying cars. Hmm, I probably we probably just do this live with each other. Like an hour flight a couple of hours.
Michael Maher 01:06
Yeah, I mean, I'm just I'm a little disappointed that we haven't gotten the cars that we had asked for yet. I feel like we're kind of oh, those cars. You know,
Brett Bohannon 01:14
I agree. But I think I think like last year, plate 2020 22 was George Jetsons birthday. I think we have about another 30 or 40 years, according to George Jetson and the Jetsons.
Michael Maher 01:31
Okay, so we got it. We got a little time.
Brett Bohannon 01:33
Yeah, yeah, we got some time. Like when I get there when our cars.
Michael Maher 01:39
Okay, I doubt. I feel like kids don't even want to drive cars anymore. They just maybe want to Uber places because that's cool. I don't I don't know, I'm not a kid anymore. So I don't know. So this show is all about Amazon. And we answer questions that people might have about Amazon. And you can watch live, or you can watch the restream doesn't matter. Either way. We're talking about Amazon. One of the things that when I last, on the last show that we did, which was the inaugural show, someone that was on the show had mentioned that they like talking about market share. And understanding what your market share on Amazon looks like, can be, I think a great way for brands to know how they're performing and competing with others on Amazon. Now, we all know Amazon doesn't give us direct sales metrics of other people of other performers, we get our own in terms of sales and sessions and conversion rate, we get our ad data, when Amazon is also starting to populate new kinds of reports, brand analytics, search query performance report, there's a lot of new things coming out. And I think a great way to riff from last time into now is to talk about what are some ways that you can determine what your market share looks like? I think the one of the most basic ways to look at market position, which might be a part of market share would be something like BSR bestseller rank. What do you think about that?
Brett Bohannon 03:37
Yeah. Yeah, I think that it's like a perfect, high level of it. And I know that I know, people like you don't have enough, you know, and obviously, there's so many different layers. But I agree there's a good job basically, like what percentage you are in that particular category. So if you have to keep up, I'd recommend I recommend it to everyone. I think it's awesome. But it gives you the opportunity to say hey, you're in this percentage of this category. Back in the day, there's
Michael Maher 04:24
there's a gentleman I think you mean as in like something I forgot his name, but 20% down top 3% or something
Brett Bohannon 04:30
short of like, if you if your BSR is, is x, then you're in the one percentage of the category. And I think he still does, but it was it was awesome back in the day what I was doing when I was doing my own product.
Michael Maher 04:45
So you're saying, looking at BSR to say, out of all the products in here. If you're in you know, top 1000 Then that would be like the top 1% 2% 10% Whatever the case might be. That's how you're calculating it Is that right? We're getting some connectivity issues. Hello? Wow. Wow. Right, is trying to connect in his car.
Brett Bohannon 05:20
Oh, man, I lost you. She sorry, my volume went away.
Michael Maher 05:25
And we are seeing his car. I think BSR for anyone that doesn't know a lot, I mean, I think honestly, most people probably know a bestseller rank is your rank and your performance in a specific category. So if you are me health and personal care, yes, I can hear you. If you're in health and personal care, you have a lower number, like a 10, nine, eight, you're the top. So lower number, the better. And when we look, can you hear me now?
Brett Bohannon 05:59
I lost all volume. I can't hear you, Michael, I don't know what's going on. It was working fine.
Michael Maher 06:03
Okay, well, when we look at that higher number that tells you where you're rated in the category compared to other people. So it doesn't tell you how much sales other people are getting. But you could think about it comparatively, if you are ranked, you know, 10,564. And you see someone that's ranked 2000 likely selling a lot more than you. And one thing that seems to be the case is when you're ranked in a much larger number like 200,000 300,000, that change in a in one position like 200,000 to 1901 199,999 that kind of rank change is not going to make a big difference in terms of sales, it could be one sale, it could barely, you know, it could be not half a sale, but you know, it can be very, very small amount of sales. But when you start getting up to the smaller numbers, the higher rank, like 1999 998, you're gonna see bigger differences in Unit measurement and sales velocity that's going on. So it's gonna be a lot more competitive in that top category. And that also, when you're looking at a top category, like health and personal care, there's a lot of subcategories as well. So you can rank highly in your subcategory. But that doesn't mean that you're selling the same philosophy of units that you're selling in a top category tier. So you hear us now Brett,
Brett Bohannon 07:39
I got you. I don't know what happened. I just asked out and came back in and it was okay. So I apologize.
Michael Maher 07:46
So how are how are you calculate? How was that person? I think he said Brandon was his name. There know what? Steven Justin some guy's name? It was calculating BSR. And top to your percentage?
Brett Bohannon 07:58
Yeah, I don't know. He's been doing it for years and years and years. I've no idea how he does it truthfully. I wish I could tell you, but
Michael Maher 08:07
is he looking at like, compared it to how was he you don't know how he's calculating the percentage of people.
Brett Bohannon 08:14
He's probably pulling it from Keepa, or some some kind of API or database that shows how many products are within the category. I mean, there's like smart scout can do that, too, where it just shows you how many products are within the category. And then kind of figuring out based on the BSR. Brett's got
Michael Maher 08:35
a little a little kiddo with him. So he's, he's figuring stuff out?
Brett Bohannon 08:40
Yeah, yeah, I do have my little one. She's watching Coco melon right there. But we were we were just snowboarding. So we, my guess is this amount of products within that category. And then basically saying, if your BSR is XYZ, then it's going to be within that certain percentage. That's It's just I would I would assume it's just that simple math.
Michael Maher 09:05
So one of the things that I looked into recently and have just toyed around with a little bit was the search query performance report. Sorry, I'd caught there recovering from little sickness. But the search query performance report is interesting because it's now giving you search terms. And it's giving you clicks is giving you add to carts and purchases, not just for your brand, and per item per asin on that term, but it's also giving you compared to the category. And so when we talk about market share, I think looking at how you are doing performance wise compared to the rest of the market that can give you an idea of how much of the share you're actually getting in in a really big competitive category. Let's say consumer electronics. You know getting A percent or half percent, the market could be really, really powerful for you compared to, you know, a market like garden hoses, or a lot, let's say lawn and garden, you know, getting 10% of that market might be a lot easier than even getting half percent of a, you know, bigger market. Any thoughts on that? Brett?
Brett Bohannon 10:26
Yeah, I think I think the search query performance report is like, it's so much information. Like information overload? For me it is yeah, I think I think there's a lot of there's it's
Michael Maher 10:46
got, we got a little kid talking. It is a lot of information for anyone that's looking at the data, there's a ton, there's a ton of different information that's there. You're seeing your brand's performance, you're seeing other the category performance, you're seeing clicks, you're you're seeing even like, same day shipping speed on certain items.
Brett Bohannon 11:09
Yeah, there's, you know, it's downloadable. Now, I think there's, in the future, we're going to see it where it can be twisted into so much good information. I mean, if you if you put it into Excel sheet, and you do some master wizardry stuff you can like, literally be like, Okay, this is how far I am away from, you know, being in the top spot, how many items do I need to sell? How many? What do we need to do, and you can basically create a roadmap from that. I think it's, it's gonna be it's very powerful. And I, me personally, I'm not that like, great at Excel and all that. But all those people that have that kind of Wizardry mindset that can get that data and tweak it and make it tell a story like that, well, it's, you're gonna, it's gonna be it's, it's a powerful tool.
Michael Maher 11:57
So think, I don't know a ton about the API. That's not my area of specialty. But I think something like that having software companies as companies having access to something like that, and the API will be a great tool to be able to aggregate data and put it into a visual representation, and turn into something. So I think future is definitely moving towards data analytics on Amazon, you heard it here first, on from east to west, data analytics is the the future of Amazon, right? No. Nobody knew nobody knew that data was important. But when we're looking at it now, I think, what are some of the important things from your mind, Brett, and I'll mentioned something to, to point out when you're looking at the report, and I would say, looking at actual terms that are getting you the most sessions, determining if it's branded terms, or if it's general category terms, looking at the things that are really driving a lot of traffic to your site, and, or to excuse me, to your PDP that can give you just the that's the term level that can give you an idea of how recognized your brand is, but also how well you're doing in terms of the market. Because if most of your traffic is brand new traffic, you're not really competing in the overall Amazon market. You're just securing your brand that's already there.
Brett Bohannon 13:35
Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's, that's pretty spot on. I mean, I guess like you said, and I said with there's so many different ways you can spin it, but if you're looking at terms and you can see it breaks it down to the time it breaks it it breaks it down to the top to the middle to the bottom of the funnel, like literally, like, the impressions how much you're how many impressions you're receiving, you know, consideration and then and then how many clicks like that's the middle. That's the, if you're looking at the marketing funnel, that's what I mean by as the middle is the clicks, people are going and looking into it. And then purchases like literally that's them purchasing so gives you that whole thing. So you can literally make from non branded terms. You can go okay, how many impressions have I got, during this period of time and versus you can you can compare them that's what I love doing the most is just comparing it and being like, Alright, well we dropped off Oui, oui, oui, what happened? And what can I do to figure out time periods is what you're saying. Yeah, comparing time periods within that, you know, and then it's, and then it's, you know, if you, you know, and then let's just say impressions, that first kind of call area. The impressions went up during a specific time periods like, Okay, well, what did I do? How did I do that? Let's keep doing that. You know, so it's like, it's it comes back to the whole thing. thing of just testing. And like, I think, you know, you and I are in a position where we've tested lots of things within the years with brands. And we're able to go, we're able to identify, Okay, this this particular product, or asin, needs, needs this strategy and this strategy and this strategy in that order. And then maybe this particular patient needs this other strategy and this other strategy. And in that order, you know, because I feel like each asin, and particularly, maybe, potentially each account has different levels of where they're at. And I always say, like, you know, bottom middle top plateau, and where do you go from there? You know?
Michael Maher 15:41
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the I definitely agree with that. And there the I think you're right, that there's a lot of data, and I've heard other people say that there's so much data. So being able to pick out what you're going to work with can be important. And honestly, when I look at just business reports in Amazon, which gives you a breakdown on on an asin level, I feel like looking at the comparison to your other items, in terms of like session chair and things like that, I always felt like that was kind of superfluous information. Other people might be using it for something specific. But I was really looking for overall session sales units, conversion rate, things like that. Those are the things that were really that's the data that was really causing me to to make decisions on should I adjust this listing? Should we update creative? Should we be sending traffic to this listing all those kinds of considerations? So when I have extra data, isn't really something that's moving the needle, for me is a question that I'm asking. But something that's always been an issue on Amazon is knowing spikes, or when you have really great performance, or even really poor performance, being able to narrow in and dissect and say, Why is this thing happening this way. And I think the search query performance report is something that is allowing us to start actually being able to tell, hey, this is there is a drop off in impressions of my brand, there's a drop off in searches for mechanical pencil. And I guess people aren't wanting mechanical pencil, or maybe it's a seasonal thing. And as you start tracking those things over a longer period of time, you're able to find trends. And that's where I feel like a lot of work on Amazon is done around trends. What kind of trend? Are you seeing? Are you seeing a trend where, let me break it down this way? I have clients who say, Oh, it's a really big spike in sales today, what happened? It's hard to say, unless you're seeing a long term trend. And so this is a way to help us analyze, and pick out some of those short pieces, but also look at some of the longer trends and say, okay, is this a shift that's longterm kind of like looking, you know, on Google, looking at Google Trends and saying, Hey, what's the volume of this keyword, as as a kind of where has it gone down, and that's something that helium 10 has done, you know, within the past year or so is, is adding, tracking on search terms to show, you know, velocity is greater in the summer, it's down in the fall, things like that. And those kinds of measurements are giving us a lot more points to be able to say, hey, when this change is here, maybe we we also want to change and adjust so that our business can perform better.
Brett Bohannon 18:36
Yeah, I think trends is what you just said is huge, because there's what he call macro micro trends. Yeah, you know, there can be short term trends, literally that are like a day or two and then can be
Michael Maher 18:48
long I've been told I'm a trend setter, I don't I don't know if that's true or not. But a macro micro trend setter, there are no micro micro
Brett Bohannon 18:58
cricket musicians
Michael Maher 19:03
holding a glass of tea, or a mug of tea. That's this is a trend. Yeah, but then now
Brett Bohannon 19:11
being in a car with a bunch of snow, that's a trend to right.
Michael Maher 19:14
And a kid I feel like we've had we've I feel like we've had a conversation like this before, where you've been in a car. And even on my podcast,
Brett Bohannon 19:23
we'd like to Yeah, I was on your podcast, I was in the car, for sure. I like to just move around a lot. You're you're
Michael Maher 19:31
moving to shaker. But trends is is how we look over a period of trends or I think the things for me that I'm looking at and saying, Okay, what is the trend here? Are we seeing something move in the right direction, even when you're looking at like advertising? Are we seeing row as moving the right direction or profitability? Are we seeing a move in the right direction? We're not we may not be profitable at this point with this specific product or overall as a business. But are we seeing the trend move in the right way and that can help us to make decisions ahead? A time that are more intelligent.
Brett Bohannon 20:01
It's funny because we're both trans, the first thing that came to my mind is like, social media trans or something like that. But like, I, I like that aspect of trans morts trends of the data of your sales or trends, that what's what's occurring. And what did we do during that? I think it's just all those pieces, because you're saying, hey, what? Because you look at it, and numbers don't lie. You can go, okay, impressions were up, and they keep going up what's going on? You know, and then you can just look at all the things you're doing right. And you literally create a playbook for that.
Michael Maher 20:38
Think it would be great to be able to I'm sure some people would love, like down to the minute data. And when data lags on Amazon, you know, people talk about on LinkedIn, people are noticing, hey, business reports is lagging behind add data is incorrect. And I don't know that we'll ever get it. I mean, you know, maybe when the flying cars come around, we will actually get live up to date accurate data, but we're often looking at historical information will speak to that and having to make adjustments based on that.
Brett Bohannon 21:07
Speaking of that, I guess, I guess, sales have been inflated for the month of January, there's some news going on around that. Some of the big talk about that some of the big SAS providers are saying they're unable to fix it, I guess. I don't know. I first heard of it. And on Twitter the other day. What is Twitter, Twitter, tweet, the tweet space, you know, tweets, tweets, tweets, well, heard of it there. And then heard of it again yesterday by the same guy. And I guess a couple of SaaS providers are mentioning that. Yes. It is, in fact, correct. It seems like they are with a with the SAS people are able to correct it before Amazon is which is kind of interesting. Again, I don't know about it. But that's what that's what I've heard. I do have an account that's doing some extremely well numbers for January, above normal, but not above. They're good. You know. So it's it's kind of like, we're just like, oh, this is great. But it's nothing out of the ordinary, which is, which is kind of interesting, too. And then also, I'm sure you've seen that and some other people have is that with the overspend, that recently occurred, they're starting to give refunds for that too. Now.
Michael Maher 22:30
They are okay, that was something that a lot of people would question and said, Hey, are we going to see these refunds? Because that's all something that does happen. So you've heard that brands are actually getting results on over to take that as a as a yes.
Brett Bohannon 22:48
Did you Did i Did you just hear what she said? No, I
Michael Maher 22:52
didn't. Okay. And now I want to know,
Brett Bohannon 22:56
it basically sounds I'll say she said she has to go prove
Michael Maher 23:00
who doesn't have to go poop. Am I right?
Brett Bohannon 23:03
There's my little three year old Look at her. She's cute. She got on the snowboard for the first time today. Sorry, we're going off topic. But yeah, they are. I'm gonna put a mute on. You go.
Michael Maher 23:16
Yeah, I mean, Amazon is a big company. And I've heard Bezos say in the past, although I know he's not the acting CEO. But he said we have to make bigger leaps. We have to take bigger risks and make bigger mistakes. And I don't think add reporting is the kind of mistake necessarily that they're they're talking about. But I think one of the things that Amazon has been known for from a brand or seller's perspective is not always being the best partner when it comes to selling, and that's because they are very focused hyper focus on customers. They want to be the most customer centric company in the world. I like to tie everything back to that Why are things ranking the way that they are? Why is this? Why is this search algorithm working the way that it is? Why are Amazon's rules the way that they are? It's all about hyper focus on the customer, which I can appreciate. But I think being able to provide refunds like that, that is a big and taking that step is a step in the right direction for Amazon to be more of a trusted resource and be a better partner. For brands as they're selling.
Brett Bohannon 24:27
Yep, totally agree. Sorry, the wife came and grabbed the kiddo. Big kids took a little while but yeah, I think it kind of kind of comes to the fact that you're like, Amazon. Amazon is just like everything else. They their stuff messes up and it's funny because people give them slack. Like they're like, large, large company. Things shouldn't mess up. It's like, oh, look at all the times it hasn't. Yeah, look at all the times it hasn't, you know, but it's also it's also, you know, sexy and cool to talk about it when they mess up and you know, I
Michael Maher 25:01
mean, I get it from a brand standpoint, like, hey, we overspent, we want a refund back. And so I think they're right. But Amazon is a big target. I've seen news articles where it's like, well, there's 4000 fraudulent items on Amazon, it's like, out of all the millions, we're talking about less than a percent. Like, I think we're doing okay.
Brett Bohannon 25:18
You know, what they've done a lot better. And since I think, in regards to that aspect of the fraudulent throughout, I think they're doing a lot better.
Michael Maher 25:27
That my I'm just backing up your point about, it's an it's an easy target, you know, it's easy to their big target. So it's easy to throw a dart in and hit. Yep. reasonably easy to hit Amazon when you're talking about them. Yeah. Okay, cool.
Brett Bohannon 25:47
Yeah. It's fun to talk about the elephant in the room, you know, I guess, part of me fat. No, Amazon.
Michael Maher 25:58
Okay, gotcha. Okay. Yeah. I just have to be kidding. Come on. Yeah, I mean, there there is. I will say this, Amazon does get a lot of flack sometimes. But I think they've made leaps and bounds improvements wise, as a partner. They're offering more analytics, like search query performance report, like brain analytics. And that's stuff that you can turn into something even in use off Amazon, you know, taking your audience demographic, and brain analytics and turning into something on social media. Not that, you know, don't already have that information. But now, you could maybe run Amazon specific ads to a certain demographic that you know, are buying on Amazon. And that's going to be to drive the most traffic to Amazon and get those most purchases, then you use something like Amazon attribution, to track those purchases, and then get a referral bonus back, there's a lot more things that are being in favor, are becoming coming around and being in favor of the brand, which I think is much appreciated from a lot of brands and sellers. And I think it just points to the fact that Amazon is unnecessary channels. So if your rest resting your hat on Amazon, as you know, this is my bedrock, this is everything, then it's going to be very difficult, I think, for you to survive as a brand, because Amazon is going to change and pay stuff, and you have to think about what's best for your brand. So if you aren't on a direct to consumer channel, if you aren't in retail, what are the things that are stopping you? Where can your brand be in other areas in those other shelf spaces, so that you can be successful as a brand. So you have to think about not relying so much on this one channel, although that's where I spend all my time. And that's where my, you know, area of expertise is it's important to be as a brand, looking at the other channels that you can be on and how you can grow and be successful there.
Brett Bohannon 27:54
Yeah, I think two things on that. First one is, is that's the way it's been since, like, since I started using them, like that's, that's what everyone back then was kind of like, Don't rely just on Amazon don't rely just on, you know, that kind of echo chamber hasn't stopped. And it's, and it's smart to do, you know, there's brands and all that brands, bigger brands, small, medium sized enterprises, that it's an important channel, they just need to effectively communicate a strap strategy on that channel and do it cohesively with all the other channels. And then the second one is we're Carson and stuff like that you were talking about the brand referral bonus program. I think you were talking about that was I think for who was listening or, or, you know, we're even though strategies aren't being talked about, don't forget about, you know, brand referral, bonus program. And an attribution was a real, that's when people talk about it, the more that's okay, because people are going to talk about the hot stuff in the news, you will realize that and do those strategies, these because they still work and are anybody's keep keep keep doing what works. And because if you keep chasing that golden goose, you know, it's up. And I guess, I don't know if that's right now, how would you
Michael Maher 29:36
cheat keep chasing the golden goose and then you cut out what do you say?
Brett Bohannon 29:40
If you keep chasing the golden goose, you probably won't grab it.
Michael Maher 29:44
Gotcha. I think that is a great way to end this. And to summarize say, take advantage of all the opportunities that you have on Amazon because there are programs that Amazon releases that sometimes don't get as much airtime but they can still be successful things or can be something that Amazon starts to push more later on down the road like posts. That's something that we do with with all of our brands is is feeding that chain on whether it's something that works or not, you get a better understanding of where Amazon's going and you're more plugged in and connected in that way. So thanks for joining us today. Brett. I hope that your little one got the go poop. And it was a good time. Yep.
Brett Bohannon 30:25
Her her mom. Got it.
Michael Maher 30:29
Good to know. But thank you for everyone that joined us. And if you're watching us on the replay, please Subscribe on YouTube or follow Brett and myself on Twitter at Michael J Maher at Amazon with Brett and ask us questions we got forms a form that you can fill out to ask questions for next time. I will continue to see this and keep this going with an open conversation to just to talk about Amazon and ask me anything and by me I mean us and buy wheat so Awa ask we anything over and Out