In a thought-provoking conversation on The Seller’s Edge, hosted by Jonathan D’Ambrosio, Jillian Losik shares endless insights and strategies that promise to revolutionize anyone’s approach to selling online. She is a visionary strategist that founded the full-service Amazon agency Emarketplace Management.
Are you struggling to carve a niche for your brand in the fiercely competitive market? Jillian underscores the pivotal role of a strong product complemented by stronger values, offering a roadmap to create a brand that resonates deeply with consumers.
Are you grappling with budget constraints in your advertising efforts? Listen as Jillian offers a number of effective ad strategies tailored to get the most out of any budget, illustrating how even smaller sellers can go head-to-head with industry giants.
Are the complexities of social media traffic eluding you? The strategist provides a smart approach on leveraging social media’s potent reach to amplify your brand’s visibility and drive growth.
Tune in to The Seller’s Edge to propel your ecommerce enterprise to the next level with the strategic acumen of Jillian Losik.
Full episode available on Spotify, YouTube, Audible, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud and more.
Episode 11 of The Seller’s Edge Podcast, Jillian and Jonathan talk about:
- 01:15 – Get Rich Quick vs. The Long Game
- 02:58 – The Right Way To Think About Your Spending
- 05:35 – Opportunities for Smaller Sellers
- 07:08 – Sustainability
- 12:47 – Common Mistakes Brands Make
- 13:31 – Premium A+ Content on PDP
- 14:56 – Have Unique Creative Assets Per SKU
- 17:32 – Customer Review Data
- 18:12 – Social Media Traffic
- 20:27 – Omni-Focus Is Essential
- 21:28 – Email Marketing Tactics & Strategies
- 23:31 – Do Not Treat DTC Site as Competitor
- 25:26 – Ad Strategies That Work
- 29:36 – Influencers and The Flywheel Effect
Key Takeaways:
- Have a strong product *and* strong values
- Learn the most effective ad strategies for a tight budget
- Do not treat your DTC site like a competitor
- Find out how and why you don’t always need to ‘pay to play’
- A tactic to dominate targeted keywords
- How to turn cart abandonments into conversions
Full Transcript of Episode:
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: In general, I always see when gurus and everybody on the interwebs are always trying to push their get rich quick scheme and the three prominent things that you should be doing to make millions of dollars overnight. Obviously there is no golden rule. And I’m just curious how your thoughts are on the approach of get rich quick because I feel like that’s everyone’s desire to chase that and what your thoughts are. Is it possible or is the longer game better?
JILLIAN LOSIK: So in my experience, longer game is better. There are so many companies out there, especially over the last five years really that have been heavily vc or angel backed and all of those funds that have gone into these, or maybe they were acquired by aggregators, for example, those models, they can work great, but unfortunately they’re just paying to buy these customers. And likewise, was that the right customer? Did it go to waste? Did they leave a bad product review? If it’s a bad product? Well, that five star rating is very quickly going to go down to a three star rating versus going at a slower rate. Listening to your consumers and having time to rebound. So the going as fast as possible to top revenue, I don’t think it works, you know, and I think the slower model, yes, it’s more expensive in other ways. It can be expensive because you’re not doing the scaling at units of economy like you’re just going at a slower rate. So you’re going to have to sit on higher product costs for a little bit longer. But you know, you know your product, you know your consumer, you’re able to learn in rebound, so and develop so much better at that rate. Likewise, you can advertise so much more strategically and efficiently. So you’re learning everything that’s happening of, okay, what’s happening here? Should I just be spending money? No, I can focus right here in this channel. So for a lot of sellers who are just trying to go grow as quickly as possible, it’s not their money. So they’re just spending it. They’re throwing things at the wall of maybe this category, maybe this audience, whatever it is, versus treating it as if it is their own money and being much more conscientious of where those dollars are going. That method, whether it’s organic, whether it’s external marketing, maybe it’s Amazon ads, that method is so much more efficient because again, you know your consumer, you know your audience, you know the people who are buying and then if it’s working, you can just keep boosting that and then test the next one. And then test the next one. There’s certainly a middle ground in here, though, because I have other clients who are like, look, I’m really, really self funded. Like, I make a dollar, then I can advertise a dollar. Or that dollar actually needs to go back to the next production run. Those ones, they’re going to grow, too, but in a very, very slow rate. So there is a little bit of a risk that they do have to take because you do need data. You know, you have to be able to test an experiment versus being, like, having these knee jerk reactions of, oh, no, I spent $500. $500, a lot. Like, not in the grand scheme of e commerce, but in a person’s wallet. That’s huge. So that money, if you just spent that and got no return, you would say, I’m never going to advertise ever again. I’m done with Amazon. This sucks. But if you can have a little bit of a risk model where you’re saying, okay, here’s 500. Now I get all of this as data. Think of that as the return, not the sales. As the return.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Yeah. It’s funny because I’ve, how can I say this in a diplomatic way? I’ve worked for a large organization that’s tried to do this to scale, and I think that the approach was, let’s throw all the money at everything and then see what sticks. And I think that they’ll see, you know, nothing stuck. I mean, one lever will go off the charts, right? And you’re like, oh, like, that’s great. But then you’re, you’re, it’s a wash because you’re spending all this money on everything else. So it’s really focused on what your strengths are rather than just trying to plug everything as you can, because it just doesn’t work.
JILLIAN LOSIK: It doesn’t work. And you know what? When you’re spending so much like that, there’s no budget left for product innovation. Like, hey, let’s actually go back and listen to our consumers and come up with a new iteration. You know, maybe they didn’t like the flavor, the size, the color. But if you’re just focused on this one method of spend, spend, spend, there’s no, like, rinse and repeat or like a recycled version.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Yeah. I mean, as, from a sustainability standpoint, just from a business, for business practices, yeah, you’ll make money short term, but you’re going to be dead eventually. And that’s not, and you won’t be able to sell your, your brand when everything’s said and done. Like, you’re not going to be able to walk away and put your kids through college.
JILLIAN LOSIK: Yeah, exactly.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: I think you and I have discussed before how I think Amazon has the reputation of being this giant evil empire, but there are independent sellers on there and mom and pop shops and people who are actually selling really great products. Um, and it’s great to like get that exposure to them. I’m curious, like, like what your thoughts are on that have been and what has inspired you to sort of focus on that other than I imagine just wanting to be a good human being.
JILLIAN LOSIK: Definitely part of it. And I think with so many of the clients I’ve worked with that were massive and had these huge budgets, those were always the ones who ended up folding first. It was the clients who were treating it like it’s their own money because it is the ones who cared about more than their profits. Like maybe they had a charity or something that they’re donating, or maybe it’s the local area that they source their materials from and they’re giving back to that area. Maybe it’s just like certain types of packaging where they’re like, hey, we’re trying really hard not to just destroy our planet as quickly as possible. Let’s choose our other options. And that goes into the ethos, the why of why I want to support them and help them grow and stand out. But I have to admit it’s so interesting talking to friends or just people in general. They’re like, Amazon’s the worst. You’re only supporting Jeff Bezos. I’m like, no, no. There’s a lot of little guys out there and they have the most interesting products.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: I absolutely agree with you. I think that there’s some really interesting brands and I like that Amazon has democratized the marketplace online for them to have an avenue to sell and reach broader audiences and customers. So I think that that’s fantastic. I mean, do you see opportunities for sellers who prioritize sustainability to stand out in the marketplace and attract more like conscious consumers that way? Or do you see that on the DTC side? I’m curious.
JILLIAN LOSIK: It’s starting to get better. So Amazon in the last few years really started pushing their climate pledge friendly program. It’s a way of having a badging that shows I am sustainable. The pro about is there’s one of them compact by design, which is by Amazon, and they’re making it easier to be eligible for it, just with some backend attributes like showing that the product is compact by design. The other ones are actually pretty expensive to get, like the USD organic labeling is not free. They’re regenerative, organic, not free. There’s so many of them that are quite, quite expensive. So for those smaller sellers, they have all of the information for this certification, but simply because of cost, it’s like how much of a sales driver is it to have that badging? Now, the good thing is Amazon behind the scenes has disclosed that the badging does help with sales, helps with sales conversion. For the. Why, I’m not sure. Is it maybe because customers like myself are going through and filtering like, oh, cool, let’s check this box and only support these brands? Or is it because that badge itself helps me stand out in search results? I think that’s what it is. Any way to stand out on Amazon search results is what helps your sales. So I think it’s helpful. But of course, Amazon has a long ways to go in really, really supporting the sustainability. I know there’s some landing pages that you can get onto as well, but you have to. Those badges that show it.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Yeah, I love that the filters have gotten more expansive as time has gone on because it gets you to what you want to buy. But at the same time, I feel like that list is getting longer and longer and it’s harder to navigate. It is well, and it’s interesting because as a seller, you have to make sure that you put that information in. Otherwise there is no filter. And right now there’s the listing quality dashboard where it’s like, hey, we recommend that you fill these things out, but nothing happens to your listing. If you don’t do it, you don’t get delisted. So it’s really up to the sellers. Be like, oh, wait, I need to go through and check all of these off. Right. So you have to be vigilant about it basically. Otherwise there’s no bells and whistles.
JILLIAN LOSIK: Exactly.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Yeah. I’m curious what percentage of your clients come to you before they launch, either in general or just on Amazon?
JILLIAN LOSIK: So I’d say about half come before. So half of them say, hey, I’ve already launched on my website. I’ve tried to launch on Amazon. This is an absolute nightmare. I don’t know what I’m doing. Help me, please. Or others within that realm are like, I’ve already been delisted and I didn’t do anything, or I keep getting charged all these fees, why am I not making any money? It’s just all those questions that come out and a lot of those as well. They’re saying, hey, Amazon’s going well, but how much better could I do if I had an expert managing this for me. So the person who wants you to help scale them, the other half are ones that come to me are like, I have a really good idea. Like, okay, cool, where are we at on this like idea to implementation? So it’s fun. I love talking to literally everyone to hear all of the stories, the brand stories, their whys and you know, depending on where they’re at, some of them will say, cool, get your trademark mark first and then we’ll talk. Start on your website, start social, like, come up with a full plan and then we’ll talk. The next stage ones, like, all right, why don’t we do a project? We’ll get you launched on Amazon. Don’t pay me yet. Let’s really get you on here and make use of money. And then once you’re on the next scale, that’s when I can really help you. So it’s day one, just starting to sell on Amazon. I’m like, that’s great. Your 1st 30 days are extremely important. Don’t mess that up. But also I’m practical of these business owners and when they’re just paying out versus trying to grow organically, it’s hard. You know, I’ve also, as a manager, the outsourced manager, I found it to be much easier once they’ve already realized how difficult Amazon is. They’re like, okay, I get it. But they also have more questions, they have more understanding, they’ve given it an attempt. And then from there it’s like, cool, now we can talk. Now let’s get things going.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Yeah. I don’t think people realize just how much of a Hornet nested is and like just tangled web of all sorts of red tape.
JILLIAN LOSIK: Oh, yeah, lots and lots and like thousands and thousands of help pages that you can’t even find unless you’re like digging and digging.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Those two clients like having people come to you before they launch and then people who have already launched. I mean, it’s nice to have a fresh start, right? In a clean slate because you don’t have to worry about anything that they’ve done before that. But there’s also something nice about having the data from what they’ve attempted before. So I’m curious, how do those situations compare your mind? Do you prefer one over the other?
JILLIAN LOSIK: I personally prefer the ones who have already started. They’ve already started selling, maybe their listings up. And it’s okay because starting with a blank canvas is so hard. You know, starting. We can do SEO research for hours and hours and hours and days and days. But it’s really, once we have an idea for what does the seller, what does this brand owner want to refer to their product as? What did they think of it? Like, if they can just empty their brain on what they want, then I can take from there and just go back and edit, add SEO, incorporate the images, etcetera. But when I have other clients who are completely fresh, absolute blank canvas, I’m like, okay, where do we start? And then I have to go to their website, social media, start looking at competitor listings, reading their reviews, like getting a feel for the product, the category, etcetera. It is, it’s also interesting. Yeah. Because once you have a listing and maybe they have bad product ratings because something exploded or it was just something that could have been missed, it is tricky because you have to rebound from that. But as long as it’s a good product, you can rebound.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: When those people come to you, they’ve already launched. What do you notice when you’re troubleshooting their brand most of the time, or some trends and what they’ve been doing wrong that you kind of need to fix?
JILLIAN LOSIK: Categorization is one, two. Oftentimes they’ll come up with titles or bullets or size attributes that just make no sense. Or maybe they just pulled it from their website and it’s like, that’s great for your website, but that’s not Amazon SEO. Sometimes the titles are a massive paragraph, other times it’s two words and it’s just not compliant or not optimized, rather. So, yeah, I’d say it’s really, when I’m getting a listing that’s already been started or brand presence that’s already been started, it’s simply missing attributes or not optimized.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: I know that they were starting to explore and test with it, but I don’t know if they’re still doing it with the enhanced a content where you could add video and stuff to the listing, are they still doing that? They are, yeah. The premium a, you can now have video, videos and video carousels.
JILLIAN LOSIK: And have you found that being like a really like good differentiator or it doesn’t matter in the long run, you. Know, the video parts interesting because there’s almost too much video now, at least I feel, because the PDP, you can have video and now in the premium a, you can have video and now there’s video ads. So there’s just all these videos popping out, plus of course, storefront itself. So if you can keep it short and sweet and it’s really more like a gift style where it’s maybe 15 seconds and just little pop up blurbs for those people who don’t have the patience to read bullets, for example. I think that’s when they can be really helpful. Otherwise it’s just making sure the premium a plus itself is different than the pictures and videos you have in the actual listing. Because unfortunately I see it all the time where people just use the same images. Like why you have more placement. Keep describing your product’s great. Keep talking about it.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Yeah, for sure. I’ve noticed that a lot, actually. It’s almost like people must have missed it up top. So let me put it again right here just to remind them.
JILLIAN LOSIK: Yeah. And you know, when you’re shopping on mobile, it’s all scrolling, so you’re like, wait, I saw that. Hold on. Same thing.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Yeah. Um. It’s definitely something that I want to see. Variations and more information about the product.
JILLIAN LOSIK: Agreed. It’s so hard, especially with a lot of the images because you have so many SKUs. I mean, I had a client year. This was one of my first, actually my very first client on Amazon with my own agency. And she has these, it’s called pay yoga. Amazing brand, beautiful stuff. Made in Bali, but so many different patterns and sizes. We’ve probably at one point had maybe 2000 different child SKUs. Which means 2000 different listings. Yeah. Which means like 5000 images to upload manually at that time. So it’s a lot to manage. And a lot of times people don’t take photo shoots like real authentic photo shoots for each of those SKUs. So they’ll use renderings, they’ll use AI. And customers can tell that that’s the same person looking the exact same way but now they have a different color on. So it loses that customer trust when you don’t have the true authentic lifestyle images on there.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Yeah. That’s really interesting that you brought up that point because I noticed that a lot. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually talked about that, but it is something that I noticed that immediately turns me off when I see like a copycat image. It’s the exact same thing. Just a different color bandana or something to that effect. Yeah, yeah. That’s a really solid idea. That’s, I mean, that’s more of like, why I keep thinking, like, content just keeps driving people more and more than, I mean, to get the actual conversion. Like, the SEO is good for getting them there, but that part is crucial. Are there specific ways that you approach competitor research or things that you found more helpful than others.
JILLIAN LOSIK: Think like the customer, you know, if I were going on one of my clients listings, and I’m like, all right, well, before we even launch, who’s the competitor? If I were buying this product, who would I price compare against? You know, price wise listings, which one would I actually want to buy? If you were to take the review ratings completely out, for example, because, of course, you’re launching the reviews, reading competitor reviews. What are people using to describe their product now? How can we use that information to make our listing even better? I have one client who just launched, and it’s launching soon. A couple lazy foods, amazing pasta product. One of the things I notice is there’s a high sodium count on it. That’s something I’ve seen pop up on competitor listings, where it’s a negative and people are constantly like, too much sodium. Too much sodium. So I want this announced before the issue ever comes up. So I’ve actually talked to this client, said, it’s not a negative. It’s a great thing. We just need to explain that sodium is coming naturally from your vegetables, and this is the sodium count, so nobody has to really complain about it later. We just call it out. Well, and it’s interesting. So going back to the point you had mentioned earlier about when somebody has a listing already versus starting from scratch, one of the best parts about having that listing earlier is maybe there’s, probably there’s product reviews already. So when the seller thinks that they’re selling a cup, I don’t know, a Stanley cup just for water use. But you read through the product reviews, and people are putting juice or wine or other things in there. You know, maybe that wasn’t the original intent of the product, but listen to the customers, take that from the reviews and incorporate that into the listing. It’s pretty interesting. Like, the actual usage versus the original plan. 100%.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: You called out the Stanley cup. And then the other thing that I’ve been hearing nonstop is about guru Nata, is that the name of it? Have you heard about this? The coconut oil. So it’s a product that has been selling, like a bajillion units per month just because they started a really strong TikTok campaign. So they had the influencers. They really weren’t doing anything on Amazon, but the traffic that came from TikTok really just drove sales in Amazon. And I’m curious, like, what your. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that for social media? I feel like influencers are playing, like, a larger role in that.
JILLIAN LOSIK: Oh, social media runs Amazon, like, 100%. You don’t like, don’t even bother with anything else. It’s funny, I have a few clients where they don’t have meta ads. All they use are influencers and they treat that as their advertising budget or marketing budget. It’s amazing. The social influence literally gives you that credit to go and buy something. They’re able to explain it, they’re able to show it in real life. And as a consumer I have many, many times, probably once a day been influenced to something of like, oh, that’s a great product. What do I need for my children? What do I need for myself? What don’t I need? So it’s interesting that the social media influencers in affiliate marketing, it just makes it so much easier otherwise. Like meta ads, those can be audience based, but it’s not really depicting the why do I need this? Amazon ads? Most of the time, consumers don’t even realize they’re clicking on an ad. You know, it’s simply based off of keywords, categories which are not always correct. Competitor listings, like hijacking ads. So that influencer side really can work well, but it has to be authentic. So one thing I’m sure you’ve seen, and many people have seen as consumers on Instagram is people just start talking about products like a hair product and the guy’s bald, you know, for example, there’s just like, hey, wait a minute, there’s a little bit of a disconnect here. So the authenticity and being a true consumer and loyal brand user is the most important part.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: That’s really funny and almost endears me to whatever brand that was. Like, if they actually did that, we’ll send it to you.
JILLIAN LOSIK: It’s good. Yeah.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Going back to the social media aspect, and I know that you mentioned in our previous discussions about having a strong DTC presence before moving to Amazon. I mean, it’s probably smarter to have that DTC presence before you’re moving to Amazon because then you can leverage a lot of, I mean you’re going to migrate your customers to there and already get that established customer base. But also I’m curious how that plays into holistically or omnichannel wise, like how do you, how do you kind of approach that?
JILLIAN LOSIK: So I actually have it as a pseudo requirement for all of my clients to be omnifocused. So selling on Amazon alone doesn’t really work as much anymore. The private label world, not as strong as it used to be. Amazon wants you to be an established brand. They want you to have a website, they want you to have a following brand recognition. They want you on social media and driving traffic to Amazon because nobody buys just one thing. They’ll just keep buying so benefits them and using affiliates like leverage everything. So the omni channel approach is definitely going to be your strongest point. And also recognizing that your website is not a competitor to Amazon and vice versa. It’s an old school mentality of Amazon’s a competitor. Back when it was just vendor central that rolls that realm. But these days it’s sometimes the consumer just prefers to buy names on. I know I do. If somebody asked me to enter my credit card information, I’m like, I can’t. I haven’t seen my credit card in weeks. All I do is Apple Pay. Like, you know, so it’s, yes, there’s a lot of great, like checkout options now, point of sale for websites, but give the customer the option. So even on websites, what I’ve seen work best is it has, hey, buy it here and we’ll throw in an extra something or click here and go to Amazon and check out. It’s great. Give the customer the option there. On social media you can a b test. Is it better to send them to your website where you can capture their email? Is it better to send them to a landing page, capture their email than send them to Amazon? A B tested. Some work better than others. And then for some of the other ones too, like affiliates and influencers, they get paid by Amazon if they have an Amazon associates account. So a lot of them prefer to send to Amazon instead of website. Plus they can control their reporting. So it’s quite interesting all the different ways you can leverage. One of the sneaky ways I found that work well is in your emails. I was like, oh, you seem intrigued in the email itself. One sneaky way I found that works really well is any audience you have for cart abandonment. So maybe they’ve gone onto your website, they put a bunch of stuff in your cart, they locked it, they came to your website, never made it to the cart, and they left. You already have, possibly their pixels, you already have their email, have something in your, within your email campaigns itself set up just to get them to Amazon. Maybe they didn’t want to buy on your website, but if given the option for Amazon, they’ll do it.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: I love that. That’s a really smart tactic, especially because I feel people mostly leverage Amazon just because of the distribution and fulfillment network.
JILLIAN LOSIK: Yeah, you have all of these different channels to leverage. Do it. Push them anywhere they’re possibly going to end up on Amazon. I’ve actually had a few clients are like, I actually don’t want to send people directly to Amazon. I’m like, that’s fine. Possibly it’s more expensive, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s just because on your website you can capture so much more data. Send them to your website, but just know that they might be buying on Amazon so it might feel like a lost sale. But if you’re looking at everything holistically, your total spend, your total cost, your total sales, that’s really the best way to look at your, your full model.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: You mentioned Amazon wanting to have people be established brands. Do you find that as time goes on because that’s where, kind of where they’re shifting? Is it becoming harder to start out a brand? Because it almost seems like once you have dominance in a category or product, it’s harder to get a share of that.
JILLIAN LOSIK: It is getting a little bit harder, especially if you’re self funded, fully grassroots, not doing any marketing or advertising. It is hard to be on Amazon just as a new new novice brand. But it’s not impossible. You know, you really have to go to what’s your product? Do people want it? Are people searching for it? You know, I have a client that makes a hair rinse. It’s not a shampoo, but who’s searching for hair rinse. You know, it’s almost this new thing. It’s an incredible product and when people buy it, they’re obsessed. They never leave it. But to get that initial search and demand, that’s definitely where we have the hardest time. So that’s when we really start leveraging the external marketing, the influencers, the affiliates, the meta ads of this is our space to educate people, get them to Amazon and then maybe throw that shampoo word in there somewhere in the SEO and then that’ll help you show up on search results as well.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Yeah, there’s a lot of interesting products that work that way where it’s not exactly what people are looking for, but it gives them what they need. So how do you kind of play that from a title standpoint? Yeah. And then in your experience, like what advertising strategy have proven to be the most effective for sellers.
JILLIAN LOSIK: So always have brand defense. If you’re doing, if you are an omni channel brand you’re running on meta, you’re right. Whether paid or organic, you have your social, pr, whatever it is, you need to do brand defense, especially as you scale and grow, because it is so easy for competitors to conquest your customers by simply targeting your brand name. Likewise, if you’re new to Amazon, there is no indexing on your brand name until their search and demand for it. So if you have a paid placement right there that allows you to show up immediately at top of placement. Brand defense, definitely the best tactic that we love. Competitor conquesting. Of course we play both sides, so we are also going after our competitors, but not all of them. You know, we’re not looking at the ones who have perfect 5.04.5 and above star ratings. The price is lower than ours. You know, we know the customer’s not going to buy our product over that if we are less rated or less ranked or higher priced. So we very strategically look at what’s our price, what’s theirs, what’s our review rating, what are people feeling about ours and then go and target someone with worse review ratings or higher prices per unit. So that’s a good strategy. Those are just little easy wins that you can get on. The competitor conquesting category wise can be very expensive. So category targeting is great on Amazon, but it’s broadcast. So you need to make sure you’re targeting the right categories. We’ve got this healthy candy client, amazing product. But if you go into fruit snacks, well that’s a big beast. You know, that’s a very, very big category. It’s going to be hard to compete against Welch’s because everybody loves those. And if you were to just go into like the more granular candies, that definitely helps. So category, competitor, brand defense, those are the tricks we love. Sponsored product ads. Those one will, it will probably always work. The best sponsored brand get a good video. A really good video doesn’t need to be expensive. It can be homemade. It could be made by an influencer. Just make sure that you’ve shared it with enough people besides your mom and get true feedback on does this story make sense to somebody who doesn’t know what the brand or the product is? Does it convince me to buy? Do I understand why I need to buy it now? Was it catchy? Also make sure that it’s, it’s mute friendly so all video ads come unmuted. Just like myself. Sometimes I’m multitasking and I don’t want a massive video playing. So you need to have that little text overlay, those call outs. So those video ads are great. It helps to fill the funnel sponsor display.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Tell me more.
JILLIAN LOSIK: I want sponsored display to be better. I want remarketing and retargeting and audience targeting to be so much better than it is. I think Amazon’s really dropped the ball on sponsored display ads, which is probably why they’re like, just go to DSP and spend $50,000 a month. But for our small clients, they can’t fall into those budgets of DSP. So sponsored display is the only option for retargeting and remarketing. I just wish there was more demographics you could target, similar to meta ads where you could get really, really granular. But for sponsored display, one of the best tricks that I found is that competitor conquesting of just like going after specific listings, specific ASINs. So it’s interesting. Modern mammals, they have a competitor who has a very, very massive budget and someone who we would normally never compete with. But it’s also called piggybacking off of all of their efforts. Because when we target their listings and they’re doing these big pushes on external marketing or anything, like maybe they end up on a Super bowl ad. Well, guess what? Here’s our ad landing on theirs with better reviews, better pricing. Or maybe people are just shop curious. So that competitor conquesting, piggybacking up their efforts definitely works until they find out and then they start brand defending themselves. And then you just have to find the next sucker. If you have influencers talking about the benefits of your product, like why do they need this? What they love about it? Those are actually going to be keywords that people use to go on to Amazon and search for the product. So that’s not only going to help you organically, but if you have paid ads running on those keywords, that’s also going to boost it. So it gives it a little boost to then go back to the organic and help you show up on the organic ranking of those words. For example, I have a client who makes these amazing supersedes for babies. So fiber for babies, constipation, support for toddlers. If you have influencers who are talking about that, you go onto Amazon and you’re running ads to target those phrases, your product shows up, bam. That’s going to help you on the organic rank of those and help future customers. So you won’t always have to pay to play on those, but you’ll always want to show up whether it’s organic.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: That’s actually a really solid point. So what you do, I mean, the best way to do is try, try to find like something that’s like a low competitive keyword, kind of feed that to an influencer and then almost manufacture your placement on the page. That’s actually, I love that. That’s a great idea. You are great. If anyone’s interested in reaching out to you and getting in touch with you. How can they do that in the most simple and effective way possible?
JILLIAN LOSIK: Amazing. So go to my website, emarketplacemanagement.com. Find me on LinkedIn. Jillian Lowsick those are probably going to be the best ways to find me. Send me an email jillianarketplacemanagement.com dot I will always respond and I’d love talking to sellers about their ideas, brands, founders, just where they’re at in their journey. How I can help you can’t be the master of everything. If you have a wonderful idea, keep that as what your focus is and then allow others who are the experts of Amazon or eBay or DDC or meta like, let those people help you.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: Solid advice along with some other really solid advice and insight to give today. So I really appreciate it. And again, I think you’re brilliant. So I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. And yeah, we’re going to have to do this eventually again, just so I can pick your brain some more.
JILLIAN LOSIK: I would love that.
JONATHAN D’AMBROSIO: All right. Thank you, Jillian.
JILLIAN LOSIK: Thank you. Bye.
