The Amazon Strategist Show

Why Your Amazon Ads Aren't Working (And How to Fix Them)

• The Amazon Strategist Show • Season 3 • Episode 79

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In this episode of the Amazon Strategist Show, host John Cavendish welcomes Noemi Bolojan, co-founder of Scale Wave, who shares her journey from music production to Amazon PPC mastery.

Noemi breaks down her strategic framework for Amazon advertising, emphasizing the importance of holistic thinking over quick fixes. She reveals crucial insights about Amazon PPC, including the five evergreen PPC strategies, common mistakes sellers make, and why advertising is just 1% of Amazon success.

Learn about the bidding system, why PPC is nonlinear, and how to properly structure your ad types for maximum impact. Whether you're new to Amazon or an experienced seller, this episode provides valuable insights into strategic Amazon advertising that goes beyond typical tips and tricks.
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Connect with Noemi and Scale Wave
LinkedIn:   / noemibolojan 
Email: contact@scalewave.io
noemi@scalewave.io
Website: https://scalewave.io/
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Speaker 1:

most common mistakes that people do make when it comes to Amazon PPC and do want to point them out. If you're going to optimize like too much, you're going to lose sales. So that is the first thing that most businesses don't understand.

Speaker 2:

Hello, I'm your host, john Cavendish, and welcome to season three of the Amazon Strategy Show. The show that's all strategy, with no hacks, no silver bullets and no magic pills just real, practical strategies to scale your Amazon business. Today, I am joined by none other than Noemi Bulajan, co-founder of scale wave, who is super passionate about our theme of this podcast no hacks, no hacks, no silver bullets and she will be sharing it a bit later. Noemi is co-founder of scaleWave and launched her first Amazon ads campaign back in 2019, when she started her own private label business After realizing her weak spot was in data analytics. She spent over 10,000 hours, which we're going to dive into hour by hour, mastering data analytics and fueling her passion for system building. Noemi loves to talk about Amazon and emphasizes a holistic approach, and really that's what she's going to share with us today. So welcome, noemi.

Speaker 1:

Hello, hello. Thank you so much for having me on the show, John.

Speaker 2:

So 10,000 hours. How did you spend 10,000 hours on mastering data analytics and like what did you consume to do that?

Speaker 1:

So the idea with the 10,000 hours usually it's saying that whenever you're spending 10,000 hours on something, you're going to become a master of it. So literally, if I would be honest, it's not 10,000 hours, probably 15,000 hours or even more, because the idea is that you know, whenever you're starting on something and you're not sure, and your whole everything becomes like the whole life becomes it goes hand in hand with that. You're really going to put like effort into making it work, you know. So we started in 2020, our own Amazon brand and we were selling on Amazon and, honestly, within the first three weeks, we were so successful with our product that we sold out and it was like oh my gosh. So you have the problem of not being successful and not selling at all, and you have the problem of being successful and staying without, like you have no more inventory.

Speaker 1:

But what I noticed is during that time is, I believe, one of the things that I was really not knowledgeable about is how to do advertising on Amazon, and during that time, actually, I started advertising and I did follow all the tips and tricks and so on, but I was so afraid of what if I'm doing a mistake? Because for us right now that was like, okay, this is the budget for the product, let's see how it's going to work. You know, it's like you invested. You're supposed to invest $5,000. After three and a half weeks or four weeks, you are $25,000. You know, I was like I did not expect this, you know, and I was not prepared for success. Therefore, I was really, really cognizant about whatever my input is in order to really make this business successful. You know and I'm coming from the music production industry I had nothing to do with Amazon, e-commerce, with freaking ads that I just like so passionate about.

Speaker 1:

Talking about John was like stop, stop, stop, stop, let's skip this for the recording, you know. So, basically, I just like had a weakness that I was very conscious about that. It was like, you know, I'm one of those people that I cannot have rest until I know that I'm prepared for freaking podcast today. That is like a casual talk. I prepared an hour. You know, I'm that type of person and I believe that there are also like many more out there, just like I am, and I believe that there are also many more out there just like I am. So Amazon was my weakness. I wanted to be prepared for it. Therefore I did invest 10,000 hours and plus. Did that answer your question?

Speaker 2:

I really answered my question and I would love to see your preparation notes for this podcast, because I don't know what that was to prepare for.

Speaker 1:

But that's amazing, you are amazingly prepared.

Speaker 2:

All right, so you started selling in 2019, by the start of 2020. You sold out immediately, and then you realized you had to master ads. So how did you start to master ads and what did you realize that led you to start ScaleWave?

Speaker 1:

Sure. So the way how I started mastering ads is, literally I did invested a lot of time in understanding, I consumed a lot of content, I was part of the wizard of icam community and back then I was really like very, very invested. So I was genuinely, if there was, like five times per per week a meeting, I was part of that, you know. So, investing in my knowledge. It was a lot of hours put in, but that also I see that it actually increased. So so much my learning curve, because it's like you can learn on like one hour per week you're investing in XYZ skill and then if you're investing the one hour like each time per day, like at least five hours, you know, so that's going to be, uh, increasing the learning. So what I noticed is that really, uh, really, um, I think it was a lot of pressure. It's like I want to make it work, you know. And based on that, what I noticed is that right now, what is missing really is people are learning so quickly amazon ads, but they are still followers. And back when I started first learning amazon ads, I was a follower just because I didn't know what good looks like, so I didn't, I couldn't assimilate good, you know. And back then, still today, what good looks like right now in our industry, or at least in PPC advertising, is like what is the latest tips and tricks that you can learn right away? And this is how much money I generated, and it's like 5% ACOS, you know. But back then I didn't know what is good, you know. So I'm going to emulate as quick as possible Because, like hey man, I want to make it successful, you know. So I believe that that is something that transitioned me into after like two years.

Speaker 1:

I've seen that actually people were looking into, like Noemi, what do you think of this? Or like how do you think should, should, like, what should we do with our ads? And I was like I don't consider myself like I know what I'm doing, but apparently just the fear of, uh, I don't want to lose, you know, and I want to learn as much as possible. That generated in me something that I constantly learn and constantly, you know, today, on the podcast, what I want to like also ensure that our listeners is like aware of everything. What you're going to learn in today's podcast, Honestly, it's strategic thinking.

Speaker 1:

I'm not going to share the latest tips and tricks, I'm going to teach you how to think, because at the end it's I can teach you the latest tips and tricks, but my end goal is that you are successful. You know, how do I leave you more positive, more like what? How do how do I leave you a better person? You know, and if Amazon PPC became my skill just by because I learned so so quickly and I learned so much and I was so into it, that is also what I want to pass on to our listeners today. You know, understanding how to think strategically like an Amazon advertiser, rather than applying the latest whatever someone just posted on LinkedIn. Did that answer your question?

Speaker 2:

Yes, that does answer my question, love it. Thank you, noemi. And then I guess, the next question, the obvious question is so how should people be thinking about Amazon advertising?

Speaker 1:

First off, understand that Amazon advertising is the 1% actually that is going to make your account successful, 99% of whatever is going on within your account, especially since you're on Amazon like selling on Amazon, you're a private label brand it's going to be non-PPC factors. And why I do believe that this is really important for you to understand is that we on the Amazon advertising end can do only as much as, if your product is great, if you have a competitive advantage, either on pricing, either on your product images, either your SEO strategies, either whatever else it's besides the ads, then we can really make your product successful. Because otherwise, what is going to happen? Actually, we were just helping this gentleman with their product and their product is amazing, they are priced competitively and so on, but the marketplace is like $15 for one CPC and they're losing money, you know, and not understanding that side, that aspect. Actually, if you don't master that one, amazon ads like not going to do anything for you rather than prove you why your product is not a good fit for the platform.

Speaker 2:

So in those niches where it is $15 a click, what can somebody do?

Speaker 1:

First off data. We have to know if our product fits or not. Right, and right now we were saying that it doesn't fit. So next thing, it's going to be usually uh brands who are especially attached. This is already. I am on the platform. What should I do? Um, you can tweak further. You can see tweaking. By tweaking I mean optimize further, create a better strategy. Maybe For this product.

Speaker 1:

It was a product launch. We were going aggressively with a sponsored product, exact match campaigns. Those are the most, one of the most expensive ones. What we noticed is that, while that helped with ranking specific keywords organically, we went up on the page. It did not help at all with becoming profitable in in the next six to 12 months, you know. So in this case, what you would do is really reconsider is amazon good for me or not? So this would be one of the things.

Speaker 1:

The second thing is like they're also understanding where are you currently? Because this was a product launch for a specific product. We also had one more product launch where the market itself it's in a supplement niche and the market itself is so saturated that it's going to cost you really one freaking click. It was $56. I'm like, oh my God, you know we don't. We don't have the budget for something like that, you know.

Speaker 1:

So, understanding how to get cheaper sales, maybe having a. We are going to target maybe lower, like lower search volume keywords. Or we are going to target maybe lower search volume keywords. Or we are going to target maybe ASINs, like product targeting, versus then those keywords. That would be a better way for us to operate and within two to three weeks actually we made the product profitable. So it's really highly dependent on what is thinking out. What is the next three, four, five steps of if this is not working? What is the next three, four, five steps of if this is not working? What is the next step? So, just because it's like 15 per click or 56 per click, that should not intimidate you. At the end goal is that after three weeks, do I like, am I closer to my goal or am I like further away?

Speaker 2:

okay, cool, awesome. So if someone's coming in, they want to implement your strategy as opposed to just throwing money at the wall that they were doing previously, what would be your first three steps to come in and what mindset should they have about? Okay, I'm coming in. What type of campaign should I create? How should I implement?

Speaker 1:

what should be one doing first off, like take like a bird's eye view. Whenever I'm seeing that someone is within their ads, they are so into what's going on right now, what should I do? And so on, and they're in panic mode. So what I would suggest is like take two steps back and see what is going on right now in my account. Do I have a strategy for the account one? If you do have a strategy for your account, does not matter what strategy. It doesn't have to be super fancy, it doesn't have to be just like it's there. I'm running everything on auto campaign. Assimilate whatever is going on right now, and then the next thing that you would be doing is understand where do you fit within the strategy? Let's say that there are five strategies that are available. I'm calling them evergreen strategies for PPC. Either you are running protect campaigns, which is you're going to protect your own brand names and your branded keywords, basically. Second, it's going to be conquer strategies, so no defense strategy, sorry. So this is basically you would take advantage on unoptimized listings. Are you running those kinds of campaigns within the whole structure of your ads? Because that is like a new level, a new, new trigger that you can have for the campaigns. The third thing is we also have ranking strategy campaigns, and these are the type of campaigns that we have specific keywords that we want to rank for. So, for example, we were mentioning the exact match, that that is usually the most expensive one, but, however, that is the most lucrative one. So if you would run exact match campaigns, that is and that is the highest bulk of your account. We have to assimilate that, because that is going to also have its own like downside of if we're going to do that. Next, there are also like dominate campaigns, and these are the campaigns that you already know that these keywords are working for you. Therefore, what you want to ensure is that you're always going to get top of search placement for those keywords because they are working for you. If you're not going to fight for them, your competitor is going to take over.

Speaker 1:

Basically, the very last one is discovery campaigns. So, for discovery campaigns, these are the broad match, phrase match, auto category match and so on, and those are the ones that are going to just the wide net, and then you're going to file in some sales. Maybe it's like it converted one time, maybe it converted two times, but these are not necessarily the ones that are going to grow the account very much and very organically high, but these are the ones that are still like good to have you know. So, simply, the fact that you understand what is going on within your account right now, it's crucial because, based on that you you can say, okay, right now I'm strategizing, for maybe I have only exact match campaigns and I'm you know, the latest is like have the one product in one campaign, one app group and with the freaking one keyword. You know it's like and without thinking, okay, but why would you have that? If a keyword is like 200 search volume, it makes no sense. You know, if the keyword is like 10,000 search volume, it might make sense because you need budget for that keyword, you know. So, understanding all that, understanding the thinking behind, I believe that that is most crucial.

Speaker 1:

And once that you assimilate, okay, what is going on right now within my account, which type of campaigns do I have and what is the strategy? Next is whatever is consuming the most amount of money. So we would look into spend, spend highest to lowest, top five campaigns and we would look into, like, what is going on within those five campaigns. Are they part of the strategy? Are they just like campaigns that I started because I've just seen this dude and they were like saying this is the way how I should do it. Or I've seen this girl and she was like super stoked about the last strategy that she applied with these catch-all campaigns or whatsoever you know. So, understanding, where do you fit within? You know, within those five campaigns.

Speaker 1:

The next step is going to be okay, the campaigns are within the strategy or outside of the strategy. If they are within the strategy, great, double down on what works already. If they are outside of strategy, understand, really, okay, these are outside of strategy. What is my next action plan? If already it works well for you and is profitable, don't pause it Just because it works well and it's not part of the strategy and it's still bringing money. You should not pause it because it's something that's working for you.

Speaker 1:

If they are just consuming a lot of budget, if they are, this one clicks and it's like you never know, like when it's going to come work, when not, and so on, and you have no data, those would be the first thing that we would pause. So, understanding this approach of like how would you think in a framework rather than this is the next thing that I should be doing, because otherwise, what you're going to end up with is like you're going to be an excellent firefighter. Now, there are three types of fire. They are like is the whole room on fire Act right away? Is the maybe only the curtains? Or only like smaller things on fire? You might be postponing, but if it's like something that this is actually sorry.

Speaker 2:

You're going to postpone if just your curtains are on fire?

Speaker 1:

Yes, because it's not the highest priority what I'm saying. So it's like you're going to, for example, if the curtains are on fire, maybe it's one of those things that tomorrow I can actually optimize my bids. I don't have to do it today, when I actually have to close a deal with someone that is going to make my business successful and grow beside of Amazon or something like that, you know. So it's like postponing it rather than acting right away. That's what I mean. Did it make sense?

Speaker 2:

That makes sense, but if my cones are on fire, I'm definitely going to do it All right.

Speaker 1:

I love it that you had to, like, listen out the whole thing. But love it, love it All right. But the very last thing is going to be is it a trash can fire, for example? And just totally super, being super honest, this is all from Leila Hormozy. I love her stuff and I'm listening a lot, but this really opened up on my mind of how we act, react and what is the discipline between. Like, it's just really important. If it's a trash can fire, probably it's going to put itself out in a few hours, you know, and you don't have to react to it.

Speaker 1:

But what I'm seeing right now, in our space especially, is people are like have you seen this? Have you seen the? Have you seen it? And it's like such a FOMO it's building up in you. If you don't have the discipline to stop, don't think of it. If you want to think of it, put it there in your ideas list and then come back to it. If it's still relevant tomorrow, you're going to address it, you know.

Speaker 1:

But basically this would be the framework. You know, and this is why I said that it's really important to, okay, know the strategy, know which strategies are available to you, know what is working right now in your account, know what is not working, and then you're going to have is this really an emergency or not? Or, and when it comes to emergency, what is the scale of it? So, based on that, then next week you would have okay. These are the things that are really important. This is something that I should not be paying attention to, although it's consuming money, you know, because otherwise we're going to over, be overwhelmed by the 80% that is doing nothing for the account, versus the 20% that actually it's bringing the account to success.

Speaker 1:

So you were asking about strategic thinking. That is the way how I would usually handle an account, you know, understanding it. This is the way how I like to teach, rather than do this. Do that? Did you optimize the bid? Did you increase before? It has zero impression. So did that answer your question? I do believe that it was just a bit long, but I do believe that it's important for someone to see this like it's a holistic approach within the 1% niche. That is like Amazon ads. Does it make sense?

Speaker 2:

It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, so just wondering, for this framework, do you have any resources on that, like a download, an article? You've written, a blog post, anything talking about your framework?

Speaker 1:

Sure thing. So actually that is one of the most known topics I'm known for. Uh, I do have. I can also provide, if you, if your listeners want to. Um, I do have slides for this one and it's going to explain like in depth on which strategy when to use and what to expect. I'm going into that detail of, okay, what type of ad types should you be creating sponsored products, sponsored brands, sponsored brand video and so on and then how much the CPC should cost and then so on and so forth. So I do have something that is super in depth would be more than happy to share it with your audience If that's something that you're looking for, or if your audience is looking into like, listen to the whole process. Actually, one of my most viewed episodes I think it's like 19,000 views, something like that it's on the Ad Badger podcast and I think two years ago it's when I just really broke it down with Michael Erickson of Ad Badger.

Speaker 2:

Where can they find that? So you get the.

Speaker 1:

Ad Badger one.

Speaker 2:

Where else can they find some resources like an article, your article, the slides, should they email you? How can?

Speaker 1:

somebody get hold of that. Well, it's really up to you, so I would be more than happy. I'm not sure what is your procedure is whenever someone is listening to this, but they can. I'm happy to also like if you want to have it on your site or something like. I'm not sure what is your process right now on how people can get whatever they're listening to I, I am happy to OK, brilliant, we can do that.

Speaker 2:

All right, so it's linked below this episode, whatever URL you like, but yeah, love it. All right, so I love it. We've got the framework, we've got what to look out for, we've got the different types of campaigns. Is there anything else people should be thinking about with their PPC campaigns? Noemi.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I do believe that there are some most common mistakes that people do make when it comes to Amazon PPC. I do want to point them out because they are strategic mistakes. And they are strategic mistakes because they don't have the whole background of what it's to sell on Amazon with ads. So I would like to go through that. And really there's a lack of understanding what a bidding system is. Most people are really like just tweak my ads and it's going to work. No, so the bidding system, basically how it works, is the highest bidder is going to win the click. And why is this really really important is because it does not matter if you want to optimize your account at some point. If you're going to optimize too much, you're going to lose sales. So that is the first thing that most businesses don't understand. When it comes to make my product profitable, I am all for profitability. I just want to assure that whenever you're going to lower your bids, you're not going to be seen on the same placement. Therefore, your results are going to be totally different versus when the bid was maybe 30 cents higher. The next thing is like PPC is nonlinear. So something that most people think is that if I'm investing $1,000, I'm getting out $1,000. If I'm investing $5,000, I'm getting out $5,000. Ppc, unfortunately, is nonlinear, so there might be things that are working, there might be things that are not working. And this is the first thing that I believe that most business owners should be aware of, because it's not about scaling. It's about, out of the 50 campaigns that you started, 20 might be successful, like wildly successful, 10 might be just like bringing in a lot of expenses without no sales, and 10 might do so and so like above your threshold ACoS. So being aware of the fact that it's nonlinear process is going to help you make better decision.

Speaker 1:

The third thing is tweaking versus ad cost. This goes hand in hand with the first thing that I was mentioning about bidding system. You can tweak as much as you want to but, as I was mentioning, with the experience with a brand owner who just launched their product, it's like Amazon does not make sense for their product because it's so, so expensive. You have to understand when, like, you have to tweak at least for one month to understand actually, the ad cost is going to be too high and in 12 months maybe, I mean, I will become profitable. Are you willing to invest 12 months of work and pay for amazon, for the agency and also, like you know. So that is really really important and lack of discipline when it comes to 80, uh, 20, 80 or 80, 20, um, why is this really really important?

Speaker 1:

Most of the brand owners, what they do is, whenever something is not successful, our attention, we are kind of like there's a bias for it and right now it's keeping my mind. We are prone to fix the problem that is in front of us versus enjoying whatever already works and doubling down on that. So most brand owners, what they are doing is they are fixating on the 80% that it's not working, hoping that if they are going to fix that, the overall profit is going to be higher, when what we are seeing on our end is that, if the 20% that is working really well, we are fixing it and we're bringing it up higher and higher. That is your strength already. That is going strength already. That is going to bring you way more profitability. Right? And what else is here Thinking of PPC as the golden goose that lays eggs, but in fact, actually is the golden goose that sells the eggs.

Speaker 1:

Meaning, as we were touching base on the first, very first points, 90%, 99% of your whatever it's happening on Amazon on Amazon is non-PPC related. Not being able to understand that is going to bring you false hopes of what is realistic and what not. So I do believe that those are really important takeaways for sellers. Does not matter if you're new, doesn matter if you're like old and uh, like for or have a mature product, but if you don't get these points, you're going to miss out, like you're going to constantly be disappointed and like you would think that everyone else is against you when in fact, you did not understood the system. So I believe that that is really really important to understand. Um, the very last one. It's like a golden nugget from my end.

Speaker 1:

What I missed is understanding the. Which ad types should we create, and here I'm just showcasing a funnel. If you're not watching the video, I'm just showcasing the funnel. So at the base of the funnel is going to be sponsor product ads. Those should take the highest chunk of your advertising, because those are the ones that are really going to help you with tracking. The next is sponsor brand. Here I'm adding sponsor brand and sponsor brand videos, and this should take up not more than 10 to 20 percent.

Speaker 1:

The reason for that is, they are very similar right now, especially in 2024. They are very similar to Facebook and Google ads, meaning that the traffic is going to be there, but as if you would run on Facebook a video ad. The same way is going to be there, but as if you would run on Facebook a video ad. The same way is going to happen here. The keywords that are going to come up even if you're in an exact match it's not going to be an exact match and then the sponsor display. You can also invest in that one, but even less you know.

Speaker 1:

So understanding the funnel is really, really important, because we have a lot of back and forth discussions with brands who are coming to the platform. It's like why are you not targeting this and that and that? And we really have to educate people on why are we doing? What are we doing? It's not just because XYZ told me that those are the ads that I should be running. Um, there are a lot more things on this that I could share, but these are the biggest ones that I'm seeing right now. And just like, try to educate as much as possible brands, brands, because if you're messing up those basics, you know you don't get the whole picture, so yeah love it, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thanks so much knowing you so if people do want to reach out to you directly, what's the best way for people to connect with you in the world?

Speaker 1:

In the world. I love that you had it in the world. Best way would be, maybe, linkedin. I am generally making the discipline right now to post one post per day. That is like I am posting those and I'm writing those. So everything what you listened here in this podcast are going to be exemplified. They are in bits and bits of teaching you how to think like a strategist rather than someone who's executing things. Of teaching you how to think like a strategist rather than someone who's executing things.

Speaker 1:

And then, um, if you want to find out more about us, about our services, if you would need an ad account audit or something like that, feel free to reach out on contact at scalewithio. Let us know that you were listening at this podcast and you enjoyed xyz, or do? You didn't? Not enjoy XYZ and other things? You know I am. Those are the emails that I'm replying right away, you know. And also you can check out our website, scalewithio. Right now. It's just there to be there, because people are looking for our website, so we don't really put so much effort. Linkedin would still be the best. And also the next one is the email for LinkedIn. You can find me at noemi B-O-L-O-J-A-N. That is N-O-E-M-I-B-O-L-O-J-A-N. I'm the only one with this name. Befriend me and say hello, that's all.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I wish I was the only one with my name. I think it would be very useful. There are many. I also have a note here that you're going to give away three 30-minute no-strings-attached consultations to the first four people that email you at contactscalewaveio.

Speaker 1:

Yep, truly, truly yes, so more than happy to do that and, as I was saying, it's really no-strings-attached. I do want to genuinely help as much as possible. If we end up to collaborate on the long run, great. If we don't. My purpose is that. It's word of mouth, so if you enjoyed working with me working with me in parentheses, for free my hope is that you are going to refer me also to someone else, so it's a win-win for both of us to make sense lovely.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, noemi. So thanks to all of our listeners as well who've been listening to this episode. Thanks, Noemi, for being here, and if you are listening to this on any platform which I bet you are, unless it's coming to you directly into your brain please like it, leave a review, leave a comment, anything that has helped us get more reach, because that's how we grow. So until next week. I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you from the Amazon Stratus Show.

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John Cavendish

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