Brand Fortress HQ: Amazon FBA Success Strategies
Welcome to the Brand Fortress HQ Podcast, the ultimate resource for mastering Amazon FBA success. Dive deep into the world of e-commerce with your hosts, Jon Stojan, Mike Kaufman, and Matt Atkins—three seasoned Amazon brand owners who have seen it all and are ready to unveil the secrets of their success.
Your hosts each and every week are Jon Stojan, Mike Kaufman, and Matt Atkins. Jon is a former predictive analyst for the Air Force and brings his analytical prowess to the e-commerce battleground. After establishing his own 6-figure brand on Amazon, he founded First North Marketing, a beacon for brands aiming to conquer the Amazon marketplace.
Mike Kaufman is an e-commerce pioneer, having been navigating the online sales sphere for over three decades. His expertise has not only led to the creation of a mid 7-figure brand on Amazon but also birthed invaluable tools and resources to bolster other aspiring brands.
Matt is the jack-of-all-trades in the e-commerce arena, from building a 7 figure meal prep brand, multiple Amazon brands, coaching new brand builders, to helping brands of all sizes grow at Canopy Management. His passion lies in fostering a community of entrepreneurs, offering them the wisdom and connections needed to thrive.
Join us for Tactics Tuesdays, where Jon, Mike, and Matt dissect the real-life strategies propelling their own brands and companies forward. Plus, tune in every Thursday for enlightening interviews with the brightest minds in FBA—transparent leaders and business owners who are shaping the present and future of e-commerce.
With two episodes every week, the Brand Fortress HQ Podcast is your stronghold for insider knowledge, innovative tactics, and inspiring stories. Whether you’re an established seller or just starting your FBA journey, our hosts are here to guide you through the intricacies of the Amazon marketplace. Unlock your brand’s potential and build your own fortress with us at Brand Fortress HQ.
Brand Fortress HQ: Amazon FBA Success Strategies
066: Tactic Tuesdays: Should I Hire An Amazon Agency?
Deciding whether to hire an Amazon agency is a pivotal choice for sellers, and this conversation offers a 360-degree view from people who have lived it. Drawing from experiences as agency owners, agency employees, and brand operators who've hired multiple agencies, we unpack the crucial factors to consider before signing any contracts.
Does hiring an agency even makes sense for your business? We explore how to identify your specific goals and needs, and whether those align with what agencies typically provide. This foundation proves essential for making a sound decision.
Not every agency is right for every Amazon business. We discuss how agencies that excel with low-priced products might flounder with premium brands, and how category expertise varies dramatically across firms. This leads to practical advice on vetting agencies by examining their experience with similar brands and asking targeted questions about their strategy for your specific business model.
Recognize frustrations when we detail common agency shortcomings - from overreliance on overseas freelancers without proper quality control, to the empty promises of dramatic results in unrealistic timeframes. The most successful agency relationships function as true partnerships rather than complete handoffs, with clear communication about brand strategy and business direction.
We share a critical red flag that signals deeper problems: when simple mistakes consistently reach you as the client. This points to fundamental process breakdowns that likely extend beyond what you can see. We also caution against outdated case studies, reminding listeners that Amazon strategies from even a few years ago may be completely ineffective in today's ecosystem.
For sellers navigating the complex decision of agency partnership, this conversation offers both strategic framework and tactical advice to find the right fit - or determine if keeping operations in-house might be the better choice for now.
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Welcome everybody to another Amazon Tactics Tuesday for Brand Fortress, and today we're going to be talking about a topic that I think we have some really unique perspective on, which is should I hire an Amazon agency. And the reason why I think we have a really unique perspective on this topic amongst the three of us is that so I've been an owner of an Amazon agency for the last five years. I have seen the good, bad and ugly that comes out of that. Matt has worked at a number of different Amazon agencies and also as a brand owner. So he's that perspective.
Speaker 1:And, mike, I know you've worked with a number of different Amazon agencies, you know, as you've worked on building your brand, and so there really is, you know, I think, a lot of different perspectives on the different side of the table, both from the brand perspective and then also from the agency perspective on, you know, when should I hire an agency, should I hire an agency at all, what are the pros and cons and how do you get the most out of that relationship. So I guess where do we want to start with this discussion? Mike? You know I know we talked a lot before we hit record and we were talking about, you know some of the challenges that you've had in the past with Amazon agencies that you've worked with, so is that a good place, do you think, to start for this conversation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can start there. I think the first thing that I suppose I would say is that it is definitely the case that you shouldn't just run into this willy-nilly. It should be. You should really take some time to think about whether it makes sense to even walk down the road of hiring an agency in the first place, and part of that is determining what is your goal in hiring them. You know, I think that's the first and we can talk about that in a little bit. I think that's a good topic to discuss. But definitely you want to start there with what is the goal for hiring this particular agency and why.
Speaker 2:But if we get into kind of the nuts and bolts of just having done it and what my experience has been and kind of what my thoughts are on that, I would say one our experience has not been amazing. We have hired, I think, five different agencies over the years for various different aspects of our Amazon business maybe six actually and the one thing that can well okay, I'm going to say this two different ways, two agencies, I think, if I'm being as objective as possible about the relationship, I think two of those agencies that we hired, one of them didn't have enough time for us to really see whether they would have been a good fit for us, because we ended up having another opportunity come along that made more sense for us in the moment, at least, we thought it did and so we ended up switching gears, and so that really was not their fault. So they might have been terrific to work with and they came highly recommended. The other agency that I think falls somewhat into that category is not so much that they didn't have time we gave them plenty of time to be able to have significant positive impact on our account, significant positive impact on our account. But I think that it's also important to remember and I think this is true of this agency is that not every agency is right for every Amazon business 100%, I think what you sell, the category that you're in, and what their level of experience is with that, the price point that you sell at are you a super premium price product in your category or are you the bargain basement price product in your category? Now, I hope you're not that. If you're watching this podcast, I hope you're aware that that's probably not your best bet to be the lowest priced individual in your category, unless it's a very strategic move for you to do so.
Speaker 2:But some agencies are better at dealing with premium products. Some agencies are better at dealing with low price products. Maybe the strategies that they're good at might work better for a low price product in a category than it does for a premium price product in a category. I actually think that the strategies that one of these agencies was employing for us was really more purpose-built for a product that could be priced at the lower end of the category Maybe not necessarily the lowest price, but certainly not a product like ours, where we're priced three to five times as much as everybody else in the category.
Speaker 2:I just don't think that their strategy stack made sense for us, made sense for us. So that's the first thing is just make sure you know, just understand. Not every agency is good for your business, even though they might be right for somebody else. And that probably means asking some questions on the front end in terms of what are the brands have you worked with that are similar to us either? Similar category to us, similar product to us, similar, you know, similar price point by comparison to the rest of our category. That sort of thing Get an idea of what is their strategy stack.
Speaker 3:What do they?
Speaker 2:intend to do with your brand if you were to let them take things over, really vet that ahead of time, and I didn't do a good job of that with this agency that I was just mentioning. They're good people, I liked working with them, they have a lot of integrity, and I kind of made an assumption that, because all of those pieces were true, they would be able to do good work for us, and I do not have any question that they tried to do good work for us. It just wasn't a good fit for our brand. Beyond that, though, we've worked with a number of other agencies, and I will say so far I have not been impressed, and I won't ever name names because, again, sometimes it's a result of just they're not a good fit for your company or your brand or your category.
Speaker 2:So I'm not going to throw anybody under the bus, but it's been a difficult road, inexpensive overseas freelancers, which I don't have a problem with, but they are not properly managing those freelancers and making sure that they're verifying the quality of the work before it gets implemented or before it gets submitted to the brand owner, like myself, and so I end up doing a lot more work that really should be the agency's job. You know I end up doing the work of vetting, you know, the work product of their freelancers and if that's what I have to do I might as well just hire the freelancer myself and bring them in, you know, in-house. So that's been kind of our experience thus far at a high level.
Speaker 1:You know we can talk about details, but Matt, I know you've got a wealth of experience in this area as well, so anything that you know you want to kind of build off of that Mike mentioned, or you know other perspectives that you think would be important for listeners to know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think the majority of our specific listeners are already established on Amazon. They're doing, you know, mid six figures to seven figures. So it's not like they're the same advice that I would give to a brand new seller, like, I think, that a brand new seller. I think there's a level of involvement that you need to have in the very beginning. Specifically, if we're talking about PPC, I think you need to get your hands dirty in the beginning. I think that you need to be very, very actively involved in the management and the setup of the initial campaign structure and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:I mean the challenge when you go right out of the gate with an agency and you don't understand the basics of PPC is that you don't really understand reporting that you get. You don't know how to ask the right questions. So, again, I think that the majority of our listeners are kind of established. So you know from a I do have experience on both sides of the table and, I think, from a seller, especially if it's your first time approaching an agency and trying to outsource in that way. Before I even attempted an actual agency, I hired freelancers and I tried to do it in-house and I think that was an important step for me is to understand also, like the management of someone, and what I wanted to hear and how involved I wanted to be in the process and what I wanted to be reported on.
Speaker 3:So I went that route first and I think it prepared me for those conversations with an agency right out of the gate. You know, the agency that I used was it was mostly a tool. When you know it was before AI was a thing. It was like a bid optimization tool that then had a managed service behind it and the problem that I had with that particular entity is that it really didn't work. My product at the time it wasn't like a garlic press or a barbecue glove that I was competing against 100 other sellers selling the exact same thing. It was a little bit innovative.
Speaker 3:So, you know, there wasn't as many keywords to dominate on as there were in a lot of other categories and this particular tool was adding a lot of irrelevant keywords to my campaigns and it created a huge, giant mess. And I don't think that, similar to what Mike was talking about, where a lot of the management, you know the pushing of the buttons and pulling the levers were done by overseas freelancers that I didn't really have that much communication with and I really don't think understood my product or brand, and that was a huge challenge that took me once I severed that relationship, it took me six months to unravel the mess that was created because of that, and I think one of my problems is that I went in thinking that this was going to be the opportunity for me to just wipe my hands of it and just get a report every week, and it just that wasn't the right solution for me. So that was my first experience, and you know, then I've I've evolved over the course of time as a seller, working with agencies that were not tool based and were more human based, and that was a much better experience, and I think what I learned out of the gate was first of all, I think you have to be ready as a brand especially if you're new to outsourcing to an agency. You're ready as a brand to really understand what is your superpower, what are the things I enjoy doing, what are the things that might not be the best use of my time, and put those all in buckets and then really understand what it is that you're outsourcing to an agency. There are PPC specific agencies, there are full service agencies and it really just depends, and then everything in between.
Speaker 3:So it really just depends on what it is that you're looking to outsource, but you have to understand that going in because they're going to if the salespeople are any good which I've been in that role, by the way, for a couple of different agencies. If they're good, they're going to sing a really interesting and a story that speaks of, you know, rainbows and butterflies at the end of it. But if you don't really understand what it is that their strengths are as an agency and if that matches up with what you're looking to outsource, you're going to run into issues with alignment of vision and you know expectation alignment and things of that nature. So I think you have to really understand what it is that you're outsourcing, why you're outsourcing it, and then find an agency that matches exactly what your deficiencies are and what you're looking to outsource. I think that's a very important part of it.
Speaker 2:Before.
Speaker 2:You probably should jump in here, John, because you've got a lot of input, but I do want to say something regarding what Matt just said that I think is kind of important and probably something that I haven't paid enough attention to in the past.
Speaker 2:So, as he mentioned, you've got agencies that are very specific to what they do, so, say, a PPC agency or a Google Ads agency or whatever. And then you've got agencies that are more full service and do multiple different things, and I think one of the things that is important to be careful about is oftentimes, I think agencies have a superpower, and then they have a bunch of other ancillary services that they have now stacked around their superpower, so they can kind of fill out the boat a little bit, and they're not nearly as good at those fill-in services. And so if any of those fill-in services are ones that are crucial to your business, you probably don't want to just give them to them if you haven't determined that they are actually that that's actually another superpower of theirs. You know, if it's just a fill-in service, find somebody else. If it's critical to your business, if it's just kind of, hey, it would be nice to have that, but it's not critically important, well then, maybe it makes sense if it's an inexpensive add-on, you know, to that agency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. I guess, before I, you know, get too far down the rabbit perspective, I can tell you one of the reasons, even though we've gotten a lot of requests and almost pressure from clients and prospects and stuff over the last couple of years to get on a different platform. So Walmart was a good example where people were like, hey, why don't you start advertising at Walmart? I mean, we tested it out for a little bit and just realized that that was going to be a different, a different skill set. And we're at that part with TikTok right now and, quite frankly, the approach that we've taken is more of we know good people that own agencies that do those things and we would much rather refer you know a client to an agency who's really good at that than for us to try and be you know all things to all people, because there's enough happening on Amazon in order to, you know, stay up with all the trends and everything that's going on with ads and creative and all that type of stuff that you know. We've got our hands full Now, zooming out to kind of the 10,000 foot level, what I'll say from an agency perspective. To kind of the 10,000 foot level, what I'll say, from an agency perspective, having done this for, you know, five years now is, I would say, the best clients we have, is. It's much more of a partnership than you know.
Speaker 1:We're quote unquote doing everything for them, and the reason for that is because there's a lot of things that are happening around the brands that you know that are happening around the brands that you know we're. We're there to support, but we need to be a part of that process. As far as you know, when are they launching new products? What is the? What is the brand strategy, or even the product level strategy right now? Is it hey, we want, you know, profit optimization, in which case how we manage their, you know, ads campaigns are going to be very, very different than if it's hey, we want to take market share and we want to grow, you know top line revenue. And it's also you know where do you fit into the marketplace? Because if you're a premium product, well that tells me that you know we might have some more flexibility with the price lever to where you know it's very possible, and we were just talking about this before we hit record. We're working with a client right now that we were able to significantly increase their price and increase their revenue at the same time, and that's kind of the dream position to be in, but not every brand is set up for that, especially if they are designed to where they're not a premium product. That's not always the right fit, and so really understanding it's not. Yeah, you're delegating some of those day-to-day tasks of PPC and those types of things to that agency, but you're not deserting that entire channel to them, at least in order to be successful in what we're seeing from most of our clients.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I would say is that as and people that are listening to this and I know both Matt, you and Mike know that the Amazon platform has changed dramatically over the last four to five years. It used to be significantly better or I shouldn't say better easier, really, when you start looking at profitability and a lot of those other aspects. As a business, it used to be a lot easier to build a profitable product and a profitable brand and business off of Amazon. Still tons of opportunity on Amazon, but that looks very different, and so I think the other thing is that really aligning what are your expectations with that agency?
Speaker 1:And I would say now, as we're recording this in 2025, if you have now is really around really solid PPC strategy, which a lot of brands now are doing well, and conversion and listing optimization and making sure that you are getting as much visibility and as much as high conversion rate as possible out of your listings, because otherwise, if you're just trying to kind of adjust bid clicks or keyword bids in order to hit an ACOS goal, you really end up getting left behind because your listings aren't converting as much.
Speaker 1:So therefore, you don't want to spend as much and you have to spend less compared to your competitors in order to keep the same amount of market share and before you know it, you've lost half your market share to either overseas competitors, which can be very aggressive, or either competitors have been around for a long time that just kind of got smarter and invested in optimizing their conversion rates. And then the other things that we talk a lot about on the podcast a lot which is building your brand off of Amazon, or at least having a customer list off of Amazon, and then having a strategy for building up the brand, of launching new products and looking at you know how can you continue to expand as a brand? So what I would say is, if you're looking for an agency, look for an agency that understands your brand strategy and that their skillset aligns really well with where you want to take the brand in the next, you know, year to three years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. I think there's a lot of good meat in there as far as like what, what that relationship looks like with an agency. And one thing I would say is, if, if you're going to bring on an agency, the one thing I've at least always tried to do as best I could is give them enough time to be able to actually get to know the brand well enough and really get their feet under themselves to start delivering the results that they're capable of, because you can't come in fresh to a brand that you don't know, especially if you're coming into a category that you haven't done before. So if you're an agency who's never done pool tools or even the pool category at all, it takes a little time to get your feet under you. So you need to give a few months probably at least two months, I would say. You know, to give them an opportunity to get to know the category well enough and your brand well enough and all the. You know the upper keyword usage and you know what your messaging is and all that, before you really start making any significant determinations about do do we continue, you know, with that agency, and so that's, that's kind of an important piece. The other thing you know that you mentioned was just kind of that communication piece, and that is so some of that probably comes down to. This is something I was thinking of as, as you were talking, john, was kind of that determination of when to bring on an agency and who to bring on what. What aspects of your business might you want to bring on an agency for.
Speaker 2:And I think Matt said something really important earlier, which was that I don't know if this is always true, but it definitely is true, at least within the Amazon ecosystem is true. So, in other words, like he was mentioning, don't bring on a PPC manager for your Amazon account if you don't already know at least the basics and the fundamentals of how Amazon PPC works and what the terminology means and what you should be looking at. You know what are the KPIs that you should be paying attention to, that sort of thing. If you don't know your category very well, you know, and you don't understand PPC on Amazon, you shouldn't be pulling on an agency yet. No-transcript, there's a lot of expertise that goes with properly utilizing TikTok to push a brand and also how to properly use it to push the brand also on Amazon. And if you don't know anything about TikTok, then you know.
Speaker 2:Waiting until you do to bring on somebody who actually knows what they're doing especially if you can afford to pay them is probably not the right move, because the longer you wait, the more sales you're losing by not making use of TikTok if your brand is one that really fits that platform well. I don't think every brand does. I'm not saying that probably every brand can make use of TikTok to one degree or another, but we always have to make decisions about what levers we're going to pull and what levers we're not going to pull, because we can't pull them all at the same time, and so whatever money you know, either time or money that you would potentially be investing in making TikTok work for your brand is time and money that is not being invested pulling some other level, unless you have unlimited resources, which most of us don't. So you know, make sure that you're paying attention to that. You know what levers should you actually be pulling in your business.
Speaker 2:What are the next most relevant levers? Maybe they're the same levers, just pulled harder, right? Maybe you're already pulling the right levers and you don't have to step out and start doing something different. You just have to do more of what you're already doing. Like, maybe you're really good at launching products. Well, if that's the case, launch a whole bunch more products. Like, if that's your superpower is launching and you've got a really good community to launch to and you can really rank. Maybe TikTok and all of these other things are not things that you should be focusing on? You don't need a new agency for something that you don't know. You just need to launch more products.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a couple of one. I want to circle back to that concept of you know, if you're not very familiar with how and I mean, we've talked quite a bit about ads and I feel like ads is probably the most intimidating, if you will, of the topics. But there's, there's other things that you know listing, optimization and that type of stuff that happens. That's important as well. And if you're a brand owner out there and you're looking at an agency, what I would say is is that it makes it a lot easier to find a good agency if you have a strong understanding of the fundamentals, because then you're going to know. You know, yes, of course, there's going to be agencies out there that will just take your money and do nothing. That's like any industry. But I think what happens more often is there's agencies that don't really fully understand what you're trying to do with your brand, and it's just a. You know. There's just not that alignment of strategy. Yeah, and with that said, if you're someone who's like, hey, I, you know, amazon ads are really confusing for me, or I just don't have the time, or whatever in order to put it time to put into that, what I would say is, first of all. I mean we spend a lot of time on client education, of making sure you know they understand why we're tracking the numbers that we are, why we're optimizing for certain numbers and how that aligns, and making sure that we understand what their brand strategy and brand goals are. To make sure that you know we're aligning all those different numbers to go in the direction that makes sense for their brand strategy. And then the. So I mean, if you're getting any agency that you end up working with you, there should be a very clear and easy for you to understand and they should be helping you understand what strategy they would implement and why.
Speaker 1:And the other thing that I would say is that this is where community comes into. If you're talking to a couple of different agencies and you don't know which one to go with, or whatever, talk to a couple of successful brand owners on Amazon and say, hey, I talked to an agency and they said that they're going to, they want to do this, and here's how you know what they're kind of focusing on, to get that sanity check Cause if you don't have that background, you know that's where it's important to have you know friends and how this is a team sport and, you know, bringing in a mentor or you know someone at your level just to, kind of sanity, check the information that you're receiving from them. Because I mean, I'll say, one of the things that I see agencies really push, that sounds really cool but in the end is actually not very beneficial is, they'll say, oh well, we're going to increase your ACOS and your profitability. Well, it's not very hard to or I mean, decrease your ACOS. It's not very hard to decrease your ACOS.
Speaker 1:But if I cut your sales in half and, you know, decrease your ACOS by 10%, have I really made your brand better at the end of the day?
Speaker 1:Right, and I don't think so. And it's the same thing with, you know, their quote unquote wasted ad spend. Well, if you're doing things right, there is going to be a percentage, and everybody wants to be a small percentage, but there's going to be a percentage of quote unquote wasted ad spend. If you cut that down to zero, what you're essentially saying is that you're not willing to test any sort of new keywords or anything else. And so you've pretty much said hey, I have no interest in growing and competing on Amazon, which will make you a little bit more profitable in the short run but will make you completely not competitive in the long run and will hurt your brand over the long term. So those are just kind of the things that I see a lot used as levers that brand owners don't necessarily fully understand the long-term implications of things that sound cool but in the long run might actually hurt your brand.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of what we've talked about so far goes back to one thing that Mike mentioned. It talked about the relationship that you have with your agency. I've used agencies of all different sizes as a brand owner. I've worked at all different agency sizes as an employee, as a consultant and what I would say I think the most important role in an agency both speaking with my agency hat on, but also speaking with my seller hat on. If I was a seller looking at different agencies, the first thing that I would want to see is that there's a separation between managing PPC and managing the brand. I think that having someone that like a brand manager type level or one of the agencies that I worked for that had kind of a was a bigger agency, so they had kind of middle management type tiers, but they're called there's customer service manager, customer service manager or customer success manager, where you have a client facing person that is not pushing the buttons and pulling the levers inside of PPC campaigns but is competitors looking at different things that are happening in the market, understanding you know keywords that are driving sales and not just at what's the bid level, cause I mean you can use software to do that. So I think that having a brand manager that is client facing and is really fostering those relationships with brand owners we were just talking about one of the brands that John and I work with and you know we were able to increase her price by about 30% but also, at the same time, increase sales, and a lot of that was a collaboration between her and I. Like it wasn't just hey, we're going to raise your price and we're going to drop money out of the helicopter PPC ads Like there was a lot of strategy that went into.
Speaker 3:We had to fix their main image, we had to fix their, their SEO. On pagepage SEO. They weren't doing a great job in their title of calling out main keywords. So there was a lot that went into the result, but a lot of it was collaboration with the brand owner and it wasn't just I sent her a report at the end of the month. It's this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it, this is the effect that we expect it to have and if it doesn't, this is how we're going to roll it back.
Speaker 3:So I really think that when you're looking at evaluating agencies, I think having there being some a level of separation from who's in spreadsheets all day and who's actually looking at the strategy of the brand at a high level. I feel like those have to be two separate people and I feel like the brand strategy just has to be the one that's having the communication with the client. Well, the other thing that we mentioned as you know, mike has had experience with overseas freelancers and you know feeling like you've been just handed this person that is using a software and is just adjusting an ACoS target inside of a tool. You know, I think having someone who is very, speaks the English language very well and understands how to have, how to foster relationships, as opposed to just reading stats on a page, I think evaluating that piece of the process is important. And who will you be speaking to on a regular basis? What is the function of that person? And is there someone driving high level strategy, as opposed to just pushing buttons inside of a PPC software?
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's a great point too of you know what is the level of that person and what's the impact in the sense of I mean, just to use our agency, for example, you know we do have somebody who is overseas who does a lot of our catalog happens with that, and if something gets put into a catalog wrong, the chances of it costing a brand thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars are a lot lower than when you start looking at PPC.
Speaker 1:When you're looking at hiring the agency of not only like hey, who's going to be my brand manager, but give me a little bit of background on the PPC specialist that's going to be working on my account, because you know they're going to be spending, you know, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars a month for you.
Speaker 1:And even if that means you're finding someone who's 10% more effective, just because you know they understand the English language and they understand, you know American culture Well, you know that's an extra. Can anyone be anywhere from you know extra thousand dollars a month or tens of thousand dollars a month in you know effectiveness that you have in your account. So just again, one one person's opinion I really don't think it makes sense in order to skimp out on PPC specialists and people that are working on at least the ad side of your account? Because I think really. Yes, there are those diamonds in the rough that happen to be overseas and there are really smart people For every one of them. There's a thousand people that are somewhere between bad to okay, slash, mediocre, and mediocre can cost you a lot of money on your account, especially if you're spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on Amazon ads.
Speaker 2:Yeah, honestly, john, I think that's a really good point, and maybe that comes full circle back to that question of what things do you farm out to an agency first of all. So you probably need to evaluate is what is what is the, what is the value of success look like if an agency does this right, whatever this thing is that you're looking to farm out, and also what is the degree of loss that you might experience if they do it wrong? And to some degree, I think that would probably establish for you kind of a baseline in terms of, like, how comfortable am I bringing in an agency that I don't necessarily know, and how much vetting should I do beforehand to you know, before we give them the reins to start working on something? So that's something to think through. I would say, one of the things that I wanted to mention on this is something that I think is one of those areas where, in my opinion, what I've experienced tells me that this is a red flag that you should be paying attention to from day one, and if this is something that you're dealing with from day one and it doesn't get rectified quickly, it's probably a sign that you need to move on, no matter what you think of the people who own the agency, no matter what you think of their ultimate goal and what they're trying to build out and how trustworthy you think they are, you know, if this is happening, it probably means there's some sort of breakdown in their processes or their management structure or something, and you probably need to move on, and that is this. This is something that we've dealt with with a number of agencies. It's something that at the moment, we're dealing with with the current agency and it's making this question what we're going to do.
Speaker 2:But and that is when simple mistakes are coming back to you and you, as the brand owner or some member of the team, you know the brand team is having to work with that agency to correct those very simple mistakes that anybody that has a good command of the English language and has a good command of the English language and has a few brain cells probably would know.
Speaker 2:That's not right and it shouldn't have happened that way.
Speaker 2:If those things are regularly coming to you and aren't being caught by some manager on the agency team before it makes it to you and you point it out and it doesn't get corrected fairly quickly, in my opinion, that's probably a sign that you need to decide whether to move on or not.
Speaker 2:Because my perspective is, if they're going to use overseas freelancers which again, I don't have any problem with that there's certainly some good overseas freelancers and I've used them and I use some now but if you're going to do that as an agency, then you better have a strong management team that sits above them, between them and the client, that is vetting the work that they're putting out and making sure that the work that you're sending to the client is quality work and that you're not causing them more work on the client side than is necessary.
Speaker 2:You know like how much are they paying you for your agency services and how much work are you putting on their plate because you didn't take care of it as a manager? We're seeing some of that. You know that there's a lot of that kind of you know I would say some attention to detail that's a little bit lacking on some of that stuff and it's coming through to us and we're having to spend time on it that we shouldn't have to. You need to make sure that that stuff either isn't happening or that it gets rectified quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, two quick thoughts on that. I mean one. What I would share is is that if you're seeing simple mistakes like that, I a hundred percent agree with you I think that's a huge red flag, cause I can tell you that if those simple mistakes are happening, there's bigger mistakes that are happening behind the scene. It's like it's just like going into a restaurant and if you happen to see that their tables are dirty, you probably don't want to know what's going on in the kitchen. The other thing that I would say is is that I wouldn't get super wrapped around that, because I think Mike, you and Matt and I think all three of us kind of have this have a pretty good level head around.
Speaker 1:You know, overseas not versus overseas, but for the listeners out there, rather than thinking about where are these people coming from, I would really focus on what is the results that that agency is delivering, because our focus is hey, it doesn't really matter whether that person is sitting next to me or halfway across the world. That shouldn't matter to the client. What matters is the results that we are delivering, and that's where we've really been focused is delivering those results for clients, and sometimes that looks like, you know, increasing revenue while making you know increasing. You know total average cost of sale, you know tacos numbers and you know making that go down, whatever it happens to be, or amazing graphics for them, those types of things in order to improve conversion rate on listings. But in that process, part of those results is when we send something over to a client. They shouldn't look at it and go WTF on this image, because then we have failed on delivering the results. And we're not perfect, but we do put a lot of effort into making sure that we are consistently delivering results for the clients that we have.
Speaker 1:And I think I also want to double click on something else that you said, which is you know, once you decide on that agency, well, and I, and I would say even during that conversation process, if you have somebody that an agency that says, hey, we're going to double your sales, or whatever it happens to be, in 30 days, it's either one of two things Either you know they're just giving you the song and dance in order to get you to sign, and then it's probably going to be a disaster, or there's something massively that you are missing in how you're running your business. On Amazon, I would say 80% of the time it's, you're being oversold a lot of results in order for them to get you to sign. So if they say that they can make massive improvements on your account in a couple of weeks, I would run the other way. To me, that's a huge red flag of how good an agency is, where they're just over-promising and they're going to way under-deliver your expectations when you start working with them.
Speaker 2:Do you have anything more you feel like you want to add to that Matt?
Speaker 3:No, I mean, I think that's a really, really good way to say it. I think that what I loved about the process at a couple of the different agencies that I've worked out from the other side of the table is them doing a bit of an analysis. Now getting an analysis on your account, you need to make sure that that that analysis isn't self-serving for the agency Like they're. Like John was mentioning, you know wasted ad spend. I had. I worked for one that I wasn't. I didn't love the way that they portrayed wasted ad spend in the slide deck. After the analysis that we did, it painted all wasted ad spend as an enemy of the brand, which John just mentioned.
Speaker 3:There has to be a certain level of testing going on at all times, testing new keywords, new ad types, stuff like that. But I think having an analysis done at the beginning and that's more for a brand owner being able to just understand what does the agency think that they can do for me, what are they seeing? What are our goals aligned, having very aligned goals in the beginning and understanding their communication style and how you're going to be reported to, I think is also super important. But I think if they're doing an analysis and you really understand the strategy that they're going to implement to get you to where your goals are, whatever those goals are, understanding that and making sure that it aligns and making sure that it's not they're not blowing smoke. I mean, you know, like, like John said, I think that would be a huge red flag if they said that they could move mountains that you haven't been able to move for yourself. So I think that's an important part of the process as well.
Speaker 2:You know what I like in what there probably is some sort of an audit that they should and could do on your brand.
Speaker 2:That can help establish what your baseline is and what they could do for you with whatever their service is you know, whether it's creative or PPC, or you know TikTok, or you know social, whatever it is they should be able to do an audit.
Speaker 2:And what I like about that idea is there's two things about that. One I think that any audit that you get back, if you can't easily understand what it is that they're going to try to do with your brand that they think is going to improve things, then either one you know they need to find a better way improve things, then either one you know they need to find a better way to explain it. And maybe, you know, maybe a conversation with them, because there are some things that are technically complex. You know that might be difficult to explain in a document. You know an audit document, but somebody on the team ought to understand the strategy well enough that they can explain it in layman's terms to somebody who might not right. If they can't do that, I personally think that probably is problematic in and of itself.
Speaker 2:You need to be able to understand what the strategy is they're going to employ, and if they can't explain it well enough to you, either one it's gobbledygook, or two, they don't understand it well enough. Otherwise they'd be able to explain it. So I think that's really a valuable piece is to get that audit from whoever it is, and make sure that you fully understand what that strategy looks like and also that, quite frankly, you agree that that strategy can accomplish or at least has the potential.
Speaker 1:Mike was going to say something really important.
Speaker 2:You dropped what they're telling you.
Speaker 1:Please, mike, you dropped right, as you said, something really important. So, and also. And then all of a sudden it cut out and our listeners were like, ah, that was the piece that I needed to hear. So if you could, repeat that.
Speaker 2:Well so I'm not sure where the also came in, but my point was that so they need to be able to explain it to you. No-transcript, you're going to be it's kind of going to be this adversarial thing, yeah, where it's like always. You're always going to be butting heads like hey, we're not moving fast enough, or you know, because you don't believe for yourself that that strategy can actually work, like there's there's a level of disbel there. So make sure you understand it and that they can explain it to you properly and that you believe that that strategy makes sense for your brand.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely Well. I think we've given listeners a lot to think about. I will wrap up with this one last tip, and then I'd love to hear any last tips from you guys, which is anytime you're getting. You know every agency has case studies and testimonials, which are great. I would highly encourage listeners to look at the dates on those case studies and testimonials, because they age like milk, especially with Amazon. Just because an agency was super successful in 2019 does not mean that they know how to grow a brand in 2025. They're completely different skills. So just make sure that you pay attention to that when you get those case studies and testimonials. And with that, I'll turn it over to you guys Any last tips for our listeners before we wrap up for today.
Speaker 3:One tip that I would give that I actually very much disliked as a sales rep for agencies is when a brand owner asked to speak to someone on the team the type of a person that they would be interacting with on a weekly basis or a monthly basis. I didn't love that as a sales rep because it put me farther away from getting a contract signed, but from a brand owner feeling comfortable with the agency that you're going to be working with, I think it's a valid question and I think for me to give me a warm fuzzy and really believe that I think that the agency can do what I'm asking them to do, I think making sure that you gel with the person that you would be having a conversation with on a regular basis is a really important thing. To ask the agency. If they don't do that, I would be a little bit leery.
Speaker 3:You know there are some agencies out there that are still kind of owner operator and that's understandable. There that are still kind of owner operator and that's understandable, and you know, I think that to me would would even give me a little bit more of a warm fuzzy that you know I'm speaking with the guy that is. You know his livelihood is is directly tied to how well they do with my brand. So, you know, I think speaking to someone, as opposed to just listening to a sales pitch, I think talking to someone that actually manages brands, I think that's a good step in the vetting process.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think, I've talked plenty, so I don't really have much to add, all right. Well, I think we've definitely given listeners plenty to think about as they think about hiring an Amazon agency, and so thank everybody for listening and we'll see you next time on another Tactics Tuesday.
