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> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn….
- Importance of clarity, effectiveness, and popularity in optimizing conversion rates
- Role of images and messaging in addressing customer pain points
- Understanding customer’s needs and pain points for effective product serving
- Significance of main image and compelling imagery for product listings
- Importance of secondary images and clear messaging
- Utilizing strong copy phrases to convey product benefits
- Book recommendation “Contagious” for insights into product popularity
- Special offer from Andrei Ureche for a free consultation and bonus for using Sellametrics
- Insights into building brands and scaling products in e-commerce
- Practical tips for enhancing product listings on Amazon
In this insightful episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast, host Josh Hadley welcomes Andrei Ureche, founder of Sellametrics, to share his expertise on optimizing Amazon product listings for better conversion rates. They highlight the crucial role of understanding customer pain points and the power of impactful imagery and messaging to meet customer needs. Andrei illustrates his points with a simple lemon peeler example, emphasizing the human aspect of business. The discussion also includes a nod to the book “Contagious” for its wisdom on product popularity, and a special offer from Andrei for a free consultation and a $100 bonus for Sellametrics services.
Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:
Action Item #1: Prioritize Clarity, Effectiveness, and Popularity: Ensure your Amazon product listings are clear, effective, and popular. Customers need to easily understand what you’re selling, how it benefits them, and why it’s popular among others.
Action Item #2: Optimize Images and Messaging: Pay special attention to your main image—it’s the gateway to your product. Ensure it grabs attention and addresses customer desires. Additionally, utilize secondary images and consistent messaging across visuals to convey product benefits effectively without overwhelming customers.
Action Item #3: Focus on Serving Human Needs: Remember that at its core, business is about serving human needs. Understand your customers’ pain points and provide solutions through your products. Crafting compelling listings involves more than just showcasing features; it’s about addressing real needs.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Special Mention(s):
Related Episode(s):
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures. I started my business in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years. I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks. If you’ve hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then email me at josh@ecommbreakthrough.com and in your subject line say “strategy audit” for the chance to win a $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit at no cost!
Transcript Area
Josh (00:00:00) – Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast. I’m your host, Josh Hadley, where I interview the top business leaders in e-commerce. Past guests include Kevin King, Michael E Gerber, author of The E-myth, and Matt Clark from ASM. Today I am speaking with Andrei Ureche of Self Metrics, and we are going to be talking a lot about how to optimize and improve the conversion rate on your Amazon product listings, and thus helping you increase in your organic ranking as well. This episode is brought to you by Ecomm Breakthrough Consulting, where I helped seven figure companies grow to eight figures and beyond. Listen, Andrei. I started my business back in 2015, and I grew it to an eight figure brand in seven years. But I made a lot of mistakes along the way. That made the path of getting to eight figures take a lot longer than it needed to. At times, I made a lot of bad hiring decisions. I had to take money from my personal bank account in order to fund payroll for our team.
Josh (00:00:58) – , because of cash flow constraints, I stressed about whether our brand was going to survive when we experienced a 90% decline in sales during Covid. I remember wishing and hoping that I could have a mentor that could guide me along the way of scaling up somebody who had been there, done that, and could share all the secrets to help me overcome those obstacles. And that’s why I’ve decided to offer one on one coaching or consulting, where I help share the nitty gritty cash flow frameworks, sales strategies, and operating systems that have helped me scale my own business. And because I believe in giving each entrepreneur my undivided attention, I only work with three clients at a time. But first, I want to make sure we’re a perfect match. So I’m offering a completely free, no strings attached business strategy audit valued at over $10,000. And so this audit is my way of showing you just how committed I am to your success. If this is something that you’re up for, drop me an email at Josh at Ecomm Breakthrough dot com with the subject line, I want to pick your brain.
Josh (00:02:04) – And then let’s chat about how we can take your brand to the next level., before introducing today’s guests, I want to give a big thank you to Norm Lanier., Norm is the chief creative officer and founder behind Lonestar Art, which is the top place online. People go to get metal, wood, and other types of signs for their home. His storefront even creates personalized, hilarious signs. And he is a great friend., so today I am excited to introduce you to Andrei Ureche, a Canadian entrepreneur originally from Moldova. Boasting a seven figure success story, he manages three thriving brands on Amazon and proudly serves as the founder of Sellametrics, home of the most advanced AB testing suite tailored for Amazon sellers. Norm connected us, Andrei and I are super excited to have you on the show, so welcome to the show.
Andrei (00:02:57) – Hey Josh. What’s up? Hi, guys. Thanks for having me. It’s a real pleasure. Let’s go.
Josh (00:03:03) – Awesome. Andrei. Super excited to have you on.
Josh (00:03:06) – Norm had some amazing things to say about you. He’s been using your AB testing tool Sellametrics., he’s seen some good success. And Andrei, you’re talking to an audience today of seven figure sellers., which means they have a market fit with their product. But I think everybody, even myself included, I’m always trying to improve my conversion rate., Amazon is only getting more and more difficult as the days go by. With the introduction of AI. It makes a lot of overseas sellers. It makes their lives a little bit easier in that original moat of language and culture that we had is kind of starting to erode away. So, Andrei, we talked before this. You said that one of your main superpowers is conversion rate optimization. So I would love to hear. Andrei, how did you get into the world of conversion rate optimization and how do I improve my conversion rate for my Amazon product?
Andrei (00:04:08) – Yeah. So a seven figure seller. That’s my people. I’m a part of that tribe and I love it.
Andrei (00:04:16) – , well, I started on Amazon in 2015, and prior to that I was playing with niche websites. I was doing design for stock websites like Shutterstock. I stock where we all buy the images and stuff like that. So that’s where I learned photography, graphic design and all those things. So as I was saying before, I’m not the best of all of them. But knowing being like an Amazon seller,, doing the business myself, right, as an entrepreneur and, having a small team that really, like, made a kind of, like, unique blend of, of skills that I stumbled upon. I’m like, okay, that’s something interesting, right? And the need to build Sellametrics came from a personal need because the other guys, the big players on the market, were kind of expensive and didn’t really fully answer my needs because, listen, I sell on Amazon. It’s a different platform than, I don’t know, eBay or your Shopify website. And the way the psychology works of the shopper when he’s on Amazon is a completely different thing than on your website.
Andrei (00:05:27) – Because when you’re on your website, when somebody comes to your website, there’s nobody beside you over there. So you’re dictating the rules of the conversion of the game, right? Because, okay, I’m here, I land, I landed, I spent my time like I dedicated you some attention, so please convert me. Now you have the chance on Amazon. It’s like that. And it’s a special medium. Right. So all those skills kind of sharpen my ability to do this. So once again, I’m not the best in all of this, but I have a few things to say.
Josh (00:06:04) – I love that.
Andrei (00:06:04) – And Norm is a rock star and is one of our biggest customers. Always, always testing, always improving. And I like what he’s doing so he finally knows what works.
Josh (00:06:16) – I love that, and I think what’s important is that you mentioned this previously, but you actually have a graphic design background and you also have a photography background. Yeah. Which I think goes a long way when it comes to conversion rate optimization, especially for main images.
Josh (00:06:32) – So, Andrei, I think we’ll start from there. How like if we were to put together a bullet pointed list of hey, here, the different levers that you can pull to optimize the conversion rate of your Amazon listing. Where do you start? Let’s go from the most important lever and work our way down.
Andrei (00:06:54) – Okay, so what is what’s affecting the conversion rate. It’s three things. It’s the clarity, the effectiveness and it’s the popularity. Well what’s the clarity is the clarity of your message. How clearly you’re communicating what you want to say. Right. Like is there any resistance in it or. No. Right. Then there is the effectiveness, right? How well is your product addressing the issues and the pain points of the customer? And then there’s the popularity. It’s the social proof, right? How many reviews you have for how many badges you have from reputable sources. So by combining all of them together, you can kind of like it. Have an understanding and and have a clear message. Where? This is what it is like.
Andrei (00:07:46) – It’s. It. It addresses the best.. You can have an unclear message without an effective product. Right? So if the message is clear, but you’re not answering what it is, then, well, I’m not going to buy it because it’s not. For example, let’s take Advil. Right. You have a headache and. It doesn’t work right. You tried one time. You’re not going to buy it again. Now. If there appear more products on the market, right? More Advil, like a store bought Advil. And all of them respond to you. To your pain point, then what will help? What will make you differ from all of those? It’s the social proof, the brand, the brand power. Because brand power is part of social proof. So all of those combined will actually make your product stand out. On Amazon, there is a lot of clarity. It’s a lot of noise, as we say, right?, we as sellers, we come from a background of data usually.
Andrei (00:09:03) – So we kind of know what we want, but. We don’t really know how to say when we first launch the product, what we usually do, we just put a few angles of the product, shoot a few angles, we hire some Fiverr photographer or we try to do it ourselves, and then we slap it on Amazon. With time, we evolve. We understand that okay, we have to highlight a few benefits, a few things on the product. So we add those bullet points, but we add them in the bullet points. We don’t add them on the images. And then we learn that, listen, we have to add the bullet points on the images as well. And actually., tell about a story and,, that it’s not always,, the, the best way. Because you have to understand what you are saying in those images. And sometimes the difference between the clarity of your message, what, what the image shows versus what you tell. It’s usually different and people don’t really know the difference between benefits.
Andrei (00:10:07) – And, how do you say features, right? Everyone says they like features and benefits, but what is the benefit? Right? Well, the benefit is why do I really need this product for. You have to be clear that something like this is addressing your pain, right. It’s solving a problem. That is the benefit when you can, you know that you take the product and it will resolve your pain. So having the measurements of the product really helps, but not always. Sometimes it’s really important, but sometimes you don’t really need that. So having the order of the images on Amazon is also very important, right? How you say it and the priority of the messaging. That’s why I’m saying that. Listen, sometimes just switching the order of your images can increase your conversion rate. And I found that that’s why on seven metrics, we build the simulator, the listing simulator, because when you upload your images, like how do you know which image is actually more effective than another one? How do you know? For example, I’m the owner of the store, right? Like I built this product.
Andrei (00:11:20) – I’m so emotionally attached to this thing, it’s crazy. It’s like my child, you say something bad about my product, I go, I take it personally, right? Like usually how it works. Like I learned to detach myself from that, but usually that it is. And the person that designed that thing for you is also emotionally attached in a different way. But he’s the designer and his egoism is bigger. Usually the designer’s ego is bigger than themselves, and that the more novice they are, the bigger is their ego. With time I will learn to like, okay, it’s not about my personal opinion, it’s about the market to learn some conversion things and stuff like that. But we need to go away from that thing. Right? So. We guess we have to remove the gas and make it about the data. What is working? How do you know that? How do you know? You do some split testing on a usual website, on when on a split testing website, on AB, split testing websites? And how do you know? The order of the images.
Andrei (00:12:23) – They have some order of the images arrangement. Right? Like vote for this image first, second, third, fourth. Well guess what? On Amazon it is not like that. When the shopper comes to Amazon, they don’t judge on just six images right on a white canvas. They have a specific UI that Amazon was perfecting for years. So how do you make sure of that? That works the same way. How do you know that it will work in your case, right? You have to simulate that environment. So we’ve built those Amazon-like simulators where you take your assignment or build from scratch. Right. And we extract it from Amazon. So we simulate the Amazon environment. So when our panelists come and vote they see it as. An Amazon shopper said. So they rate on each image and give you a score. So then you look at the score and you understand, okay, this image got like 3.5. This image got 4.3. And you see the average score. But you see the granularity right per image okay.
Andrei (00:13:28) – This is the image that actually has a problem. Because sometimes you look and you think like I was doing a collision for a customer. And we had to talk about the benefits of,, of the, of the collagen for the hair. Right. So it’s like you have,, how would you say bright? Like I forgot the word, but it’s like quality skin and, like, nice hair, right? So I chose a woman based on my personal taste with what I thought is good and I uploaded, I thought like, this man sucked. And it hurt because I felt like I knew what I’m doing. But I learned that, listen, we’ve done like 4000 surveys already. We sell metrics, and I learned that my taste means nothing. I’m the minority in this thing, right? So upon doing the survey, I’m like my image got like 3.8.
Josh (00:14:24) – What were people saying? Like do they leave comments? What did they do?
Josh (00:14:27) – Say?
Andrei (00:14:28) – The women were saying like, listen, this woman, her head, her hair doesn’t look healthy.
Andrei (00:14:34) – What are you talking about? There’s a dissonance between the messages. What are you saying? And the image? Unless you test with the right audience, you have no idea. You’re just guessing. And with time we develop that skill. Internal skill that our guts say that this is best and usually it helps. But it’s good to know. Exactly. So I went and I changed it. Bum went from 3.7 I think to 4.1. And then okay, now it’s better. Then I said, how about I move this image to the back? And by just switching the image to the back. Because at the end we actually ask the people, but which of those two products you would actually buy? We don’t just ask for the image rating, we actually ask them for the purchase intention. Right? So then they judge from a different angle completely. They think like they think emotionally, the impression, the overall impression. And they can’t really answer you why. But for some reason they pick one product versus another.
Andrei (00:15:33) – And sometimes the difference is like 70 or 80, 20. And that’s like, wow, really? I’ve done July Kitchen garlic press versus some competitor. And Zola is selling like 10,000 units. And the other guy was selling like 1000 or 2000 units. Just how was the difference between the buying purchase? The images were like one was, 4.5. Another one was like 4.1. So not a big difference, right? 4.4 versus 4.1. But the buying likelihood was 8020. And you can see and see like, okay, this image sucks. Like this is what this is why. So then change that stuff and the perception when you rerun the survey is completely changed just because you switch the image to the back. And here’s what I wanted to touch on about the importance of the message. Let’s say you’re a family of five, like two adults and three kids, right? Living in New York. Average family, middle class. And you need to upgrade your car. You need to buy another SUV.
Andrei (00:16:38) – Right? So would you. You would probably buy a van or an SUV. Now you’re driving the highway. Right. And you see two ads in one day and another day. Right? One is for Hyundai. Another one is for Honda. The message that would be on the billboard. It’s gonna leave a footprint on you like that would dictate which car would you go and give a try? That’s the car. Like you just. Okay, I want to check that car because if the message doesn’t resonate, you’re not going to even come to the dealer. You’re not buying from that billboard. You just get an impression. That’s the main image on Amazon. Main image on Amazon sets the tone. But doesn’t actually affect the conversion as much. It plays on an overall perception role, but the main image is just the shop. When you go down the road on a busy street there is the restaurant outlook. And when you enter inside, that’s where we convert. Like how it looks inside, right? But the main image sets the tone.
Andrei (00:17:46) – So when you’re driving with your family down, down the highway and you see that that banner with the cars, what is written on that banner is highly important. So. What are you going to say if you’re going to talk about, like if the Hyundai is going to say, listen, the rooftop can fit,, a special bag for, I don’t know, £200 for. It’s going to talk about the spare tire. It’s like we have an innovative spare tire or I don’t know, the message is irrelevant to you versus Honda is going to say. Our new odyssey. 30 miles per gallon or like 40 miles per gallon. 40 miles per gallon., fits eight people. And cast 4K. I’m going to go and check it because it asks for my help. Internal. What do you call intrinsic questions? I’m not a native, so.
Josh (00:18:48) – Yeah, yeah.
Andrei (00:18:49) – That’s where my fear, my desires, my problems. And it’s the same on Amazon. If you can answer your customers’ needs the best.
Andrei (00:19:02) – You are converting. There’s no other way around, that is, everyone has some questions inside their mind. So how are you going to address those questions? That’s how you’re going to convert. And if it’s if you can match the majority. You have a winner.
Josh (00:19:22) – Awesome, I love that. So Andrei, a couple questions then how do you know what questions people are coming to that product with? Right? How do you know what their pain points are in order to best customize those images to serve their needs?
Andrei (00:19:40) – How do I know what questions? Well, I ran the survey. I’m well. Before I do the survey. I know the product myself pretty well. I did some research before that, and I’m building a customer avatar for specific products. Who is the product? Who is? Who is the customer for this product? What do they need? What they eat, where they are all about them? Right? Then what pinpoint my product is solving. If it’s a headlamp, it’s one pinpoint.
Andrei (00:20:14) – If it’s an SUV, it’s a completely different pain point. So I need to know that if this is a camping headlamp, then it has to have a red light. It has to have a capacity for the battery specific right to be. The maximum has to be a comfortable strap because kids may wear it,, whatever. It needs a red light so I can not bother other people and go around the campfire. You started developing that product. So you write those down. Then you run an initial goal and you do an initial survey. So you have to benchmark yourself and understand and understand where you sit versus the market. Then you understand. Okay, this is what my market is talking about, and you analyze your competitors, take like ten, 20 of them and you see what everyone is talking about. And don’t be judgmental. Actually test because sometimes I’ve done that. I’ve. I sell bicycle lights and in the bicycle lights niche there are specific pain points. Right. And people are talking about,, I think USB rechargeable features mostly first.
Andrei (00:21:29) – And I was like, that doesn’t really make sense. You better talk about how bright it is, what comes out. The people really care about the USB feature, maybe more than about the brightness at some point, because not all of them understand the brightness well. So you have to actually dive deep, take your personal opinion aside and be a judge. Where are you? Okay. Let’s look. Apples to apples and pears. Pears to pears. Right. And then you look and people will tell you in the comments what actually they care about more. And then these things come together.
Josh (00:22:11) – Andrei, that makes a lot of sense. So, Andrei, while you were going through that, I think there’s something that I want to share with the audience that we currently do with our products that I think has made a huge difference in the way that we build our listings. So number one, whenever we have, I also like to think that we know the product and the end consumer pretty well. But at the end of the day,, I’m not always the one who is, you know, paying for that product.
Josh (00:22:39) – And other people have different needs and desires and pain points that I might not personally be aware of. And so one of my favorite things is we’ll go and take the positive and negative reviews, okay. And we will download them from Amazon. We will upload them into ChatGPT okay. And we will then ask ChatGPT to basically just give us a summary. What are the pros? What are the cons., or like what are the negative things that people are saying? What are the positive things? What are they like? Okay. Then we’re going to then take that information. We’re going to respond in that same ChatGPT thread and we’re going to say, hey, ChatGPT, for this product, let’s say it’s a,, you know,, well, like garlic press, right, is the most famous example. Let’s say you’ve got a garlic press, okay? And you say, hey, ChatGPT, based on these positive and negative reviews, give me the top five,, main audiences or consumers that would be purchasing these products and detail out their psychographics.
Josh (00:23:48) – Okay. Now, what psychographics do is it’s going to give you things such as, hey, you’ve got a busy parent, okay? These individuals are typically parents who juggle multiple responsibilities. They value efficient meal planning, food preparation, so on and so forth. It gives me health and enthusiasm. It gives me whole managers or professional chefs, working professionals, etc.. So it’s going to give you a list of these psychographics which is going to help you understand, like, hey, here are maybe my top five audiences or consumers that are going to be looking for this product. Then I’m going to then turn back to ChatGPT and say, hey, give me the specific needs or desires from each of those five different audiences that you just provided me. And then it’s going to detail out, hey, for a professional chef, they’re going to want something that is quick, easy to use for a busy parent. They also want something that’s quick and easy to use, but also probably safe. So if their kids ever get a handle of it,, it’s not going to, you know, cause any harm or anything like that.
Josh (00:25:00) – So you can see how all of these subtle nuances are starting to shed light on different things that I should touch on in my images. And here’s one of my favorite prompts that we give to ChatGPT. So the next thing that we do after we get those pain points, those needs desires from ChatGPT, we will go back for each of those five like psychographics of our target customer. And we will, we will say, create a 1000 word journal entry about considering purchasing this product. Okay, for a busy mom. Okay, then ChatGPT is going to give you some fictitious date. Dear Journal., life has been nothing short of a whirlwind today between juggling work, taking care of the kids, and managing a household. Every day feels like a marathon amidst the chaos, I’ve been on a quest to find X, Y, and Z, right? So you can see, like I’m reading off, like, literally what ChatGPT has been providing me right now., and all of a sudden, if you, the person who’s designing these images or considering what secondary images you want to provide,, to your customer.
Josh (00:26:14) – Like you’re now getting inside the mind of your customer in ways that you probably never even would have realized, right? Like, I am not a professional chef. I am also not a busy working mother that plans the meals or does the meal prep. And so having being able to like, read these journal entries helps me get inside the mind of the customer. And then the last thing that we do is we say, all right, hey ChatGPT, take some of the highlights from the positive reviews, from the pain points that were in the journal entries, and create 20 different persuasive, powerful statements that would get the customer excited to purchase this product. Okay. And so it’s going to be, you know, tired of meal time chaos. Say goodbye to last minute stress with the ease of this garlic press right. Plan meals and minutes, not hours. Or create meals and minutes and not hours. Right? So now it’s giving me some catchy phrases that I could use to incorporate those secondary images.
Josh (00:27:21) – Because one thing that I heard from you, Andrei, is the importance of that message and the clarity of that message, and speaking to their pain points, their needs and desires is one of the most important things. So I just wanted to share that with the audience, to let them know, like, this is how we get into the mind of the consumer. This is how we understand their needs and pain points. But to your point, Andrei, this is not the end all be all. I think using a tool like self metrics,, is super important because then you get actual real life feedback from somebody that has a totally different perspective than you. So any other tools or tips and thoughts on that? Andrei.
Andrei (00:28:04) – Yeah, the GPT is really phenomenal. The problem is that it’s pretty cold, so it really isn’t. Look at it as a person yet. So while you can use it as an advisor, it boasts you all those cool, catchy copies. You have to test it.
Andrei (00:28:29) – You have to go and see. Like, is it really resonating with the people? Because the same phrase, you can say it in so many different ways, right. For example, if,, this is a spoon, for the kitchen. Right. Like a big spoon, whatever you can say. Easy cleaning or cleansing in three seconds. Like, could you know which one would resonate? Because believe me or not, the way you write that sentence on Amazon, on your images would really make a difference in your conversion rate. Maybe it would be like 0.3, but it will have a conversion rate because how easy will I digest that information in my brain and move on? Like, what you have to do is you have to remove yourself from. From the customer’s way when he’s on his way to buy the product. Right. When you go into a store and there’s like, assistance always bugging you like, hey, sir, like, do you want to try this? It’s like, no, I know what I want to be, right.
Andrei (00:29:31) – Unless you’re super professional and you like, okay, so you’re looking when you go to the Apple Store, right? Like they come, they don’t really try to interfere with you unless they see that you want that. So then they will help you and they will go. But everything is made for you to convert. There’s no resistance. It’s made easy. Same here. Make that message super, super clear. So get out of the way and make it understandable. But you can also try another thing as well. With ChatGPT, you can build a custom GPT that can speed those things for you, right? Spit out those things so you can take some interesting courses on copywriting and upload it to a custom ChatGPT. Then you can take some interesting videos. For example, you take our videos, you transcribe it, you upload it to judge GPT. He will then now take our knowledge and apply it to the future judgments. Take for example, Aaron., Cordova’s recording right on something because the guy knows stuff about Amazon.
Andrei (00:30:31) – There’s a reason why big sellers are big sellers, because they constantly optimize to sell all of them, Mr. Pen, the same way. All of them. All of them know what they’re doing and they teach their team. So take that knowledge, apply it to a GPT and ask him the same question again. But also go and upload your customer avatar as well. Who’s your customer? You know how to build it with him as ChatGPT. Let’s build a customer avatar for this product. These are my initial thoughts. He will go and he will give you okay, this is how you build a customer avatar. This is what you need. So you upload that information. Then you ask, okay now these are the keywords for the product okay. Upload that thing on. And now give me seven benefits for this product to go on an Amazon listing. You’ll give you seven. Judge on them. Ask again. Go put them on images. Test with your competitor and see where you go. I bet you you will go like wow, really? Yeah.
Andrei (00:31:32) – That’s working okay. Like switching the word uploaded on Amazon. Don’t go with Amazon. Experiment and wait two weeks. There’s no time.
Josh (00:31:40) – So, Andrei, I do have a question for you. Can you give me some maybe case studies of times you’ve been working with either some clients or even with your own brands, like give me some quick hitting tips from those case studies, like what did you change on the main image that made a significant impact, or what was it in the secondary images that made a significant difference that boosted that conversion rate? Can you give me some examples?
Andrei (00:32:09) – Yeah. So we’ve done a recent product update. Okay., on a consumable product. And the product was kind of dead for a year. Was selling 15 units a day, was eating $25 in PPC a day, barely making a profit like $5 profit., I was going crazy because I designed it myself. I had a designer do the label stuff like that, but I optimized, changed, and stuff like that didn’t help for some reason.
Andrei (00:32:40) – And, we had more volume. It’s a liquid. So the power is 15oz. Everyone else is 12oz. I didn’t understand why this thing doesn’t convert. So run the surveys on the main image. I added a nice color strip. I was black. I added a nice color strip, and I added the benefits of what this product does in three punchy things like three bullet points, does this, this and this. Right. For example, let’s say this is a vitamin. I know it’s collagen. Right. So improve skin, helps let’s say digestion whatever I’m going off script but whatever. And that’s something else. It might help your nails. Right. Those three nail skin and hair for example. Right. In an orange strip versus black because I noticed that my competitor had it in brown and that was related to the product and was helping psychology. So I said, like, I need to have a spot of color, added brown and added made in the USA.
Andrei (00:33:47) – I added orange and red and made new assay with those three color things on the product. Plus I had my main keyword on the label because we designed initially to have the main thing on the on the label. So if it’s a collagen peptides, you have collagen peptides plus a secondary message as well underneath. I had a place for that as well. So the label was pretty big. That help. That helped my CTR and then we improve the order of the images. I noticed that my third image was actually ranking the worst in customers., likeness of the images. Right? So it received like three point something. I thought that image is the best because I liked it. I took it. So that was the ego, right? So I removed the image, but I liked the copy. So I took the copy and I copy I incorporated on another image just right. I added as a small bullet points. So now I have the same message, but I just remove the low performing message.
Andrei (00:34:48) – And I replaced it with the higher performing one. Right. So we improved the two images. We changed it, we switched the place, we put the worst ones to the back, and that thing helped the product go from 15 sales a day to 57 sales a day in 7 or 9 days. And the PPC, we were able to scale the PPC from $25 to $85, $85 a day, and the profitability went from around $5 a day to like $20 to $30 a day. And this product is really profitable because it’s a low margin product with like 200 sales a day. And all right, so then there is something interesting. But we got a pesticide ban last two weeks ago to kill the product. But in two weeks we will solve the problem. The product is back and now it’s 30 days 32 sales a day. The first day when we relaunched it back without a plus because I removed a plus, I forgot to put it back. But because the image deck was healthy and answered all the questions about that product.
Andrei (00:35:54) – They didn’t really need the A+ that much. Of course, I added it back because everything impacts the experience. Yeah, but it helped.
Josh (00:36:03) – I love that.
Andrei (00:36:04) – Was well for me.
Josh (00:36:06) – No. Makes a lot of sense.. Great. Great case study. So, Andrei, I have a question for you about sellametrics.. Obviously over the last few years, there’s been a lot of AB testing tools that have come out on the market. You have a product opinion, you have picked a few you have in Tel Aviv. There’s a lot, and everybody seems to use something different. So I’m interested to hear what sets the metrics apart from all those other ones.
Andrei (00:36:33) – Because we are the single ones that have real life simulators, not some white canvas images. You don’t know how the voters, the people that respond to those surveys, receive those surveys. How do you know? Because if you’re testing the main image, you have to serve it as it is on Amazon. If you serve it with the big image, like you design it 900 by 900, right, or 2000 pixels, you have to see how that is being served because.
Andrei (00:37:05) – This is what’s going to affect,, I know this because this happened to me., we built silly metrics twice, right? Like, the first time it went away. My developer ran away with this with the code, so we had to rebuild it back. Now, for the first time. That was last year. When I built it. When I was running a survey, I noticed that one of my main images was winning over the competitor. Now, when? The site went down, I had to utilize something to test my audiences because I still had my people, but I wanted to check something with them, right? Another image. So I used Google forms to send to my people. Right? Then I see that my competitor is winning and I’m like, why? Why is that happening? Like I was winning, like, and I was thinking like, why doesn’t it sell? I run it with that thing and I start analyzing. I will do it again. I did it like five times and they always win on the Google form.
Andrei (00:38:11) – I’m winning on sellametrics, right? But that was a basic test, a B test, like all of them do, that stuff like big images you upload, what you upload, that’s what you receive, right? And they go on and look like on Google form the snack, the image is really small and is served small. Put them side by side. I’m looking oh man, you can’t really see the details on mine. The details shine on him. When it is small you can really see the details on mine. When it is big but not that well when it’s small. So this is the reason it’s like, okay, I think I need to somehow simulate Amazon. So we’ve been working on that for like two times. First time we did it was in 2022 and then came in 2023. And now into 2024, we launched it with the new team and it’s doing great. But that was an eye opening for me. Like you have to serve it as an Amazon because that’s how you’re going to be judged on Amazon.
Andrei (00:39:14) – When Amazon there’s competitors, you can test two images side by side and think, okay, you’re going to beat Amazon. Yeah. Do you have a Google on Amazon Apple cider vinegar. And just $0.02 popped up. Never in my life have I seen that unless you do it with the comma, right. Who sells who does that. Only Amazon sellers. That’s it. Yeah. People insert the keyword. They’re being served like 40 results. Go compete with those guys. And amongst them, amongst 20 of them. There’s one big boy. They’re gonna eat you alive. If you have no idea what you’re doing. Yeah. Spend your money on PPC. Good luck. Right now on seven metrics. When we do the search simulator, we copy Amazon Outlook, of course, removing all the logos associated with Amazon, but everything else looks quite similar. So we uploaded ten SNS from Amazon. You choose those assets, right? You have them. You added what you want to them. You can’t blur the image, the reviews, you can’t blur the title because guess what? You can blur them on Amazon.
Andrei (00:40:23) – You can make them the same. All of them. So like people don’t judge them, but they have to be there. Because psychologically, when somebody is on Amazon, they see reviews, and if they don’t see reviews on a product, it’s kind of tricky, right? Because we ask particular questions like which image would you actually click on and why. Right. So they click on the first image. But we have a randomizer on. So you press the randomizer each time a voter will receive this browser because they receive it as a browser. And if it’s mobile it’s going to shrink on a mobile and you’re going to see it as a mobile. So they’re like, okay, I like this one. It’s the same size and they press and give you the feedback. And it’s not just you versus your competitor. It doesn’t work like that. It’s always 20. So we do it like ten products. I think it’s enough. So we always rotate them. If you want to test with the rankings on okay, you can leave it and place the order as you want.
Andrei (00:41:19) – But you have to know that where you rank is really affecting the click through rate. So we prefer to use the randomizer. It switches the place all the time so every voter receives the images served in a different order.
Josh (00:41:33) – Yeah. No makes a lot of sense. And I definitely agree that having that Amazon search simulator would be extremely powerful.. So Andrei, this has been a very exciting episode., I as we wrap things up, I love to leave our audience with three actionable takeaways from each episode. Here are the three actionable takeaways that I noted. You let me know if I’m missing something. Number one, it is so important you have to clearly understand the pain point of the customer and the way your product serves their needs. At the end of the day, business is very simple. If you boil it down to guess what it is, it is one human being serving another human being, right? If you boil it down to the simplicity of a person that comes and mows your lawn, you are paying him for a service he is serving you by taking one thing off your to-do list of mowing your lawn, and he is saving you your time, right? So likewise, if you’re selling a product, you need to think about how my product is. How am I serving somebody? Because if I have a,, let’s say it’s a lemon peeler or whatever it is, right? If you’ve got a lemon peeler, how are you serving the needs of somebody? Right? They’re not just going out and buying lemon peelers just for the thrill of it.
Josh (00:43:01) – They’re doing it because they have a specific need. Your job is to go and figure out what that need is. And then how do you use copy and copywriting as a whole other art form in and of itself. But then it’s taking that copy and really packing a punch so it truly drives home. It gets to the heart of that customer and what they’re looking for. So that’s number one. And Andrei and I shared some good ChatGPT tips that you could utilize in order to better understand the need and the mind of the customer. Action. Item number two. Your main image is the gateway into your product. It’s not the main conversion rate affecting the metric, but it is your CTR. The click through rate. That main image is going to be the thing that gets people excited. And Andrei, you share a good example of a Hyundai versus a Honda billboard, right? How do you know which SUV you want? Well, if you’re just looking at billboards, whoever has a compelling image or a statement on that image that gets you excited, that you’re like, oh, that, that’s me, I need this.
Josh (00:44:13) – If you’re in the market for a car, you’re going to then go to that dealership, right? So likewise, if people are scrolling on Amazon, your main image needs to pack a punch and it needs to be a show stopper that says, hey, come learn more because I am speaking to you. Right? And there are different things that you could do with product packaging, right? With supplements, make sure you’re speaking to the needs of the customer. Like what are the main benefits? Is it the fact that it’s sugar free and you’re catering to a keto audience? Right. Make sure that’s bold in front and center on that, that main image, that package of that product. Right. If you have a lemon, peeler. Right. That we talked about, if it’s,, the main thing that people are wanting is a safer lemon peeler, for example. Right. Well, then make sure that you have that like some type of product packaging that’s on the listing. And then you can write, you know, a statement about, you know, make sure your kids are never harmed again.
Josh (00:45:16) – Right. Let’s say that’s a main concern then that’s going to lead people to walk through that door, which leads to our final third action item, which is that the order of your secondary images is vital. And Andrei, you didn’t really talk too much about like, hey, make sure you have really good bullet points or description because I don’t think that’s where people spend their time. What you did say, though, is take those bullets and the strong like copy phrases that you use and add them into your secondary product images. Right? And so take that lifestyle image of somebody cooking with their child and they’re using that lemon peeler and it’s safe. Right. Or, take all of those pain points and make sure you drive home how your product serves and meets those needs in those images. And you provided a great tip, which is, hey, use a tool like Sellametrics to understand which order should I place these images in? Because some of us might fall in love too quickly with one of the images we create ourselves.
Josh (00:46:20) – And you know, maybe that’s actually the one you need to remove. And so testing, testing, testing, testing is just something that I cannot echo strongly enough. So those are my three action items. Andrei, anything you think I missed here.
Andrei (00:46:36) – , no. You’re pretty good with that. Just remember your second image is probably your most important image in your deck because. You’ve spent all those PPC dollars to convert them to. To get them to click through right on your listing. And then you need to convert them so that that’s where they are the freshest they just landed and they like to excel at me. Right. Answer my things like what you say there are the most important things. Like with the billboard, right? Mile per gallon, eight people goes, it’s cheap. That’s what you know. If it’s a metal peeler, it’s like stainless steel, a super sharp, safety razor, whatever. I don’t know, like things like that. Answer clear. Don’t over saturate with a lot of messages.
Andrei (00:47:27) – Be clear. You don’t really need it. Listen, you can sell a car with,, 3 or 4 features, then a garlic press or,, a microphone or something like that. 4 or 5 messages is more than enough. And you can reiterate them. You have the video, you need the video. My rule is like that. No video is bad. A good video is like a video is better than no video. A good video is better than a bad video, right? So you need a video, but don’t overthink it. Use the same messages you have in your images. Have them in the video. Reiterate the same things you look at. Whatever Garyvee speaks on stage. That man has been saying the same things for ten years and is going to continue saying them the same. I guess it’s working for him, I don’t know, 2000 employees and stuff like that with design agencies. It works. You don’t need to reinvent the bicycle. You just have to make it go faster, right? Be more comfortable.
Andrei (00:48:26) – You don’t need to add a second, a third wheel to the bicycle for trial, right? Just make it better. Improve. Innovate. But just clear messaging. I think this is it. What do I have to say?
Josh (00:48:40) – Love it. Good words of wisdom. Now, Andrei, I love to ask each guest the following three questions at the end. So we’ll start with number one. What’s been the most influential book that you’ve read and why?
Andrei (00:48:52) – , contagious., I don’t remember who wrote it, but that book is really, really good., it explains why people,, why things get attracted, why they get so popular. And,, I was pretty, pretty impressed by the book understanding that. Listen, there’s some things that make things work, and sometimes viral things may not sell the product. For example, avian babies, if you remember that nice video where the babies were skating and actually it comes out, it’s an advertisement for water. And they say that it didn’t help them at all.
Andrei (00:49:29) – It didn’t raise sales because when people were spreading the message, the virality of the video, that a nice baby is dancing. But where is the water in that scenario, right. Versus will it blend? You can’t share the will it blend?, video. Without having the blender in it because it’s a blender blending a knife. And it’s like, well, really like blending an iPhone, making dust out of it, like things like that. So that was really interesting for me. I loved it, and I think I reread it like 3 or 4 times, and I think I’m going to start today again.
Josh (00:50:04) – Awesome.
Josh (00:50:05) – I love that I’m adding that one to my book list as well. Andrei, next question would be what is the most,, what’s a unique new software tool that you’ve been using that you think is a game changer?
Andrei (00:50:21) – Okay. For me is the notepad, because I’m really not so organized and I liked anything like Monday or Jira with, like, just organizing myself, my thoughts and my planning my stuff.
Andrei (00:50:38) – That’s what’s the best for me. I use helium ten. But I don’t think it’s the best for keyword tracking. I think that is always better., I’m going to try that one. Scale insights. Really good tool for PPC.. What else?, data dive. Pretty good.. I don’t really use that much. Sally matrix.
Josh (00:51:05) – I love it.
Josh (00:51:06) – Very good. All right, final question. Who is somebody that you admire or respect the most in the e-commerce space that other people should be following and why?
Andrei (00:51:17) – Brian Kelsey. The really smart guy, knows how to build a brand and knows how to scale products worth listening to everything saying who else?, I think, Mr. Zoellick. Kitchen. Pretty smart guy. Numbers speak for themselvesI listened to him for the first time on Amazon. Oh, wait, I thought he’s like, he’s still something. I was like, how does he know? Like, I was like, gonna talk about that. I was like, he knows.
Andrei (00:51:50) – He understands. So,, who else?, man, there’s a lot of people I respect in the niche, but they’re not so popular. They’re not, like out there on the front line speaking. Usually it’s,, people who know they don’t really talk about that. Oh, Brandon Young Brandon Young is pretty smart.
Josh (00:52:09) – Yeah, I love it. Those are some great recommendations. And we’re going to have Brandon Young on the show. We’ve got Aaron Cordova’s, on the agenda as well. So some exciting guests., to be on the lookout for now. Andrei, thank you so much for your time. If other people want to follow you along, they want to learn more. I think you even have a special offer for them. Where can people reach out to you?
Andrei (00:52:35) – So, guys, you can find me on Twitter. It’s Andrei five.. There will be a link in the show notes, I guess, or something like that. You can find me on sellametrics, and I open my calendar for anyone who wants to book a call with me.
Andrei (00:52:49) – I give you a free 30 minutes with me. We can go over your deck and. Brainstorm some ideas. It’s completely free and it’s for me. And there’s going to be a deal for silly metrics., dot com slash. Ecomm Breakthrough. And you’re going to have $100 on surveys on top of the bonuses that we already give you when you subscribe to our membership. There’s a pay as you go plan if you want, but there’s also a free trial if you take any of our packages and if you take a $100 package, you get $100 of the bonuses and you get $100 on the credits that are gonna roll over each month if you don’t use them. And we’re going to give you $100 on top. Just for your audience, so it’s a no brainer. It’s a seven day trial.
Andrei (00:53:41) – So try it.
Josh (00:53:43) – That’s awesome. That’s a very generous offer, Andrei. So definitely go, go. Take him up on that. We will have the links here in the show notes,, wherever you’re tuning in from.
Josh (00:53:53) – So, Andrei, thank you so much for joining us today. And, it was a pleasure. And we’ll be following you in your journey and wish you the best of success.
Andrei (00:54:02) – Thank you. Thank you. Josh. Really pleasure. Thanks a lot. Cheers, guys. Bye.