George Meressa is the Founder and CEO of Clear Ads, a London-based brands-focused Amazon advertising agency. George has over 10 years of digital advertising experience, working for Google, Amazon, Bing, LinkedIn, and Facebook pay-per-click platforms. Through these platforms, he’s partnered with hundreds of advertisers worldwide across various industries and sectors.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• George Meressa discusses his transition from digital marketing to Amazon
• What is a DSP advertising campaign, and how can it help to scale your business?
• What is the difference between DSP advertising and PPC advertising?
• How to access DSP
• A checklist for selecting a reputable DSP provider
• Proven DSP advertising campaign strategies for growing a business
• George shares successful brand-growth case studies

In this episode…

In a saturated pool of Amazon marketplace sellers, brands aggressively search for creative methods to stand out against their competition. One guaranteed approach to consider is advertising using Amazon’s Demand-Side-Platform (DSP) to boost brand awareness. Amazon DSP ads enable advertisers to programmatically buy display, video, and audio ads both on and off Amazon, targeting existing and potential customers. However, Amazon sellers new to DSP shouldn’t expect an uptick in sales just by joining the platform.

George Meressa, digital marketer-turned-Amazon DSP advertising expert, explains DSP advertising isn’t an effective strategy if a product is underperforming. To generate increasing sales, a product must produce at least 5000 impressions per month. If you’ve reached an impasse and are unsure of how to leverage advertising, you may need the services of a DSP advertising provider such as Clear Ads. At Clear Ads, Amazon DSP advertising experts help you identify your target audience, determine desirable product locations, and create advert content to maximize product visibility and sales. Additionally, Clear Ads cultivates consistent contact and provides monthly reports outlining your account’s productivity and performance.

In this episode of the eComm Breakthrough Podcast, Josh Hadley interviews George Meressa, Founder and CEO of Clear Ads, to discuss the best DSP advertising strategies for growing a business. George explains the difference between DSP advertising and sponsored advertising, how to access Amazon DSP, and shares successful brand-growth case studies.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Josh Hadley on LinkedIn
• eComm Breakthrough Consulting
• eComm Breakthrough Podcast
• Email Josh Hadley: Josh@eCommBreakthrough.com
• Hadley Designs
• Hadley Designs on Amazon
• George Meressa on LinkedIn
• Clear Ads

Special Mention(s):

• Kevin King
• Howard Thai on LinkedIn
• Michael E. Gerber on LinkedIn
• The E Myth: Why Most Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
• The E-myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
• The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
• Gary Vaynerchuk on LinkedIn
• Brandon Young on LinkedIn
• CampEcom

Related Episode(s):

• “Kevin King’s Wicked-Smart Tips for Building an Audience of Raving Fans”
• “Mastermind Level Strategies From a Former Top 50 Amazon Seller With Howard Thai”

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Ecomm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure ecommerce owners grow to eight figures. Of course…

I started Hadley Designs 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 go to www.EcommBreakthrough.com (that’s Ecomm with two M’s) to learn more.

As a special bonus to my podcast listeners, this month I’m giving away one $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit session at no cost. Email me at josh@ecommbreakthrough.com with the subject line “Strategy Audit” and tell me why your business should win the free audit for the chance to win and don’t worry, if you don’t win the free strategy audit this month, you’ll automatically be entered for future months.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:04

Welcome to the eComm Breakthrough Podcast. Are you ready to unlock the full potential and growth in your business? You’ve already crossed seven figures in sales, but the challenge is knowing how to take your business to the next level. Join Josh Hadley, an eight-figure e-comm business owner and investor, as he interviews highly successful business owners. Get ready because you’re going to learn specific actions you can take today to help your business reach its full potential and leave a lasting impact on the world.

Josh Hadley 0:37

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, the author of The E-Myth, and Howard Thai. Today I’m speaking with George Meressa, the CEO and Founder of Clear Ads Digital Advertising Agency, and we will be talking a lot about the best DSP strategies that have caused massive growth in a number of Amazon businesses. This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting, where I help seven-figure companies grow to eight figures and beyond. Listen, George, I started my business back in 2015. And I grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years. But I certainly made a lot of mistakes along the way, that made the path of getting to eight figures take a lot longer than it really needed to, there were times when I had a lot of self-doubt whether my brand could actually survive, whether I could manage the cash flow of the business properly. So any of our listeners that have run into similar stumbling blocks or similar plateaus, and are looking for the next steps to overcome those, go to eCommBreakthrough.com. That’s e-comm with two M’s to learn more. And as a special bonus to my podcast listeners, this month, I’m giving away one $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit session at no cost. All you need to do is email me at Josh@eCommBreakthrough.com. And in your subject line, say Strategy Audit, and tell me why I should choose your business to work with for this month. And if you don’t win this month, don’t worry, you’ll be entered to win for future months to come. But today, I am super excited to introduce you all to George Meressa. George has been in digital advertising since 2009. Working on a wide range of platforms, including Amazon, Google, Bing, LinkedIn, and Facebook paid advertising. Using these platforms, he has worked with hundreds of advertisers across the world in numerous industries and sectors to maximize their ROAS. His agency Clear Ads focuses purely on Amazon PPC and DSP advertising, helping deliver the best results for his clients. So with that introduction, welcome to the show, George.

George Meressa 2:49

Thank you so much for having me, Josh. It’s a pleasure.

Josh Hadley 2:52

George, we initially met up at CampEcom, Brandon Young’s event. And we immediately struck off a great conversation. And I think both of us realize like, alright, this dude’s smart, both of us were like, Alright, we’ve got to stay in contact. And so, you know, it’s, every time I’ve spoken with you, you’ve got some wicked smart strategies, and I’m really looking forward to having you share those on the podcast today. So, George, why don’t you give people just a brief overview of how you kind of got into this Amazon space, because you’ve got, you know, lots of digital marketing experience. But why the shift into Amazon,

George Meressa 3:32

right? So we had I had a colleague, Emily, she was working with me, and then she left to work for Google, and a year later, we still kept in contact are actually really good friends. Now. She actually went for an interview at Amazon. And they shared their frustrations of her and said, Look, there’s no agencies taking PPC on Amazon, seriously. No one. So she called me up said, George, you need to get on this. And honestly, I have a Google Ads background and how to create content and websites, I just said, Hey, we’re an Amazon ads agency, I put it on Google, the cost per click at the time was 2020 20 to 30 per click, we will get an influx of traffic. And then the first few leads, we’ve got acidly never done this before. But I know Google Ads very well. It’s a far more seasoned platform. Yeah, this will be very straightforward compared to that, let’s have a go in your account won’t charge you anything for the first two months. So that’s the first company, we saw some tremendous results. We then migrated a ton of our clients from Google ads to Amazon. And that at the time, because the cost per click bids were so low, we were seeing three to four times better results on Amazon than we were on Google. And then by that point, we just don’t you know, need to just go all into this. So we went into Amazon PPC hard in that six years ago, around six years ago. By the time there weren’t any agencies in the UK, there were probably one or two in the US. But it was not no one was kind of established, even at that point taking metrics across seriously they started sending a lot of stuff have to ask to use their tool. I taught them to use the tool. So, we were kind of heavily involved there. And then with the DSP know, again, we’ve got a very early someone kind of whispered kind of us whispers about it. I was so intrigued. I spent two weeks messaging people on LinkedIn an hour, two hours a day, saying who can I speak to Amazon that can get me DSP access. And then I’ve got the same email, funnily enough, his name was Jeffrey, but he’s left now. And he got us UK access, managed to find a way to get US access. But there was no learning center, there was no resources, there was nothing. So at that point, I was fortunate enough to have two brands two eight-figure brands and they went George, here’s some money, spend it test and figure it out. That’s it. Okay. So we had to go on how to create own SOPs, figure out what’s worked, tested, saw where we got the results. And at that point, we actually just share that SOP with some of the largest agencies, PPC agencies in the in the world, and we’re mainly us, and they use it to this day. So I when I see presentations at times, “I know where you got that from, so.” So we kind of established it. So we got in pretty early, and it’s just been evolving over the years now. So that’s not sure that’s great.

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