Andrew Morgans, found of Marknology, guides us through the essential elements of content, storytelling, and branding in the Amazon marketplace. Drawing from his work with major brands like Adidas, he reveals how integrating storytelling into Amazon listings can be a game-changer for sellers in a highly competitive space. The episode explores the importance of cohesive content strategies, the common pitfalls sellers face with product images and A+ content, as well as the necessity for localization. You can read the full episode transcript below.
Episode 21 of The Seller’s Edge, Andrew and Jonathan talk about:
- [00:00] Introduction
- [01:37] AMZ Moved From the Analytical to the Creative
- [06:52] The Downside of Outsourcing Content
- [09:09] International Consumer Expectations
- [11:05] The ROI of Creative Content
- [14:46] A Disconnect Between PDP Elements
- [15:44] Rufus and Other Things to Consider
- [18:13] Duplicative Images
- [19:23] Leveraging Premium A+ Content Features
- [21:37] “You need to have an image plan when you go into content.”
- [22:35] The Value of Your Brand Story
- [23:53] Comparison Charts and When to Use Them
- [26:39] How to Conduct Competitive Research
- [28:20] Look Off-AMZ for Innovative Approaches On-AMZ
- [29:53] Value of Originality
- [32:16] Q&As have the Potential to Rank on Google
- [34:44] Ethical Considerations In E-commerce Practices
- [37:50] Examples of Branding & Content Impact
- [42:24] “This is a testing platform. Make sure you try things. Experiment.”
- [45:07] Recap and Outro
Key Takeaways:
- Invest in Branding and Storytelling: Successful sellers develop compelling narratives and visuals that resonate with their target audience. A product’s presentation affects customer perception and trust. So, invest in quality content.
- Leverage Content as a Competitive Advantage: When researching competitors, identify gaps and opportunities for differentiation. With rising competition in PPC and pricing, strong branding can help sellers stand out.
- Leverage Premium A+ features: Sellers with brand registry should use Premium A+ content. This includes videos and shoppable images that help enhance customer experience.
- Focus on communication: Every element in your listing should communicate a clear, intentional message. If something doesn’t add value, get rid of it.
- Create a cohesive content strategy: Plot out your image stack and A+ content as complementary components.
- Ensure that your product titles, bullet points, and images align in messaging. Consistency helps drive conversions.
- Avoid duplicate images. Use unique ones to tell a richer story across all the PDP elements.
- Build Specialized Teams or Partner with Them: Recruit teams that have extensive experience in Amazon content creation. If you want to save time, contact Andrew and his team at Marknology. They are always looking to help grow solid brands.
Full Transcript of Episode:
ANDREW MORGANS: The reason I really started pushing content on Amazon, not my content on LinkedIn or a podcast or whatever, but pushing my speaking events, doing content, talking about the importance of storytelling and branding and stuff was I feel like this space, this Amazon space is really pioneered by more analytical PPC data analysts, research, product development, operations. It’s not really led by the artists, it’s not really led by advertisers, it’s not really led by these storytellers. In my opinion, a lot of the ones, a lot of the successful people in this space, the Amazon space I’ve met are very humble, quiet, wanted to spend more time with my kids, did it like they’re nine to five. Whatever the reason is, I know it’s a general statement, but you know, if we’re looking at ratio of numbers, percentages, I do feel like a lot of the people in this space, they’re just not content first. Maybe even international sellers, right, that are selling in the US a lot. I meet a lot of international people. Maybe it’s the best way for them to figure out how to run a business here in the US with different degrees and whatever, right? I love our community because it’s so diverse, but I do feel like they lead from a place of not really understanding content, not really understanding branding, not coming from that world. And as an agency owner, if I wanted to be the best in space I felt like I needed to really learn that and grow in that way. And I’d had some projects like working with Adidas and Suiza. Some of these early projects in my career, they had vendor central. This is literally like 13 years ago type stuff. They had vendor Central, A+ pages. And Adidas has amazing content. They’re like the exact opposite of Nike. And I got to build these beautiful A+ pages with their content. I saw the results immediately of building those pages out and it was just like an early, early insight. Even when viral launch was like in its heyday, crushing launches, right? Like you didn’t really need good content in that time if you had the right strategy of bringing a new product into the category or bringing a new product to market, doing basically like a lead loss to get new customers into your store, you know, ranking products. PPC was early and new. Like those things alone were enough to be successful and you could kind of have shitty pictures, you could have catalog pictures, redone for Amazon, even some iPhone picture stuff used to sell like for real. And those people just wouldn’t listen to what I had to say around investing in content, investing in branding. But as the chinese sellers started dominating kind of those commodity products, as it started getting harder on Amazon to launch products and rank for keywords and really sell, I think the thing that set apart listings that converted well and that did a good job and that really had a brand was that branding piece, you know, and I know that that’s, I’m not trying to be cliche, but it was like people just didn’t know how to bring that to Amazon and do it well on Amazon. And I’ve always been someone that was trying to think of like, okay, if I’m building a company, what do the brands need? Like, what the company, what’s best for the brand? I’m going to build my business that way. Insert the content and branding piece here. And it’s been something that I’ve been doing for the last, you know, five, six years. If you’ve looked at any of my speaking events or whatever, it’s like I’m almost seen as the content agency in this space or one of them. And I’m like, look, I’m really, I love all e-commerce, I love PPC as much as anything else, but this piece is so important, guys, I need you to listen. Is kind of how I felt. And I’m like, if you guys get this right, you’ll have a brand that can stand the test of time. It won’t just be an Amazon commoditized brand or like, you’re just Amazon agnostic or whatever the case is. I feel like if you get the branding, if you get the storytelling right, if you get the creative right, you’ll be able to dominate on Amazon and you don’t have to compete with that, just the price point or whatever. So one, I just wanted to kind of say that, I don’t know, when you cut that up, it doesn’t answer the question exactly, but why did I start obsessing about this? That’s why. It’s not just to get you to spend more money or invest. I truly think of it as this is how you’re communicating on a platform that’s so cookie cutter in the way that you, and the options that you have. Like, you know, it’s, you have six or seven images, you have this specific pace for bullet points, this specific pace for a title, the specific place for a description. That’s all, everyone’s the same. How do you bring elements of storytelling and branding and advertising to this platform? So I jumped all in. I’ve been on that beat for like four or five years. And that’s really why I’ve kind of been set aside so that when brands come to me, it’s really lessons that I’ve learned with brands that were doing it well that really made me pay attention to that and be like, look, these brands are doing this really well. I’m going to try to help where else I can.
JONATHAN: I love that. And that’s great context to have. And it’s, you’ve hit the nail on the head with something that I’ve had trouble sort of articulating. And it’s, I just remember in the early days of Amazon, it was like there was no brand. People were just throwing images up. There was nothing there. Yeah. And I mean, it all kind of bubbled up out of Amazon just putting its own products out there so it didn’t really matter. But when third party sellers came on there, they just kind of mirrored that and there wasn’t that element to it. And it’s funny now because I do think it’s, the marketplace is oversaturated with all those people who do know the PPC piece and all of the strategy pieces. And that being the differentiator is really interesting to me because, I mean, it’s really the only thing that can, I mean, you got to catch people’s eye. It’s true, you can get to the top of the SERP if you want to, but if you don’t have an image that’s going to grab everyone, it’s all for nothing. Right?
ANDREW MORGANS: Yeah. And I think another thing is that so many of these teams and brands and companies, whether it’s vas or agencies that are hybrid, they’re not agnostic to one country. You know, we have, like, we have a very diverse teamology. But, like, in context, I want to say this is as politically correct as I can, like, if I, if I can, to the audience, if you have someone on your team that’s making $5 an hour, okay, and they’re your content designer, they’re helping you sell. Okay, for context, if they’ve never bought a $150 watch or a $200 backpack or a dollar 800 iPhone or some of these things, that just, the cultural difference is massive, okay. And it’s so, it’s like talking about having a drink of alcohol and you never had a drink of alcohol. You’re, it’s, it’s out of context. Right? Like you’re like, yeah, you just don’t know. You have a Hackley at it, you know, for a silly example. But, like, I feel that same way with the teams and the way that a lot of Amazon sellers became very, very successful. Was getting Vas, creating sops, specifically in their business. To have very talented humans across the world deliver on these things, check the keyword ranking, adjust this PPC, do these things. But creativity and storytelling and branding cannot really be done in that way. And to have somebody like you can’t just send them an SoP to create. That’s why there’s so many people copying everyone. When you look at images and you look at content, some of us, myself include our trailblazers. Okay, I truly believe that. And we go do stuff first, and then we’re the Samsungs of the world. We’re the androids. And then you have Apple come behind and improve stuff. That’s just the way of the world. It’s a way of advancement, it’s a way of evolution. So I’ve seen that unfold across our industry. That I love it, I’m obsessed with it. So I’ve seen it unfold. Something new comes out. There’s like, you know, now that we get more and more and more voices, things move a little bit faster. But think about that with your teams. Even some of the owners, they, you know, if you’ve ever been to Asia, different parts of Asia, if you’ve been to, like, I grew up in Africa, if you’ve been to different parts, like, all these different countries in the world sell differently, their billboards are different, their marketing is different, their language is different. If you were to do american or western, let me say, western branding or western content on the German marketplace, you’re going to fall flat on your face because they’re going to be annoyed with you. Right? You need to be very cut and dry and specific and to the point. Get to the point. Tell me the points of the product facts and the west we want to be sold to. I want to feel something before I buy, I want to feel something. We can talk about the audits, but, like, this is just what I’ve been trying to solve for. And I worked really, really hard to try to find the best team for me. And a big part of that has been a hybrid between the US team and my team in Colombia. We’re in the same time zone. If you’ve ever been to Columbia, Medellin, Cartagena, Bogota, their shops, their branding, their stores, they have the same. We can buy the same type of clothes there that we want. It’s a very similar culture in regards to how we dress and how we sell and the emotions behind it. So that’s the team that’s worked best for me. And I wanted a team that focused only on Amazon. I didn’t want a freelancer that was great at this or great at magazines or great at catalog or great at websites. I wanted a team, a scholastically trained team that obsessed about all things Amazon. How the, how the templates flowed into each other, the different pixels that we could use, the different sizes, dimensions. I tried with so many teams and so much talent, so many talented people. I won’t say they weren’t talented, but it was. I’m doing this white paper and I’m doing this web design, I’m doing this package design, these freelancers that were talented, but really didn’t even have a thousand hours on Amazon yet. Right. And I think there’s just a big difference between someone that has a thousand, much less 10,000 hours on a platform and is really thinking about creating art or content in this medium with enough time. And so to get that, I had to do it myself. And I know there’s some other teams that are, you know, right there with us that do a great job. I can think of, you know, five or six right off the top of my head, but there’s not a ton. And, you know, if you’re going to sell the west, if the US is your marketplace, I think you really, really need to think about that storytelling element. If you want to be a brand that’s not just a click and then move on.
JONATHAN: Absolutely. That is customer loyalty. You need to have a brand. You need to give people a reason why. Right. I’m curious if you’ve come across the same problem that I have, because two areas that I’ve worked in a lot in my life are SEO and creative. And I found that both are very similar. That when you’re working with a client, it’s very hard to convince them of the reward of doing either. Because SEO, it’s like you change things and they’re like, all right, so we’re number one on Google. And we’re like, no, no. It takes a little time for that to happen. And I’m curious. I think creative is the same. It’s a little hard to sell them on. It’s hard to attribute the changes you’ve made to the creative changes. So I’m curious, how have you come across that and then how have you handled it?
ANDREW MORGANS: 1000% came across it. And I think that, like, it’s almost like a timing thing. Like, you know, as thought leaders are out here talking about content for two years. Well, in the third year, it’s a lot easier to talk to brands about content. It’s not from day one, they’re listening and whatever, right? And what you’re really trying to do, just like a relationship is like if you try to make a girlfriend out of the girl that’s not ready to be in a relationship, it’s not going to go well, right? If you are out there dating and you meet another girl that’s also looking or girl or guy, whatever you’re into, right. You go and meet another person and they’re open to having a relationship and creating depth with someone and want that, you’re going to have a lot better success at that. Even though it’s still, they’re both relationships, they’re both going to have different approaches. And I think that’s kind of the same thing with this is like I’ve always been trying to find the brands, private label sellers, you know, whatever it is that care about that element, I’m going to talk about it, I’m going to share my thoughts, I’m going to share my work and hopefully attract the ones that already care about that versus spending any time trying to convince the ones that don’t that they need it. So I’m. A lot of it comes into those early sales conversations, those early relationship conversations. And some of them we just don’t win on the content. We’re not going to get them to invest in content. I take that personally and I’m like, we’re not doing a good enough job of sharing the results of some of those wins because you got to be an artist and a salesperson at the same time, which sucks. Like, I really just want to create art and create content and it sells itself, but you really have to be able to be like, okay, let me a b test this, let me track results, let me track sessions and turn all your artists into salespeople as well. So they’re selling their work. But one, it happens all the time. Two, it’s about trying to attract the right ones that care about. They’re never going to appreciate that element if there isn’t a level of either knowledge and education that they know they need it, even if it’s not something they appreciate, they need to like, have that knowledge and education. So as a thought leader in an emerging space, someone has to be sharing that, right? It’s easier in numbers, but someone has to be sharing that so that they can get educated to then know what they need to do, right. And then the other is if you can do a good enough job with results. A lot of times I’m trying to convince brands like, let’s do one hero Asin, one project on a hero Asin. You don’t have to do your whole catalog, but only one asin in your catalog? Amazing. Let’s pick one and let’s show you what the power of good branding and storytelling and creative can do. And then go from there, like, kind of like a crawl before you run. And that’s usually kind of my approach when they’re just feeling a certain way about it is like, look, I’m not going to be successful if we don’t have a great listing that’s retail ready and that’s really crushing it. And you’re paying me to be successful and help your brand grow. Give me one shot. Give me one that I can focus on to get results on and we can build trust and then move on to another one. So that’s kind of my approach there. And if I don’t feel like they’re, you know, that’s not going to be anything that they ever care about. Like they’re a one night stand situation, you know, I’m really just like, that’s not a fit for us because this is what we really bring to the table, you know, I think you should.
JONATHAN: Just write a book of analogies and metaphors. I would buy it.
ANDREW MORGANS: I would be the first to talk about stuff that people, they can get that, you know, they can understand that 100%.
JONATHAN: When it comes to content. Something I’m curious about, something I’ve seen a lot, is there’s a lot of products on Amazon that they have— do I want to call it a gross disconnect? There’s a disconnect between what’s in the title and bullet points and the tone in it and what’s in the actual content, image-wise.
ANDREW MORGANS: You nailed it. Jonathan. You’re setting me up for this one.
JONATHAN: Have you seen that? And what are your thoughts on it?
ANDREW MORGANS: You set me up. It’s because they don’t have a team that’s thinking about everything altogether. A lot of times it’s piecemeal. They’ve hired a freelancer or a team or whatever to do their images and their content and they are a photographer or whatever. That photographer doesn’t know crap about Amazon, so they’re not thinking about all the elements of what matters on Amazon. They’re just thinking of great images, great lifestyle images or whatever that is. You have a true Amazon obsessed team thinking about it. They’re thinking about the keywords that are in the copy, the top keywords need to be in the images. Every bullet point might want to also go with an image, if that’s possible. They’re thinking about that, right? They’re thinking about Rufus scanning the images and finding keywords to make relevancy. This happens all of the time. And it’s like, look, if I just read the content through title to bullet points and then I looked at your images, it would be completely contradictory. A lot of times. Completely contradictory. Like, it’s like what you think matters in the images is a completely different thing than what you’re saying matters in the keywords. That could be that maybe it’s the owner doing it themselves and they’re analytical and they know how to do product research and they know what keywords they want to rank for. And they’re probably outsourcing their creative doing the content, the image, the title, and bullet points themselves, probably. And then, you know, farming out the PPC because that overwhelms them or stresses them out or it’s too much. And I think that’s, you know, martinology is a full service agency. Not that we can’t do a la carte, but it 100% is to the listeners out there. It’s like we’re doing two things. We’re driving traffic and we’re driving conversions. Right. And the traffic is the PPC off Amazon efforts. The keyword research that you’re doing in your SEO and, and the listing the images, the image is much more than the copy or the images in the video. And then the copy, the copy is what gets them in there. I don’t think that many people read it through. The images are what sell. They’re what make you feel. And whether they write down that they felt something when they saw it or not, they generally are. Whether it’s even just a matter of trust. One of the ways that you stand out, I think, on Amazon is by investing in that content and branding. Something subconsciously that immediately goes to the customer. A potential customer is like, like, wow. This brand has invested in messaging and communication, and I can see that. And anyone that invests in that must be pretty decent brand.
JONATHAN: I like it.
ANDREW MORGANS: Like seeing you going on a date. Let’s use another analogy, right? You go on a date, someone has their hair cut for the date. They got decent shoes on that aren’t all scuffed up, even if they’re old. Maybe they’ve, like, buffed them up a little bit. Some dress shoes, like their shirts not sloppy but tucked in. Their posture at the table, you might not know anything about this person. You might be on a blind date, but your first impression is the way someone does one thing is how they do everything kind of thing, right? And you’re like, this person, like put in some effort. They actually brought intention to the table, to the dinner table or whatever. They’re like, they put their best foot forward. And I think that’s what good branding and good content is kind of doing too, subconsciously is that same message of like, we’re put together, like in the same way that I’m presenting myself now? The product is going to back that up?
JONATHAN: Yeah, absolutely. The other thing, the disconnect between the bullets and the main image stack is the one thing I’ve noticed. The other thing I’ve noticed is people using the exact same images that they used in their image stack. In the A+ content. It’s almost just like the A+ content is there. Just in case you missed it in the image stack, we’re going to tell you the exact same thing again.
ANDREW MORGANS: Cheap. Going kinda cheap. And something else I’ll see is like, the PDP images can be absolute crap. I’m doing my best to be curse free on the show. Okay, so the PDP images can be absolute crap. And then the a is great. And I’m just like, guys, what is the disconnect between these two? Like, the a is important, but like the PDP say is more important. Okay. Like, if I’m gonna have to choose what happened here, it could be that they had different teams. Okay? A lot of times they’re using different freelancers or different teams to do that, you know, or the website, they’re using a lot of the website stuff in the a. I mean, it just goes back and forth, you know, but the, but you’re right, like on the A+. And some of it is that it’s also evolved since we started. So at first it was like simply having an image stack in A+ was a win. Now we have the brand story, right? We have premium A+. If you’re like, anyone listening needs to take advantage of premium A+. People pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to have premium A+ on their listings. Anyone with brand registry and like five brands, you know, a brand story and five A+es or something like that. I don’t remember. The minimum can have a premium A+, but you can have video in there, you can have shoppable images in there. It’s just gorgeous, you know, but people are just taking those images there and putting them down here. I like to bring up this relationship, this dating analogy. Because for me, what I’m trying to say with the content to anyone listening is like. Like, this is communication. This is what this is, is this. Communication is what we’re doing. We’re communicating value. We’re communicating appeal. We’re communicating coolness. We’re communicating trust. Communication. Communication, communication. And it’s like having those PDP images again in the a is like one. You’re not even allowing me to feel anything. It just blurbs. A lot of times it’s just so much text. It’s just like, imagine being on a date and the person is just like. Doesn’t ask you any questions at all, right? It’s like, this isn’t even what I care about. You’re just telling me about horse racing, and I don’t even care, you know, like, talk to me about something that I care about. Think about it. Be intentional about the conversation choice, right? And then also lame. You’re just copying what I set up here and repeating it back to me or whatever the case is, right? So are you communicating value? If it’s not value, get rid of it. I truly believe that if it’s not valuable, just get rid of it. You know, you’re decorating. You’re decorating your house and you can have some stuff that’s, oh, I think this ledge needs something. Sometimes at some point, it’s just too much. It’s not even. There’s no benefit of this. You just think it needs to be there. So please don’t do that to the sellers that are just copying that above and beyond. What you did five years ago is definitely not on par now. You’re not just doing the little image grids with the text below them. That’s so pre pandemic, you know? So you’re right. There’s a lot of that happening. And I think the best way, guys, is like, it’s like a. I’m just an analogy freak. Today you called me out now, and now I’m like, I’m in there. But, like, I have a. I have a tattoo sleeve. There’s a lot of different ways of doing things, okay? But some people can get, like, a small tattoo and then a small tattoo and a small tattoo, and they patch them all together, and then they have a sleeve of, like, a bunch of random tattoos. Okay? For this con, for this example, like, I planned out my sleeve when I went and got it. I didn’t get it all at the same time, but when I went to get it, I knew I wanted a sleeve. I planned with the artist what my intent was over time. And so when he laid out the sleeve for me, even if I was getting one piece at a time, we had thought about the whole sleeve from when we went into the project. And I think whenever you’re going into content, you need to have an image plan. Each image should be, should have a plan on what we’re trying to convey with that image. Image one, image two. And it might start out as a paragraph. Bring that down to one sentence or one word, if you can. But you start out with an image plan, it can be bigger and you’re trying to get smaller. Image one, image two, image three, image four, image five and six have a plan. And the a will do so much better. If you have a plan from the beginning and what you’re trying to convey, maybe it just needs to be about the brand down there. Maybe there needs to be additional information about the product that they weren’t convinced at the top. Think of it like a landing page in that way. And when we’re doing a content project, we’re definitely planning the PDP and the a together as a flowing element, not as two separate elements on the page.
JONATHAN: That’s great advice. I’m curious, brand story is, are there specific products that you’ve seen that correlate to having spent a lot of time in the brand story versus not?
ANDREW MORGANS: I think everyone should have a brand story. Okay. I think if you have a great origin story, put it in there like 100%, like you’re a founder created brand. Like, you know, those are the best to go in there. We created this brand because we wanted to help people. We created this brand because my dad had a disability and I wanted to solve that, you know, whatever that is. Like, I think that’s number one. If you have that element to your brand, go with that. If not, it can be a great area. Like with Nestle brands, we use it to cross sell a lot of the other products. You can list all of your other products in there. So it’s a slider bar. It can be a slider bar, and you’re showing off different things. So I don’t think there’s one product that’s better or not. It’s kind of just seeing, like, like, you know, what do you have to bring to the table? Let’s assess that. And especially, like, if you’re like, the product has enough and the brand has enough for the PDP and the A+, for us not to even talk about the brand, then it’s even more important. Let’s get that in that brand story, right. But if your brand story is almost like everything about the brand, you might already have it in the PDP and a. And so you might want to use that brand story to cross sell some products or something like that. I think it’s better to cross sell products there than to have a comparison chart in the a that has no real comparative things. Like, I think one of my biggest pet peeves is when it’s really just showing off the six colors and every single element of the product is exactly the same, that just comes off as sloppy and mistrusting to me. I know it’s a way to cross sell, but I’m looking at it, I’m like, what’s the difference? Oh, there’s no difference. It’s just blue, teal, black, purple. You know, so thinking about those things just in a, you know, if I was telling this story, PDP down and I’m talking to a person about my brand or my product and I’m telling them why I made it or whatever, is it going to flow or is it like here it’s going to make you super fast and jump high and run fast and like, you know, lighter on your feet. And then, oh, by the way, it’s created by my grandpa. And then like, then you jump back into like, oh, yeah, and it makes you run fast and like, there’s not a flow. Think of it like, you know, it’s an old lost art, I think storytelling. But I grew up around a missionary table, like in Africa. I grew up in a preacher’s family. It was always the kids listening to the adults tell stories of, you know, their travels and different stuff. So that’s always been something, I guess, close to my heart kind of built in, but like, nothing like a good story to help you remember someone or something. And that’s what you’re really trying to do is get them to remember your brand, get them to remember, you know, your page versus the next one that might not have that element.
JONATHAN: I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out how you got so good with analogies, and then you just solved the puzzle for me by giving me that little biographical detail.
ANDREW MORGANS: Jonathan, I think it’s actually that I really did was at the beginning of services for Amazon, okay. In some ways. And ten years ago, I’m telling you, if you just said, like, I sell on Amazon, no one gets it. If you’re like, talking about it and tech stuff, no one gets like, and you’re and I’m trying to sell to Emily from New York that built a brand for her baby and trying to talk in this way about these important things. But, like, with tech speak, A+ and PDP and SEO and, like, it’s lost, you know? So the point of communicating is not to say what you need to say. It’s about comprehension, right? And so I. Not to be cliche or whatever, but I just think that that’s important. If anyone gets anything out of this, I’m like, they might be like, laugh or chuckle or whatever, but if I made you laugh or chuckle or smirk, even, it means you’re listening. And it means that, like, that thing hit with you. And it can be an easier way to grasp some of these big subjects that just, like, we’re busy doing so many other things, we know this is important. Like, AI has been something that’s super hard for me to really grasp in some ways, because I think everything is so tech speak and scientific right now. And anyone, if you go to any of these lectures, it’s just like. I’m like, I need you to just, like, make this in a way that I can really grasp it. And I know if I get it, I know if I get it, just like, I know if any of the listeners get this, it will make a difference for them. So I’m trying. I’m going for comprehension, right? I’m going for them to get kind of the meaning behind what I’m trying to say.
JONATHAN: I love it. I want to make sure that that is 100% clear that I am all for it. It. You using analogies. I’m a huge fan of them when it comes to. So how I’ve always approached it. You get a product, you’re looking at, you’re going to do competitive research. You’re going to see what the competitors are doing. What do you do in a scenario where you come across a product and a client brings in something that’s fairly innovative? I’m thinking, like, mushroom coffee or something like that. That doesn’t really have a long history. How do you approach that?
ANDREW MORGANS: I love it. I love that approach. Get the copycats out of the way. I don’t want to copycat anyone if I can, like. So I’m just saying that’s, like, my perfect scenario. We get to be as creative as we want. As an agency owner that’s done this for 15 years now, what I can say is I’m taking in all of the categories, all of the projects that we’ve done, and, you know, like, supplements always led the way. In the early days of Amazon, I was always looking at the supplement sellers and then bringing that back to clothing or bringing that back to home goods or home decor or whatever, and being like, listen, I know no one in home decor is doing any of these strategies, but they’re doing it on supplements and killing it. Let’s be the first in this category to do some of this stuff. Stuff like, let’s dominate. Clothing for one. Apparel is one that’s way behind on Amazon, in my opinion. It’s a way behind category in regards to doing all the Amazon techniques that you should be doing to be successful. So if you’re in clothing and you’re looking at the other clothing competitors on Amazon, you’re just not doing it right. And that’s been the case for ten plus years, talking to say, well, my competitors are just doing this, they’re just doing that. They’re not doing what they should be doing right. Like, let’s go set the, this is an opportunity to set the bar for the category being a front. We’re not ahead in retail, we’re not ahead in d, two c. But we can be ahead in Amazon by doing what we should be doing on Amazon right. And setting, setting the bar there. So I look off Amazon a lot of times because people do way more innovative things off Amazon with their, with their websites or with their content. So I’ll look there for inspiration. But really, I get kind of that. Like, my eyes get wide, the light bulb is up, and I’m like, we get to do whatever we want. Let’s. Let’s be really creative. The competitors aren’t even anywhere close.
JONATHAN: m with you on that. I can really appreciate that. I found so many times people who do competitive research just want to do the same thing that competitors are doing. I’m like, no, find out the thing they’re not doing and do that and find out how that works.
ANDREW MORGANS: Yeah. If I was at day one, I didn’t have my experience. If I was a day one, to any listeners, that is what I would do. I would look at competitors, someone that’s winning, doing better than me, and I would copy them, emulate them, and then try to improve on them 100%. Let me make that clear. I would do that if I was a beginner and I didn’t have this experience, the best way to do it. And if I’m jumping into something new like TikTok, like, I’m seeing what’s working and trying to emulate that until I get my own methodologies. But I have more failures than most people have launches when it comes to Amazon, more failures than people have anything. So I can go through that whole book of knowledge as well that I’m pulling from and saying, oh, there’s all these things we can do with this new mushroom coffee that I already know can work, or that could be strategic. Maybe it’s not in this category. Some ideas and the ideas just flow. But if I didn’t already have some of those successes too, to then bring into the mushroom coffee idea, just for context, I wanted to be clear that some people aren’t wired that way. And so if you’re not and you’re beginning and you’re listening to this podcast, you’re trying to get started. I’m not crapping on copying someone doing something very well. But just know that just because the competitor is selling a ton on Amazon does not mean that they’ve got content right, or SEO right, or PPC right. They might just have a really good brand that’s known off Amazon. They might have a great retail brand. They might have a DC brand that’s crushing Facebook ads and Google Ads, and there’s overflow onto Amazon and purchasing from that product regardless of the seven bad images that it has. Right. So there’s other factors that can be at play besides just, like, what you see straight in front of you.
JONATHAN: Yeah. And I don’t think what you said was in any way crapping on that. I think you got excited at the opportunity to not have any guardrails and be able to play in a sandbox.
ANDREW MORGANS: Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s like, that’s like a moat around your castle type of thing. You know, like you, before anyone else is here, we get to, like, do something and set the bar. Like it’s going to be a year, two years before a competitor catches up, in my opinion. Like, when I, when I think of that, you know, um, let’s get out there, get out in front, and then it will look like anyone else is copying us.
JONATHAN: Absolutely. How much are you using or utilizing customer feedback and customer reviews when it comes to content? Like, are you feeding a lot of that information into it? And is there a good example of that that you have?
ANDREW MORGANS: In the research phase, sure. Like, if they have competitors on Amazon, we’re going to research their reviews and the competitors’ reviews and do an aggregate of kind of like what that is. If there’s like a value add that we have, that competitor doesn’t have, and you see it negatively in a competitor’s listings, in their reviews. I’m like, let’s call that out because a lot of people are complaining about it over here. Right. It also might be like, oh, we have the same problem as them. Let’s try to speak to that to get ahead of it. Meaning, like, let’s not ignore it and try to cover it up so that it comes back in the reviews. Let’s speak to it because I see it coming back in a lot of our competitors’ reviews, same thing with, like, their own reviews. If they’re already on Amazon and we’re coming in trying to fix things, it kind of comes in at, like, at what level are you coming into the project? Is it from the beginning? Is it like they’re having issues and they’re trying to rebrand? Is it like, you know, but to get an idea of that, you know, the reviews can be pretty, pretty powerful. And I know there’s a lot of tools coming out with AI and different things that can, like, take thousands of reviews and kind of give you a summary of sentiment and things like that. So I think it can be. It can be really impactful.
JONATHAN: Yeah. When I was working on content, I would always, I’d had this spreadsheet when I’d extract all the reviews and just do like a vlookup to calculate how many words were used in the actual reviews because you find a lot of good data that way.
ANDREW MORGANS: There’s one in the reviews and questions and answers. I kind of think of them as, like, kind of the same and, you know, I don’t know, as of September 2024, but, you know, so hear me out. I don’t want to be, like, crucified on here, but, like, I believe that the answer, the questions and answers, they have a lot of rank in Google SEO. So, like, someone’s typing in a question on Google and, like, an Amazon question and answer can come up. So making sure, like, I love responding to reviews as the brand. If you’ve ever seen on social media like Slim Jim and some of these brands are, like, jumping on everyone’s content and respond, even if people are, like, making kind of, like, hurtful or damaging reviews, I think it’s best when the brand responds because this is communication that we’re talking about, right. Like, every criticism that comes up about you, you just ghost on it. That would be a red flag. That would be a red flag, right. In a relationship. So same thing with the brand. And these are ways that you can actually make yourself rank for certain keywords you want to and try to try to further impact. I think every element on Amazon matters. And so jumping in those reviews, making comments, responding with your keyword in the response. Like, you know, brands that are going to those efforts very seldom are the ones losing. I promise you that.
JONATHAN: Yeah. Does Amazon monitor that for ToS?
ANDREW MORGANS: I think they do. Sometimes, you know, but, like, they can, you can have a review that you have to report, right? Like, to get it removed. So they’re monitoring, but also kind of not like sometimes it needs to be reported or self reported or different things like that. Like, you know, if you get a negative review and it was FDA’s fault, you can, you know, all those little things that exist. I’m like such a white hat guy in general. Like I’m, I’m gray hat in some areas. But, like, if I blatantly know it’s against ToS, I feel like I’m being paid like a physician or a lawyer to guide the brand and I never want to get them into any kind of trouble. So I don’t ever even talk about that kind of stuff. But I think there’s so much you can do in there that’s just ToS compliant language. Just being a person, being a brand that’s alive and just, you know, responding to people in the reviews is huge.
JONATHAN: Yeah. Absolutely.
ANDREW MORGANS: I’m going to pause right there because just a little excitement for the listeners. I was involved in a court case this year as an expert witness. I had like 35 hours involved in the case. And it was a case of one competitor leaving negative reviews on another competitor’s product page. The idiot left a couple of reviews and then left a seller feedback too. And seller feedback allows you to track them back to the store of the person that left the review. So. And then it came down to a two and a half year case, hundreds of thousands of dollars, basically proving that those reviews really negatively impacted the brand. So be careful.
JONATHAN: Ridiculous. Listen, any listeners out there, if you can’t play the game on your own merits and the merits of your product, there’s really no point in trying to win it if that’s, if you don’t have a strong product to deal with, if you have to resort to black hat tactics. I’ve always been against that stuff.
ANDREW MORGANS: Yeah, it’s like, look, if there’s no rules, do what you want. But if there are rules clearly defined, then, you know, play the game the way it’s meant to be played. I’m not a rule breaker. A lot of people would think that I might be like, you know, I’m actually just like, I really want to know the rules of the game, and then I play the game in the way that it’s meant to be played. And that is like, you can only do that and truly do that if you know all of the rules.
JONATHAN: Yeah. 100% reviews, I’ve always found, are a great source for just information for content. Like, as far as it’s just, like, making a customer experience better. People are just complaining about it, I didn’t know how to put this together. And you’re like, all right, well, here’s a little message.
ANDREW MORGANS: Be funny. Be funny with your response. You know, be helpful. But, like, clearly right there, don’t respond, like, with angry customer service. It’s like, you know, and if you take the ego out of it, honestly, if you take the ego out of it, which I can do because I’m working on other people’s projects versus my own. Right. A lot of times, if you take the ego out of it, there’s a lesson in there from your customers. At some level, you might be thinking that they’re idiots, that they don’t get it. Like, what are you talking about? How are you returning this? The size charts right there. Whatever. But at some level, their reality is the true reality. And there’s something that you need to be communicating better oftentimes.
JONATHAN: Yeah, there are some scenarios where I’ll see, like, 1% of reviews are like, this is really hard to put together. And then the other 99% are like, this was so easy to put together. I’m like, all right, there’s a story there. As far as a b testing, how do you utilize it? What sort of platforms do you use? I know you mentioned Pikfu, and you mentioned something else last time.
ANDREW MORGANS: Great for almost, like, ahead of the game or if something’s wrong. So you’re wanting to launch with a certain color or, like, getting feedback on that, that I recommend everyone to do that regularly, just, like, test it out. Can you be a little bit? Can you be 1% better? Can you be 2% better? Take that chance. Spend a little bit of money. Get some feedback from customers that aren’t yourself. You know, there’s also just a b. Amazon experiments where you’re able to a b test that’s gotten so much better. Do you remember the early days of Splitly?
JONATHAN: Yes. YES!
ANDREW MORGANS: That was such a cool idea. I wanted it to work so bad. Just always struggled with splitly back then. It was so early. It was so early. And just like, the catalog updates wouldn’t take, and so your a B test wasn’t really true. You know, it’d be like, oh, it came hit an a or an obstacle or whatever. But, you know, we’re, we’re testing that. We do our best to like, you know, let’s, what if we keep PPC the same and we’re just changing out the main image or the element? You know, what impact are we seeing? We try lots of different ways of experimenting, kind of like, you know what those things are. But a lot of times you’re seeing conversion rate change. You’re seeing sessions or click through rate change, because don’t forget that conversion rate directly impacts PPC. If your conversion rate changes by 10%, you know, and it goes from 10% to 11%, that has a direct impact on ACoS and RoAS and everything else. So we’re really trying to track all the different areas when we make some big changes and just see what impact it’s having across the board.
JONATHAN: Yeah, so, I mean, you brought that up. Like, are there examples or scenarios that you saw where you made those content changes and saw that payoff?
ANDREW MORGANS: Oh, I mean, 100 times over. You know, I’ve had a listing launched with great content. We had a 48% conversion rate for 18 months. 48%. I should be on TED talks like, honestly, 48% conversion rate in anything is insane. That’s insane, right? So I’ve had some situations like that where we just got it right, the conversion. You’re just getting the right customers there with the right keywords and the content. And we were even priced a third higher than the next closest competitor on that product, which was crazy. Lots of things like that. There’s even things like the return rate. Okay, so, like, we had a product that the content was very forward in regards to salesy content, like features, benefits. This thing is awesome. It’s cool. It was a higher-end forearm crutch. Like, you know, you rust on your forearms. It was made by an engineer, like a son that made it for his dad, who wanted to improve his quality of life. So great story behind it. We’re just selling and selling, selling, but we got a lot of returns. And I think here in the US, we are one of the only nations still that has like the real dollar, $20 40 armpit crutch. A lot of nations don’t even have that anymore. It’s just not really good for your body to have that thing up in your armpit. It’s not comfortable, it hurts, but it’s cheap, it’s affordable. And this crutch, this forearm crutch was complicated. It was advanced, has all these features and, you know, it’s $200. And so I felt like there were certain features that we were overselling versus, like, explaining what they’re going to get and setting expectations. So we went from sales copy to, like, expectation setting and educational copy, and our return rate dropped by. Like, it went from, like, in the twenties down to, like 7%. So. And that was a difference in a copy. That was a difference. And it was also doing what? Well, it was just also creating another problem, I felt like. And so we really had to take a step back and figure this one out. And I was like, I can’t understand why this product is so great. I’m like, but a lot of the reasons the returns are like, our content doesn’t speak to any of that. Let’s try to change it up, try something else. And it was such an expensive product and expensive to ship that the returns were going to make it a make or break to whether it’s going to be successful on Amazon. So we had to lower those returns. So it kind of forced us to try different things there. So there’s a couple examples, I guess, you know, another thing is, like, someone that is, like, leading the way with their product when they launched it, maybe they had the patent or they were first to sell it. Maybe it was the mushroom coffee. They’re out in front. Two years later, competitors have caught up and they, instead of you just being the product that had the mushroom coffee, now they’re doing, they’re trying these different images and they have the coffee beans on the main image and it’s looking delicious. And, you know, they’re doing all the extra things. And it takes just like a, let’s take a fresh look at our content now that everyone’s copied us, instead of playing victim mindset that let’s go be the front runner again and come up with something innovative and creative and then finding that that skid stops and starts turning the other direction when everyone doesn’t look like us in the SERPs again. So it’s like you invested in it a couple years later, you need to invest in it again, potentially, if everyone’s kind of copying you and continue to stay innovative. I did that with one of my own brands where, you know, the silicone stretch lids, you know, it’s to make more containers, reusable or whatever, and it’s eco friendly. That’s one that I own. The then owner of the product, like, she got sick and so she took a couple years off. Like, the brand was just kind of running itself with the team, and she got really sick and couldn’t manage it. Competitors, Chinese competitors, started popping up, copying all of our images, all of our style, everything like that. And so we’re like, okay, let’s come in. We see these competitors, they’re cheaper than us, but we have the better brand, we have the better product. Let’s show that. And so we just did a complete rebrand on the images and the way we were kind of conveying the product, and then, boom, back on top and started seeing that skid slow down and go the other direction. So it’s like if you were for an analogy, right? It’s like you’re in a relationship if you never try anything new. You’re not continuing to try to date your person. You know, you’re not continuing to try, you’re not trying new restaurants or maybe a different outfit switches things up, right? They’ve seen your body for five years. Switch it up, put a frame, different frame on it, you know, and you’d be surprised how your partner will respond to that effort. I think customers and a brand, thinking of it like a live thing like that, they care about that, too. And so you can’t just hit them with the same messaging over and over and over. You got to kind of switch the angle, switch that up.
JONATHAN: Absolutely. Great examples and great insights. I love that… We’re about out of time, but was there anything that you wanted to cover real quick that we might not have mentioned?
ANDREW MORGANS: Yeah, I think just to the audience, like, you don’t know what you don’t know. Okay. And this is a testing platform, guys. Amazon is a testing platform. Have some of your budget set to R and D to try new things. Try a video that you have. If you haven’t done it, try, try refreshing your a, try some custom creative on your headline ads, going into holidays and trying different things. What if I had a Christmas tree on it? Does it imply gift buying more or like, you know, just, you have to be constantly trying new things. I think to stay successful on Amazon, wanted to get success and then stay successful. So that’s a mindset. And I think people can go from entrepreneurs to business owners and forget in some level of success, you go from an entrepreneur to a business owner, and you can lose some of those elements that make you a successful seller on Amazon. And so I just encourage anyone listening to take that to mind, take that to heart and just think about yourself. I’m being more of a business owner right now than an entrepreneur. And if I was an entrepreneur, would these things scare me away? Instead of a manager of my business and my finances and my budget. So always keep R&D and innovate. E-commerce is about innovation and trailblazing and trying new things. You might have the same product, but there’s a fresh look. I know there’s a fresh look or a fresh approach. You can have to it. Like the slinky. That was a product that was made for some kind of industrial reason, and it turned into a toy a lot of times. Times change. And now that product that you had five years ago, now there’s a term for, like, you know, a fidget spinner. There’s, like, anxiety toys or, like, these things where there wasn’t a terminology around it, now all of a sudden there’s terminology around it. And instead of addressing it by, like, a scientific name where, you know, like, a scientific supplement name, we’re now calling it whatever, right? And I’m just like those. I can’t think of the analogy right now, but it’s like, these things happen in just a couple years time sometimes, and you can get so comfortable. Brands get so comfortable. Even my preaching to myself about, just, like, I turn into this manager, I’m trying to optimize my agency, optimize my business, and I lose that element that made me a successful entrepreneur in the beginning, which is really, let’s try new things. Let’s be inventive. Like, you know, let’s have a new approach to this. So those are my parting words. You know, I love getting on these shows and just sharing ideas. I know there’s a million more and there’s a million amazing ideas that people are doing out there that we probably didn’t even talk about around content. But you don’t know what you don’t know. You know, what’s it costs to spend a little time saying, hey, can I. Can I be better? I think that saying of, like, trying to be 1% better every day applies here, too. And you know what? What could 1%, 5%, 10% conversion rate difference do for your business in the future?
JONATHAN: Yeah. Solid. I can’t think of a better note to end on. Drew, always a pleasure. We’re going to have to have you back, because I always want to pick your brain and. Yeah. Talk soon. Thank you all.
ANDREW MORGANS: Thank you, Jonathan.
