OMG Blog

Understand Your Purpose

When we first established the Director role at OMG, I wasn’t sure if I was cut out to be a leader of leaders. I was used to managing a team of 30+ by having one-on-one conversations with each team member and running collaborative departmental and group syncs. I wasn’t sure if I was communicative or expressive enough to share everything I was thinking and planning clearly enough to trust a middle-man to take it to the larger team. I wasn’t sure if having a middle manager was going to actually add value, or instead create inefficiency and delays.

The truth is, during that year and a half, I was terrified to delegate leadership responsibility. I was worried my standards for myself as a leader would not be practiced with the same level of commitment and dedication by others. I was nervous that the correct priorities would not be clearly communicated to the team. I was hesitant to trust anyone else to be as great a leader as I was, for this team. Yes, I know how that sounds, but hear me out. The team at OMG is phenomenal and deserves leadership who cares about them individually, personally and professionally, and will be a voice, an advocate and cheerleader for them. The clients of OMG expect leadership committed to excellence in care and competence and unwilling to accept any less from the team. The culture and environment of OMG requires leadership that is willing to speak up to protect and improve when normal day-to-day operations and interactions threaten to break it down.

Despite my reservations

It was quickly becoming clear that I couldn’t continue to be all things to all people, and in fact already wasn’t. I couldn’t move company-wide initiatives and operational updates forward as quickly as I wanted, and I could no longer meet with each individual of the team as often as they deserved. In fact, the team was already finding other people that they trusted to give advice and insight to their day-to-day situations, rather than relying solely on me. It was time to move into the next phase of growth, personally and professionally, necessitated by our progression of growth as a company. If I was going to continue to deliver the most impact to the team and organization, something had to change.

Because of my concerns, I probably waited a little longer than would have been ideal to develop and assign director roles. However, that extra time allowed me to solidify the vision for the role, both in terms of responsibilities and relationship with me, and make sure the new directors would be set up to succeed in that role, rather than set up to fail. It also allowed for the right pieces to fall into place to promote veteran team members into those roles with full confidence, not just in their abilities and alignment with the vision for the role, but also confirmation that the team was bought into them as a new direct report.

The good and the bad

A few things we learned about setting people up for failure in leadership roles:

• Make them a leader in name only. Don’t establish a system of accountability. Allow circumvention of the leader.
• Reserve clarity. Vague responsibilities of the leadership role or of the team members who report to the role. Don’t clarify to the team who their direct report is and how that affects their day-to-day.
• Save the things. Don’t bring up anything in the moment, but pull it all out during the annual review. Especially things other people brought to your attention so you don’t have first-hand knowledge. 

A few things we learned about setting people up for success in leadership roles:

• Systematize leadership. Make the delegation of leadership abundantly clear and hold people accountable to work within the roles and systems established. Direct all conversations to start with the new direct report, no leapfrogging to you. Check in weekly with your new leaders, and have them check in weekly with their direct reports
• Give all the clarity. Make the implementation of leadership very transparent. Share the role expectations and responsibilities with the entire team as a group, and individually as it pertains to them specifically. Explain how this affects your role and how it will change your schedule and conversations.
• Say the things. Promote trust and confidence in the care and competence of the person taking your place in their day-to-day. Don’t wait to ask about anything you notice in the day-to-day or that is brought to your attention.

A few of my favorite leadership tools:

• 1:1 check-ins. There is no better way to build trust and connection than a weekly 15 minute check-in with your individual team members, and the insights and improvements that you’ll gain will be invaluable.
• I highly recommend the book Radical Candor by Kim Scott. Business IS personal! I became a better boss OVERNIGHT after reading this book. Having my leadership team read it and then presenting the core concept to our team at our 2020 annual summit impacted the way everyone functions and communicates.
• The Global Leadership Summit is an annual event that we've participated in for the last six years and is always very helpful in developing leadership skills across the team. 
• I also recommend the book A Freethinking Leaders Guide: 9 Lies About Work by Marcus Buckingham. This book proves the issues I’ve had with “normal” management standards were legit and gives real, “normal” solutions.
• We use Culture Index as a screening tool for all candidates. It has a pretty hefty annual fee, but it pays off very quickly in terms of making sure you're hiring people who will be naturally inclined to the role you want them to fill. It allows you to focus your interview process on evaluating culture fit, already knowing they’ll be a good job fit.

Final Note

I am very hesitant to hire from outside for leadership. I want to be confident that before I assign authority and autonomy that there is alignment in culture values, company vision and goals. If you have people you can evaluate internally I'd start there, but obviously we all had to get hired at some point. The guys had no idea what they'd be getting from me when they hired me as a part-time, remote bookkeeper. I couldn't have begun to imagine what we've become either! So if you already have team members you can consider, strongly evaluate that, but also if it's a no, don't do it just for a short-term fix.

If you are leading with character and candidness, and expect your leadership team to do the same, once you have the right people in the right seats I am confident you will have great success. 

What You Should Expect

Ad Revenue

In 2020, OMG clients saw an average 114% increase in daily ad revenue during Prime Day vs. the week prior, rivaling that of Black Friday & Cyber Monday sales increases. We recommend reviewing what previous years’ Prime Days have been like before deciding on a set strategy.

Overall Revenue

Overall daily revenue increased for OMG clients by an average 106% during Prime Day vs. the week prior.

Ad Spend

Average daily ad spend increased by 70% during Prime Day vs. the week prior for OMG clients. 

Total Advertising Cost of Sale

Average daily Total Advertising Cost of Sales decreased by 17% during Prime Day vs. the week prior for OMG clients.

Key Dates to Remember

Source: Prime Day Timeline

March 29

Prime Exclusive Discount sourcing begins on this day and ends 2 weeks prior to the event. Please note: Prime Exclusive Discounts are only available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, India, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan.

April 16

Deadline to submit Lightning Deals in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

April 23

Deadline to submit Lightning Deals in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Australia.

May 20-June 13

The inbound shipping cutoff for vendors: Deal inventory must be in transit.

• May 20: the United States and Canada
• May 30: India
• June 1: Australia and Mexico
• June 6: the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
• June 13: Japan

May 28

Deadline to submit coupons in the United States, Canada, Mexico, France,

Italy, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Japan, the United Arab Emirates,

the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Australia.

May 30-June 13

FBA inventory cut-off date for sellers: Make sure your clients’ shipments arrive at Amazon well in advance of key shopping dates. Inventory should arrive at our fulfillment centers by this date to ensure your advertisers’ products are available for customers during Prime Day.

• May 30: India
• May 31: United States and Canada
• June 1: Australia and Mexico
• June 6: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, and Turkey
• June 7: United Arab Emirates and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
• June 13: Japan

Planning Your Attack

Winning Prime Day is all about planning your promotional strategy with the potential need to pivot in mind. Plan what you can in order to meet key deadlines while having alternative options in place both in the event that your product sells out or your Prime Week deal is canceled.  

Prime Exclusive Discounts

• Prime Exclusive Discounts are one of our favorite types of promotions to run during Prime Day to increase conversion rate.
• They do require  a few things: slightly advanced planning, a minimum of a 20% off discount, FBA inventory, and a minimum of a 3.5-star rating. But the payoff is definitely there.
• This promo type offers a certain level of urgency and exclusivity by displaying a bright  “Prime Day Deals” badge during its flight and only applies to Prime customers (which the majority of consumers are).
• Generally, a submission cutoff will appear closer to Prime Day but is currently listed as “2 weeks out from the event” which is confirmed for some time this summer.
  

Prime Week Lightning Deals

• Lightning Deals are also an excellent option for increased sales during Prime Week but present slightly more red tape than other promo options.
• Some of the challenges to consider with Prime Week Lightning Deals include the following:

• Steeper deal costs ($500/deal)
• Uncertainty of potentially poor-performing deal dates/times
• No guarantee of sales increase
• Frequently thin margins with proposed deal prices
• Less flexibility with off-Amazon pricing for 30 days leading up to Prime Day
• Potential deal cancellation
• Potential overlap with coupons and other promo types if not properly monitored

• That being said, our preference is to selectively use Lightning Deals to elevate our best-performing products, introduce new customers to products that are often repurchased or reduce price and liquidate closeout inventory.
• Some of the benefits of running a Lightning Deal on Prime Day include short-term improved sales rank, increased sales volume, defense against competitors running deals, and setting products up for success during Q4.
• Momentum from Lightning Deals can often be sustained by adding coupons on the page after the deal has concluded and ad campaigns can be coordinated to push Lightning Deals to the top of the Deal page during the designated time frame.

Prime Week Coupons

• The 5% off requirement for standard coupons are ideal for products that do not have the margin to support the 20% off discount required for Prime Exclusive Discounts. 
• This is a good alternative option for those that are either using Vendor Central or Merchant Fulfillment in Seller Central as their fulfillment method since FBA inventory is not required.
• While this coupon type does not display an urgent “Prime Day Deals” badge, it will display the standard “Save” badge which is still appealing to customers who are coming to Amazon looking for deals on Prime Day.
• Having any coupon (even a small amount off) will still show on the page and on advertising (including DSP).
• Despite having a submission deadline of May 28th, in past years, coupons have still been submitted successfully up to and throughout Prime Week while Prime Exclusive Coupons have not.
• This offers a bit more flexibility in terms of setting up coupons leading up to and after a Lightning Deal is scheduled with an unknown time frame.
• These coupon types can also often be used as a fallback in the event of a deal cancellation.
• Running coupons for 2 weeks after Prime Day allows DSP retargeting to perform at a higher level as the coupon badge will show on Amazon Dynamic display ads.

Storefront Deals Page

• Adding a “Deals” page to the navigation bar of your Amazon storefront offers the ideal landing page for Amazon customers seeking a discount on Prime Day.
• It also creates a central hub to direct ad traffic for any test campaigns surrounding “discount”, “inexpensive” and “clearance” related search queries.
• Ad copy can also be adjusted with your Sponsored Brand ads that direct to this page mentioning your “Sale” or “Deal” (provided you schedule your ad to expire when the promotion is over).
• This can also be used as a landing page test for DSP retargeting campaigns for customers who viewed but did not purchase.
• The best part is that building out a “Deal” page is very straightforward and doesn’t require a great deal of time.
• Select the “Featured Deals” module in Amazon’s storefront builder and populate with any ASINs you are considering running a promo on. This module is dynamic and will automatically update when any promos become active.
• We recommend submitting any storefront changes at least 7 days prior to Prime Day (if possible) to allow time to course-correct should you encounter any issues with approvals.

Listing Optimizations

• If you are considering testing various titles, images, or A+ content for improved conversion rate, test these items prior to Prime Week. The last thing you want to be dealing with is indexing or ranking issues during peak traffic.
• Consider using “Manage Experiments” for any eligible listings to split test various copy and creative options well in advance. Opt for the best-performing assets prior to Prime Week.
• If you are not currently using video assets on-page, now is the perfect time to add them to your gallery.
• Any video assets you create for listing optimizations can be repurposed for Sponsored Brand Video Ads.

Amazon Posts

• Step up your Amazon Posts game during Prime Week and repurpose any social media content.
• Once you have a confirmed deal date and time, schedule posts for any products with Lightning Deals during their designated deal dates and times for increased visibility and traffic.

Amazon Live

• Leveraging Amazon Live is an excellent way to tap into the increased Amazon traffic during Prime Week by driving additional views to detail pages from your Livestream.
• If you have brand access, you will have the opportunity to showcase your promotional offerings.
• This program is ideal for brands who already have someone on board that is familiar with OBS and live streaming.
  

Budgets

• Thinking about a budget may not invoke as much excitement as some of the other pieces we’ve touched on, but don’t let that fool you. Making a  well thought out budget plan is the anchor for a successful Prime Day Attack.
• Make sure to plan out budgets early so that you can prep campaigns leading up to Prime Day. This includes the lead up to Prime Day, Prime Day itself, and 2 weeks post Prime Day.
• Part of this prep will be understanding what products have deals/promotions/coupons running and at what times. You want to align your budget plan and timeline with your overall Prime Day Strategy.
• Budgets can be based on a set number, ACoS, Tacos, etc. This is unique to each advertiser’s goals and should be one of the first things finalized so that you can plan out your plan of attack accordingly.

‍

DSP: Your Secret Weapon

Utilizing DSP for Prime Day is your secret weapon to Prime Day DOMINATION! Ensuring you have a full-funnel strategy prepped will have you ready to rock. Below you’ll find strategies & suggestions to help propel your Prime Day sales.

Capitalize On Prime Day Increased Traffic

• Develop your DSP strategy for Prime Day and beyond. Consider scaling budget not only during Prime Day(s) but also for the two weeks after Prime Day for Retargeting. 
• The increased traffic during Prime Day will significantly increase the audience side for retargeting. Yes, some of this traffic will definitely have converted already and that is why you should put in place exclusions for past purchasers.
• We normally suggest adding a coupon for products you are pushing on DSP for two weeks after Prime Day as an added incentive for your retargeting audience to come back and make the purchase.
  

Lightning or Prime Day Exclusive Deals

• DSP Dynamic Ecommerce Ads will pull in lightning deal and coupon details that will show on the display ad. This is a great way to increase awareness for any promotions you are running.
• You will want to map out what strategies you plan to run as well as corresponding budgets.
• We recommend setting up a separate Prime Day order (campaign) for this so that you can control timing to correspond with promotion and to better visualize performance results.
  

Strategy for increasing brand awareness & traffic to your detail pages:

• DSP is a great way to boost awareness for your products and brand and grow your retargeting audience leading up to Prime Day. 
• A few ways you can boost awareness and traffic are Competitor Targeting, Similar Product Targeting, and In-Market targeting. 
• With so many targeting options available via DSP for funnel building strategies, we recommend you consult with a DSP provider to see what would be the best strategy for you.  
  

Utilize Storefront To Push Deals And Coupons

• If you decide to create a Deals tab on your Storefront, it may make sense to create a DSP order (campaign) that targets people who have viewed any of your deals (but have not purchased) and send them back to your Deals tab. 
• This works well if the products you are running deals for do not meet the 5,000 minimum unique visitors threshold for retargeting.   

      *This strategy does require custom static creative

Our OMG Commerce team is fully focused on Prime Day planning for our clients and we encourage you to do the same. For more Prime Day strategy goodness, check out the latest podcast from Ecommerce Evolution and partner with us to elevate your Amazon business!

Are my videos engaging?

Before you have any hope to sell someone your products, you have to first make them want to stop what they’re doing and watch your ad. The types of ads we run for our clients are YouTube TrueView ads. TrueView ads are the skippable pre-roll ads that force users to watch the first 5 seconds before the magical “skip ad” button appears. Those first 5 seconds are a real moment of truth. Can you properly hook and engage the right audience? If you can’t, the rest doesn’t really matter.

Looking for some powerful ways to engage your audience? Check out our Top YouTube Ad Examples and Templates Guide (It’s free).  

What KPIs show me if my video is engaging or not?

The KPI that best measures engagement is view rate. View rate is the percentage of users that are served an ad impression who actually watch your video. If your ad is longer than :30 then a user has to watch at least :30 before it’s considered a view. If your video is under :30, then a user has to watch all of the video before it’s considered a view. 

View rate is NOT a stand alone metric, nor is it your most important metric, but it is something to pay attention to. If your view rates dip much below 20%, you can safely say you have some work to do. You either need to do a better job with the opening of your video, OR you might just be showing your ads to the wrong audience. 

Why is 20% important? If your view rate dips below 20%, you’ll likely start paying higher CPVs or cost per view than you want to pay. When your cost per view goes up, the rest of your metrics usually follow suit resulting in increased CPCs (costs per click) and increased CPAs (cost per acquisition).  Campaigns that hit a CPA target begin with at least acceptable view rates.

Are my videos compelling?

A compelling video makes people what? Want to buy, right? Well, yes, ultimately that’s true. But initially a good video should compel shoppers to click. Compelling videos cause viewers to take action. If your video strikes the proper chord, then viewers will click through to your site to learn more and get the full scoop on your products. The KPI to show if your video is making viewers want to click is click-through rate or CTR. 

How is CTR calculated?

CTR shows us what percentage of users who see your ad, click your ad. So this is an impression-based metric, rather than a view-based metric. So if 1,000 people see your ad (whether they skip it or not) and 10 click on your ad, then your CTR is 1%. 

So what’s a good CTR or Click-Through rate for YouTube ads aimed at cold traffic? 

We recently pulled data from our top spending YouTube advertisers. We found that click through rates were almost always higher than .5% and occasionally over 1% for an average of just under .7%.

Does my landing page “seal the deal?”

Remember the old Alec Baldwin line “coffee is for closers” from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross? Alec’s character also confirmed the ABC’s of selling - Always Be Closing. Well, a good landing page would make Baldwin’s character proud…earning unlimited amounts of coffee. When you’re running YouTube ads with a target CPA goal in mind, then a high-converting landing page is a must. 

How is Conversion rate calculated? 

There are a few ways to calculate conversion rate. If you look inside Google Analytics or other on-page analytics tools, conversion rate is usually calculated by looking at what percentage of total session (or visits) ended in a purchase or conversion. When you see conversion rate inside a YouTube ad campaign, it’s showing you what percentage of impressions end in a conversion. 

What’s a good Conv. Rate?

A good conversion rate for an eCommerce page when looking at Google Analytics is often 1–3%. For a YouTube ad campaign, a good conversion rate is usually over .12%. When looking at our top spending YouTube advertisers we saw an average conversion rate of .16%.  

If your view rate is solid and your CTR is strong, but your conversion rate is weak, then you likely have a few things to experiment with including:

• Audience targeting. Maybe you're targeting shoppers who want your products, but are unable to buy them. 
• Landing page. Maybe the landing page doesn’t do enough to fully convince someone that your product will really meet their needs or solve their problems. Or maybe you don’t fully justify the price. Or maybe the landing page doesn’t fully confirm the promises made in the video. 
• Offers. Maybe you need a more compelling offer to get someone to take action now instead of waiting. 
• Cart optimization. Maybe the checkout process is slow or confusing. A smooth, mobile-optimized checkout experience is a must for keeping your conversion rates high enough. 

Are my campaigns optimized for scale?

In order to truly scale with YouTube, you need to find audiences and campaigns that are hitting your CPA targets. This does take some time and experimentation. Finding winning campaigns on YouTube is more analogous to baseball than other sports. A great batting average in baseball is 300 or 30%. For YouTube you may find that your win percentage is similar. If you test 10 campaigns, maybe only 3–5 of them really work well at scale. The rest don’t work at all or only work at small spend levels. 

Hitting your CPA goal takes time

It’s very rare to turn on a campaign in YouTube ads and immediately start hitting your CPA targets. You can pretty well count on the fact that for the first few weeks, and even the first few months, of advertising on YouTube results will be spotty. This happens because Google’s smart bid algorithm needs time to learn who is likely to buy your products and who isn’t. Also, you’ll need time to adjust bids and optimize on your end. 

Are campaigns running out of budget?

One of the best signs of potential scale is having a campaign that is limited by budget, but is hitting or approaching your CPA targets. This indicates that you have more you could be spending. Google will identify this for you by showing that a campaign is limited by budget. Google will then give you recommendations for what you should increase your budget to. Here’s a screenshot from a campaign that is doing quite well for a client and currently spending $300 per day. Google is recommending a bump to $900 per day. 

What’s the total impact am I seeing?

Most advertisers look at conversions in their YouTube ad campaigns and look no further. However, this doesn’t tell the full story. Since YouTube is reaching shoppers early in the buying journey, it’s very likely for a shopper to see an ad, engage with that ad, even click on that ad….but not buy right away. For some of our bigger advertisers, it often takes 7–28 days after a shopper views an ad before they actually purchase.  It’s also very typical for someone to click on a YouTube ad and not buy, but then a week or two later search on Google for the product and then purchase after clicking on a search or shopping ad. In addition to watching conversions directly in your YouTube campaigns, you should also consider the following: 

• Growth in lower funnel campaigns - A few weeks after you start running YouTube ads, you should see an uptick in volume in your branded search campaign and even your Google Shopping campaigns. We often see a 25% + increase in volume in branded search campaigns after the first 4–6 weeks of running new YouTube ad campaigns. 
• Growth in Google trends - One interesting free tool to use to measure the lift created from YouTube ads is to watch Google trends data for your brand. So visit trends.google.com and type in your brand name and Google will show you how search volume for your brand has increased recently.  This will give you an idea of the impact YouTube ads is having on the number of people searching for you. Here’s a screenshot of the growth we saw for a pretty large advertiser recently. The advertiser was already spending 6 figures per month on Facebook when we started, so the lift we see here in branded search volume can mostly be attributed to YouTube ads. 

‍

• Growth from other channels - We have one client who reports to us that for every 2 sales they make on their website from YouTube ads, they are also making a sale on Amazon. YouTube will certainly cause customers to buy from your site, but if you also sell on Amazon, you should watch how baseline sales increase after YouTube ads gain some momentum. 
  

Are you interested in learning more about YouTube? Check out this case study I just completed for Ezra Firestone and Boom by Cindy Joseph. You can also learn more about the new YouTube Kickstart Blueprint I created in partnership with Ezra.

Possibilities

Each week I speak with one to two Amazon Sellers interested in diversifying their traffic and sales outside of Amazon. They usually explain that they don't want to have "all their eggs in one basket," or a similar idiom. They also see how Amazon has recently hidden its customer data, and they'd like to be in control of who is purchasing. They would also like to use similar audiences and customer match tools that can be utilized with Google and Facebook Ads. 

As FBA fees have increased, 3PL options have also increased. It's now easier than ever to ship your own inventory outside of FBA. Off-Amazon sales enjoy an increased margin of 10-30%, depending on the product. It's easy to see that as an attractive possibility when considering your brand's potential for scale off-Amazon. 

Finally, depending on a wide variety of factors, you're at a lower risk for inventory disruptions and/or account suspensions when you're in control of your own Shopify store (for instance). It seems we're talking to a client each week who has some suspension or disruption on Amazon. Before writing this blog today, I spoke with a potential client who had his top product unjustly suspended for failure to have FDA approval. However, his product is cleared by the FDA universally and doesn't require FDA certification. The product has been "under review" by Amazon for weeks, while the Seller has been losing over $1500 per day in usual sales volume.

At this point, if you’ve previously been averse to advertising off-Amazon on the Google Marketplace, you might be intrigued by the possibility of testing an off-Amazon strategy.  Before you jump into the dark waters, let’s first do a little fishing. 

Pitfalls

When it comes to branching out from Amazon and getting started within the Google Marketplace, you need a solid strategy. You need a solid game plan that checks a lot more boxes than you may be thinking before firing up your Google Ads account and starting to drive traffic. 

It's important to know that, although Amazon is a huge marketplace, Google is still one of the top places that shoppers go when searching online for product information before making a purchase. Now, some recent studies do show that Amazon has caught up to Google in that regard. In addition, product searchers on Amazon are generally further along in the buying process, whereas Google searchers are earlier in the research phase. That's where you have to know the differences in the marketplaces themselves. Those nuances can be pretty big on Google. 

Gone Fishing

I recognize that this view is from a high level, and many will say that Amazon is simply a demand capture marketplace. Here's where we go fishing. One of my greatest memories as a dad is taking my son, Brooks, fishing.  We lived in a small farmhouse on five acres. It was surrounded by ponds full of largemouth bass. If you've never been fishing for bass on a farm pond, it's actually pretty easy. For this illustration, let's call this the Amazon Pond. On this Pond, you can grab a lure out of your tackle box, tie it on your line, and as the sun gets low in the sky, you can reel in 15-20 bass pretty easily.  

Google, however, is much like deep-sea fishing in the ocean. To succeed in the Google Ocean, you need a boat with a motor; you need to stop by the bait store and load up with live shrimp. You'll need great technology like a GPS with a depth finder and sonar to read the bottom. Once you arrive at your spot, you might think you're in the right area, but then you drift a bit, get a bit off target, and suddenly the fishing isn't that great. 

What does this really mean? Well, it means that your trophy fish are on Google, not Amazon. It also means that you need to come prepared because there is so much more to selling successfully off-Amazon in the Google Marketplace. We see this all the time at my winter home in Florida. We see the hopefully energized, but mostly clueless tourists heading out into the Gulf of Mexico. They don't have the right tackle, they don't have the right bait, and they don't know where the best GPS locations are to catch the lunkers.  At the end of the day, we see them motoring past our home, sunburned and spent. 

To succeed, you'll need the skills and experience to know where the fish are and have the right bait to attract them. You can also hire an experienced guide who can help you fast-track your success.  With that as a backdrop, you might have succeeded with demand capture on Amazon by ranking or advertising for searches where the consumer is searching with purchase intent. 

Searches like gluten-free bread or gluten-free prime, or build your own deck, or furniture that have purchase intent behind those queries, whereas, on Google, you can't pay for those kinds of queries, you've got to find the queries that have a purchase intent. When you do find those queries, you're going to discover that everyone else in your niche is targeting those queries as well. That's where you have to make sure you know the right gear will be, among other things, a well-built Shopify site. You're also going to have to pay attention to how fast that site loads, something you never had to think about on Amazon.  We've researched prospect sites that have good potential. Still, they're loading in seven or eight seconds. This has the potential to kill their quality score in Google Ads and potentially hurt the opportunity they might have for organic SEO. 

Brand Story

Finally, what is your brand story?  Does your brand “show well?”  What makes you different? Why should I buy from you?  What’s behind your brand? Who’s behind your brand?  Where are you located? Can I easily return my product? Can I contact you by phone? Those are just a few questions that searchers on Google will want to be answered in a few seconds when they arrive at your home page or product display page. 

Those are just a few considerations that brands off-Amazon should make sure are addressed earlier, not later in the process.  We see this so many times with Amazon brands coming to us. They want to launch on Google, but they're too preliminary, and there is a big potential to waste much money with an unprepared launch on Google. 

At OMG Commerce, we’re happy to have a conversation with you about your move to the Google Marketplace. If you’re in the preliminary stages, we’d be happy to connect you with developers, page speed specialists, and branding experts who can help set you up for success.  If you believe your boat is loaded up with the right bait and ready to increase your haul with Google Search, Shopping, Display & YouTube ads, we’d be happy to find out if we’re the best guide for your next expedition. 

Q: I run an ad agency much smaller than OMG, but we’ve grown quite a bit. I’m looking to hire someone who can help my company continue to grow, take things off my plate and do so profitably. Up until now I’ve mostly worked with contractors. Do you have any thoughts on where I could start?

I started my career with OMG eight years ago when it was a team of five, with a master's in accounting and no prior knowledge of digital marketing. At the time I had a 19 month old and a two week old, and was just thankful to have found a job that allowed me to work part-time from home. I spent the first eight months cleaning up the books, sending out invoices and paying bills as needed. After eight months I approached Brett and Chris with a personal circumstance that had the potential to impact me professionally, as I was leaving my (now ex) husband and needed to be able to support myself and my children solo. This was an unexpected watershed moment in all of our lives as their decision to make me full-time allowed me to start working in the office, connecting with the team and getting exposed to the actual day-to-day of the business. I very quickly discovered what you likely already know - entrepreneurs are great at building businesses, but not always so great at developing them. New business was coming in on a weekly if not daily basis, but internally there was a lack of structure around pricing, processes, systems, and communication, not to mention hiring, onboarding, and training. Spontaneous decisions and inconsistency in process isn’t that big of a deal for a team of two, but as the team grew, structure was quickly becoming a crucial need. As the person responsible for our books and with so much on the accounting side revolving around the service side, my own need for consistency and structure quickly translated into process development. Over time, I became business manager and then COO, due to my ability to manage both people and processes.

When developing your initial leadership team, first focus on finding (or utilizing) someone who:

1. Shares your culture values.

We were very fortunate that Chris, Brett, and I all share similar values. When we sat down to define our mission, vision, and culture statements, we were in full agreement about what we did and did not want to be part of OMG. That said - not every value comes instinctively in every situation, for any one of us. Our culture is a standard to constantly be striving for, and we can hold each other accountable to it safely knowing we are aligned in the importance of those values. You may find yourself with a partner or team member in leadership who is not in alignment with your mission, vision, or culture values. It may seem like you have no option but to keep working with them, but while this may seem like it saves your business from crumbling in the short-term, it is guaranteed that you will regret it in the long run. A lack of agreement at the leadership level will break things at every other level, often getting deeper and more widespread than you’ll ever know until you finally A) let them go or B) crumble as a result. At the very least you’ll stifle both your fulfillment and potential success. 

It’s also important that each member of leadership has individual proactive autonomy, a true sense of ownership of their responsibilities, combined with a collaborative mentality. This keeps growth constant, delays minimal, and ensures that while everyone is moving forward of their own motivation, they are also committed to maintaining unity by communicating those decisions with each other as they go.

2. Has a combination of people skills and data skills, and balances your strengths/weaknesses.

What OMG didn’t need was another entrepreneur, all gas, no brake personality. They needed someone:

• who could get shit done AND create processes and systems to help others GSD, who could see the big picture and the gaps in the details and implement what’s needed to achieve the vision. 
• who had people skills and emotional intelligence, as they needed someone to take over the day-to-day management of the team.
• who could understand and utilize data to make decisions. Digital marketing is a data-heavy industry, which excites some people and causes others to zone out. It wasn’t a stretch for me (retail+accounting) to enjoy learning about Google Ads and SEO in order to put efficient and effective processes in place. 

Now, just in case it sounds like I was alone in this effort, we had other team members who are also very process oriented and I collaborated very closely with them to create systems and processes (and who are also now in leadership… more on that later!). The primary value I brought to the table was being able to connect the people and the process, internally motivated to ask the hard questions without shutting people down, to question why and how and what we needed to support our team and our clients, and push to implement whatever we needed to become world-class.

3. Has the hard skills to be able to evaluate and make good business decisions (even if they have no digital marketing experience).

Anyone can learn digital marketing - if you find someone that has a questioning, proactive personality who enjoys working with people, processes, and data, that's a great start to building a partner you can rely on. My education in accounting and general business, as well as several years working in the retail industry deemphasized my lack of knowledge and experience in digital marketing and gave me the tools I needed to support the growth and development of the business. That said, I’m a huge believer in learning as much as possible about the actual work of the business no matter the role, both high-level and granular, because increased knowledge makes decision making, process and resource development, and communication that much more impactful. Additionally, my accounting background and initial accounting responsibilities for OMG means that I can’t help but mesh organizational development with financial planning and justification.

4. Is able to have candid conversations with you about the future of your business. 

Brett and Chris are 50/50 partners, and after a few years of growth, having two captains of the ship was taking its toll on the team and causing tension and a lack of unity in vision. Both of them dislike conflict, so it took objective perspectives to help them see the importance and value of defining their roles and responsibilities, a conversation that risks discomfort and tension by its very nature. I don’t like conflict any more than they do, but because I have the back of the team and the business, I was just as responsible to show them the need for the conversation as they were to have it. Your leadership team needs to be given the freedom and safety to say the hard things to you, or you risk limiting the true potential and success of your business. 

Brett then became CEO, and neither he nor I had ever run an agency or grown a business. It has been a learning experience for both of us at every stage of growth. It has been especially important for us to continually communicate and clarify what each of our roles are in order to avoid overlap and confusion with the team and frustration between us when we end up in the inevitable "mom vs. dad" scenarios. The great thing about our working relationship is that we both want to end up at the right place, and are willing to talk through our differing opinions and perspectives to get there. Our willingness to do this with each other, even in front of our team, sets an example of respect, transparency, vulnerability, and accountability from the top down. My directors know they can push back on my vision and perspective safely. Our team members know they can provide candid feedback about processes, roles, and clients without any fear of backlash.  In fact, it’s known to be a bigger danger to the team if they don’t share their perspectives!

You can always find people with experience growing a business through an Indeed posting, but our experience in clarifying our leadership and developing new team roles has been more organic than an intentional search, so I can only speak to that. Keep in mind that the statements I made in this post are my own opinions and are based on my personality and the needs of our business and may not be the exact recipe for success that works for you. However, if you are leading with character and candidness, once you have the right people in the right seats, I am confident you will have great success.

What makes DSP Different?

Before we discuss audiences, let’s first tackle a few key points that make Amazon DSP different from other online ad platforms.

• With Amazon DSP, you’re paying for impressions, not clicks. Rather than paying each time someone clicks your ad like you would with sponsored product ads on Amazon, with Amazon DSP ads, you’re paying every time your ad is shown to a shopper. Rather than bidding on a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) basis, you’re bidding on a maximum cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis. Just like the name implies, cost-per-thousand is the price you pay to show your ad to 1,000 people. When you bid at a $5 CPM, as an example, that means you’re paying up to $5 to have your ad shown 1,000 times to shoppers. You pay that CPM regardless of whether 100 people click the ad, or 5 people click the ad or nobody clicks the ad. This can be very affordable if your targeting is set up properly and you’re getting clicks from eager shoppers. It can get really expensive if you’re paying to show your ads to the wrong people or paying to show your ad too many times. Which leads us to our next point. 
• Frequency caps are important. It’s important to understand how many times, on average, your audience sees your ads. The cost per 1,000 impressions doesn’t mean you’re reaching 1,000 unique people 1 time each. It could mean you’re reaching 500 people with 2 impressions each, or even just 20 people with 50 ad impressions each. If you reach people with too few ad impressions they might not even notice you. Reach them with too many impressions and they will likely get sick of you. Showing your address too many times to the same user, will definitely increase your costs, but not necessarily your return on ad spend. The point of diminishing return is really important to watch with retargeting or loyalty campaigns on Amazon DSP. This is true with any form of retargeting ads, but even more true with Amazon DSP. With click-based retargeting campaigns like you might run with the Google Display Network, it isn’t likely that an individual shopper will click your retargeting ad 5 or 10 times before converting. It happens, but it’s not the norm. We’ve audited Amazon DSP campaigns and found that sometimes merchants are paying for 50-100 ad impressions per shopper on their list! Not only is this annoying for shoppers, but it’s unnecessarily expensive for you as an advertiser. This is where frequency caps come into play. When building or updating your DSP campaigns, you can put a cap on how many impressions an individual user can have of your ad. 
• Audiences are updated in almost real time. Whether you’re building an audience of people who have purchased a particular product, or who have NOT purchased a particular product or who have only viewed a particular product, know that audiences are updated in near real time. This is important if you’re trying to exclude buyers, which you should be doing with your standard retargeting or cart abandoner campaigns. Knowing that audiences are updated in almost real time helps you know that you aren’t paying to show a retargeting ad to someone who just purchased your product. 
  

With that context in mind, let’s dive into the top audiences you should consider for Amazon DSP.

Audience #1 - ASIN Retargeting.

‍This audience is made up of shoppers who’ve visited your product pages on Amazon, but haven’t purchased. Getting to a product detail page usually indicates that a shopper is getting closer to making a purchasing decision. Likely if someone has viewed your product, they’ve also viewed one or more of your competitor’s products. If no purchase has been made yet, then the shopper is still weighing their options. This is where your retargeting ad comes in. For our clients that we manage DSP ads for, all of them are running ads to ASIN retargeting. ASIN retargeting is the audience most likely to convert that you can target. That’s why it’s the number one audience we recommend. If your product pages are like most on Amazon, then 90% of the people who view your products leave the page without buying. ASIN retargeting helps you convert more of those shoppers who don’t purchase on their first visit to your product detail pages. You can also get pretty segmented here by only retargeting people who’ve viewed your products in the last 30 days or even just the last 7 days. You can also target people who’ve viewed a few different ASINs rather than just one. Basically, we can get pretty granular here to maximize our results.

Audience #2 - Repurchasing/Loyalty Audiences.

 If you sell a consumable, or something that people need more than one of, then people who have purchased in the past are often the most likely to purchase again. Past purchaser audiences can be really powerful. It’s usually easier to sell more products, more often to existing customers than it is to just sell products to more new customers. We like to use repurchasing audiences to get people to reorder a consumable product if it’s time to reorder. We also use repurchasing audiences to cross promote related products. Let’s say you sell supplements. You could target shoppers who’ve purchased your protein powder who haven’t purchased your digestive enzyme and show them why they should buy your digestive enzyme. If they love your protein powder, they’re likely to love some of your other products too. There is so much you can do with past purchaser audiences, but you do need to be careful. This is an audience that you could easily over spend on. It’s really important to look at frequency caps so you aren’t bombarding your buyers with an unnecessary amount of ads. 

The next audience is a targeting option that is truly unique to Amazon DSP ads. I wish Google or Facebook offered targeting like this, but they don’t.  You might think this sounds like this targeting option gives you an unfair advantage.  As a longtime marketer, when I first heard about this audience type, I definitely felt like a kid who’d been handed the keys to the candy store.  I do want to underscore that you should start with the first two audiences first before dipping your toes into the next audience...

Audience #3: Competitor Conquesting.

What if you could build an audience of people who’ve visited your competitor’s products on Amazon, but haven’t purchased? What if you could target people who have purchased from your competitor in the past? This is a great Top of Funnel Audience and, while these audiences don’t convert like retargeting audiences do, they still offer a great opportunity to sell more products to very targeted audiences. Once you have your remarketing audiences and campaigns dialed in, we recommend testing some competitor conquesting campaigns as these audiences feed your retargeting audiences. 

These 3 audiences are definitely the place to start when running DSP ads. Just be aware of the KPI’s for each strategy as they are different and will help you track the success of your campaigns. Properly structured, campaigns targeting these audiences can go a long way to help you sell more products. 

‍
Want to learn more about Amazon DSP ads? Check out our free Amazon DSP Roadmap guide.

‍

Eager vs. Guarded

When you reach out to an agency, what is the initial response you received? How fast did they respond? Was it a template response or a personal response? There is zero wrong with an agency that is eager to do business with you. There is also nothing wrong with an agency that takes a guarded approach. Brands who leaped too fast into an agency that was eager to get right to work realized later that there wasn’t enough front-end work done from a strategic perspective for their unique situation. It’s not surprising then that the feedback I hear is, “They seemed great and eager to work with us, but once we got started, I seemed to be driving all the strategy,” or “I felt like they put my business into a cookie-cutter process.”

When seeking a new marketing agency, please pay attention to the agencies asking more questions and listening more than they’re speaking. Additionally, there is nothing wrong with slide deck presentations on initial calls, but if the deck is more about them than about you, I suggest asking for 2-3 current client references. It’s also great to ask this question. Tell me about the last client that ended the relationship with you.

Not Asking About Company Culture

As a Co-Founder of OMG Commerce (this is the part where it might sound self-serving, so forgive me in advance), I’m most proud of our distinctive company culture. It didn’t happen overnight, and there are moments I can recall from the early years in our business when we did not focus on company culture values. One of the best questions you can ask a prospective agency is this, “Tell me about your company culture and how your culture will fit into our business relationship.” If you get silence on the other side after asking this question, it should speak volumes. 

We talk about our culture with prospective clients because we feel it is one reason we have longer-term engagements and almost zero team attrition than similar agencies in our space. It would be fantastic if more prospects would ask the culture question when seeking a new agency relationship! 

Falling prey to a single customer experience opinion 

One of the wonderful things about the digital world we live in today is the speed of access to opinions and reviews. It can be super helpful when checking out that new restaurant you’d like to go to or investigating product options on Amazon. I don’t think I’ve ever purchased a product with less than a 4-star rating. I’ve also avoided any restaurant with a slew of bad reviews. No thank-you food poisoning!

These days, a challenging area for agencies and brands is the number of private mastermind groups and private Facebook groups for eCommerce brands. Recently, I found a review of our agency in a trusted industry forum. It wasn’t flattering. I had to search through my discovery notes on prospects I had spoken to refresh my memory as none of it sounded familiar. After finding the history of the discussion, I was astounded at the way this prospect framed his experience with our agency when in the email communication, I received nothing but “no worries,” “all good,” and “appreciate the help.”  

We were doing our job in vetting this prospect to make sure they were a good fit for our agency. In the end, we determined that they weren’t a good fit and referred them to another agency. The prospect felt we wasted their time. From my perspective, I was relieved we never engaged as the things that were written in the review highlighted some of the reservations we had about working together. The sad part of the review is that I know others will read it and potentially draw a negative conclusion about our agency and never reach out. 

Just as you won’t write off that world-class restaurant because of one lousy diner experience, be sure to look for multiple negative reviews and similar narratives when researching an agency. Besides, suppose others have had positive experiences with that agency in the group. In that case, it’s a good idea to interview the agency and be transparent about your concerns. The right agency will be more than happy to share their side of the story for perspective.

In conclusion

If you haven’t seen similar articles like this blog, I’ve listed the following additional “mistakes to avoid” currently covered in multiple postings in the digital space.

• Agency is not up-to-date on current ad trends (FB, Google, Amazon etc.)
• Hiring Specialists vs. Generalists
• Expecting a similar speed to scale across different advertising channels (FB vs. Google ramp-up)
• Collaboration vs. Mistrust/Adversarial Relationship
• Failing to verbalize any discomfort when interviewing an agency
  

If you’re seeking a world-class eCommerce agency, I’d love to speak with you and find out if we’re a mutual fit. I’d be happy to schedule a free strategy session here.