Amazon FBA Hack: How To Find Products No One Is Selling

Hack: How to Find Products No One is Selling

In today’s episode, Casey Gauss talks us through how to use a super simple strategy to find products and markets that are underserved and waiting to be tapped into. You might just be 3 simple steps away from finding your next golden opportunity! 

Casey also introduces Viral Launch’s New Search Volume Algorithm. Back in December, Amazon pushed a code change upgrading the technology behind some of their internal APIs. One of those APIs had been feeding a few software providers (including Viral Launch) with exact and broad match search volume, as well as product relevancy data. This change removed these metrics (search volume and relevance) from the API, leaving software providers without the ability to grab fresh search volume data directly from Amazon.  Viral Launch has spent the last few months working on a solution and we feel really great about our new search volume algorithm. 

If you haven’t yet, sign up for a free trial on our suite of software tools and start dominating Amazon today! http://bit.ly/FTDpodcast_trial.

Listen on iTunes 

Listen on Stitcher

Giveaways Are Not Dead: Sales History, the Honeymoon Period, and More

Giveaways Are NOT Dead: Sales History, The Honeymoon Period, and More

Giveaways are somewhat of a controversial topic in the Amazon seller community; every few months, sellers wonder if they even work anymore.  At VL, we run hundreds of giveaways per day, and the data says that they are absolutely still effective.  You just have to approach them differently in 2019.  Casey discusses creating foundational sales, conducting keyword research, and understanding your market before launching a giveaway – this will help skyrocket your product to success even after the launch is complete.

Check out our Sales and Rank Part 4 webinar on Giveaways: http://bit.ly/2F2XC6l 

Listen on iTunes 

Listen on Stitcher

40,000 Strong: Viral Launch Reaches 40K Product Launches

Here at Viral Launch, our mission is to help you meet your goals as an Amazon seller, big or small (although we always advocate for dreaming big!).

While we don’t spend too much time resting on our laurels or patting ourselves on the back, we just reached an important milestone. This milestone in particular has had a direct impact on the lives and dreams of our clients as well as our company. And we think taking the time, however briefly, to recognize where we’ve been and what we’ve done is a great way to help keep our feet pointed due north as we push ahead to the future.

So all philosophical waxing aside, here’s the big news: earlier this month, Viral Launch officially hit 40,000(!) Launches. That’s 40,000 of our clients’ products that we’ve Launched, helping them take one more step toward success.

How We Got Here

Let’s take a moment to consider how far we’ve come. You may already know some of this, especially if you’ve been a follower of Viral Launch for a while, but let’s quickly recap.

In addition to our Launch milestone, Viral Launch also recently celebrated a birthday. Our company turned 4 years old in early October and then a few days later, we surpassed the 40,000 Launches mark (happy birthday to us!). Pretty cool for a company not even a half a decade old.

We also had a pretty epic birthday celebration:

Having worked in leadership roles at other companies, Viral Launch President/COO Mitch Black said it’s important, especially for a young company, to take a step back once in a while to celebrate success.

“It’s important we take note of milestones like this for all of our constituents including customers, employees, the community and our affiliates,” Mitch said. “It’s a milestone in just a few years in business that not only measures our short-term success, but is indicative of our long-term success.”

 

Viral Launch President/COO Mitch Black

We’ve come a long way since our humble beginnings. Our CEO and Co-Founder, Casey Gauss, along with Co-Founder Jordan Dekker conceptualized Viral Launch in the fall of 2014 while the two were in college, and the company was founded shortly thereafter.

But they never expected their dorm room dream would one day turn into a full-fledged company.

“When we created Viral Launch, we initially set out to create a small service as a side project,” Casey said. “I never would have dreamed that we would run thousands of Launches, let alone tens of thousands!”

A few months after the inception of Viral Launch, Casey had taken most of the control of the company and had set his sights on making Viral Launch a success in the long-term as well.

The months and years following consisted of hard work and dedication, as well as a little bit of luck, that contributed to our success. This includes Casey programming the original Viral Launch platform with socks on his hands because he couldn’t afford heat in his apartment. What doesn’t kill you, right?

Viral Launch Co-Founder/CEO Casey Gauss

“Looking back, I am both blown away at the incredible number of Launches we’ve been able to run and honored that we’ve had the chance to help so many brands and entrepreneurs over the last four years,” Casey said.  

Things have also come full circle as Jordan has recently re-joined the team as our own in-house ecommerce expert.

If you want to read more about the humble beginnings of Viral Launch and how we got here, check out Casey’s blog post on the topic.

You can also check out this video from Casey’s personal Vlog, with awesome footage captured over the years.

What this Means for Viral Launch

While hitting 40,000 Launches is a cool milestone for us as a company, we’re more concerned about how that has affected the amazing entrepreneurs we’ve worked with.

“Hitting this milestone is a key indicator based on volume that says we care about our customers,” Mitch said. “It is a testament to all the Viral Launch employees that we continue to provide a high level of customer service that has enabled over 40,000 Product Launches.”

These days, we’re running hundreds of Product Launches a day, which helps to generate valuable keyword ranking and additional revenue for our clients.

Running Launches also helps us gather data to provide better, more informed services and tech to our clients.

“Looking toward the future, the data we’ve been able to gather through these 40,000 Product Launches has been instrumental to shaping our product roadmap and laying the foundation for some game changing new technologies we have in the works,” Casey said.

Where We’re Going

Reaching a milestone like this is all the more reason to keep pushing the envelope to provide the best software and services to our clients. Because at the end of the day, that’s why we’re here! Accolades like this along the way are nice, but to us this just means we’ve created something that can truly help people and people are noticing.

So to anyone and everyone who has used our software or services, we want to extend a huge THANK YOU for letting us be a part of your journey.

Looking ahead, this milestone means we’ve got a lot to look forward to and a lot more work to be done.

“I see the future as bright for us,” Black said. “We exist to help build the most dominant brands in E-commerce through innovative and data-driven automation. This measure is validation we are on the right path. Viral Launch will continue to empower brands through technology and data to become leading forces on Amazon – the world’s largest E-commerce marketplace.”

With that being said, keep your eyes open for what’s to come from Viral Launch. We’ve got a lot of really cool stuff planned for the future, some of which is coming your way very soon!

And once again, thank you for helping make Viral Launch what it is today!

Why Not to Use Search Volume to Determine Giveaway Units (Follow the Data Ep. 27)

Why Not Use Search Volume to Determine Giveaway Units (Follow the Data Ep. 27)

When you’re running a launch, you need to match the daily sales of your top competitors. But how do you determine how many units to give away? Some sellers look at search volume. But this episode, we’re going to let you in on a secret: using search volume to estimate the number of giveaway units needed to drive keyword ranking is an extremely flawed method.

Listen on iTunes   Listen on Stitcher

Follow the Data Show Notes

Podcast Transcript

CAMERON YODER:
Keywords are extremely important when it comes to building a successful Amazon business.

CASEY GAUSS:
This week we’re going to dispel a new but ever-growing myth that you can use search volume to determine the correct number of units to use when running promotions to drive keyword ranking or estimating the number of units customers are selling through a particular keyword. I’m Casey Gauss.

CAMERON YODER:
And I’m Cameron Yoder, your hosts for Follow the Data: Your Journey to Amazon FBA Success. In this show we leverage the data that we’ve accumulated at Viral Launch from over 30,000 product launches and our experience working with 8,000 brands to help you understand the big picture when it comes to Amazon and, more importantly, the best practices for success as an Amazon seller. This episode is an in-depth look at one really important aspect of product promotions, number of units for a giveaway. We’ll make the case for why using search volume specifically is mathematically flawed and talk you through current best practices based on what has worked for our clients specifically.

CASEY GAUSS:
A significant number of sellers are running promotions and giving far too many units in their promotions. When asked, many cite their keyword tool as a source of the suggestion and, as a result, they’re wasting hundreds to thousands of dollars in extra inventory.

CAMERON YODER:
Let’s jump in. So we’re back from Vegas. It’s been – it was a good trip.

CASEY GAUSS:
It was a good trip, and we are not in between some bunk beds recording on a mobile mic, and hopefully, I can guarantee this, but much better analogies will be coming your way than the half a piece of bread.

CAMERON YODER:
Listen, if you haven’t yet, go back to the previous episode right now, go to about six minutes and 15 seconds. I remember it specifically. It was hilarious. Just go listen to Casey’s analogy of bread, and you’ll be blown away.

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, analogies can be very powerful, but sometimes a little tricky. And if you don’t get them right, then it’s just, it’s embarrassing.

CAMERON YODER:
Casey, what did you think of Vegas, just really briefly? I just want to get your opinion. What do you think of Vegas, the trip and the conferences?

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, overall I mean conferences like – one reason we love going to conferences and bringing additional people, you know, we usually try to bring five people including Cam and I, is it’s really great for other people on the team just to hear the feedback that we get. You know, so many people come up to us excited about what Viral Launch has done, you know, for them and for their business. And so I love seeing that feedback in person. It’s so much different getting it in person than, you know, over email. And then you also just get a lot of really good candid feedback. You know, unfortunately I was thinking back. I feel like we didn’t get enough candid feedback on Keyword Research. So if you guys have that, we would love to hear it. But anyways, yeah, went really well, very exhausting. If you’ve ever been to a conference in general there’s very little sleep involved, especially if you have obligations back home or, you know, in the office or whatever. But yeah, what about you, Cam?

CAMERON YODER:
Yeah, no, I think you hit it on the head. Really it’s just so good to go, and we said this last week, but to go and to meet everyone, just put a face to a name, really I would encourage you if you ever see us in public or at a conference, just say hey. It’s always good to talk to everyone here, and again, to put a face to a name and to hear what you guys are going through and what advice you want or need and just say hey. So yeah, if you see us at a conference or just in general, feel absolutely free to say hey.

All right. So anyway, getting back to the podcast episode, we’re touching on search volume and why not to use search volume to determine the amount of units that you need to give away for something like a launch or a promotion. Casey, what do you think?

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, and honestly, so taking it a step further back, I mean a lot of people, the real question – so to be honest the real question is not what is search volume for this keyword; it’s what is sales volume for this keyword? You know, again, like the main driver of rank, which is where a ton of organic sales traffic is coming from, is coming from keywords. And so the question – and how well you rank for those keywords. And so the question is not how many people ran a search for this, or how many times was this keyword searched, but how many sales actually came to this keyword? If there were a trillion searches for omega-3 but there were 10 sales that came through that keyword, then that would not be a good keyword. It would look good because there’s high search volume, but what you really need to understand is what is the sales volume? This will inform your strategy around what keywords are most important to rank for because you want to be where the sales are, not necessarily where the searches are, and then further so if I want to drive ranking for this keyword, then how many units do I need to give away? Again, it does not matter how many people are searching for your product. It is not number of sessions that is driving your ranking. It’s the number of sales that are driving your ranking.

And so, again, you should really – the real question is sales volume. We don’t have sales volume, so as a proxy for that we’re using search volume. But because now you kind of understand it is not – it’s sales volume that you do want, you can’t use search volume in a number of ways. And so the main thing that we’re talking about here, primarily because we help with product promotions and driving keyword ranking is that we see so many people using search volume as a way to estimate number of units to give in a product promotion or, you know, drive external traffic, whatever, to drive keyword ranking. And we see a lot of people wasting, you know, thousands of dollars by doing this. We just really want to kind of dispel the myth, right? Like we are a company that has a ton of data, and we love using that data to help you make better decisions. And so that’s – I mean Follow the Data. That’s the name of the podcast, and that’s why we’re here.

CAMERON YODER:
That’s what we even see – so just to iterate that again, it’s really important for listeners to understand that it’s not search volume. Again, you need to base these numbers that’s something like a giveaway number, off of sales, sales that are attributing to keyword ranking. And even in some cases people are using different tools that are even just using search estimations, right, estimation volume, not even sales estimation but search estimation. In that case, again, what we’re seeing is a lot of people giving away more units than they should or way more units than they need to to actually gain rank. And so we want to help. We want to help the people that are listening and people that are planning for promotions in the future. We just basically want to help people with their business to make sure that they’re not losing on money that they don’t need to lose on.

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, so this is not directed towards a particular tool. We see people using this. There are tools that are suggesting number of units to give specifically based off of sales volume. We see that, but then we also see people using maybe even Keyword Research to look at search volume to then estimate number of units to give. And so we just want to dispel this whole concept as a whole. So we’ll jump into it if that’s okay, Cam.

CAMERON YODER:
Yep. So there are two major flaws. Major flaw number one is conversion rate. Casey, talk about conversion rate.

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, so I think a real insight here is we’ve had some, you know, special Amazon data that we’ve gotten. So we’re – like this is just, you know, one report, let’s say, and we’re not building anything off of this one report, but it’s definitely helped us make better decisions. And so basically what we’ve seen is, you know, we get this report that shows us what the search volume is for a particular keyword, what the click – number of clicks into a listing, number of add to carts through that keyword, and number of purchases, again, through that keyword.

So let’s take omega-3, again, as an example. We would see the number of searches, then from there the number of clicks into a listing, then from there the number of add to carts and then the number of purchases. So we are able to see what is the conversion rate from search to add to cart? What is the conversion rate from search to purchase? So looking through, you know, this list of words we were trying to figure out, okay, what is the average – what is the average conversion rate from search to purchase? Because again, we care about purchases, not searches. And the problem is that there wasn’t a good average. The range is [immense 0:08:28.8]. And so the range was literally anywhere from 50% – so that means if there was 10,000 searches there were 5,000 sales, let’s say, and all the way to .01%. So if there’s 10,000 searches –

CAMERON YODER:
And that’s conversion.

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, yeah, sorry.

CAMERON YODER:
50%, to .01% conversion.

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, conversion. So that would mean if there’s 10,000 searches there’s literally 10 sales. I mean that’s insane, right? So there’s 10,000 searches for a keyword. There’s anywhere from 5,000 actual sales to 10 sales. And so you know, no tool, nothing like that on the market is able to estimate what the conversion rate is for these particular keywords. And so, again, if you tried to take an average, let’s say you’re like okay, well I’ll just shoot for the middle, and let’s call the middle 25%. Well, so if you give away 2500 units that’s, you know, 2490 more units than you would need to give in order to match the .01% conversion, right? But if you give away 2500 units that’s only half the units you would need to give to hit the $5,000 mark or the 5,000 sales mark, the 50% conversion mark. And so it’s so hard. It’s really just a shot in the dark if you’re guessing at any particular conversion rate. So again, I could care less if there’s a trillion searches for omega-3 or, you know, any keyword if the sales volume is only, you know, 10 sales, or 100 sales, or 1000 sales. So flaw number one, conversion rate.

CAMERON YODER:
I think a simple way that – something simple that people can use to remember or to just like get this flaw into perspective is just because someone is searching for something does not mean that they’re buying it, and that goes back to keyword, keyword ranking being attributed through sales. Just because someone is searching for something does not mean they’re buying it, and that’s shown specifically with the data that we have between that 50% and .01% conversion.

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, and I mean just think of all the people that are doing keyword research to sell on Amazon, or like you’re just looking at prices, or you’re trying to do research and you think Amazon is a place to do it, probably not, but anyways, so what we’re seeing is, again, just a ton of searches that are not converting to purchases. So flaw number two, sales distribution. So this one is a little bit harder to conceptualize or to explain without visuals.

CAMERON YODER:
If you have a piece of paper and a pen that would help, but it’s not necessary.

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, nor am I going to be good enough at walking you through this for you to, you know, really draw it out. So we do have a blog post on this where we did try to provide some visuals to really help you understand. I’m going to try to do my best. Cam is always better at summarizing and really helping you to understand.

CAMERON YODER:
I’ll see what I can do.

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, let’s see what Cam can do. So anyways, flaw number two is sales distribution. So what sales distribution is referring to is what percentage of shoppers that are searching or purchasing. Let’s say you search omega-3. What percentage of the shoppers are buying the first product, what percentage are buying the second product, you know, the fifth product? What percentage are going to page 2 and then buying the top ranking product there? Like sales distribution is referring to, again, who is buying what product where and, you know, what percentage. And so if you, let’s say that 100% – this is very unlikely I would imagine – but let’s say 100%. Let’s take Instant Pot, right? So I would imagine sales distribution for Instant Pot searches are pretty high towards the top. If you see the Instant Pot then you are going to be buying, right? Same with let’s say AA batteries. If you search AA batteries you don’t need to scroll through, you know, pages of results. You probably don’t need to scroll past, you know, number three, or you know, number five, before you find out what you want because there’s not that much variation there. So you’re probably buying the first, second or third product, let’s say, that shows up in the results. But a more stylized product or a broader search, let’s say, you know, gifts for men or Valentine’s Day gifts, or Father’s Day gifts, I mean the results are much more broad. You probably don’t even have in mind exactly what you want, and so you’re probably scrolling through the results. You may hit page 2. You may scroll through to try to figure out what you want, and you may end up buying, you know, that whiskey decanter or something like that that’s, you know, number 15. Or you may end up buying this tie that’s ranking number 25. And so sales distribution for a word that has a bit more style or kind of different bundles or whatever, I would imagine sales distribution is much higher.

And so again, we are trying to figure out how many units is the sell – let’s say we want to rank in the top five for omega-3. So what we’re trying to figure out is what is the sales volume to the products ranking number one, number two, number three, number four and number five, and then we need to match that in per day sales to rank alongside them. So we’ll try to go with an example. Let’s say we want to rank in the top five. There’s 2,000 sales through this keyword, and sales distribution is 100% to the top five listings, right? So the top five listings are seeing all 2,000 of the sales coming through this keyword. And let’s say it’s evenly distributed, meaning so it’s 2,000 divided by 5, which is 400. And so each listing is seeing 400 sales. So number one, number two, number three, number four, number five, all 400 sales. And you want to be able to match them in per day sales. So basically, again, you have to hit that $400 – or sorry, 400 sales mark. But let’s say that sales are evenly distributed among the top 20 results. So position number one sees as many sales as position, you know, number 20. And so then sales are 100 per day. And so giving away – basically the giveaways will be – could be significantly different depending on what the sales distribution is, and these are very simple examples. I imagine it’s something, you know, for one keyword sales distribution for Instant Pot is 80% to position number one and then, you know, evenly distributed through – or like the next 10% is through positions two through four. So I think it becomes very, very confusing or is very complex, and every single keyword is so different. So if you’re wanting to rank position number five it’s going to require a totally different percentage of the sales from the conversion percentage from the search. So you can see the math really starts to add up, right? And so, and it’s so different depending on each keyword. Basically if you wanted to use search volume to estimate number of units to give you would have to know the conversion rate or approximate the conversion rate from search to purchase. And then depending on where you wanted to rank you would need to understand what the sales distribution from this word to position – let’s say you want to rank position between positions five and 10. You would need to know the sales distribution from that sales would be between those positions so that you can match in per day sales those competitors.

And so there’s so many approximations that really what existing tools are doing, or what most people are doing is just saying like, you know, let’s just take a percentage of search volume and say that’s how many units you need to give away per day in order to rank for this particular keyword. And what we see on the flip-side is so many people are coming to use Viral Launch to run these promotions or whatever, and they’re trying to give away sometimes, you know, five times as many units as we would expect. And if, you know, we were suggesting 100 and you’re saying you think you need to give away 500, I mean that is a significant amount of inventory that you’re giving away. And so I do think that continuing to build the best sales history is great. I think that like overkill is not the worst thing, but I do want to make sure that people are well aware of this because if you have a limited budget and you’re spending that limited budget on excess inventory and these promotions where in reality you could be targeting additional keywords, or you could be using it to ramp up your sponsored ad costs, or your AMS campaigns, or whatever, I just want to make sure that you’re spending – you are knowledgeably spending your money as efficiently and as effectively as possible.

CAMERON YODER:
Let’s see if I can – let me see if I can summarize sales distribution a little bit. All right, so it’s really important to go back to what we said at the beginning where keyword ranking is attributed through a sale, right, not a search, but a specific sale. A launch or a promotion for something like a keyword is – it’s not rocket science, right? The entire goal of a promotion like this, or of a launch, is to get you to somewhere on page 1 where you want for that search term. In this case let’s say it’s omega-3. I want to get to page 1 for omega-3. So I need to look at the sales, the sales numbers that are going on on page 1 in order to match those per day with something like a launch or a promotion. So to do that I need to see those sales numbers, those sales estimates, instead of seeing the search volume. Number one, those sales estimates aren’t really even available on certain tools like other tools, right? The search volume is. That’s not what we want. What we want are sales estimations and accurate sales estimations, right?
So let’s say I type in omega-3 into Amazon, and I see the spread, right, and on the top five are a ridiculous amount of sales. Now in order to reach that top five – again, also maybe taking into account something like your sales history, but at this time let’s just use the sales velocity or something like a launch or a promotion as a factor for getting to page 1. So you typed in omega-3, and your goal is to be in top five. So you look at the sales and you see that the average is around like – you’re going to need around 2,000 units, or maybe not 2,000 units, something like 500 units to give away. And you’re like, yikes, that’s a lot of units. I’m not a big business man in omega-3 yet, so I can’t get there. So you go down. Let’s say you look at the top 10. And so you look at the sales distribution, again, just the sales numbers spread out across the top 10. It’s going to take less, typically – it depends on the market. Again, it’s going to take – it might take less for you to get to the top 10 than it will for you to get to the top five. But again, the entire goal of a launch or a promotion is to simply match the number of sales that are going on in whichever range you’re going for. That is the idea of sales distribution being applied to something like keyword ranking. And that’s why it doesn’t work for search volume because search volume, again, it’s not – it does not involve the sales volume. And search volume cannot show you the spread of where sales are going. That’s my summary. That’s my simple summary.

CASEY GAUSS:
Well done, cam. There’s an example in the blog post where we go over, so let’s say a keyword gets – this is kind of in a little bit of an exaggerated example, but I think sometimes these, you know, exaggerated examples really help to help you understand what we’re – the point that we’re trying to get across. So let’s say a keyword gets 100,000 searches per month. The conversion rate from search to purchase is 2.5%, meaning 2,500 sales across this keyword per month. And then let’s say sales distribution, 80% go to the top five listings. That means the top five listings see 2,000 of those 2,500 sales per month, and after top five 500 sales. Let’s say you want to rank between positions six through 15, and that’s where the rest of the sales are happening, so 20% of that 2,500 is 500 sales. And so 500 sales evenly distributed among those 10 products, let’s say, means each product is really only seeing 50 units per month in sales through this keyword. So if you need to rank in position six through 10 then you only need to give away two units per day. So 100,000 searches down to two units per day, and these estimates that we’ve used are completely arbitrary but are not out of the realm of possibility. And so that just goes to quickly show you, you know, that’s 100,000 searches. We could easily show you the math where 10,000 searches you need to be giving away, you know, much, much more.

CAMERON YODER:
Your goal, pick a target, pick a target for a keyword, look at the sales numbers for that target and match it with a launch or a promotion.

CASEY GAUSS:
Yeah, so real quick we’re just going to go over how we’re estimating number of units to give. You know, in an ideal scenario we’re able to do some data science or whatever to really give some good estimates in terms of sales volume, leveraging both search volume and Market Intelligence data. But right now we’re not able to do that. We’re not aware of anybody that can realistically do that, even if maybe someone can say they do. I don’t know of anybody, but I’ve heard – recently I’ve heard some people that are like, you know, we do data science. And it’s like they have insanely terrible answers. And so I think it’s one thing to be aware of. You know, I think you should always be questioning the authenticity of something. You should always be using, you know, your best judgment, logic. You should always be testing everything because too often do we see people – and this is one reason we wanted to start this podcast – but too often we see people in a place of power, people that may have, you know, an audience for one reason or another mislead people, not necessarily out of intention, but maybe just out of, you know, ignorance, or I don’t know. And we see people, you know, we do data science so you should trust what we’re doing. And it’s like, you know, you could have the most technically amazing whatever, but if you’re getting, you know, bad results, then data science is worthless.

CAMERON YODER:
Yikes.

CASEY GAUSS:
Anyways, how are we estimating number of units to give at Viral Launch? So like we said at the top, you know, we’ve – again, this is not a plug to use Viral Launch or anything. We just, again, want you to make good decisions around running your promotions for ranking, estimating number of units that are being sold through a keyword. Again, we just want to dispel this myth.

CAMERON YODER:
This is simply what we’ve seen work directly.

CASEY GAUSS:
So 30,000 product launches later this is what we’re doing. So first obviously you have to know your main keywords. The best proxy for this is using something like Keyword Research or using some tool that has good search volume estimates so that you can see, okay, what are the most popular keywords? It’s very important to know. So many times we have someone come to us and they think, you know, I don’t have a funny example – high heels for dogs is a good keyword for high heels because their keyword tool told them that. And in reality obviously it’s not. That is a real result in a keyword tool. Anyways, so people will think, you know, this keyword blue 32-ounce insulated water bottle is a good keyword for their insulated water bottle, and in reality it’s not, and we see people so focused on ranking for it, and they’re wasting their money. So know your main keywords.

Next up, know your budget. So again, if you’re going for a high-volume keyword, again, you can use search volume as a proxy here, but if you’re going for these high-volume keywords then make sure that you have the budget to give the units away necessary to drive the sales necessary, and then just to have the inventory needed so that when you are ranking for this keyword and you’re increasing your sales you won’t run out of stock immediately after. And so if you have a smaller budget, again, everything is relative here, smaller, bigger. If you have a smaller budget compared to your market you have to go after these keywords that are appearing to get lower volume sales, and we’ll show you how to estimate that.

And yeah, so then step three is determine estimated sales volume for this select for your selected keywords or the keywords that you’re considering. So the way that we do that is we run Market Intelligence on these keywords. And so Market Intelligence is showing you the estimated sales volume for the products for every keyword that they’re ranking for, sponsored ads and so forth. So looking at sales volume for the products that are showing up for a particular keyword does not mean that the majority of the sales volume is coming through that keyword. And so one thing that we do is we like to go look at what is, you know, how many high-volume keywords are showing up for this particular product. So let’s take fish oil. Let’s say the only – let’s say there’s three high-volume keywords. Fish oil, omega-3, fish oil supplement. So what we would do is we would go, and assuming these keywords are relatively similar in volume, we would go and to be on the safe side we would look at the sales per month that we’re seeing in Market Intelligence and we would divide it by three. So if you’re seeing 1000 sales a month, then we’re guessing that you’re seeing around 33, 34 sales per day through this particular keyword. So now I know that if I want to run a promotion for seven days, then I would need to give away that 33 or 34 times 7.

And so if it’s a lower volume keyword then it’s a little bit more difficult. It’s, again, going to be your best guess, and I would rather err on the side of caution. I would rather give too many but not, you know, five times too many. So again, I would go and try to get a good feel of the landscape in terms of keywords. You should’ve done this already when you optimized your listing and when you were preparing to even sell this product because I think it’s important to understand how you’re going to drive sales before you even source a product. But again, I’m going to go get a feel for okay, there’s about 10 words that are the same volume as this. Again, the product is seeing a thousand sales a month. And so divide it by 10, and then you would just give away at that volume. So let’s say I’m going for this keyword. There’s 100 sales. We’re estimating 100 sales through this particular keyword. Divide that by 30, and so that’s basically, you know, three, four sales per day. And so I’m going to give away at the three to four sales per day to go after this particular keyword, or maybe not give away, run through external traffic, you know, however you’re running your launches, however you’re ranking products. I would go and target that number.

CAMERON YODER:
That’s good, Casey. I honestly, I just want to add, or I just want to iterate the importance of budget. Not everyone has the ability to automatically target the keyword with the highest search volume and sales volume, right? And in this case what I’ve seen work for individuals is actually to go for secondary or tertiary keywords where the targeting keywords that on average don’t have as many sales volume – as much sales volume – excuse me – or they automatically, right off the bat, they – I’ve seen people try to target – they want position one, right? I want – I’m targeting fish oil, and I want to get to position one on page 1. So let’s do it. And then they don’t have enough units to do it, and by the time they’re done with their promotions they just end up failing because they didn’t have the resources to get there in the first place. So it’s really important to recognize what you’re capable of doing. In this case I’ve seen people do really well once they recognize how many resources they have, or how much money, or how many units they have to give away for a promotion. They accept that fact, and then they go for something like, let’s use the fish oil example. Let’s say they wanted to get to page 1, or position one page 1 initially. They recognized they did not have the number of units available. So instead of going for position one they look at something like – let’s say they looked at position one, but even position one through eight, or one through – let’s just say one through six are out of their means. So then instead they look at positions seven through something like 15, and they say actually after position six the sales drop off decently, and while I want to gain as many sales as possible, I’m not capable of launching into positions one through six right now. So I’m actually just going to target – I’m going to bite the bullet for them. Maybe it’s their pride or something. I’m going to bite the bullet. I’m going to go for positions seven through 12 or something like that. So then they look at positions seven through 12. They look at the sales for – the sales estimates – again for those products in those positions, and they match those over a promotion time, something like seven days, right? And in that they get to page 1. They don’t – they did not give away more than they were able to give, and they got to page 1. And after that, if they stay there organically, if they’re able to continuously maintain rank, then I’ve seen people specifically do this, they get to position something like seven to 12 and they maintain that position and just organically, as they stay there, they move up the ranks because they’ve optimize their product well enough.

Bottom line, know your main keywords. Pick the right ones to target. Number two, determine your budget. Determine what you’re capable of doing, and determine what you want to do and if your budget and what you want to do align. And if not, then you might have to take it a step down. And number three, determine the monthly sales volume for that selected keyword and match it over something like a seven- to 12-day period of time.

The takeaway for today is base your projection for giveaway units on sales volume, not search volume. You can apply some of these techniques to your own promotions. No matter what traffic source you’re using, something like discounted promotions, or Amazon sponsored ads or Facebook promotions, in order to reach page 1 for your targeted keyword you’re going to need to match or exceed the average number of sales for that specific keyword that you want to target. Basing your estimates on something like search volume could honestly cost you a lot of money. I’ve personally seen it happen. Our team sees it happen, and we don’t want that to happen to you guys. Sales volume, not search volume.

Well hey, everybody, that is all for this week. Thank you again so much for joining us here on Follow the Data. For more insights and reliable information on how to succeed on Amazon, subscribe to the podcast and check us out on YouTube. I have a new walk-through up for Keyword Research on our channel. So if you want to check it out just search Viral Launch on YouTube. Go to our page, look for my face and the video titled, “How to use Keyword Research.” We’ll also link to the video in our show notes. Again, we’re just coming off of a couple conferences. We’re actually gearing up to go to a couple more over the next couple weeks, and we had such a good time meeting some of you, some of you listeners. So thank you. Thank you all so much. Feedback is really important to us, so if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts feel absolutely free to leave us a review and/or a rating. If you know of a fellow seller who is using suggestions from their keyword tool to determine how many units to give in their launches, please send them our way. Send them to this podcast. We want to be a resource for sellers and the information source in this space, trusted information source. So please tell your friends, spread the word and share the show.
So thank you again so much for listening, and as always, if you want to be featured on the show, have an Amazon-related question or an idea for an episode, feel free to leave us a voicemail. Our number is 317-721-6590. Don’t feel intimidated at all to call in. Really, we want to hear your voice. It will be a voicemail that pops up so you won’t have to talk to anybody directly. You’ll be able to just leave your opinion or leave a question. I feel like after talking to people at these conferences I recognize that maybe they were – or people listening are intimidated by calling in. So please call in. Feel free. Don’t be intimidated. We’d love to hear from you. Again, it’s 317-721-6590. So until next time, remember, the data is out there.

Amazon Product Launch Strategy: 90% Off Promos

Do 90% off promotions still work for ranking Amazon products?

Are 90% off promotions still effective as an Amazon product launch strategy? The question is making its rounds in the Facebook groups, and we’ll answer it now by digging into the data.

Are 90% Off Promotions Effective?

A launch is a deeply discounted promotional giveaway used to increase your Amazon sales, and more importantly your keyword ranking, allowing you to capture more impressions, clicks, and sales. Sellers want their product on the coveted page one, so they discount units to 90% off, offer them to Viral Launch’s buyer audience, and match the daily sales of top sellers in their markets.

Here at Viral Launch, we’ve run over 30,000 product launches. We currently run over 300 launches each day. For each launch, we track keyword ranking for multiple keywords, BSR fluctuations, organic sales and promotional sales. This massive amount of data we’ve accumulated gives us incredible insight into what is working and what is not.

When rumors spread and sellers ask if 90% off promotions don’t work anymore, we turn to the data. And the data is clear: 90% off promotions are still effective for ranking products.

Case (Study) and Point

If 90% off promotions did become ineffective for ranking products (as an Amazon product launch strategy), we would be the first to notice. Since we track multiple keywords for each and every launched product, we would see a major shift in our data. We would also be the first to notify our community, as we never want to promote an ineffective tactic. Viral Launch exists to be the launchpad to success, and we take our clients and their businesses very seriously.

With over 300 promotions running each day, we still see tremendous ranking results for launches that are set up correctly. Here are just a few of the hundreds of recent, successful launches.

*Note: We cannot share the specifics of a launch, such as the actual product or keyword, in the best interests of our clients. 

Tools & Home Improvement Product: This seller gave 35 units per day and achieved end rank on day 6

Start rank: 22 / End rank: 1

Sports & Outdoors Product: This seller gave 50 units per day and achieved end rank on day 6

Start rank: 50+ / End rank: 7

Pets Product: This seller gave 35 units per day and achieved end rank on day 6

Start rank: 50+ / End rank: 8

Clothing Product: This seller gave 30 units per day and achieved end rank on day 8

Start rank: 50+ / End rank: 3

Office Product: This seller gave 15 units per day and achieved end rank on day 8

Start rank: 50+ / End rank: 1

Kitchen & Dining Product: This seller gave 20 units per day and achieved end rank on day 8

Start rank: 50+ / End rank: 8

Sample Set of 94 Launches from Early 2018

23% ranked #1 for the target keyword

52% ranked in the top 10 for the target keyword

93% increased rank for the target keyword

Reasons for the Myth

This myth is not a new one. Every few months, rumor seems to spread that 90% off promotions are no longer effective for keyword ranking. But why has this rumor resurfaced over the past few months? We see six major reasons for why some 90% off promotions are ineffective for ranking, a major contributor to the spread of this myth.

  • Inefficient Sales History: The single largest reason this myth has been spreading over the past few month is because of sales history. Products that are currently ranking at the top saw a major sales boost over the holiday season, creating a very strong sales history. These launches that aren’t increasing in rank are typically not giving enough units to overcome the top sellers’ current sales and that strong sales history from the holidays. Listen to our podcast episode about why sales history on Amazon is crucial for ranking.
  • Not Enough Units: Many of the launches that do not achieve the desired ranking are simply caused by not giving a sufficient number of units. To rank for a keyword, you want to match or exceed the top sellers’ daily sales for a period of 7 to 10 days. Learn how to choose the number of units to give away during a launch.
  • Low Coupon Redemption: Some sellers see a disparity in coupons given and coupons redeemed. This is often caused by variation confusion or a falsely inputted promo price. An example of this is giving out 100 coupons with only 60 claimed, and this will result in a less effective launch. If you have variations and want to make sure you’ll see high redemption rates, reach out to our coaching team for assistance.
  • Targeting Too Many Keywords: Sellers can input up to four keywords per launch, but the more keywords that are targeted, the less units will go to each one. For example, if you give 100 units targeting one keyword through the Organic URL, all 100 sales will be attributed to that one keyword. But if you give 100 units targeting two keywords, the units will be split and 50 units will be attributed to each keyword. Essentially, this cuts the ranking power in half for each keyword. For this reason, it is often smarter to target one keyword with more units in order to achieve the desired keyword ranking. Learn how to choose the target keyword for your Viral Launch.
  • Missing Keyword in Title: Keywords in your title are crucial because with each sale, each word in your title is fair game for a boost in ranking. This means your most important keywords should be in your title. For this reason, when running a launch, if your target keyword is not in your title, you likely will not see ranking.
  • Lack of Patience: Keyword ranking during a launch generally takes at least 2-3 days to take effect, but it can often take up to 5 or even 10 days from when a promotion begins. Some sellers write in concerned or end their launch early after only 1 or 2 days. It’s important to have patience and wait for the rank to increase. To ensure your launch is set up for success, reach out to our coaching team.

Myth: Busted

This myth is not a new one. It seems to resurface every few months with sellers wondering if this is truly the end for deeply discounted promotions. But time and time again, the data says otherwise for launches that are set up correctly. With countless examples of successful 90% off promotions each and every day, we remain confident that a strategic launch can drive results. We expect this change to come some day, but that day has yet to come. Rest assured, if/when that day does arrive, we will be sure to let you know.

Pro Tip: Setting Up Your Promotion for Success

With Viral Launch, you can upload your product to our system and schedule the launch, and then we will distribute your one-time-use coupon codes to our massive buyer audience. With targeted sales driven to your listing, you can increase rank for your chosen keyword with the goal of increasing your organic sales.

In order to achieve your desired ranking, your launch must be set up correctly. Here are some tips to consider as you’re scheduling your launch:

  • Make sure your listing is setup for maximum conversions. Once you achieve ranking, you need sales to “stick.” And to get those sales, you need an optimized listing with a competitive price point (this means not pricing your “premium” product 50% above market average), professional photography that shows off your product, and enticing sales copy.
  • Choose a target keyword with solid demand where you can convert. You want to make sure the keyword that you’ll be ranking for will have lots of people searching, and you want to be sure it is a search term that your product is relevant for.
  • Run your 90% off promotion for a period of 7 to 10 days. This is long enough for Amazon to recognize the change in sales but short enough to limit the total number of units you’ll have to give away at a loss.
  • Match or exceed the daily sales of the top sellers in your market. This will let Amazon’s algorithm know that your product is competitive with those at the top of your target keyword. To see how many units the top sellers are moving each day, use a product research tool like Market Intelligence.
  • To “stick” or maintain rank, you need to continue matching the sales of top sellers in the market. The hope with a launch is for your product to sell competitively organically. Many sellers will run aggressive PPC right after a launch, or they’ll choose to run a maintenance launch. A maintenance launch involves giving away a smaller number of units over the next week or two to help maintain the ranking as organic sales pick up.

Launch Your Product

Want to learn step-by step how to successfully run a 90% off promotion and develop an Amazon product launch strategy? Checkout our launch walkthrough video series. Ready to launch? Create a free Viral Launch account to get started!

Please reach out to our team with any questions about 90% off promotions, how to correctly set up a Viral Launch, Amazon product launch strategy, or selling on Amazon in general. We would love to help launch your business to the next level. Still have questions? Check out our Amazon seller podcast episode on this very topic, where Casey (CEO) and Cameron (Seller Coach) dive into the data to dispel this widespread concern among Amazon sellers.

3 Tips for Launching Your Next Product from Viral Launches Launch Director, Andrew Field (Follow the Data Ep. 20)

3 Tips for Launching Your Next Product from Viral Launches Launch Director, Andrew Field (Follow the Data Ep. 20)

Viral Launch has long been known as a successful launch platform, pushing products up to Page One in just a number of days. But to get your product to the top and make it stick, there are a few things you need to have in place. Join host Cameron Yoder for a conversation with Viral Launch Launch Director and employee #1, Andrew Field where he reveals 3 tips for ensuring a successful launch. 

 

Listen on iTunes   Listen on Stitcher

 

Follow the Data Show Notes

Podcast Transcript

CAMERON YODER:
Page 1, the coveted seat of Amazon’s top-selling products, the only place where shoppers are really looking or purchasing. If you want to sell well, you’ve got to get your product to Page 1. Viral Launch has long been known as a successful launch platform, pushing products up to Page 1 in just a number of days. But to get your product to the top and make it stick there are a few things that you need to have in place.

I’m Cameron Yoder, your host for Follow the Data: Your Journey to Amazon FBA Success. In this show we leverage the data we’ve accumulated at Viral Launch from over 30,000 product launches and our experience working with 6500 brands to help you understand the big picture when it comes to Amazon and, more importantly, the best practices for success as an Amazon seller.
In today’s episode we sit down with our Launch Director, Andrew Field, to talk about the best practices when it comes to launching a product and the strategy behind it all. So launching is an incredibly effective method when it comes to keyword ranking on Amazon. And today we’re going to dive into Andrew’s perspective on the dos and the don’ts when it comes to launching. Let’s jump in.

All right, so Andrew, how are you doing today?

ANDREW FIELD:
I’m doing great, man. Thanks for asking.

CAMERON YODER:
Doing great. Awesome. That’s good to hear. So just to introduce Andrew a little bit, I want to introduce him just because, just to validate his perspective, basically. So Andrew, believe it or not – well, believe it because it’s true – Andrew was employee number one at Viral Launch. Andrew, what do you have to say about that?

ANDREW FIELD:
I mean it’s been crazy watching the company grow over the last almost three years, going from a team of just Casey and I to now 40+ people. It’s awesome.

CAMERON YODER:
Dang. Employee number one is not something that a lot of people can say, honestly. Like some people jump on early with a tech company or just a startup in general, but Andrew was literally the first employee, official employee of Viral Launch.

ANDREW FIELD:
Yes sir.

CAMERON YODER:
Which is insane. So he is our – he’s Viral Launch’s Launch Director. Also to just kind of say where Andrew started, Andrew started – well, Andrew, talk about where you started.

ANDREW FIELD:
So basically I started in kind of a customer service role. I was always scheduling launches, so any launch that comes in, someone submits a launch for X number of units over X number of days, I’ll review it, make sure everything works, make sure the URL is directing to the right product, just kind of oversee everything that goes into that launch.

CAMERON YODER:
Yeah, and you’ve overseen a lot.

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, just over 31,000 now.

CAMERON YODER:
You’ve overseen over 31,000 launches. You’ve approved, personally approved –

ANDREW FIELD:
Roughly 25,000 of those, probably.

CAMERON YODER:
So personally approved roughly 20 – you said 20,000?

ANDREW FIELD:
25.

CAMERON YODER:
25,000 launches. So he’s worked with a lot of sellers, personally and through just Viral Launch’s system, to help get them to Page 1. So he’s seen a lot of what works and a lot of what doesn’t work when it comes to launching and ranking on Amazon. So he oversees our launch platform, and he’s just seen a large number of people pass through the system. And that is what we’re working with today. Andrew’s perspective is very valuable, and is something that I think a lot of listeners here can benefit from. So Andrew, just to kick it off, I’m sure many people are familiar with this, but could you just outline what a launch is?

ANDREW FIELD:
So basically the idea of a launch is to get your product to match or exceed the number of sales for listings on Page 1 for your targeted keyword. So for example, like if a product – you want to get your product raking on Page 1 for a keyword where the average number of sales is right around 1000, we’d recommend probably around 200 to 250 units over like 7 to 10 days. And the idea is to drive all of those discounted sales through the targeted keyword to get your product to match the sales history and sales volume for the listings that are ranking on Page 1 currently.

CAMERON YODER:
Okay, so just to like put it into a good perspective, the definition that we’re using today of a launch and/or promotion is basically looking at the sales on Page 1 for a keyword and matching those sales through something like a launch to get you to Page 1 –

ANDREW FIELD:
Exactly.

CAMERON YODER:
– for that keyword. Okay. So can you break down – again, we’re going to get into more strategy as we move on, but can you break down just how a launch works from start to finish? You already talked about it a little bit, but just kind of break it down for everyone.

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, so it depends on if a seller works with a coach or not. Generally if a seller works with a coach their launch is successful. So we have the knowledge to look at a market and say okay, you need to give away this many units to get ranking for this keyword. Maybe we would notice that this keyword might not convert well for you, so you probably shouldn’t target that keyword. So it depends on the keyword you’re going after. So we would look at the market to see what kind of sales they are doing and then base a recommendation off of that.

CAMERON YODER:
Okay, that’s good. So let’s talk about – let’s outline – I want to outline three strategy tips that you have for people. Just what would your three top tips for people be when it comes to running promotions or product launches?

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, so first thing you want to make sure you have a well-optimized listing. So if your copy is bad or your photos are bad, that listing is not going to convert well once it’s ranking on Page 1. You want to make sure you have a competitive price point. So if your listing is 35% higher than every listing on Page 1, you’re probably not going to convert that well.

CAMERON YODER:
Right.

ANDREW FIELD:
And you also want to make sure that you’re targeting the best keywords. So kind of the best way to figure out what the best keyword is, is to do a lot of research. So you want to look at many different keywords that you would consider relevant and then see which products on Page 1 are most comparable to the listing that you have. So if you see a bunch of products on Page 1 that aren’t necessarily similar to your listing it’s likely that you won’t convert well for that keyword. And if you see a bunch of products on Page 1 that are very similar to your listing, those listings are obviously converting well for that keyword, so it’s likely that yours would as well.

CAMERON YODER:
Right. So let’s, so just to go over those three tips that you mentioned, that’s number one, you said optimize your listing. Number two, you said competitive – have a competitive price point, really. And number three was targeting the most effective keywords, right?

ANDREW FIELD:
Yep.

CAMERON YODER:
So let’s break down – let’s break down each of these. So number one, you talked about – and you went over it a little bit, but specifically when giving advice to people about optimizing their listing, like again, out of everyone that you’ve seen, what works well from the perspective of the seller that should be optimizing his or her listing?

ANDREW FIELD:
So first and foremost you want to make sure you have a great title. Keyword rich, still reads well, but is going to help you rank for as many relevant keywords as possible. Some of the data that we’ve seen – so somebody runs a launch that should work based on the number of units that we recommend. We do a reassessment and see that the targeted keyword was not in their title. That can cause them not to be able to rank for that keyword. They may be indexing, but they’re not getting the same ranking power as they would be if they had that keyword in their title.

CAMERON YODER:
Now what about – can you break down the importance of a title in a product’s copy compared to something like the bullets or the description?

ANDREW FIELD:
So the title is going to be your most important. That’s where you’re going to get the biggest bang for your buck. Your most important keywords you want to put towards the beginning of the title. The less important keywords you move towards the back. But your most relevant keywords are going to be all focused on in your title. That’s where you’re going to get the most ranking effect when running launches.

CAMERON YODER:
And in your perspective, again, just from what you’ve seen with data and with launches, is there any – should people just cram a bunch of primary keywords together in the title or string them together like masterfully to create a title that makes sense, or like where’s the fine line between that?

ANDREW FIELD:
So there’s a perfect balance that you want to find. You want to find a balance between sales-inducing copy and copy that will also help you rank. So having a professionally-written listing is key, someone that knows the science behind writing a listing.

CAMERON YODER:
What about photos? What advice on photos do you have?

ANDREW FIELD:
So you want to have a photo that will catch the eye, just based on the thumbnail. So you’re main photo is going to be the one that drives the most clicks to your listing. So yeah, you want to make sure that your listing stands out from the competition with excellent photos. Once you get into the listing you’ll notice a lot of competition on Amazon likely doesn’t have lifestyle photos. That’s something that you can really give a competitive advantage to your listing if you have really nice lifestyle images showing the product in use. It helps develop an emotional attachment between the potential buyer and the product itself.

CAMERON YODER:
That’s good. I think with this first point talking about optimizing your listing, I think a lot of people get, just get lost from the fact that a product launch can get you to Page 1, right? But if those creatives are not in place, like if your copy is not optimized, if your photos are not great, then yeah, you’re going to lunch on to Page 1, but you’re not going to be able to convert once you’re there.

ANDREW FIELD:
Right.

CAMERON YODER:
And the whole goal of a launch, at least for us, our perspective is our goal for you is to reach Page 1 for that, or those primary keywords that you’re targeting and then to stick there. And your best chance of doing that, like you were just talking about Andrew, is to really optimize your title, your copy, the rest of your copy, and your photos.

ANDREW FIELD:
And definitely price point.

CAMERON YODER:
And definitely price point, right, which is your second point actually. That’s a really good lead-in. So your second point was to make sure your price point is in line with competition. Can you break that down just what you generally recommend?

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, so I mean that kind of starts even before sourcing a product. So if you can only source this product and you have to sell it at a substantially higher amount than other listings on Page 1, you probably won’t be able to convert. You probably won’t be able to compete in that market moving forward. Amazon is a space where you have to have the best priced product. You need to present your product in a great way, but you also have to offer a good value to the customer. Since most products on Amazon are private label nobody really knows and has an attachment to a specific name brand, so price point is going to be a huge converting factor for you.

CAMERON YODER:
And that’s what – and we talk about on the show all the time and in our videos and everything, the importance of really setting your goals before you even start the whole process of really sourcing anything because if you set your goals on what you want to make, then that will kind of determine the manufacturers that you choose or the products that you go after and the margins that you’re looking for.

ANDREW FIELD:
Exactly.

CAMERON YODER:
Because like you said, I mean if you can’t handle the margins or the price war, then – or if you get into a market that is an average of $20, right, and you’re trying to source a product that’s like $40 because it’s better –

ANDREW FIELD:
Right, it’s going to be very difficult to compete in that market.

CAMERON YODER:
Right. Okay.

ANDREW FIELD:
Even if you have a well-optimized listing, good copy, good photos, if your price point is twice as high as everyone else, best of luck to you.

CAMERON YODER:
Right. Let’s talk – let’s touch on the third point, your third point that you made, or the third tip, general tip. So you said make sure that you target the right keyword. I want you to – can you break down for us what you would really recommend when people are trying to find the best keywords to pick to rank for? What’s your advice when it comes to that?

ANDREW FIELD:
So yeah, I get that question all the time. Basically you want to look and see what other listings like yours are converting for. Even another way, just run like an automatic sponsored ads campaign. Let it run for 10 days. See what kind of conversion you get for these keywords. See how many impressions you get for this keyword. And find the one that performs the best. That’s typically going to be the best keyword for you to target with the launch.

CAMERON YODER:
Okay. Other than that, like what about – and we have Market Intelligence, right, which gives us access to like sales estimate data. Would you use that in that case?

ANDREW FIELD:
Right. Yeah, I mean to an extent. It’s almost difficult when you’re just looking at sales estimation data because you’re not sure which keywords those sales are being attributed from. Mostly it’s common sense. You can tell which keywords are going to be most relevant to your product. You can use tools like MerchantWords to find – I mean other sales estim- or search estimation data. But that’s not always all that accurate.

CAMERON YODER:
I really think people overthink the primary keywords where, again, there are always exceptions to this rule, but really chances are if you’re able to put yourself in the mind of a buyer or of someone who is buying your product, you’ll probably be able to narrow down maybe the top three primary keywords that you should at least look into with something like split testing.

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, and as far as finding the primary keyword, I don’t think that’s really all that difficult. If you look at your competition you’ll generally see that the primary keyword for that market is going to be at the very beginning of most all of your competitors’ titles. So that’s an easy way to identify the primary keyword.

CAMERON YODER:
Right, to look at your competition and see what they’re driving. And again, that doesn’t always mean they’re picking the right one, but typically –

ANDREW FIELD:
Right. If you see most sellers in a market doing that, that’s generally meaning that that’s the primary keyword for the product, yeah.

CAMERON YODER:
Right, right, that’s good. Okay, so those were the kind of three general strategy tips, but let’s break down just launch strategy in general even more. So Andrew, what would you say – what are some of the most important things that people should keep in mind before they do something like a launch?

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, so I mean we’ve already kind of touched on it, but make sure that your listing is well-optimized. You have to have great listing copy. You have to have great photos. You have to have a competitive price point. The question that people always ask is once I get to Page 1 will I stick? I think people are asking the wrong question, and the question should be, will I sell? Because what good is it if you stick on Page 1 if you don’t sell? You need to be asking the right questions. So if your listing is going to convert, if it’s going to be competitive with the other listings in the space, that’s the question you should be asking.

CAMERON YODER:
What would you say about reviews?

ANDREW FIELD:
I mean reviews are important. I think we’ve kind of talked about this on the podcast before. Reviews are the currency of Amazon. That’s another thing that kind of goes into the optimization conversation. If your listing has far fewer reviews than other listings on Page 1 for that keyword, you’re going to find it more difficult to convert. Sometimes what we suggest right after running a launch is to drop your price a little bit, sometimes almost even to breakeven, just to generate sales, develop a strong sales history, keep that product on Page 1, and then you can gradually bring your price back up to like increase your margins.

CAMERON YODER:
Would you say there is like a flat number of reviews that someone should have before they run a launch, or is it kind of just dependent on the market that you’re going into?

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, it’s completely dependent on the market. I mean you’ll find brand-new markets out there where the average review count is 10 reviews. You can run a launch on that product with zero reviews. You’d have no problem. But if you’re going into a market where the average review count is 500 reviews, you’re going to find it a lot more difficult to convert with zero reviews. So I mean if you’re looking for a flat number – so for example, like for a market with 500 reviews as the average review count for listings on Page 1, I would suggest launching with no less than 100. That’s kind of my suggestion, so maybe 20% of the average of listings on Page 1.

CAMERON YODER:
Yeah, I think that’s a good baseline to build off of at least. Okay, that’s good. So next question, what do you see people doing wrong when it comes to promotions or launches? So what shouldn’t people do?

ANDREW FIELD:
So I think sometimes people have unrealistic expectations for how their product is going to perform after a launch. So getting a product ranking on Page 1 generally isn’t a problem. It’s typically pretty easy. But people think that all of a sudden their sales are going to skyrocket, which may not necessarily be the case. If your listing isn’t competitive you’re not going to see those sales. I know we keep going back to the having an optimized listing, but that’s how important it really is.

CAMERON YODER:
It’s important. It’s really important.

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, so I mean that’s why I think people need to discuss their strategy with a coach or a seller coach or someone that knows what they’re talking about before running a launch. Ask questions like will this listing sell in this market? Am I targeting the right keyword? How many units should I give to target this keyword? All those kinds of things.

CAMERON YODER:
Yeah, and this is not a – it’s not a plug for what we do. It’s just simply a really simple and easy thing that you guys can do and have free, really free access to.

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, exactly. Like no matter what strategy you’re using to get your product ranking on Page 1, these are the questions you need to be asking.

CAMERON YODER:
Right.

ANDREW FIELD:
Talking to people with experience is just a great resource for you.

CAMERON YODER:
Right, and that’s what our coaching team – our coaching team is meant to really give strategy to people.

ANDREW FIELD:
Exactly.

CAMERON YODER:
So they’re accessible to you. Okay, so let’s see. We see a lot of people, and we actually have – Casey and I have talked about this on the show before, too, but it’s always important to bring up because it comes up frequently, and it’s funny how often or how periodic this question comes up from people that are performing launches or thinking about performing a launch. But we see a lot of people talking, again, about how steep discounts don’t attribute ranking anymore. So what have you seen when it comes to that?

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, so I mean, like we said at the very beginning, I was employee number one. I’ve been giving launch suggestions for three years now. This has come up periodically forever. I mean I don’t think it will ever really go away. People are always looking for a reason not to give their product away at 90% off, which would totally understand. Nobody wants to give their product away at 90% off. But the data does not show that it doesn’t work. It still does work. Just for a specific example, just in the last like 14 days we ran three launches for a turmeric product, or three separate turmeric products. We got each one of those listings ranking on Page 1 for turmeric, turmeric curcumin and curcumin. Those are incredibly competitive markets where sales are 10,000+ a month. If 90% off promotions didn’t work there is no way that we would have been able to get those products ranking there.

CAMERON YODER:
Right.

ANDREW FIELD:
So we just kind of let the data speak for itself. There is always going to be those rumors out there, but as long as the data is there to combat it, I mean I don’t see it being an issue.

CAMERON YODER:
And that’s if – and that’s not to say that that could not change in the future, right?

ANDREW FIELD:
Right.

CAMERON YODER:
Because Amazon could pull a lever or something and all of a sudden maybe somehow, whether it’s accidental or intentional, make promotions not attribute ranking through stuff like that.

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s been a topic of discussion forever. But as of right now that’s not happening.

CAMERON YODER:
Exactly. And it’s not like we will hide that information from you. Like –

ANDREW FIELD:
Right. I mean there’s no point in us running launches if they don’t work.

CAMERON YODER:
Exactly.

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, I mean if launches don’t work we’re going to be straight up and say okay yeah, this strategy probably won’t work. Maybe there’s something else that we can try.

CAMERON YODER:
Right, and that’s why it’s important for us to keep you guys updated, at least from what we’re seeing with our launches since we run so many every single day and since Andrew has seen so many. It’s really important to help you guys know where we’re at and what we’re seeing. And what we’re seeing is that steep discounts still do work when it comes to product launches. Okay, so let’s see. When people are performing a launch, when they’re in the middle of the launch – dang it. Hang on. I lost my place. Oh yeah, yeah, okay. So let’s talk about when people are in the middle of a launch or a promotion. Will people, or should people expect to see results right away, or when should they expect to see something happen when it comes to keyword ranking?

ANDREW FIELD:
So my – like my typical launch suggestion lasts for 10 days, usually 10 days, seven to 10 days. Usually people will start to see ranking improve around day five. So during a launch you can expect to see a lot of different things. You can expect to see a big fluctuation in BSR, both up and down, big fluctuation in ranking, both up and down. But right around day five it typically starts to stabilize. So at day five you’ll start to see ranking like steadily increase. So like let’s say if you start on Page 3 for your targeted keyword. You might jump down to Page 6 during the first two days. Day three comes around and you’re back up to Page 3. Day five comes around, you’re creeping up Page 2. Day six, day seven, day eight, you’re moving up Page 1. That’s the typical – that’s typically what it looks like.

CAMERON YODER:
People tend to freak out when they’re on like day two of a launch, right? Yeah, explain that. Like they’re on day two of a launch and they see the product went down in ranking. They’re like what in the world? What just happened?

ANDREW FIELD:
Right, yeah. So I mean that’s just part of Amazon’s algorithm. That’s where people – I think that might even be where some of these rumors are stemming from where people run launches for like quote unquote tests, and after two days they’ve dropped to page 20 and they freak out, right? Let that launch run its course, and it will work. If you end prematurely you’re hurting your sales history, and it’s just going to cause problems down the road. Let that launch run, and you’ll see ranking improvement as long as you’re running with the appropriate strategy, of course.

CAMERON YODER:
And some of these – so some of these questions or this data is like dependent on the market, too. This specific question. Let’s say someone reaches Page 1 for their primary keyword before they expected to, like maybe before their expected launch day or the end of the launch.

ANDREW FIELD:
Sure.

CAMERON YODER:
Would you recommend that people stop their launch early, or just like kind of let it ride for a little bit?

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, that’s a good question. So if a listing reaches Page 1 and organic sales pick up to match the listing, the other listings on Page 1, then yeah, I mean go ahead and end that launch. There’s no reason to give products away at that point. If you get to Page 1 and sales pick up just a little bit you may want to let that launch continue so you can build a stronger sales history and maintain that Page 1 ranking, and then you can see organic sales coming in in the future.

CAMERON YODER:
Now what would you advise when considering launch numbers specifically? So like when somebody wants to find out the number of units that they should give away or the number of units they should put a heavy or steep discount on, what would you say to that?

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, so I mean this is going to sound like a plug for Viral Launch, obviously, but Market Intelligence, a great place to start. Analyze the market. Analyze that keyword. See what listings on Page 1 are doing in terms of sales volume. And you want to match that with your promotion. So generally, to develop a strong sales history you want to have your launch last for at least seven days, sometimes more. So seven days is kind of like the window where you need to run a launch for at least seven days to develop a strong enough sales history to maintain Page 1, or to even get ranking on Page 1. The additional three days that I usually recommend on the end of that are to help develop an even stronger sales history. So once the steady flow of promotional sales stops you’re able to stay there longer and generate organic sales recurring.

CAMERON YODER:
What would you say, what would you talk about post launch strategy? What’s the best strategy people can implement after an initial promotion if they run one for a keyword?

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, so after your initial launch you’re likely ranking on Page 1 for your primary keyword. If your listing is competitive you’ll probably start seeing an increase in organic sales right away. But let’s talk about a scenario where maybe your product isn’t just as competitive as all the other listings on Page 1. I kind of alluded to it earlier, but like some of the recommendations we have are to drop your price a little bit. Develop a stronger sales history for that keyword. Other things you can do – I’ve got to think about this for a second.

CAMERON YODER:
Yeah, yeah. No, you’re good.

ANDREW FIELD:
I had a bunch of stuff for this, too. Yeah, so like another thing you can do is run another promotion for another keyword. The best way to see the most organic sales is to be ranking on Page 1 for as many relevant keywords as possible. So if you see that you have – you’re in a market where you have 10 relevant keywords that are all going to attribute to your aggregate sales you want to be ranking on Page 1 for all 10 of those keywords. You don’t want to just be ranking on Page 1 for one of those keywords, and then you’re only seeing 10% of the sales that you would be seeing if you were ranking on Page 1 for all of your relevant keywords. So generally I would say to target multiple keywords with multiple promotions.

CAMERON YODER:
Let’s say you have two primary keywords for a product. If you run a launch for one specific one, and let’s say they’re similar. Let’s say maybe they’re similar, but they’re different enough to where you would need to run two separate promotions to rank for both of them. If you run – let’s say you run a pretty like intense launch for one of the primary keywords and you get to Page 1 for that keyword. Have you seen ranking attributed to the other primary keyword in some cases?

ANDREW FIELD:
Oh yeah, absolutely. So that kind of goes back to having a good, or a well-optimized listing. If you have those keywords in your title, if you have the correct keyword sequences in your title – so for example, like if you have like a fish oil, fish oil is your main keyword. Another keyword would be fish oil supplements. If you have fish oil supplements in your title and you’re targeting fish oil with your promotion you’re going to see a good, a sizable increase in ranking for fish oil supplements. You may even reach Page 1 for that keyword with the launch targeting another keyword. So yeah, I mean this goes back to making sure that you have a well-optimized listing.

CAMERON YODER:
Yeah, I think it’s good to, if people are trying to decide whether they should run a promotion for two separate keywords or run one targeting both or what have you, I think it’s always good to maybe even run one really targeted one for the primary, like the main keyword in that case, fish oil, and then see where you end up for fish oil supplements. And then if you want to just run another promotion for that right off the bat, you know where your baseline is going to be after the ranking has been attributed from the primary.

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, no, that’s a really good analysis, yeah.

CAMERON YODER:
So Andrew, what else – do you have anything else that you want to tell people when it comes to launches, or launch strategy or launch data?

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, so get advice. Don’t try to go it alone if you don’t have any experience. There’s always someone out there with experience that has looked into hundreds of thousands or however many markets and has the experience to tell you okay, this is the keyword you should target, this is the kind of strategy that will get you there, this is what an idea listing looks like in this market. You should try to emulate that. These are what your competitors are doing. This is your primary keyword. There are so many intricacies that go into a launch that you really need – there’s no substitute for experience and going into all the data.

CAMERON YODER:
Well, Andrew, thank you so much for being on the show today. It really is good to have a perspective like yours since, I mean you’ve been around the block. You’ve seen it all. You’ve seen brands built from 0 to 100, literally, and you’ve seen a lot of product launches go through. So thank you for taking time to be here and giving advice to everybody.

ANDREW FIELD:
Yeah, thanks for having me, for sure.

CAMERON YODER:
I’ll do and outro, but for now –

Well hey, that is all for this week. Thank you so much for joining us here on Follow the Data. For more insights and reliable information on how to succeed on Amazon, subscribe to the podcast and check us out on YouTube. I’ve been working on a series of product discovery walk-throughs that will really help you understand how to leverage the tool. So just search Viral Launch on YouTube, and go to our page, and look for my face on one of the videos. And if you’re listening on iTunes it would seriously help us out so much if you would leave a review to let us know what you think of the show. And if you know another seller who’s feeling lost in the Amazon information war that’s out there, send them our way. We really want to be a resource for all sellers, and honestly, the information source in this space. So please tell your friends. Spread the word, and share the show with other Amazon sellers.

Thanks again for listening, and as always, if you want to be featured on the show, have an Amazon-related question or an idea for an episode, feel absolutely free to leave us a voicemail. Our number is 317-721-6590. Until next time, remember, the data is out there.

Dispelling Myths: 90% Off Promotions (Follow the Data Ep. 1)

Follow the Data Episode 1: Dispelling Myths: 90% Off Promotions

Do launches work? Amazon gives higher keyword ranking to products sold at full price, leaving deeply discounted promotional products in the dust… Or so the myth goes. In the inaugural episode of the “Dispelling Myths” series, Viral Launch CEO Casey Gauss dives into the data to validate, or dispel, this widespread concern among Amazon sellers.

Listen on iTunes . See All Episodes

Listen on Stitcher / Listen on Google Play

 

Follow the Data Show Notes:

 

Podcast Transcript

Casey Gauss:
Everyone’s looking for like that next hack. It makes logical sense that 90% off promotions don’t drive as much keyword ranking. You know the problem is that the data just doesn’t show that.

Cameron Yoder:
The buzz about town is that running promotions to get ranking may not work the way it used to. Today we’re diving into the data to see what’s really going on. I’m Cameron Yoder.

Casey Gauss:
And I’m Casey Gauss, your host for Follow the Data: Your Journey to Amazon FBA Success. So in this show we leverage the data we’ve accumulated at Viral Launch from over 20,000 product launches and our experience working with over 5500 brands on Amazon to help you understand the big picture when it comes to Amazon and, most importantly, the best practices for success as an Amazon seller.

Cameron Yoder:
These first four inaugural episodes of Follow the Data are all part of our Dispelling Myths series in which we explore topics that have garnered a lot of conversation among the Amazon seller community recently, but that until now have not been proven or disproven using factual evidence.

Casey Gauss:
We’ll talk about where these Amazon myths come from, why they seem to logically make sense, and what the data is saying, and what is actually happening and how you can apply that moving forward.

Cameron Yoder:
All right, Casey, so this is Episode 1 of Dispelling Myths. We’re talking about promotions here. Can you tell us a little bit about this myth? What exactly is this myth?

Casey Gauss:
Yeah, so essentially this myth is basically stating that Amazon gives higher ranking power or effect to sales at full price versus, you know, the promotions at 90% off. The theory is that if you are running a promotion, if you’re giving a product away at a discount or selling it at a discount, especially 90% off, you’re not going to get nearly as much ranking power as a full-price sale.

Cameron Yoder:
So someone selling on Amazon, let’s say they give away items at 50% off. People are saying that those are not as effective or efficient as – or that the 90% off promotions are not as effective or efficient as the 50% off coupons. Is that right?

Casey Gauss:
Yep, correct.

Cameron Yoder:
Okay, okay. So where – or when, when did this idea start? Like where did it come from?

Casey Gauss:
Yeah, you know, we’ve seen this idea ever since 2014 when we got started. To be honest, I think that it’s definitely had a resurgence. We’ve seen people say you know back in the day oh Amazon will only let a review stick, or you can only get review power if it is at zero dollars, or if it’s over five dollars. You know there’s always these kind of arbitrary metrics that people throw out, and so now there’s just this resurgence. You know I’ve probably seen it a lot more over the last three months maybe, maybe around May, maybe around June, somewhere around there.

Cameron Yoder:
So why do you think it’s researching? Like why is this coming back?

Casey Gauss:
The – so yeah, so I mean with any myth I think a lot of it boils down or finds its root in everyone’s looking for like that next hack. It makes logical sense that 90% off promotions don’t drive as much keyword ranking. You know the problem is that the data just doesn’t show that.

Cameron Yoder:
Another point I guess that’s important, right, is that I mean it would be really, really great if it wasn’t true, right, that oh, that means if 90% off promotions aren’t as effective or efficient, then we don’t have to give products away at 90% off. Like that is a very appealing notion, right? So then that means that sellers don’t have to give products away for extreme discounts.

Casey Gauss:
Yeah, okay, yeah, very true. I would definitely like to point that out as – so it’s called consistency bias, right?

Cameron Yoder:
Yeah, right.

Casey Gauss:
And so you don’t want to spend the money associated with selling product at 90% off, and so you would like to tell yourself that it is great to – or that Amazon prefers full-price sales, and that’s why you want to head that way. Oh yeah, so another instance in which this kind of comes up is, you know, people run one promotion and they don’t get the keyword ranking they expected to see, right? So I’m selling a fish oil. I think I need to give away 50 units a day, let’s just say. And so I do that, and I expected to get to page 1, but I only got to bottom of page 2, right? And so then instantly everybody would jump to oh my gosh, promotions don’t work nearly as well. It must be full-price sales that are the answer. And you know the problem with that is here’s where, you know, the Viral Launch data or perspective really comes into play is that we’re running hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of promotions every day. So we have tons of data where you know, we’re tracking keyword ranking –

Cameron Yoder:
Right.

Casey Gauss:
– for keywords, the targeted keyword, as well as keywords that we find in the title, in the bullet points, in the rest of the listings. So we really, really understand how sales interact with the content of a listing, or tracking the price point of sale, or tracking are coupons present when we have MWS access. And so yeah, we’re able to really get this really broad perspective of the market versus you run one promotion, maybe your keyword, main keyword, wasn’t in the title. Maybe it wasn’t in your listing at all. Maybe, you know, you weren’t even indexed for it, or you know there’s a number of different factors that – and sometimes you know there’s things like cursed products where we just cannot get those things to rank in –

Cameron Yoder:
Cursed products.

Casey Gauss:
Yeah, that’s what we call it. So yeah, there’s so many different variables coming into play that running one test and then not getting the results that you had expected or intended is not enough of a sample size to really draw a strong correlation or a strong conclusion.

Cameron Yoder:
Right. And we, in terms of data – like you were talking about data – we really have that sample size. Again, like we run – we run promotions every single day, and they’re all built off of – or not every single one, but almost all of them are built off of 90% off promotions.

Casey Gauss:
Yeah.

Cameron Yoder:
If that didn’t work and it wasn’t effective, it wouldn’t work for us.

Casey Gauss:
Right.

Cameron Yoder:
And we see it every single day.

Casey Gauss:
Yeah, so I mean getting into the data of it, simply we’re running hundreds and hundreds of launches, and the amount— our ability to drive keyword ranking is just insane. And so at the end of the day Amazon is paying attention to did a sale happen? They’re not paying attention to the number of units that occurred or the price at which it is actually purchased. I think Amazon cares or is paying more attention to the price that the product is listed at.

Cameron Yoder: Let’s transition to a break. We’ll be back right after this message.

Rebecca Longenecker:
Hey, I’m Rebecca Longenecker, the producer for Follow the Data, and I wanted to let you know about a really cool resource the Viral Launch team just published. With this holiday season promising to be the biggest yet for Amazon, we’re offering an e-book that walks you through every aspect of Q4 preparation, from inventory planning, to optimizing your listing for mobile, to making sure your product is showing up in search. We’ve got you covered. There are also fun facts, helpful notes and handy little checklists you can use to evaluate how prepared you are. Don’t miss out on this year’s holiday sales. Go to viral-launch.com/Q4 to download the e-book now. That’s viral-launch.com/Q4. Thanks!

Cameron Yoder:
And we’re back again talking about the myth of giveaways and promotions. So Casey, let’s talk a little bit more about the data that’s backing this dispelling up. Can you touch on everything just a little bit more?

Casey Gauss:
Yeah, you know I think the really simple analogy or the simple logic here to kind of give everyone an example is as simple as this. So let’s take fish oil as an example, and someone wants to run a promotion to get ranking for the keyword, “fish oil.” Well, what we do is we go and we look, okay, here’s page 1 for fish oil. You know these guys are selling, let’s say it’s 50 units a day average page 1 or bottom half of page 1. And we want to get ranking there. So what we will do is we will give away 50 units per day targeting this keyword, “fish oil,” and after three days, five days, maybe seven days we’ll be ranking bottom of page 1 for fish oil, and we did – we ran 90% off promotion. So 90% of the sale price, these guys are selling 50 units a day at the organic price, and we sold at 90% off, and we’re still able to drive the same amount of keyword ranking. And so again, if Amazon did not – or reduced the amount of keyword ranking power as some kind of function of the purchase price we would not be ranking alongside these people that are selling just as many units except at the organic price. So that alone kind of just busts that myth, completely dispels that.

You know, another area this myth came from is there are these, you know, quote unquote experts or service providers in the space that are saying oh, you have to do these full-price deals with us, and the reason they’re doing that and they’re promising these crazy affects, right? So if you come and use our service we will guarantee you hit page 1 or number one most of the time, and we guarantee you will stay there for 30 days. The reason our method is so effective is because we’re using these gift cards to run full-price sales, and in reality what people didn’t realize was this person was running a bot or this artificial ranking method to your listing, and that’s what was getting you the results. That’s what was helping to maintain those results. It wasn’t the fact that you used these gift cards. And so that’s really frustrating to me because one, you know this person is operating on your business without your consent in a black hat manner, and two, they’re just, you know, completely lying about what is driving the results, which then goes and leads people down these dark paths. You know, it is against terms of service to compensate someone or reimburse someone for buying your product. It is absolutely stated explicitly in the terms of service that you cannot do this. It’s black hat. You know, will you get caught for it? I personally don’t know anybody that has. But you know, I think it’s one little slip up and now you’re in trouble for, you know, manipulating Amazon’s system or compensating buyers for purchasing your product.

Cameron Yoder:
Right. Let’s touch a little bit on just like the mentality of why, like why 90%? So why not? Why not? Why can’t – people are asking, why can’t I just launch my product at 50% off? It’s still a heavy discount, right, so why is 90% necessary? Touch on that.

Casey Gauss:
Yeah, so the discounted price or percentage is not a function of effectiveness.

Cameron Yoder:
Right.

Casey Gauss:
It is really, you know, we’re running generally around 450 or so launches a day right now, and so yes, we have a buyer list of 350,000 in the US, but you know these guys have – some of these people have been on our list for, you know, years and years and years.

Cameron Yoder:
A long time.

Casey Gauss:
And so if we’re selling an iPhone 7 case or a fish oil, like this demographic that we have only has so much discretionary income, and if you’re selling your product at 50% off, let’s say $10, versus the usual $1, $2, whatever, like that’s $8 less discretionary income they have to go buy our other products. And so in order to make sure the demand is high enough in the group for every launch that we’re running, we want to keep prices as low as possible so they have the money to buy more stuff.

Cameron Yoder:
Right. The 90% off is very much – it’s a means of control. Like you need to move – you need to move, if you’re launching, again, for fish oil, you’re going to have to move an insane amount of units to get to the top. The 90% off really gives control and gives you the ability to launch to page 1 for that. So the 90% off is a means of moving the launch forward and making it effective.

Casey Gauss:
And you know, to be honest, from like a competitive standpoint, you know if I were a larger seller I would actually kind of prefer this because the smaller sellers don’t have the budget –

Cameron Yoder:
Right, right.

Casey Gauss:
– to be really aggressive in these high-volume markets at these low prices. So they have to, you know, work their way up in a much slower process. And as a larger seller, yes, it is more expensive, but you’re essentially pricing or paying your competitors out of the market, which, you know, for large sellers that works. For smaller sellers, you know, this is why we definitely suggest getting into smaller niches where you don’t have to give away 100 units a day for seven days just to get on page 1, let alone maintain that ranking or whatever.

Cameron Yoder:
Oh, but what about fidget spinners?

Casey Gauss:
Yeah. We don’t want to talk about those.

Cameron Yoder:
No, no, no. So that’s actually a good transition into the takeaway. Let’s talk about what is the main takeaway? From my perspective it’s all about the risk, right, the reward of the risk. You have to take a huge risk. You are taking an investment, kind of an investment with giving away this many units. But giving away this many units at a 90% off discount is going to give you the control and get you on to page 1. And from there, then you will be able to make that increase in sales.

Casey Gauss:
Yeah, oh, completely. I would say, especially like – or specifically to this particular myth I think the takeaways are one, really be careful of who you’re trusting and paying attention to. Two, definitely make sure that you are getting a really solid sample size when you are making conclusions. Again, running one promotion that doesn’t get the ranking effects that you expected it to, you know, maybe you underestimated the number of units needed to give because the guys on page 1 are selling more units through that keyword than you had anticipated. Who knows? But anyways, yeah, please pay attention to your sample size when drawing conclusions because the last thing you want is to draw some conclusion and then spend the next three months and $20,000 trying to build a business around this, you know, this wrongly-founded conclusion. Yeah, and then three, really is at the end of the day, like you have to spend money to make money, like Cam is saying.

Cameron Yoder:
Right, right.

Casey Gauss:
And you know, unfortunately that’s the case right now. And yeah, you know, we’re definitely biased in saying that, but the problem is in that bias like we’ve just seen so many people have success. We just posted three Viral Launch case studies where this guy came, and he was doing $400K a month, and he came in, ran promotions across his product line, and after 30 days he’s doing $650K a month organically just because he improved the keyword rank position of his product. So yeah, he spent a bunch of money. I thought it was $250,000 to get that ranking, but now, you know, his sales are just killing it compared to where he was at. So –

Cameron Yoder:
Yeah.

Casey Gauss:
Yeah.

Cameron Yoder:
Take a zoomed out perspective. Ask why with everything that you’re doing. Make sure you’re getting all the data. Make sure you’re getting all the facts.

Casey Gauss:
Awesome. All right. We’ll see you guys later.

Cameron Yoder:
Hey, that is all for this week. Thank you so much for joining us here on Follow the Data. For more reliable information about what’s really happening on Amazon subscribe to the podcast and check out the Viral Launch blog at Viral-Launch.com.

Casey Gauss:
And don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you liked or enjoyed the podcast. We really appreciate your feedback as we work to build this podcast for you. Want to be featured on the show? Leave us a voicemail and tell us your thoughts on today’s episode, or ask us any of your Amazon questions. Our number is 317-721-6590. It will be linked in the show notes. Join us next week when we dispel the myth of Amazon sales velocity. Until then, remember, the data is out there.

 

About the Amazon FBA Seller Podcast:

Viral Launch CEO, Casey Gauss, and Amazon Seller Coach Cameron Yoder bring data-driven insights to the Seller community in their weekly discussions.

On the show you’ll get the latest Amazon selling strategies and best practices based on the company’s experience launching over 22,000 products and working with over 5,500 brands. Casey and Cam will bring you up to speed on the latest Amazon news, share stories of success and failure, explore the difficulties of entrepreneurship, and discuss the way Amazon is changing retail.

At the center of the show is the Viral Launch commitment to offering reliable information to today’s entrepreneurs.

5 Reasons To Start Selling on Amazon Europe

5 Reasons to Start Selling on Amazon Europe

“Going global.” We’ve all heard it right? Maybe one of the biggest buzz phrases in today’s technological world, especially for those in e-commerce.

Although Amazon US is without a doubt the largest, most profitable Amazon market, there is still a wealth of opportunity to be had on Amazon’s international sites, especially in Europe. Below are the top 5 reasons why you should be considering internationalization to Amazon Europe:

 

1. Expand Your Sales Potential

For starters, expanding into other Amazon marketplaces, namely the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, puts you in front of more consumers. Simple as that. In fact, it puts you in front of potentially 230 million more consumers.

While there are additional costs associated with selling internationally, the doubling in customer exposure and potential increase in sales is undoubtedly worth the price.

Since Brexit, Amazon UK sales have actually increased, and retail sales overall in European markets are on the rise, whereas US retail sales growth has been declining in recent years (more on that later). And, the average UK online shopper actually spends more annually than the average US online shopper, while German online shoppers are only marginally behind the US.

 

2. Smaller Markets = Less Competition

Another positive of Amazon Europe is smaller markets. You might be asking, doesn’t that mean fewer consumers? While all 5 European markets combined have about the same consumer base as the US alone, the undeniable benefit of each country’s smaller market is fewer sellers.

Of the approximate 2 million active Amazon sellers worldwide, only around 200,000 are in Europe, meaning you will have significantly less competition for the products you sell in each market.

Sellers should consider if their product is one that will sell well in each market. Due to cultural differences and expectations, an item that might be a high seller in the US may not translate as well in Germany or Spain. Or, your product may be called something completely different in another market. For example, in the US, we say “oven mitts,” but in the UK, they say “oven gloves.” So do your market research before you list, but if it’s right for the market, the potential to thrive and make it to page 1 is much easier than in the US.

 

3. Grow as the Markets Grow

As mentioned earlier, the European online sales market has seen significant growth in recent years. Western Europe has seen a steady average of 12% growth in online retail sales from 2012 to 2017, and Southern Europe has an average of 18% growth each year. The US, on the other hand, has seen a decline in growth in the last 5 years, from 14.8% in 2013 to 12.8% in early 2017.

Sellers have the potential to enter in now as the market across Europe is quickly expanding, allowing their products and their brand to grow as the markets grow. For example, review quantities are extremely low compared to the US.

Back when reviews were this low on Amazon.com, many sellers were able to get into the market early, generate tons of reviews over time, claim market share, and heighten the barrier to entry for new products. As the Europe market continues to grow, market competition will increase, so it’s a perfect opportunity to start building your reviews now. Basically, get in early, before everyone else does.

 

4. Many Sellers are Afraid of Internationalization

While potentially very profitable, internationalization is a daunting prospect for many US sellers. There are language and cultural barriers, market variations, differences in consumer expectations, extra shipping costs and local taxes, exchange rates, customer service barriers and local regulations.

These factors can seem extremely intimidating, but Amazon is working to mitigate challenges, making it easier for sellers to cross the ocean into Europe, even going as far as allowing certain sellers to apply for an Amazon account manager who can help with European expansions.

Since many are still avoiding the jump across the pond, sellers willing to take the chance have the opportunity to establish their brand and product now, solidifying a buyer base before other sellers land on the market.

 

5. Amazon is Seeking to Grow International Markets

In efforts to encourage sellers to go global, Amazon has significantly boosted their EU marketplace services in the last several years. While you do not have to be an FBA seller to sell internationally, Amazon makes the process incredibly streamlined if you are.

Anyone can sell across all 5 EU marketplaces under one single seller account, but non-FBA sellers must handle their own shipping and customer service. If you sell internationally as an FBA seller, you can send your products to an Amazon EU fulfilment center for storage and shipping, your products are Prime eligible, and you have access to each of Amazon’s language-specific 24/7 customer service platforms. Sounds like a pretty good gig if you ask me…

 

Need Help With International Launches?

Whether you’re looking to grow into just the UK market, or you’re interested in all 5 Amazon Europe marketplaces, the rewards have great potential if you have a product that will resonate culturally.

Lucky for you, Viral Launch is already offering product launches in Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. And, they’re discounted (for now, anyways)! So when you’re ready to cross the pond, Viral Launch is ready to get you ranking and launch you to Amazon Europe success!

Bonus: Market Intelligence, Viral Launch’s Amazon product research tool is now available for international markets! You can validate your Amazon Europe product ideas, see accurate sales estimates, and understand market trends in the US, UK, Germany, Canada, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, India, Mexico, and China. Start researching today, both for the US market and internationally, with the most sophisticated Amazon product research tool available!

 

Launch My Product!

See International Launch Pricing

 

Selling in Amazon Europe? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Exit mobile version