In this episode, the host interviews Amazon and e-commerce expert Bradley Sutton, who shares actionable strategies for successful Amazon product launches. Bradley discusses natural keyword integration, backend optimization, and advanced Helium 10 tools like Historical Cerebro and inventory management. He highlights the importance of monitoring Amazon listing changes with alerts to avoid costly mistakes, and offers advice on budgeting for product launches. The episode concludes with Bradley’s personal recommendations and tips for staying informed, providing valuable insights for Amazon sellers aiming to optimize listings, manage finances, and scale their businesses effectively.

Chapters:

Introduction to Bradley Sutton and Amazon Listing Strategies (00:00:00)
Bradley shares his background, passion for Amazon, and discusses incorporating top keywords into product listings naturally.

Where to Add Keywords in Listings (00:01:15)
Explains ideal keyword placement: bullets, description, backend search terms, subject matter, and special features fields.

Special Features Field and Indexing Speed (00:02:47)
Describes the special features field, its rapid indexing, and cautions against keyword stuffing since it appears on the listing.

Advanced Helium 10 Tools for Launches (00:04:15)
Introduces Helium 10 Elite tools like Historical Cerebro for seasonal keyword research and their advantages over traditional methods.

Sponsored Ad Placements and New Page One Strategies (00:06:46)
Discusses the proliferation of sponsored ad placements on Amazon’s first page and the need for updated launch strategies.

Three Actionable Takeaways for Product Launches (00:08:37)
Host summarizes three key takeaways: title keyword density, running CPR via Amazon ads, and budgeting for initial losses.

Financial Acumen and Scaling Successfully (00:10:57)
Emphasizes the importance of understanding financials, budgeting, and cash flow to scale an Amazon business.

Bradley’s Most Influential Business Book (00:12:07)
Bradley recommends “The Four Disciplines of Execution” and explains its impact on goal setting and business growth.

Underutilized Helium 10 Tools for Sellers (00:13:59)
Highlights inventory management and alerts as underused tools, sharing a cautionary tale about ignoring alerts.

Where to Follow Bradley Sutton (00:16:45)
Bradley shares where listeners can follow him: Serious Sellers Podcast, Helium 10 Facebook group, and Instagram.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Websites
“Helium 10 Listing Analyzer“: “00:01:51”
“Helium 10 Cerebro“: “00:05:09”
“Helium 10 Black Box“: “00:05:53”
“Helium 10 Alerts“: “00:14:13”
“Helium 10“: “00:15:07”

Additional Resources
“Brand Analytics“: “00:05:09”

Books
“The Four Disciplines of Execution“: “00:12:07”

Podcasts
“Serious Sellers Podcast“: “00:16:45”

Social Media Links
“Helium 10 Members Facebook Group“: “00:16:45”
“Bradley Sutton on Instagram“: “00:16:45”

Key Takeaways
“Alerts for SKUs”: “00:15:07”

Transcript:

Josh 00:00:00  Today I’m super excited to introduce you to Bradley Sutton. Bradley is passionate about everything Amazon and e-commerce. He can talk about anything really. Launch strategy. Keyword research, the Amazon algorithm and everything in between. He has launched hundreds of products on Amazon for himself and clients, and he is privileged to host the most listened to podcast in the world for Amazon sellers. The Serious Sellers Podcast. Meeting helium ten customers around the world is his favorite thing to do with that. Welcome to the show, Bradley.

Bradley 00:00:33  Thank you for having me here. It’s great to be here.

Josh 00:00:35  My question to you, Bradley, is you talked about add some of the top keywords into your listing. Where do you add them into your listing? because I could foresee an issue of, for example, maybe you’re selling a calendar, right? And a pen. There’s one particular type of pen, or it’s a set of markers or something, right. That keeps showing up in the the frequently bought together. But those are very kind of two very different products.

Josh 00:01:02  Right? So how would you go about incorporating the marker top keywords into calendar type, you know, a calendar type product and where do you put them right. Does it matter? Is it bullets? Description. Back end.

Bradley 00:01:15  There’s a couple of different ways. So like the most ideal way is just to get it as organic and natural as possible. You know in there. So like the you know perfect situation would be like for example, let’s use that gothic, candle holder. You know, I could like, say in one of the bullet points or description, like, you know, hey, you can put a gothic candle holder on top of the coffin shelf and then you have a real spooky, you know, effect or whatever like that. You know, like something that actually makes sense. That’s not that’s not keyword stuffing. Yeah. You know, sometimes that doesn’t you know, you’re not able to do that most of the time though, if you really think about it. I mean, if two products are complementary, there’s a way to tie it together.

Bradley 00:01:51  I mean, otherwise it wouldn’t be complementary with each other. Like like there’s got to be a way. But in the extreme circumstances where there’s not, of course you’ve got your search terms, your back end search terms. most Categories still have hidden the subject matter like you can’t do it in your edit listing, but like once you create your listing, if you use like helium ten Listing Analyzer or you or your advanced user of flat files like in helium ten Listing Analyzer, we still have the subject matter and even though you don’t see it there, it still works like we can tie it in the API in the back end. And then so there’s usually 4 or 5 more lines of 50 characters. So you can put some of these keywords and then another one where it’s very limited. But like if you just can’t put it anywhere, is is this this back end feature that, that categories like home and Kitchen have that’s called special features. And that doesn’t help for ranking. But special features is like the most it’s the craziest field I have seen in Amazon in years where I could put something there.

Bradley 00:02:47  And I’ll get index for it, like in less than 60s, you know, really, you know, if you change your title or your description, sometimes it takes like up to a day for you to get index or for you even to show up. You change something in the search terms. Like it was amazing that hey, like within 15 minutes you could be indexed, you know, like in the old days, this one is like less than 60s. And I could I prove that two ways. You know, using that special URL, that Ajax URL that that shows what’s in the back end, or by actually just running index checker to show that, hey, this wasn’t indexing then 60s later it is. So, it’s it you have to be careful that you can’t keyword stuff like you can in search terms and subject matter because the special features it’s actually this is kind of a positive and a negative. the positive of course, is that, you know, you can index almost anything at all, even if like sometimes stuff I would put in search terms and subject matter, just Amazon didn’t like it.

Bradley 00:03:37  I stick it in, special features. It’ll be indexed real fast. But the drawback is you have to be careful because this actually shows up on the front of your listing above the bullet points.

Josh 00:03:46  Interesting.

Bradley 00:03:46  So yeah, in the home and kitchen category. And like I think Health and Household might be another one. I haven’t tested all all the categories it shows up there. So like you have to make it in a way that, that it almost looks like a rudimentary bullet point. So you just, you know, that’s why I say you can’t keyword stuff. So so those would be the different ways that I would try and weave it into my listing.

Josh 00:04:04  Awesome. That’s great feedback and great insight. Bradley, is there anything else that you would add to, you know, getting a listing, a new product launched on Amazon and maintaining that?

Bradley 00:04:15  Well, just a couple of things. You know, I know this podcast is geared towards bigger sellers. So so maybe there’s some some helium ten elite members out there.

Bradley 00:04:23  This is not a sales pitch for helium ten elite. Actually, even if you wanted to, you couldn’t join helium ten elite right now. Like, I don’t even think we’re opening it up until, like, middle of next year. But for any helium ten elite members out there, you guys have some exclusive access to to some special tools. And one of them that helps with launches is one of my my favorite things that we’ve done is is historical cerebral. So like let’s say I’m getting into a niche, if it’s something that sells like a garlic press the same all year round. You know, you just use the same old techniques. But like, if you’re getting into a niche and you and it’s seasonal in any way or cyclical at all, well, in the old days, what I would have to do to do my historical keyword research, you know, because if I’m doing research in Cerebro for right now, it’s showing me what’s going on in the last 30 days. But maybe this product peaked in like, you know, summer or something like that.

Bradley 00:05:09  And I’d just be guessing on the keywords and guessing on the main one. So what I would do in the old days, the only visibility I had to historical data would be to use brand analytics. I would go into brand analytics, select a time frame, and that’s. But that’s very limited because it’s only showing me the top three click products. So now what we have is is for elite members. You can actually go in and view Cerebro as of any month in the last two years. So like let’s say, you know, Valentine’s Day is coming up. You know, now we’re at the end of the year, beginning of the year, if you were to run Cerebro on top Valentine’s Day products, some of the products, you know, Valentine’s Day products, they only stay in stock in February and March. And so like, I couldn’t even run Cerebro on them, right. What I would do is I would find those top selling ones from last year and you’re either using black box or again, you know, finding a couple from brand analytics.

Bradley 00:05:53  And then I could actually in Cerebro run Cerebro as of February of last year and the previous year to see all right what were the top keywords that people were ranking for as of February 2022, February 2021. And now I could already, you know, even you know, now in January, I could already be all set, you know, and try and maybe even rank for those keywords in January when nobody is really there’s no activity. So it’s super easy to rank for. And then the other thing is like I just mentioned, so, so there’s so many sponsored ad placements now on page one, different keywords have different ones. You know you’ll see top from our brands like a new widget that’s kind of like sponsored ones. It’s and it’s not just Amazon brands. It’s really weird. You know, you think that’s only Amazon promoting these brands. It promotes private label brands there too. there’s Amazon’s choice like not just Amazon’s Choice, but like a whole widget that says that it gives you like Amazon’s choice from different from different ones.

Bradley 00:06:46  There’s, editorial recommendations. You know, there’s sponsored brand video ads, there’s sponsored brand, header ads. There’s there’s trending now there’s like a new widget. So like, all of these are all sponsored ads at the end of the day. So in the old days, you could just like say, all right, who’s ranking organically on page one, whose ranking on sponsored like the traditional sponsored product ads. But those are only two pieces of the pie now. So elite members also have, starting with December of 2022. They’re going to have all historical and and real time data of like you enter in a product into Cerebro. It’s going to tell you all of those places like, hey, here’s all the places where you can actually see them. They’re coming up on page one, the editorial recommendations. And so we can’t just rely on the old strategies because it only tells a piece of the story now. Like like if somebody if somebody is dominating like ten of the main keywords, they’ve got five placements on there, you know, hey, they’re showing up in the editorial recommendation, they’re showing up and trending now and they’re showing up in organic and sponsored, and they’ve got a sponsored brand video and they’ve got a sponsor brand header, literally.

Bradley 00:07:49  That’s that sounds crazy. But literally there are products doing that. Well that you might now change your strategy. Or it’s like, oh, this is not as easy as a keyword. Like I gotta like, how do I get my listing on all these placements, you know, to match my competitor? So that that’s another thing that’s kind of new, new ish that we’re, that, that, that people can use as a strategy.

Josh 00:08:08  I love that. What a great tool. And I know there’s there’s a lot more capabilities that helium ten has that I think people aren’t even scratching the surface on. So, Bradley, is there anything else that we haven’t covered with product launches?

Bradley 00:08:23  That’s about it. I mean, there there’s there’s tons. I mean, we have a seven hour podcast on product. Well, that’s what I think this is. This covers the main. Yeah. This covers the main stuff here.

Josh 00:08:32  I love it. Well Bradley, this has been super exciting and, you know, very educational.

Josh 00:08:37  I myself have taken away a lot of action items for myself. So before I ask you the final three questions that I like to ask every guess, I love to leave the audience with three actionable takeaways from each episode. Here are the three three takeaways that I noted. Bradley. Let me know if you think I’m missing something. So, number one, as you look to expand your product offerings and coming out with new product ideas, a good opportunity or or a tip or strategy is to look at title keyword density, as Bradley mentioned. So really and there’s a feature on the helium ten, you know, chrome extension that allows you to see that. Right? You can type in the keyword. So definitely go into whatever niche or product category you’re looking at. And then type in the main keywords and type in maybe some of the medium search volume keywords and seeing if see if there’s some low hanging fruit there. Because more often than not there can be some low hanging fruit. So that’s action. Step number one.

Josh 00:09:40  You could even do that with existing products. If you have an existing product, go in there and make sure that you have the right keywords there in your title, because it will make a huge impact. Action item number two is when you are launching. I think the biggest mindset shift that I had today is that you can still implement many of those same strategies that were working before, but you’re doing it all on Amazon’s platform. So still run your CPR number, right? Still calculate everything, but run everything through the Amazon ads, right? So you want to have your top of search placement, run it on a select 5 to 10 keywords and focus on the top of search and get your CPR number for the day and turn it off. And then action item number three, I think for people is to understand that and be willing to lose money in those first 2 to 3 weeks, right? As you mentioned, Bradley, that’s why we talked about at what point do you raise the price back up? Because how long can you just continue to lose money on every single sale? And so in order to do that, you are going to need to budget, right? So understand your financials.

Josh 00:10:57  The only way that you’re able to grow to eight figures and beyond is if you are practicing good financial business acumen in your business. You can’t just, you know, in our our business, we’re launching two new product categories every single month. The only way that we do that is because we know how much it’s going to cost, and we know we have the cash flow in order to do that, because sellers can really, you know, get themselves in a pickle, so to speak, if you’re just losing money and then launch after launch and really quickly, you could run yourself out of business in a way. So that would be my third actionable takeaway is like, get really good at your numbers. And there’s many different tools out there that that can help you create those budgets. So Bradley, that’s my three takeaways. Anything else you would add?

Bradley 00:11:44  No, that’s pretty good. Like like when I, when I do podcasts, I don’t even remember what we talked about ten minutes ago, let alone the be able to pull out three top things from the whole episode.

Bradley 00:11:52  That’s that’s pretty impressive. Not making me step up my game now.

Josh 00:11:56  Well, awesome. All right, Bradley, the last three questions that I have for you, number one is what has been the most influential book that you’ve read and why?

Bradley 00:12:07  that would probably. I don’t read much books, like at all, but but there is one that really had an impact. and it’s probably probably one of the only books I’ve read lately. because I’m more of like a, like a YouTube video and, and, and, and podcasts, you know, person. But, it’s the four disciplines of execution. this is something that we, for, for short, but it’s something that we at helium ten, like in the early days when we were a really small company. we were in a WeWork, and there was, like, 15 of us. It’s something that I think helped. Kind of like, catapult us, us, us, us to the top was. It’s just a way of, like every aspect either of your life or of the business about making it, about KPIs and different things.

Bradley 00:12:48  But but just in a way of goal setting and, and really making sure you’re looking at your leading and lagging measures. And it was just a different mindset. You know, maybe there’s some people have already been been been doing that on their own. But for me who hadn’t been doing that, it was kind of like a complete my mind, set shift for me personally. And then as a business, I could definitely see how it really helped us when we, we kind of like, built our, our, you know, initiatives around this 40 x, strategy. So that’s my that’s probably my favorite business book I’ve read in years.

Josh 00:13:20  I love that I’m gonna have to dive into that book. I’ve heard that one before, so. Awesome. All right, so next question. Typically I like to ask people, you know, hidden software tools or new tools that they’ve started using that other people should be using. But I think specifically I want to ask you, Bradley, for helium ten. What are some of the most underutilized tools that helium ten has that sellers need to be implementing? I think you’ve already shared a few of them on the podcast today, but for seven figure sellers, what are some additional tools that you think people are barely even scratching the surface of using?

Bradley 00:13:59  Well, two of them would be, our inventory management, you know, like you’d be shocked how many people like him had helium ten for years and don’t realize we have full inventory management, you know, software that that, you know, has advanced algorithms, you know, based on forecasting.

Bradley 00:14:13  And I can create my POS right from in the software. I can create my Amazon shipping, transfer shipments right there within the software without even going to seller central and things. So that’s just like one a general use thing, but like kind of like a under the radar. I already mentioned one of those today, which was that, you know, black box product targeting tab, but one of the mainstream ones I think people sleep on that really is impactful is alerts. A lot of people already use helium ten alerts, but they don’t actually pay attention. And sometimes I’m one of them. Like like there is a case where for the coffin shelf, they, they changed like 1.5in on one side and, and there, sure enough, the same day that Amazon did that, I got alert and I just I didn’t even look at it. And then four months later, I was trying to do some auditing. And I’m like, I lost $4,000 in the last three months because it put me to a higher, bracket for shipping, and I had no idea.

Bradley 00:15:07  And since it was four months later, I could only get like three months of the money back. So I did end up getting $3,000 back after like fighting with Amazon for a while. Yeah, but but if I were to just paid attention to that alert, you know, like, I could have got that straightened away right away and not have to lose $1,000 or have to go through this long process to, to, to get it fixed. So for anybody who has helium ten and this, you know, this goes for platinum diamond elite turn you have it’s not just automatic from day one. You’ve got to go in and turn on the SKUs that you want to have alerted. So I would, you know, if you have like a thousand SKUs, I don’t think it allows you to do a thousand alerts, but, you know, you usually don’t have a thousand top sellers, so pick your 100 top sellers or your 200 top sellers, turn alerts on, and then make sure you got somebody on your team actually looking at those, because that one is the big the dimensions change that could lose you money.

Bradley 00:15:54  You know, obviously if Amazon changed your title, you know, if an image gets changed, if you get adult suppression, I mean, all these different things that can happen. But I think the most common one that all of us have dealt with is Amazon just randomly changing our dimensions and us not knowing. So. So guys, make sure you have your alerts turned on.

Josh 00:16:11  Yeah, that that’s a huge one. That’s an easy. Takeaway for today is if you haven’t done that. Amazon. We found that in our business. Good grief. We thought you know the first time Amazon we ship in the product. All right. Dimensions are correct. You look back six months later and you’re like what? The FBA fee is double. Now what what happened? And you have the dimensions completely wrong. I, I don’t even want to know how much money we’ve lost in the past, you know? Right. for not looking at that, but it’s something that we started implementing. So good takeaway.

Josh 00:16:41  Bradley, where can people follow you and reach out to you if they want to learn more? Yeah.

Bradley 00:16:45  Well, you know, give us a subscription to the Serious Sellers podcast. You know, whether whatever you’re listening to this on, I’m sure it’ll be on, on that platform as well. And then, you know, you could see me in the helium ten members Facebook group. and my Instagram, it’s I used to use a serious sellers podcast, Instagram, but that’s what I use for my personal too. So you can follow me on there as well.

Josh 00:17:05  Awesome. Thanks so much for joining us, Bradley. Appreciate it.