Adam Epstein is the Co-president of Perpetua, an eCommerce advertising software helping brands, media agencies, and Amazon sellers improve retail media ad performance with AI-powered automation. The company has offices in Toronto, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Sao Paulo, with over 3000 customers providing over $1 billion in managed ad spend. As a technology entrepreneur and executive, he has experience in SaaS, business and corporate development, sales, operations, strategy, partnerships, and product management. Before Perpetua, Adam was the General Manager at Paytm and the Vice President of Velocity Mobile Ltd.
When developing an advertising strategy on Amazon’s marketplace, precision is pivotal in driving traffic to your storefront. Yet, many brands lack an effective strategy and struggle to obtain key data and insights. So, how can you hone your advertising approach to drive profitability?
One common method to employ is a dayparting strategy, which allows brands to schedule their ads for specific times to target audiences more effectively. With Amazon Marketing Stream, you can access your performance data in real time, including attributed sales, conversion rates, click-through rates, and impressions. This service streamlines any advertising strategy to optimize campaigns and drive traffic.
In today’s episode of The Digital Deep Dive, Aaron Conant chats with Adam Epstein, Co-president of Perpetua, about enhancing your Amazon advertising strategies. Adam explains how Amazon Marketing Stream enhances advertising strategies, how brands can allocate their advertising budgets to drive traffic, and key considerations for creator and OTT campaigns.
BWG Connect provides executive strategy and networking sessions that help brands from any industry with their overall business planning and execution. We network and knowledge share together to better understand and adapt to the newest trends, strategies, and pain points shaping growth in the digital space. BWG Connect, in conjunction with BWG Strategy, has built an exclusive network of 125,000+ senior professionals and hosts over 2,000 virtual and in-person networking events on an annual basis.
In addition, we have had 1x1 conversations with over 5,000 brands and have a real-time pulse on what digital strategies are successful and why. This in-depth knowledge allows our team to operate on the cutting-edge and provide our clients with best-in-class guidance on how to win in the digital world. We have provided free consultations and strategy sessions for companies of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune-100, to enable growth, resolve issues and make curated service provider introductions that can impact your digital footprint.
We have held to the philosophy of providing high-level insights and actionable knowledge with no sales pitches in order to provide to our network the ability to listen, learn and act to improve themselves as well as their organizations. Our ultimate goal is to be the resource out there to help digital executives find the research they need to excel in the modern marketplace.
If you are interested in getting involved with any of our current or past events, you can find them here. If you are looking for help & would like to set up some time to chat with our team, you can schedule a time or reach out directly to aaron@bwgconnect.com or Tiffany@bwgconnect.com.
John Ghiorso is the Senior Vice President of eCommerce at Media.Monks, a global marketing services company. He is also the CEO and Founder of Orca Pacific, a full-service Amazon and eCommerce agency that brings cutting-edge strategies and managed services to over 100 industry-leading brands, including Reebok, Godiva, Levi, and Mars. The company completed a merger with Media.Monks in 2020.
In his role, John leads Media.Monk’s performance and enterprise teams which are composed of former Amazonians and top industry experts. With a decade of Amazon expertise, he has built a reputation for approximating industry reactions and forecasting shifts within Amazon’s marketplace. His insights have been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Vox, and Modern Retail.
The advancement of Web 3.0 brings about modern technologies such as virtual and augmented reality that will transform customers’ shopping experiences. So, how can you leverage these technologies to stay ahead of eCommerce trends?
According to John Ghiorso, one impending technology that has functional implications for retailers is augmented reality (AR) glasses. This device would provide consumers with 3D renderings of an item to influence their purchasing decisions. By developing a strategy that combines physical and digital stores for experiential involvement, brands can gather practical insights and data on each aspect of the customer journey.
In today’s episode of The Digital Deep Dive, Aaron Conant talks with John Ghiorso of Media.Monks and Orca Pacific about how brands can prepare for the future of eCommerce. John discusses Web 3.0’s technologies and their impact on consumer purchasing, how retailers can leverage AR to improve the customer experience, and the effects of technological changes on consumers and brands.
BWG Connect provides executive strategy and networking sessions that help brands from any industry with their overall business planning and execution. We network and knowledge share together to better understand and adapt to the newest trends, strategies, and pain points shaping growth in the digital space. BWG Connect, in conjunction with BWG Strategy, has built an exclusive network of 125,000+ senior professionals and hosts over 2,000 virtual and in-person networking events on an annual basis.
In addition, we have had 1x1 conversations with over 5,000 brands and have a real-time pulse on what digital strategies are successful and why. This in-depth knowledge allows our team to operate on the cutting-edge and provide our clients with best-in-class guidance on how to win in the digital world. We have provided free consultations and strategy sessions for companies of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune-100, to enable growth, resolve issues and make curated service provider introductions that can impact your digital footprint.
We have held to the philosophy of providing high-level insights and actionable knowledge with no sales pitches in order to provide to our network the ability to listen, learn and act to improve themselves as well as their organizations. Our ultimate goal is to be the resource out there to help digital executives find the research they need to excel in the modern marketplace.
If you are interested in getting involved with any of our current or past events, you can find them here. If you are looking for help & would like to set up some time to chat with our team, you can schedule a time or reach out directly to aaron@bwgconnect.com or Tiffany@bwgconnect.com.
Hannah Blackburn is the Co-founder and Director of The Hawkers Club, a company that helps vendors and sellers solve their most pressing challenges and navigate eCommerce marketplaces, including Amazon and Target. In her role, Hannah advises online sellers and vendors on how to directly position their brands and value offerings as Amazon partners to increase profitability and revenue.
Before co-founding The Hawkers Club, she joined Amazon as a brand specialist with an initial focus on vendor excellence and marketing before transitioning to stock management and profitability. Since she’s written the business logic powering some of the algorithms that run Amazon, Hannah knows how you can systematically make profitable decisions that Amazon’s algorithms reward.
Amazon’s direct import is an excellent opportunity for brands to sell their products internationally and expand their reach. But, utilizing this service requires strategic planning since there are many factors to consider, including pricing and inventory. So, how can you optimize direct import to drive growth and maximize revenue?
The first action vendors should take is to prepare their pricing structures. Brands must adjust their product value to coordinate with stock increases, so it’s essential to correlate pricing with profit margins. Hannah Blackburn suggests implementing a MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) Policy to determine the most beneficial pricing. When assembling inventory, it’s crucial to consider lead times and establish production dates accordingly. With the right strategies in place, you can capitalize on direct import to amplify your impact.
In this episode of The Digital Deep Dive, Aaron Conant sits down with Hannah Blackburn, Co-founder and Director of The Hawkers Club, to discuss considerations surrounding Amazon’s direct import. Hannah explains the criteria for direct import, how brands can prepare their pricing and inventory, and best practices for optimizing the service.
BWG Connect provides executive strategy and networking sessions that help brands from any industry with their overall business planning and execution. We network and knowledge share together to better understand and adapt to the newest trends, strategies, and pain points shaping growth in the digital space. BWG Connect, in conjunction with BWG Strategy, has built an exclusive network of 125,000+ senior professionals and hosts over 2,000 virtual and in-person networking events on an annual basis.
In addition, we have had 1x1 conversations with over 5,000 brands and have a real-time pulse on what digital strategies are successful and why. This in-depth knowledge allows our team to operate on the cutting-edge and provide our clients with best-in-class guidance on how to win in the digital world. We have provided free consultations and strategy sessions for companies of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune-100, to enable growth, resolve issues and make curated service provider introductions that can impact your digital footprint.
We have held to the philosophy of providing high-level insights and actionable knowledge with no sales pitches in order to provide to our network the ability to listen, learn and act to improve themselves as well as their organizations. Our ultimate goal is to be the resource out there to help digital executives find the research they need to excel in the modern marketplace.
If you are interested in getting involved with any of our current or past events, you can find them here. If you are looking for help & would like to set up some time to chat with our team, you can schedule a time or reach out directly to aaron@bwgconnect.com or Tiffany@bwgconnect.com.
When the pandemic hit, Amazon brands across categories saw a huge drop in sales. The following year, sales skyrocketed as the world adjusted and people rapidly embraced online shopping. Now, brands in the fashion and apparel categories are seeing conversion rates go up by 29% compared to the previous year. However, there are still common challenges restricting apparel brands from reaching their full potential.
So, what are the best ways fashion and apparel brands can improve their Amazon strategy and drive growth?
The first step to optimizing content is planning out your strategy. You need to think about what will make the biggest difference in sales conversions. Nicole Reich of Retail Bloom suggests starting with product availability and profitability: segment your evergreen, seasonal, and discontinued products, and arrange them from highest to lowest margins. From there, you can focus your strategy on products with high retail value, which will most likely be your evergreen products.
Next, ensure you’re in the right category. Execute a competitor analysis to see which top-level category you should be in. Why is this step important? Sometimes, Amazon will place you in a category that doesn’t make sense, which could significantly impact your ranking on Amazon.
Once these steps are complete, you can begin implementing your content optimizations. Take those high-profit products and optimize for SEO, back-end attributions and subcategories, imagery and video, and product merges.
According to Nicole, product merges may be the most useful hack. “You don't want it to be overwhelming, where you just merge everything,” Nicole says, “but there is a lot of opportunity to look at your catalog as a whole and start to decide how you want to merge like products.”
NYDJ, one of Retail Bloom’s clients, is a large brand in the women’s denim category. In their Amazon listings, they have a specific style of pants called the “Sherry.” Within this style, they have slim, cropped, and flare jeans, among other variations. NYDJ had different product detail pages for each style variation, which led to fewer ratings and challenges with new styles and colors getting buried.
So, Retail Bloom took all of these evergreen variations and merged them together, placing them on one product page with different thumbnails so that consumers can easily browse other style variations. This product merge boosted views overnight for all of the Sherry products and improved product rankings overall.
Brands should make it a priority to refresh advertisements and creative assets consistently. Look at SEO and keyword trends to help you set up ad groups and campaigns. Additionally, you should update campaigns by season and use branded terms to promote new product launches.
If you want to increase ROI, sponsor display campaigns are the way to go. DSP has specific KPIs and can be expensive, but sponsor display campaigns give you the ability to target on or off Amazon, get creative with lifestyle imagery, and work with products that have many variations.
Fulfillment options can be tough with various SKUs and outliers. What do you do with products that don’t make sense for FBA?
Retail Bloom’s local selling and buy online and pick up in store (BOPIS) tools can help. The BOPIS tool is great for brands who don’t want to be on Amazon for fear that they’ll drive traffic away from their brick-and-mortar store. With this tool, brands can generate traffic on Amazon but still direct consumers to physical stores.
Available for both 1P and 3P brands, the local selling option gives brands the ability to set up one-day or two-day delivery options by region. Sellers can leverage their own delivery trucks or 3P carriers. This is a great solution for getting your entire catalog live without putting all products in FBA.
Taking on these tasks alone is a lot of work. That’s why Retail Bloom is providing tools like these to help brands plan, scale, and improve the customer experience.
It’s never been easier to stand up a professional eCommerce entity, but brands are finding it hard to make a dollar. The Wall Street Journal recently released an article stating that Amazon has posted its first quarterly loss since 2015, mainly due to supply chain issues, inflation, and a slump in online shopping.
If an eCommerce giant like Amazon has trouble generating profits, what does this mean for your eCommerce brand? Is there a way to become more profitable?
Why aren’t companies making money on their eCommerce platforms? Two likely culprits are engulfing your profits: the cost of consumer acquisition and supply chain and fulfillment difficulties.
According to Michael Zakkour of 5 New Digital, the average cost of consumer acquisition for a large retailer was $124 two years ago. This year, the average cost of acquisition is $505. If you're spending that much money on marketing and advertising to get people to buy from you once, make sure you have a plan in place to turn them into long-term customers.
In addition to the cost of customer acquisition and loyalty, brands are losing profits due to supply chain and fulfillment costs. There's been extreme pressure on the supply chain overall, particularly during the last year and a half. As the cost of manufacturing, transportation, and distribution has risen, inflation has also affected fulfillment. The expenses for simply shipping packages have hit highs. So, now you've got downward pressure on the supply chain and downward pressure on fulfillment.
Rather than just selling on digital channels, it’s vital that your brand takes a unified commerce approach if you want to survive. This means connecting channels in meaningful ways. For example, try asking yourself, “How does livestreaming create an in-store purchase? How does an in-store browse turn into a QR code purchase in a new CRM acquisition?”
A principle supporting unified commerce is the ability to diversify your channels. Especially when you're looking at new channels, this step is crucial. Livestream, QR codes, social commerce, Roblox, TikTok, and The Metaverse are just a few strategies and platforms where you can generate sales, reach a wider audience, and increase profits.
Along the same lines, think about physical retail in addition to eCommerce. Simply being online or offline won't produce success. To have a prosperous enterprise, invest in various types of retail platforms and shape a cohesive strategy.
The unified commerce approach is key to boosting eCommerce profitability. But what specific actions should you take? First, do a complete and honest assessment of your eCommerce business and financials.
Next, assess your service level and supply chain pain points. Look at what people expect in terms of customization and personalization because it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. During these assessments, it’s important to recognize that technology, data science, and digital tools are the power sources for profitability.
Finally, it’s crucial to sell on profitable channels and create an operation with a unified marketing approach and sales strategy. Consumers expect an eCommerce presence, so you need to develop new strategies across diversified channels to meet their needs and create long-term customers (and sales).
John Ghiorso is the Founder and CEO at Orca Pacific, a Media.Monks company, which is a full-service Amazon marketing services agency. He has over a decade of experience working with Orca Pacific and has built a reputation for approximating industry reactions and shifts in the Amazon marketplace.
John is a keynote speaker and has been featured in publications like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Vox, Modern Retail, and Digiday. He graduated from the University of Arizona Eller College of Management with a degree in marketing and entrepreneurship.
Are you an Amazon seller who wants to drive more traffic to build your brand? Scaling your brand is about taking chances and figuring out what works and what doesn’t — so what can you do to optimize and manage your brand?
John Ghiorso says that to overcome the dilemma of a typical four-wall retail strategy, brands need to understand the Amazon environment to be successful. If you have a foundational approach to retail platforms, you can find tremendous opportunities for growth as you move away from traditional methods. But use caution when establishing a marketing strategy. John recommends installing a budget and following how consumers perceive products.
In this episode of The Digital Deep Dive, Aaron Conant sits down with Founder and CEO at Orca Pacific, a Media.Monks company, to discuss viewing Amazon as an opportunity to optimize your brand. John talks about the shift in brands considering Amazon as a growth platform, why establishing a budget is crucial for tremendous success, and using targeted marketing strategies to upscale products and increase ranking.
BWG Connect provides executive strategy & networking sessions that help brands from any industry with their overall business planning and execution. We network and knowledge share together to better understand and adapt to the newest trends, strategies and pain points shaping growth in the digital space. BWG Connect, in conjunction with BWG Strategy, has built an exclusive network of 125,000+ senior professionals and hosts over 2,000 virtual and in-person networking events on an annual basis.
In addition, we have had 1x1 conversations with over 5,000 brands and have a real-time pulse on what digital strategies are successful and why. This in-depth knowledge allows our team to operate on the cutting edge and provide our clients with best -in-class guidance on how to win in the digital world. We have provided free consultations and strategy sessions for companies of all sizes, start-up to Fortune -100, to enable growth, resolve issues and make curated service provider introductions that can impact your digital footprint.
We have held to the philosophy of providing high-level insights & actionable knowledge with no sales pitches in order to provide to our network the ability to listen, learn and act to improve themselves as well as their organizations. Our ultimate goal is to be the resource out there to help digital executives find the research they need to excel in the modern marketplace.
If you are interested in getting involved with any of our current or past events, you can find them here. If you are looking for help & would like to set up some time to chat with our team, you can schedule a time or reach out directly to aaron@bwgconnect.com or Tiffany@bwgconnect.com.
