Josh Hadley 5:34
Yeah, that’s fascinating background mark. And it sounds like you have a lot of experience. So how did you get into creating House of AMZ and you know, sharing your tactics and helping other brands scale up, then?
Mark Casey 5:47
Sure. So it’s funny, it’s like, I always done things like on my own, I have my own brands that I work with, which are off Amazon, surprisingly, but I never even thought of running an agency to be honest with you. But a lot of people saw it like, my ears and my work and they asked me to like hey, can you help me out too? Can you help me out too. And before you know it we’re working with like real large companies like such as a Clorox, Levi’s, Dickies, like real, real brands that consulted with me on like, different tactics and strategies on how to help them with their Amazon business when I was very surprised about that. So as time came along, and it really became like a full time type of thing, like, I still have my businesses running. But we started growing it and growing it, and I usually don’t get up and just speak. I’m a people’s person, and I love networking with people. But he asked me to just get up on stage. I mean, back then I would never have done it. So someone asked me, hey, we’re throwing this Amazon like, kind of beat up, this should be 40 people there, you want to get up and just share some ideas. And I was like, very hesitant about it. I ended up pushing myself and doing it, I show up to the room. And everyone heard, like, you know, who’s this guy? Because I’ve been hearing about him. It was like 120 people in a small little room, and I’m like, oh, my God, what am I gonna do now. And I always look back to that speech. And I laugh, but it was fun. But one of my first I didn’t know what the world was doing in regards to speaking. And all these people who I didn’t know, but nowadays, I just get up and speak. And I love it. It’s fun. And this is kind of my passion and what I do. So in short, that’s kind of how our agency came to life is because I have my marketing background. And then I got all this Amazon knowledge. And we combined it together. And we really deliver just listings that really work and things that convert and we include all our tactics, ideas, and everything strategies into the work we deliver.
Josh Hadley 7:38
Yeah, that’s fascinating. And you do such a good job speaking. So I think your skills have I think you’re very confident on the stage now, so to speak. So, Mark, you’ve studied the algorithm for seven years, I would argue you would consider yourself an expert when it comes to ranking products on Amazon. So tell us, can you break down the Amazon algorithm to our listeners, and tell us what you are seeing that Amazon cares about when it comes to ranking products today?
Mark Casey 8:12
So we ever know, there’s six hours I could go in depth, but so yeah, there’s a lot I mean, well, first of all, a lot of things change within Amazon algorithm, many, many things. Like it’s always changing, evolving and growing. And there’s so much to it, but what I like to break it out on explain to people in a very simple way is that every little thing that the shopper does, Amazon takes into account and what that means is every little thing from how you clicked and how even got to Amazon, backing up all the way there, how you got to Amazon, what keywords you search when you got there, how long like every little point in detail. So really, so we really broke it down and saw. Okay, so someone goes on the listing onto Amazon, where do they come from? Do they come from a Facebook ad? They come from a referral from let’s say, WhatsApp from their friend. And then once they’re on Amazon, what keywords they type in once you take them to keyword how long were they on the results page for? Once you’re on the results page, what listings do they click? So meaning did they just click on yours and others? Do they go on others? And then yours? Or was it just your knowledge on the listing? Right? So let’s say sports water bottle and I click on your listing now, how long are you on the listing for? Is it just you saw it and you added to cart right away you’re gonna see purchase? Or was it something that you engage with the listing? So Amazon look, if they engage with the listing, and they looked at the reviews and the pictures, and they really invested five minutes on your listing to look at it and do everything and added it to cart, that’s where you’re going to get the success because Amazon sees that you really invest the time. So all these small little details at this one Amazon takes into account with their algorithm and that’s what gives you kind of the power, but there’s obviously a lot more to it. But just to break it down for you on kind of what min says.
Josh Hadley 10:06
Yeah, I love that. And, Mark, I’ve also heard from another seller that was previously on the podcast that Amazon is even factoring in, how many products you’ve launched or released on Amazon recently, is that something that you’ve heard of and could vouch for that? That’s true, like Amazon wants you bringing new stuff to the platform regularly.
Mark Casey 10:31
To be honest, I can vouch for it. Because I haven’t seen any data. I was actually sitting with someone yesterday. And he was telling me he’s like, we have free products. But we need to launch more, we need to show that we’re have more. And so I think it does take something and take counts. And Amazon sees also, they see that you’re not just a one man band, like just to launch one product. And that’s it. Like they want to see that you’re more of an official store. And you’re keeping up to date. I don’t know if it directly impacts it, to be honest. But I can see where it gets.
Josh Hadley 10:59
Awesome. Okay. So Mark, what I would love to dive into now then, is let’s say I’ve got a brand new product that I want to launch on Amazon, what are some of the tactics, best practices that you would encourage anybody to do? And maybe some of the special sauce that you add, with House of AMZ to launch a brand new product? Then after that we’ll talk about how do we relaunch maybe an old product that’s been on there for a couple of years rankings have fallen off? But let’s start first with a brand new product, no history on Amazon? What are the first steps and what are some of the most important things to be focused on Mark?
Mark Casey 11:41
So this is one of the top questions I get all the time. And it’s hard, because six years ago, five years ago, to kind of pay review, or they’ll leave a review and you get like, 50 reviews in two days with no problem. Nowadays, it’s really hard. It’s really, really hard, because so taking into account behind, there’s so much that goes involved into that. And then you also want your reviews at the same. Now imagine you’re launching a product hits FBA, your honeymoon period is starting, and then you have no reviews. So you spend the first two or three weeks pushing it through either through vine or through PPC. And by the time your reviews come in, you already kind of lost that honeymoon period. And now you’re just like any other Joe Schmo who’s just on the Amazon search results. So it’s really, really hard nowadays. And because it’s a catch 22 you need reviews in order to sell well, in order to sell all you need, so, it’s really hard. That an idea I came up with, and I mentioned this by my speech, I’m not sure if you were able to catch up on it, because I was really shooting a lot of information over there. When I did I came up with is that launch your product FBM. Right, so what we’ve done, we’ve done research that the honeymoon period really takes into account and once it hits FBA. So that’s really what the day hits FBA, that’s when you have to hit the ground running. So launch your product FBM, do some PPC Leno push it here and there. Do your friends and family whichever way you want. Get like five or 10 reviews, once you have five or 10 reviews, now ship it to FBA. And then you’re getting your full honeymoon period for five or 10 five star reviews, which is amazing. And I heard of because now you can hit the ground running, you have a whole bunch of reviews, and you’re fresh, you have a fresh start. And it’s really magical and crazy on on the HVAC for the work. So that’s kind of the idea that what I would do personally when it comes to launching a product now it’s 2023.
Josh Hadley 13:45
What would you do? Tell me more about that in regards to like PPC, do you see PPC being a big component then when you are launching and why?
Mark Casey 13:55
Yeah, 100%. So Amazon, first of all, they want your money, just to keep it short and simple. They want to see that you’re spending money, and then they give you more placement, whether you like it or not, that’s really the truth. Besides that it does collect a lot of data and a lot of keyword data that could show Amazon really good honeymoon period, everyone has different, like, like ideas on what it is and what it isn’t. It’s really a time where Amazon’s collecting data. So they’re going to show you more than getting the benefit of doubt, so to speak, to put you in the front and say hey, is when we put it on the front page for this keyword isn’t converting is not. So that’s when it’s cutting data. So that’s why you want to be really careful on launching in the right way and I just couldn’t get into it. And we have a lot of times people say I’m just gonna launch my product with a white background images, no graphics, no anything whatsoever. I like once it picks up on invest money. And I’m like, Dude, that’s like the biggest mistake you can possibly do is because within those first 30 days, that’s when Amazon’s collecting all your data. If you’re just getting clicks with no conversions, that’s really going to kill your listing and In this lesson, because Amazon wants to see that you’re always getting new clicks, at least you’re getting something. And if your listing isn’t good and converting, you’re really going to kill your listing.
Josh Hadley 15:09
Yeah. So is that a component then when you’re running PPC campaigns that you’re evaluating the conversion rate from those and what is a good conversion rate look like then?
Mark Casey 15:21
Honestly, I don’t have a set number because who asked me all the time, and I don’t know. And we don’t even do PPC, but what I could tell you, it’s a very big factor. And even if you’re just doing a little bit PPC a day, just to show Amazon, your spending and be like, just have some kind of like movement there. That’s important, but also my main idea for running PPC. So you could pick up organic sales, and then through those organic sales to hopefully get some reviews out of it. That was my idea whenever I say PPC.
Josh Hadley 15:48
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Let’s go back to you mentioned, launching your product first via FBM. And that you’re saying that the honeymoon period doesn’t really start until it goes into FBA. So my question with that is, I guess you have data to back that up. Is that true?
Mark Casey 16:10
Yeah, we’ve tested it out. And we’ve saw that once it hits FBA, and it’s available to be shipped, then that’s when Amazon’s going to start pushing you listening. Right now, if it’s FBM, they’re not going to push your listing, they want to show the results, which are the people that they can click an order right now. And it’s going to get to them in two days or less.
Josh Hadley 16:27
Okay. So when you launch via FBM, is your conversion rate lower during that time, because people are able to get their product in two days, right?
Mark Casey 16:39
Probably wouldn’t be lower. Yes. Because everyone looks for that prime badge where they can just order and get in, you get spoiled, even me like I get school. Like, everybody sees me as even like free shipping now from like a regular website. Like not wandering two days, you know?
Josh Hadley 16:53
Yeah. So but you’re saying that Amazon disregards all of the FBM data, right? So if you’re live on FBM, for, let’s say, two to three weeks, and then you go to FBA, you’re saying that Amazon isn’t looking at that historical data where you do have a lower conversion rate.
Mark Casey 17:14
Not as much, I would say, the main thing like what we’ve seen is like once it hits FBA, that’s when we see the honeymoon kind of take into effect. That’s what we’ve seen. Again, there’s no real data. There’s no like somebody that Amazon comes in and even says, I don’t even think Amazon even talks about the honeymoon period. This is a yet people come together. So there’s no set data. But based on our experience, we’ve seen that once it hits FBA, that’s kind of the golden time.
Josh Hadley 17:42
Okay, that makes sense. So why don’t you share maybe a couple of case studies of brands that you’ve worked with, or products, you don’t have to share specific names, but people that came to you guys, they wanted to launch a new product? Tell us about the process you walked them through? And what were the results that people saw?
Mark Casey 18:00
For sure. So there are a lot of different, for every category, we always come up with different strategies. And based on that being competitive and competitive. I’m trying to think like which ones specifically like are they think on top of my mind, or, for example, the supplement brands, some supplements can be really competitive. But I always say when it comes to supplements, once you do your marketing and your branding, and you have the right strategy, then you can be really good, you know, and that kind of field. So they approached us with a brand new product, it was I don’t know if I should say exactly because I respect their privacy. But there was a supplement, which was in a pretty competitive field, but they had more premium version of it. So well, first of all, it’s harder because they wanted to charge a lot more than I went off. So what my idea was, is to really go strong on the graphics on the infographics A plus content, to kind of display this as a more premium product and explain why. So we’ve done a very good job at doing that, because we’ve gotten feedback from regular shoppers and regular people. So just the added one of the things that I’ve created back when I worked at the other company, and I still haven’t now is a shopper network, right? So when whenever he wants to do a launch, we have a whole network of people where we can tell them, hey, buy this product, and then you’ll buy it and then we’ll reimburse them or whatnot. So part of having that network was really, really big for us whether we can go back to them and ask them for feedback based on what they think. So it’s kind of the same ideas PickFu and we use before now, but like even before PickFu kind of became a thing. And we are just doing this on like, hey, which image do you think is better? Which one would you click on and why? That’s the idea. So kind of going back to the case study. So we’ve done a lot of research and kind of launched it the right way where we brought this product to market and you really have to educate the consumers. So we were really strongly graphics on I’m displaying it properly, even the main image and whatnot. And then we started with a lot of outside traffic. And that’s a whole nother discussion which we could have, which is was all looks for nowadays is 100% outside traffic. So our approach was to do whatever I mentioned before, as I gather a couple of reviews, also through vine and whatnot, user there, we really hit the ground running, generating sales, showing Amazon consistency, that everyday we’re getting sales with specific keywords, and building that up. So many people have this idea of doing 300 giveaways within eight days, and they think it’s gonna launch your product, Amazon is not stupid, Amazon knows that it will add products and then the nine you’re selling 20, it doesn’t make sense. What we did was more of an organic approach that was more long term. And this is, what we do for launches now is we do more of like a 15 or 30 day, kind of idea where every day we’re doing five to 10 pieces. But we’re split, we’re doing that for 30 days in a row to Amazon sees a consistency. So let’s see with this product, it’s obviously not a collagen, but let’s say we do collagen, so one of those keywords. So we will do five sales a day with that keyword collagen, and then every single day for 30 days, and then Amazon sees kind of consistency. And it’s not that they will just for eight days, and then you got your little time to shine, and then you’re going back down. But the big thing is part of our strategy was doing that. And on top of that doing outside traffic, I’m combining it together. So Amazon sees, hey, you’re getting traffic off of Amazon is going on to Amazon, and you’re getting these conversions to the sales that we’re able to generate. And both of those together, we’re pumping them up all the way to the first page and actually staying there. Because we thought of a more of a long term strategy as opposed to a short term, like do this and like get there within a couple of days, and then you fall back up.
Josh Hadley 21:58
Makes sense. So to make sure I’m clear on your strategy, you’re reaching out to your shopper network to generate those five sales a day over 15 to 30 days, right. So that’s a prolonged, steady influx, is that correct?
Mark Casey 22:17
Exactly five a day for 15 to 30 days. At minimum, we have clients now that do 480 days, like they just wrote, because they see that the long term is the way to go. And again, you’re short on and then just falling, and then that honestly just ruins your listings.
Josh Hadley 22:31
Okay. And then you’re also driving external traffic, separate from the shoppers list, right?
Mark Casey 22:39
100% yeah, that’s also what’s like the cherry on top of the cake. Because that works. That works really, really well. Amazon likes it They rewarded for it.
Josh Hadley 22:47
Okay. And then your sellers are conducting their own PPC as well to kind of boost the product at that time.
Mark Casey 22:56
They’re doing their own PPC as well. Yeah, a lot of the times, which what we found that which was really interesting was we’ll have our shoppers, they usually they don’t, but we will tell them to purchase through the sponsor ad. And then Amazon sees that, first of all lowers your ink cost. And second of all, they see great results. And Amazon sees that there’s a lot of conversion coming through your PPC. So that’s another cool strategy. Another cool idea that we’ve done and people have some great results with.
Josh Hadley 23:22
Cool. Let’s talk more about that shopper network. Now, Amazon came out with, they don’t want rebates, right. They they’ve been pretty clear with that in their terms of service last year. Tell me more about that Mark. And how do brands, kind of navigate selling to their own list, giving them promotions, but not breaching those terms of service? What’s been your experience with that?
Mark Casey 23:53
So yeah, it’s been, like I said, In the beginning, a lot of things have changed before you were literally straight up about it, just pay people to do things. And now you’re not. So first of all, we don’t solicit any reviews at all we are our network is clean, these are people who are buying garbage bags, and laundry detergent, and then they’re also buying your product. So that’s a huge difference in Amazon, the trust score for each buyer, they see someone just, buying a whole bunch of products every single day, that makes no sense. Like iPhone charger and collagen and random products, they know, they know when people are just buying the products and also reviewing half of them, their trust score is very low, as opposed to people who are just buying everyday essentials and they’re also buying. That’s the main difference is that we’re not soliciting any reviews. We’re not asking them to do any shady links. And like trying to manipulate the searches. We’re simply doing a sales promotion where they’re just purchasing their product. We’re not like pushing them to do anything shady. So at the end of the day, there’s nothing wrong with that. Many people do it and there’s nothing wrong with running a promotion off of Amazon. That’s kind of what we’re doing. And that’s the main important part. Also, we’re not just doing like I said before, 500 sales within a couple of days and then stopping it, we’re doing promotion. And at the end of the day, no matter what anyone wants to say, that is always going to work, because nothing could compare to a real sale, you can try to do many workarounds. But identity, a sale is a sale. And if you, like I said before, you know how to touch the points on the algorithm and know what Amazon is looking for. And you’re checking off all those boxes. And yeah, if you do it the right way, you’re gonna get great results with it.
Josh Hadley 25:28
Yeah, makes 100% sense. I’m interested in asking you Mark, how big is that list. And the reason I ask is because for our own business, we have a list of 30,000 people that we have their email address, we also have them on our text list as well. But I like this approach of, instead of, day one from launch, I reach out to all 30,000 people on our list and try to send them to our new product. Instead, maybe saying, all right, every day, I reach out to 1000 people right over 30 days. And then we’re generating a few sales from those 1000 instead of a big mass of people coming in all at once. So tells me how big is your list? And like, how big should people’s lists be, in order to be able to generate five sales a day for 30 days plus?
Mark Casey 25:28
for sure. So our network is over 50,000 shoppers, and we’re growing every single day. And that’s been great. But even besides that, I always, always, always preached this. And I always said, this is so important to build your list. It’s so important because you can launch for free, you can just run some random sales promotions. And you beginning real organic sales, just by that that’s a B, Amazon sees the return shoppers, and it shows loyalty to your store, and you get credit for that too. And on top of that, you get a lot of frequently bought together from your products, similar products. And there’s really, really a lot of benefits when it comes to building.
Josh Hadley 26:59
Yeah. Let’s dive into that. Then real quick. How do you recommend brands build their list then?
Mark Casey 27:07
it’s really hard. It’s really, really hard. There’s one service which I discovered more recently, I’ve been always saying this strategy and idea to build your list. And then I found that there’s a company that does it. So post purchase Pro. So they’ve been really good at doing that. And in the beginning, they were doing this just for a couple of clients, and they charge $10,000 a month, which even makes sense, because there’s so much work involved. And now I spoke with him, I’m like, Hey, this is a really good idea. I’ve been wanting to build this myself, but you guys already build it out. So they said, no problem, or anyone who works with you will cut down the price like $1,000 or even less than that. But that in itself is such a powerful tool. And I can’t even stress that enough. And this is really not even a plug this is just you asked me and this is really what I find to be working. And there’s some other find to be that ROI positive, especially in the long run, building a brand not just having one product and saying, hey, this is people who will return and buy from you in the future.
Josh Hadley 28:10
Yeah, I love that. I heard Post Purchase pro speak at a recent conference as well. And I think they’d be fun podcast guests to have on here and share some of those strategies because they call it, you need to have a mafia offer, right? Where the offer is so good, that you can’t pass up joining their list to claim that free offer. And they have some great strategies. So I think that’s something that we’ll dive into with them, but happy to hear that you’ve seen success using their strategies. Let’s go back to, so we’ve talked about our shoppers list. And let’s dive into the external traffic piece now. So where are you driving the external traffic from Mark?
Mark Casey 29:01
So okay, I’m going to go back to the kind of middle of those chopper network and outside traffic. Because there’s one more thing one thing we did recently, so I remember I told you in the beginning that Amazon looks for when people engage with your listing and how long you’re on, you’re listening for, et cetera, et cetera. So what we did was we developed a very different strategy that works really, really well, which is kind of combining both of those together, the sales and rebates, right kind of the sales promotion, and also having people engage with your listing. What do we do? They’re called survey sales. So we’ll have let’s say, same idea. Let’s say you need 10 people a day, 20 people a day for whatever days to purchase your products, we’ll find people who want to take a survey, and we’ll send them to your listing, right? They’ll look on your listing, search it up, and they will engage with you listening to them even longer, because we can ask them up to like three or four, maybe even five questions and say, hey, tell me what you notice about this product whenever you search this keyword right? Who stands out to you? And why? So we’re able to get a lot of these feedback from them about just in general, the search results about your listing and specific. Oh, is there anything that’s not clear to you? Is there anything that is clear to you? What else do you want to know? These kinds of ideas? Right? So A, you’re getting good feedback from real shoppers who would actually purchase your product, that’s A, B, which is really underrated. Keep this in mind. They’re going and searching for products organically on their own, because they really want to figure out and answer the survey question. On top of that, they’re going to reviews their bunch of images, because we’re asking questions, saying, hey, from these images, and tell us what you think, in the meantime, Amazon views it as they’re engaging with your listing, they’re engaging with your views, and your infographics and all your kind of stuff. And the effect of that is like crazy compared to just doing sales alone, sales alone obviously works, but not your mind that they’re engaging with your listing. So this is something new, which I haven’t even touched upon, or spoke about even recently, because we’ve been trying and testing it out. And we’ve seen great results with it. Because really, that’s exactly what Amazon wants to see. They want to see that someone’s going, searching the results, going on the listing, engaging with it, adding it to cart and then purchasing it literally mimicking inorganics sale, maybe even more than an average shopper. So that’s been pretty crazy.
Josh Hadley 29:12
That that’s amazing. I’ve never heard about that before. So you guys are hearing it first. Mark just dropped a knowledge bomb on all of us. So Mark, tell me more about this survey. So with this survey, are you asking them to purchase the product at the end of the day? Talk about more through that?
Mark Casey 31:41
So yeah, it’s the same idea as renewing a rebate, but it’s not really a rebate. We’re not asking for any reviews or anything. We’re asking to complete the survey and they want to in exchange for their time, we’re giving them a free product.
Josh Hadley 31:54
Okay, but a different free product, not the one that they purchased. The one that they purchased. Okay, what is this listing? So tell me kind of, can you give more details like about this survey? Like how do you approach the audience that you’re sending this to? What do you tell them so that they are like, excited? And yes, they want to go complete the survey? Because you’re asking a lot, right?
Mark Casey 32:19
Yeah, so some things I can’t really reveal, because that’s our secret specialist. No, nowadays, surveys have become really popular. So we kind of jumped onto that trend. There’s a lot of people see that they make money from surveys. So we’ve kind of jumped out there and say, hey, this takes x amount of time. This is a survey and you’ll get a free product in exchange for your time. That’s kind of simply put, obviously, some products are harder, no one wants to review or not review, no one wants to give feedback on a supplement. And some products are harder, some products are easier. But then this is the idea where we’re having these people saying, hey, give us a couple minutes, your time. And we can give you a free product in exchange. And all they’re doing is ask answering questions like a focus group. And I mean, besides the whole braking and all that stuff, honestly, their feedback we’ve seen has been really, really good. Because so the supplement, we implement this for the supplement brand. I stopped by earlier. And we like and it’s for me and asked that we designed this thing. I’m like, okay, this is good feedback. So one person said, doesn’t have an after case. And I was like, wow, we really touched on every point. I forgot to mention that. No, it doesn’t have any aftertaste. But as an avid shopper, that’s what they keep in mind. But for me, we’ve been so involved in creating the listing. I didn’t think like, wow, we shouldn’t maybe I mentioned about that there’s no aftertaste. So getting the raw data in itself is worth it. And on top of that you’re getting crazy ranking power. It’s like exposure.
Josh Hadley 33:45
Yeah. I love that. And that is a great, great information to share. So thanks for sharing that with our podcast.
Mark Casey 33:52
I spoke about it. I didn’t speak a lot about that event or anything. This is really the first time I’m really speaking out about it.
Josh Hadley 34:00
I love it. Do you feel like there’s you know, in terms of the terms of service with Amazon, do you feel like it’s, you know, kind of gray area? Or do you feel like no, this is a very clean strategy?
Mark Casey 34:13
No this is a very clean strategy. I feel like this is a very clean strategy.
Josh Hadley 34:16
Okay, awesome. All right. Now let’s go back to the external traffic then.
Mark Casey 34:23
So when it comes to external traffic, there’s a couple of different priority levels, we’re at that Amazon takes into account. So Facebook is considered cheap traffic. Because Facebook, what you want to do is go after the high priority traffic, which is an example like Google ads. I’ve been speaking for a long time, and no one was able to actually implement it. But there are software is one main software, which I really stand behind because I see at work that kind of converts Google traffic onto Amazon, where you can make Google ads and it shows that Amazon has won advertising it and when people search different things on Google, they click on the Amazon and will bring it to your storefront or page or whatnot. And Amazon, just getting the traffic alone rewards you big time, especially, which is like a no brainer. It’s a no brainer as is. But as we’re big no brainer is that Amazon gives you the 10% brand referral bonus. Now, so it’s literally called like, it’s almost free to do such a thing.
Josh Hadley 35:23
Yeah. So what is that software then that you’ve been using for Google ads?
Mark Casey 35:29
Have you ever heard of ANPD?
Josh Hadley 35:31
We have. And we actually had Tyler Greg on the podcast earlier. So he shared a lot of in depth strategies about running Google ads. So Mark, is it primarily for your external traffic, is it 100%? through Google, or are you doing Pinterest?
Mark Casey 35:51
Exactly. So it’s not 100%. But I would say it’s over 50% because it works. And it’s not saturated. It’s not like I’m gonna just doing it. Like, back in the day did people did many chatbots. Now, that idea, it’s not like that shady, or cheap traffic, like, pure traffic from outside and Google, which is converts well, so it’s good for ranking. And it’s also good for organic sales as well. So that’s why I really like it, but other ones are. So another thing I spoke about, is Pinterest traffic, and also spoke by the SEC around a year and a half, two years ago, and people looked at me like I’m bonkers, like, what are you talking about? But Pinterest is like where you go for, like, you want to make like a bridal shower, and you get some ideas, like, it’s underrated. And after I spoke, where people will really start implementing and saying that the ads, they’re really, really cheap, especially compared to Facebook and Instagram. So it’s really cheap ads, and the traffic is really high and good quality traffic, and Amazon likes it. So people started doing Pinterest ads, and also getting bloggers to write Pinterest posts about your product, which is evergreen, because it’s always gonna stay there. It’s not like an ad, that once you run out of your budget, it’s not there.
Josh Hadley 37:06
Yeah, I liked that idea about using bloggers, then that can write up about your product and then even link your product to Amazon then correct. Awesome. So with the external traffic, what type of return on adspend are you seeing there? And especially when you’re first launching a product? Are you just considering hey, are a cost might be 200% here, but we know it’s going to be worth it? Or, are you actually seeing profitability on the front end from some of those ads?
Mark Casey 37:40
So I spoke to someone about this literally the other day, and I told them that I don’t even look at any of that data, which I know it sounds a little interesting. But I’m not doing it for the organic sales. I’m doing just I know, Amazon is looking for outside traffic. And for me, it’s ham spending 500 bucks, I’m getting outside traffic, I’m not looking like how many sales that are bringing, a lot of times I want to connect attributions together, which really sounds crazy, because I just want that traffic. And if it’s easier to just set up an account and get to Google ads just drive the traffic right away. And I could do it, I’ll do it because I know the value of it. And it’s really important rather than, obviously, yes, of attribution, that all kind of stuff. But I’m just proving my point that it’s important. And I don’t even look at the back kind of data specifically, because I’m just using more for the traffic rather than the sales and how they convert but long term.
Josh Hadley 38:31
So you don’t really care about the conversion rate at all, from the external traffic. And I think I’ve heard from other people that Amazon looks at external traffic and your conversion rate there completely separately, it doesn’t get factored into your Amazon ranking, per se.
Mark Casey 38:50
Said it very well. And that’s really what it is. And that’s kind of where I tried to explain to people that as long as you’re getting that outside traffic, Amazon loves it. And also keep in mind, once these people go to Amazon, you know why they love it so much? Because they get to retarget the heavens out of them and go purchase other products. And Amazon just getting free leads at that point. I mean, that’s where they really love it. Because once they go on their website, they accept the cookies, they’re going to be retargeted like no tomorrow.
Josh Hadley 39:17
That’s very true. So Amazon can do the retargeting for you, which I think is an important aspect.
Mark Casey 39:25
There’s a whole nother discussion on ballgame. But yeah, that’s what they do.
Josh Hadley 39:30
Yeah. With that then. So when you’re driving external traffic, do you try to drive them to the detail page? Or do you end up creating a kind of a detail page on your storefront so that you’re able to remove competitors and it’s just your own storefront? I know when I talked to Tyler Greg amp, he had kind of recommended, like recreating the Detail page but on your own store page. so that it’s all 100% yours, but from your experience, do you recommend one or the other?
Mark Casey 40:06
So for sales, I would use that option that you just said. And I spoke with him about it, actually. And I also saw that they just had to speak more about that idea. And yeah, I think that’s a really good idea so that we didn’t get distracted by anyone else. But I would say that’s more like, whenever we were focusing on organic sales, I wouldn’t do that idea. But whenever we’re doing outside traffic, it’s as long as even just getting to your product detail page from Google. There’s so much power there, then that’s what we’re looking at. But yes, for a long term goal and strategy. I would do that, removing all the competitors and that kind of stuff.
Josh Hadley 40:42
Yeah. Interesting. Awesome. Great feedback. All right, Mark, that was a ton of value. Thanks for walking us through launching a product. Let’s spend a little bit of time on how do you re-rank a product that’s been around for two to three years, right? Maybe it started out really good. It was ranked on the first page consistently. But now over time competitions came in, maybe the brand owner hasn’t paid a lot of attention to that product. What are some of the steps a seller should be taking to revitalize resurrect a dead asin, so to speak.
Mark Casey 41:19
There’s so much that goes involved into that. So for example, there’s one thing that you can do like so let’s say you have an Asin. And this is more of like, died early. We’re negative reviews, we have a 2000 stock or like go to have problems with it, a whole bunch of and you don’t want to do remove it, there is a tool called or a company called asindoctor.com or asin doctor, whatever. And what they do is something pretty interesting, pretty cool. They will transfer your inventory within Amazon from a listing at listing B so you’ll make a new listing, and then you’ll shut your first listing down. And then they transfer all your inventory to a new listing. And it removes all the reviews and removes all the BSR all the listing content to a brand new fresh listing with your full inventory in stock in FBA without having to create a removal order or re label any product. Yeah, so that’s been pretty big, because a lot of people got like infringement, or they got a whole bunch of negative reviews even from their competitor, and they just launched and they found that to be really helpful, when it comes to re launching a product or two or three years old. It’s doable, but very, very hard. So I would basically say In short, that all the strategies I mentioned with outside traffic and sales and promotions, doing that time to like on steroids really going all out it, obviously not overnight. So they’re like 10 pieces a day for the past couple of years, and all of a sudden you’re gonna do 50 or 100 that don’t do that started off slow, but wrap it up where you’re going to be doing a lot more outside traffic. And you’re going to be seeing a lot more success there. Another thing that you can unofficially do, which I’m gonna say for your listeners, because they will understand this a little bit better, is that you can make a duplicate listing on Amazon of the same exact product, you’re going to copy the title, bullet points description, over backhand keywords, the main image infographics, basically an exact duplicate with a new UPC, you’re gonna wait a little bit, and then you’re gonna create a case of Amazon to emerge the new product, sorry, the old product into the new product, right, so you’re gonna merge those two products together, then what happens Amazon views the asin as a brand new Asin for their system, we get to merge it together, you keep all your reviews. So it’s really gaining that honeymoon period. And kind of getting everything from scratch again. And your inventory is also still there. But in Amazon systems is a brand new Asin. So this is has been a real big hack. I know a lot of people started using this more recently. So you have to really push with Amazon’s customer support to do that merge for you. But it works.
Josh Hadley 44:02
Yeah, no, I, I’ve heard of that one as well. These are some great actionable tips and strategies that people can implement. So would you ever recommend then just kind of like if your product is two to three years old, it’s probably best just to start possibly with a fresh listing, especially if maybe it’s been a four star product. And there’s a way that you could possibly correct some of those negative reviews? Is it best to just say, hey, we’re gonna relaunch this thing with a new asin even starting over from scratch with zero reviews, is that something you would recommend or not so much better to keep the reviews?
Mark Casey 44:43
If it’s a four star product but leaning towards 3.7 Then I would do something like that. But if it’s like a four star product, it just needs a little bit of help. I wouldn’t completely reset it to be honest with you. I’m speaking about reviews. There has been a software that’s really really cool and they’re not even public yet. But I’ve been involved with consulting with them and helping them out to kind of bring it to light. It’s really, really cool software, that’s unheard of. And no one has such a thing as far as I know, what they did was they created an AI, right, they created like a software machine learning where they fed this AI, all the Amazon Terms of Service. So then what happens, they would basically scrape your Asin and download all your reviews and all the content, then upload this to the AI and then the AI, basically, you ask and say which reviews are against the Amazon Terms of Service, you’d come and sit back and saying, based on our knowledge of Amazon Terms of Services, X amount of these reviews, these 100 review are all against Amazon services, terms of services. This is why and this is how you can get, then what they’ll do is make a case of Amazon say, hey, this review was against this Terms of Service. And this is why he’s removed the review. And they can actually get reviews removed that way, which is literally insane. And the crazy part is that as the more reviews they remove, the AI gets stronger with the data and knowing hey, Amazon accepted this reason, but not this week. It’s been a really, really cool software, which really, it’s not even public. Like if you want a website, nothing’s there. But I’ve been involved with them. And it’s really, really cool. And I can share that with your podcast as well.
Josh Hadley 46:25
Yeah, I think it’s just an email address, right? Because I think I heard that.
Mark Casey 46:30
Yeah. So if you email them, that you can, you can get in touch with them. That’s the only way I know that they’re really picky on who they’re accepting to be part of their first round. Because A, you need a nice amount of reviews in order to get results. And really, they want to show you results. So this is why it’s more relevant to your audience, because you need a lot of, I think you need a minimum of 500 reviews. Not on one ace, just across all your ASINs in total, which is very easy for your products and whatnot. So as long as you have 500 reviews across all your ASINs in total, then I think that they would be open to working with you and kind of giving you access to this, which is really, really cool. unheard of, I told them I’m like, you really need to like push your minimum finally too much less, because you’re not going to get any attractive people, but they kind of know the power of what they have. And they really want to build it up before they bring it out to the public. So that’s a really, really cool thing that I really stand behind. And I’ve seen my clients use it, it was success. So I’m happy about that.
Josh Hadley 47:44
That’s great to hear. Can we share that email on the podcast then?
Mark Casey 47:49
Yeah, for your audience, that they understand the value A and B, that they could fit that criteria much easier. I think that would make sense.
Josh Hadley 47:59
What’s the email then Mark. Yeah. While he looks that up? Yes, it I have heard of this service as well. I learned about it at sell and scale. It was also on the Post Purchase Pro Podcast just this last week that came out. So it was fresh on my mind as well. It’s, you know, it’s not black magic or a Blackhat tactic per se. So you don’t need to be worried about that.
Mark Casey 48:30
Even mentioned, it’s 100% white hat. Like it’s not like Yeah. Yeah, sorry to cut you off.
Josh Hadley 48:36
No, you’re good. That’s I think the important thing to state though, is like a white hat. And that’s one thing that’s important to me, like, I want to go to sleep at night and not have to worry that, when I wake up in the morning. Amazon’s finally caught on to something I’ve been doing. And now my pants gone. Right. So I think that’s important to distinguish here. So Mark, were you able to find that?
Mark Casey 48:59
Yeah, I put up the email. So it’s a funny name is very cute. So it’s uglyfeedback.com. But if you’re going to website nothing’s there, so you would have to email them at hi@uglyfeedback.com. That’s what it is. And then I think if they mentioned, probably they came from here, or they know slit, so it’s more of a legitimate kind of inquiry. But again, I’ll make sense. But that’s certainly really cool. And very new that no one has on the market yet.
Josh Hadley 49:26
That’s fantastic. Mark, this has been amazing. You’ve shared a lot of knowledge with me, my mind’s already expanded. I’ve got some notes and takeaways for our team already. But Mark, what I like to do before we sign off and I asked you my three final questions that I like to ask everybody I like to give my listeners I like to kind of sum up what we learned today with three actionable strategies that people can go and implement in their business today. So, here are the three takeaways that I noted Mark, let me know if I’m missing something. Number one, when you’re launching a new product, I think driving external traffic from multiple sources is going to be your key, especially in the world of 2023 that we’re living in right now. You need to be able to obtain an audience that you’ve been able to develop, right, like building an audience is probably got to be your action. Step number one, to be honest with you. And if you need help with that, Kevin Kings episode, here on the podcast, you can go check that out that was released on October 25, of 2022, you can go check out that episode. He talked a lot about inserts and how to obtain a list off of Amazon. And then you also mentioned here on the podcast today, Mark, post purchase Pro is a service that people can reach out to, to help them kind of formulate their product insert strategy, creating a mafia offer that people are excited to join your list. So I would say that’s probably action. Step number one is, you’ve got to build an audience. Action number two, is then kind of leveraging your audience, your shoppers list in combination with external traffic. And what I love, I think the big knowledge bomb that you dropped here for us today, Mark is that you don’t have to just use your shoppers list or your audience to just run a promotion and say, hey, my products 20% off, go buy it today. What you’re doing is you’re implementing surveys in coordination with that. So it’s asking a little bit more from your audience. And I think you’re only doing this with specific people, but you have them go through, do a survey, they’re looking at the images, the videos, they’re spending time on your listing, which is what Amazon wants to see. And then they’re ultimately converting, and so it’s providing a lot of ranking juice for you. And then outside of that you’re generating external traffic, and you’re doing this over a prolonged period of time. I think long gone are the days like you mentioned of, hey, I’m going to drive a lot of traffic over the next seven days. And then we’re going to stay ranked here for the next forever, right? Like you’re saying 30 days and beyond. And some of your clients are doing it for 180 days, correct? And then I would say, our third takeaway is that if you have an old product and old listing, that maybe needs a little bit more life, rejuvenated into it, Mark shared a lot of different actions that you can take, you can utilize the service of asin doctor to kind of merge that into a brand new Asin. You can also create or duplicate that Asin and go through Seller Support to kind of merge that as well and experience a new honeymoon period. Or if your reviews are 3.7 or below, it might be time to reconsider just re-launching from scratch. But with revitalizing an older product, you need to double your efforts compared to a new product that you’ve just launched. So I think that’s great feedback that everybody should take away from this. And then we also talked about using that new feedback service or a review service that can help you remove those reviews that customers leave, that are against Terms of Service, because they’re including maybe it’s foul language, maybe they’re talking about things that they can’t be talking about in that review, and that AI will find those for you help you open up cases and get those reviews removed. Mark, is that a fair summary of our conversation?
Mark Casey 54:06
A fair summary Yes. Spoke about a lot of things today.
Josh Hadley 54:09
We did you shared a lot of knowledge. So I appreciate that. Mark, let’s get into the final questions here. What’s been the most influential book for you and why?
Mark Casey 54:21
So I’m not even much of a reader but Never Split The Difference was something that someone recommended me and it was actually one of my clients who were doing the large, large numbers. And he said that this is something you have to read and I really like I’m not a reader for books, like I just stopped me, I read it and it just opened your mind to like think different ways. So that was interesting.
Josh Hadley 54:42
Awesome. I have not read that one personally, but I’ll have to add that to the list. What is your favorite productivity tool or resource and why?
Mark Casey 54:56
I’m just trying to think because there’s so many tools out there you can possibly possibly utilize and use. I mean, I know this is like kind of like a classic one. But any task management tool where you can kind of have everything in front of you is very good, but I’m gonna go and you’re going to like extract this answer, but my paper and pen at the end of the day, I feel like that’s my favorite tool, because I could just write it down. And I’m like, old fashioned like that, like I literally like I could show you like, I have all my things on like a simple paper and pad and what I have in front of me, I’m organized. And I like it that way. So yeah, task management tools are good. But I honestly use paper and pen. So it’s a little bit of a different answer. But that’s the truth.
Josh Hadley 55:43
I love it to each their own. And I’ve been taking a lot of notes with pen and paper here today. Last question, who is someone that you admire or respect the most in the e-commerce space that our listeners should be paying attention to and following?
Mark Casey 56:01
There are so many people, like I’m scared if I say one and not the other. Because there really are a lot of people out there who could provide very good information. On top of my mind, and I really, really, like I recommend a lot of people like I think Kevin King comes to my mind real quick, because he really caters to all audiences of people who are just starting out and people who are literally doing eight figures on Amazon. So I respected him a lot. And I still do because he was able to cater to that. And anytime I have people knocking on my door and saying, hey, I’m just want to sell on Amazon and whatnot. It’s not our ideal person who worked with, I say, you definitely should check out Kevin King, because I think he has a lot to offer. He’s very clear. And also, no bogus. A lot of times a lot of these people give you a course. And then you have to buy another $1,000 $5,000 and all that kind of stuff. So really, the transparency, so I feel like that’s a very important point.
Josh Hadley 56:54
Awesome. Yeah, I agree. Kevin King is a great resource. Again, we had him on the podcast previously as well. So yes, should go check out that episode. Mark, today’s conversation has been amazing. Tell us more about House of AMZ, what are the services that you offer, and tell our audience how they could reach out to you. And I think you also have a special offer that you want to share with our audience.
Mark Casey 57:21
For sure. So we do more like marketing and SEO. So all listing creation, design, optimization, creative, like all that kind of stuff is what we do, we also help with like launching products, with these rebates and everything that I mentioned, in our very own way. So it’s not like a copy and paste, we’re really involved with every project and everything that we do. The special offer was I think, give two but I don’t remember but I will give two is one that your first launch will be 50% off. So you can totally try and see like, what we’re talking about in regards to launching your product is, it’s 50% off. And then if your listeners want to also optimize your listings, we will give them an extra 15% off of any package that we have as well.
Josh Hadley 58:07
Amazing. And where should people go to claim these offers or to reach out to you?
Mark Casey 58:13
For sure. Very simple. It’s very easy to remember Amazonseo.com
Josh Hadley 58:18
Can’t get any more simple than that.
Mark Casey 58:20
Exactly. That’s what we do. And yeah, so you can find this there Ross on LinkedIn. But we are House of AMZ.
Josh Hadley 58:27
Awesome. Mark, thanks so much for your time today. I definitely encourage our listeners to go check you out. But thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Mark Casey 58:36
Thank you. Yeah, for sure is great being here today.
Outro 58:40
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