Running distinct strategies for Amazon or your own website can be difficult. That is why we partnered with our friends at Privy to create this webinar packed full of actionable tips to make things easier for you. Learn these lessons among other tactical tips for growing your brand:
- Scaling Profitability on Amazon
- Building Your Brand Beyond Amazon
- Using Your Website and Email Lists to Grow your Brand
- How to Grow Your Email List Throughout the Journey
Discover more about Privy here: https://www.privy.com/
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Don’t miss the full transcription of this webinar here:
Good afternoon everyone, and thank-you for joining our webinar. Today we’re going to be talking about how brands win online. Running distinct strategies for both your Amazon store and your own .com. My name is Lauren Shepard. I’m on the marketing team here at Privy. Today our speakers are going to be Josh, who’s also on the marketing team at Privy, and Gauri, who’s on the project education team at Teikametrics.
We’re going to start a little bit talking about just the sheer opportunity that’s on Amazon. Then also how to expose your products, through sponsored products and other types of advertising. Then really just building your brand beyond Amazon, and then talk a little bit about email marketing. The importance of it, and how to specifically grow your email list.
Without further ado, I will pass things along to Gauri.
Awesome. Thanks, Lauren. Thanks everyone for tuning in today. I’m really excited to be here.
Amazon is not an unfamiliar marketplace for anyone. But I think sometimes it’s hard to grasp just how big it is. If you go to the next slide, Lauren, we can see that more than half of brands are already selling on Amazon, and nearly three-quarters will be selling on Amazon within the next five years. It’s becoming an increasingly valuable marketplace for a lot of large brands. For going direct to Amazon themselves to try and capture some of this market share and this captive audience, that sometimes pays for the privilege to shop on Amazon.
This isn’t taking into account the people who are coming on there, searching on Amazon. Its role goes beyond just as an E-commerce marketplace. If you go to the next slide here, we can see that Amazon is a search engine in addition to being a marketplace. It’s a place where nearly half of shoppers start their search.
US internet users start their product searches on Amazon, versus only about a third of them now start on Google. People are looking to buy things. They’re there with the intent to shop. But they’re also looking to do research, and figure out exactly what it is they need to buy. It’s an enormous audience. On Amazon, they have millions upon millions of visitors on any given day. Hundreds of millions. People are paying for the privilege to be able to shop on Amazon.
As I discussed earlier, people buy Prime memberships. I think, I don’t have the exact number in front of me. But I believe most US households now have an Amazon Prime subscription. Got to get that two day shipping. I know I don’t like waiting for my things to get to me. People are so invested in this marketplace, in this search engine, that they’re paying to be able to access it and get those extra privileges.
People are also using it to encounter new brands and new products. It’s not just for established brands. Even if you have a smaller business, you can use it as a way to grab that market share and to get that audience.
Last but not least, it’s a place that allows you to validate your products and your offerings through social proof. A lot of us are familiar with the ratings and review systems on Amazon. Some of you might have left your own. But I know almost everyone listening on this webinar today has definitely read a review before making a purchase.
In fact, 79 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as they do personal recommendations. Depending on how trustworthy your friends are, it might actually be a more valuable recommendation. 85 percent of consumers say they read online reviews for local businesses when they shop. Similarly on Amazon, your product is your business. Having that social proof can really help you build a following, reach out to this audience, and then eventually turn this audience into a customer of yours.
Selling on Amazon has changed a lot over the years. What remains steady is that it’s easy to get started. It’s easy to get your storefront set up. But there have been maybe some misnomers in the past that it doesn’t give you as much control over your branding. You have to kind of adhere to these strict standards that Amazon has for what a product listing page looks like. What kind of information you’re allowed to have. What kind of information you’re not allowed to have.
But a lot of that is starting to evolve. You can actually use Amazon as a way to tell your brand story. I’d love to walk you through an example today and show you one brand that’s kind of taking advantage of all the tools that Amazon offers, to tell its brand story across multiple platforms.
Hope and Henry is a company that sells children’s clothing primarily. They also are very invested in donating part of their proceeds and sales. What I’m going to show you is an example of, first what their Amazon storefront looks like. You can see how that lines up with their own .com, and how the two can mesh together.
What we’re looking at here is Hope and Henry’s own .com. This is their website. It has their branding. It has their story. It has these cute little kids in the video, showing off the clothes. Then if you take a look at what their Amazon storefront looks like, you can see that they’re able to carry a lot of these stories into Amazon as well. They’re able to tell their mission, their story, get a lot of the same visual elements from their own .com in to an Amazon storefront as well.
Amazon’s putting a lot of tools out there to help sellers, to help businesses, retain that brand integrity. Retain their brand vision, even in their Amazon storefront. It’s not just on this page. If you click into a product listing page and you start to scroll towards the bottom, you can see that the top part of it looks like an average Amazon listing. But if you scroll down, you have the opportunity to start telling more of that story.
If we go a little bit further down, we can see that there’s an option here for telling your brand story. Your brand content. Really getting your mission and your message across to your Amazon shoppers, the same way you would to people shopping your website.
What are the pros and cons of being a seller or a business on Amazon? On the pro side, you have a captive audience with the intent to buy. Like I said, it’s really easy to get set up and get started. People are constantly on Amazon, looking for things to buy. You could be one of those people offering them those things. Or if you’re like me, getting daily packages that your landlord has to bring inside for you. It’s kind of win-win for everyone.
There’s already a logistical structure in place, so you can get your goods to the consumer. You don’t have to worry about being responsible for shipping. You just get your goods to Amazon, and Amazon can send it out. It’s going to be impossible for you to come up with that kind of infrastructure that Amazon already has. Particularly with things like Prime Now, Prime, and getting people products as soon as possible. Sometimes within a matter of hours.
If you did want to expand internationally, Amazon has offerings all over the world. You can leverage that global system for your own business, and expand that way. We already talked about Prime subscribers, where they’re paying for the ability to shop on Amazon. To get those extra privileges. There your captive audience I think spend about twice as much annually as their non-Prime counterparts. I would say more and more people are starting to opt in, get that annual membership for those extra shipping options.
You also have the ability to cross-sell. You could see what products are similar to yours, what products are your competitors, and put yourself in front of those audiences as well. You could find complimentary products that you want to target, competitors you want to take down. You have all of those abilities on Amazon that you wouldn’t necessarily have on your own .com and own website.
It gives you increased visibility. There already is a lot of traffic on Amazon. You don’t have to worry about creating bodies. You don’t have to worry about creating eyeballs. It already exists. All you need to do is set up and take advantage of that.
Which doesn’t mean that it isn’t without its flaws. There are some cons to selling on Amazon. You have, Amazon used to enforce this policy of pricing parity. Which basically meant you couldn’t sell your product for a higher price than it was listed for on Amazon. But they’ve done away with that regulation now. It actually happened in the last couple of weeks.
There used to be limited control of your brand messaging. Everyone had to have that blank white product listing page with the white background. All the images looked kind of the same. But Amazon’s giving brands more and more tools everyday to tell their story, like Hope and Henry did, and carry that brand messaging across platforms. You can use videos. You can use cool images. You could tell your whole story. It doesn’t just have to be a standard product listing page anymore.
What cons still exist are limited information on your audience and consumers. You don’t really own your buyer. You don’t own your shopper. But you do get a huge volume of them that you might not be able to drive yourself, to your own website.
There’s also some volatility. Sometimes rules can change with limited notice. Recently some sellers who were vendors became ineligible for that. But volatility is kind of just the game of E-commerce. It’s not necessarily a con that’s strictly for Amazon. But you do also have to pay Amazon a commission and a fee, so that does eat into margins a little bit. But what you gain for that is that logistical structure, and having some of those systems already in place rather than having to invest your time and money there.
How do you take advantage of Amazon? It’s easy to set up. You’ve gotten set up. How do you take these people that are visiting Amazon everyday, and turn them into your shoppers and your buyers? That’s really when you need to harness the power of advertising on Amazon. Amazon offers you a few different options when it comes to advertising. I just have a brief overview here, but there are a whole host of other tools you can have access to.
The two main ways that sellers advertise on Amazon are sponsored products and sponsored brands. Sponsored products are those pay per click ads that show up looking like they’re part of the search results. In this case it would be those gloves that are highlighted. Then sponsored brands have top of page placement, almost like a banner. That’s one way to highlight your brand, as well as highlight a line of products, and more than one product in one ad.
It also gives you a little bit more creative ability, because you can edit the copy and you can edit the images. Versus, sponsored products are purely pay per click.
Then once you click into a particular product page, you have the ability to advertise on that listing page as well. In the next slide we can see how on a product listing page you can advertise, and buy some of that real estate. Because everything’s of course up for grabs. Going back to the earlier point, you could cross-sell your products here, and you could be showing up for competitors. You could be showing up for other related products, and kind of harness not just the audience on Amazon, but that huge marketplace of other people selling their goods on Amazon.
Perfect. With that we can dive a little bit more into advertising and the different aspects of it. Advertising, as with any other avenue, it’s the same here. It’s kind of a place where you can pay to play. Advertising on Amazon tends to be more search and behavior based rather than demographic. You target search terms. You target people looking for a particular type of product, who might be interested in another type of product. That’s kind of how you advertise and get your products front and center, rather than going after a type of consumer.
Like I mentioned, there are a few different options. Sponsored products, that’s the most prevalent. It’s really easy to get started. Setting up your first campaign will probably take you 30 seconds. That’s a pay per click type of advertising. You also have sponsored brands, which is kind of across the top. It’s more geared towards recognition and visibility. It’s kind of more top of funnel. If you’re thinking about a marketing funnel, sponsored brands would be at the top, and sponsored products would be a little bit towards the bottom.
You also have the option to target competitors. Accrue market share through more specific types of attribute target.
For some of you who are not as familiar with pay per click advertising on Amazon, but a lot of you probably have used Google Ad Words. You’re trying to get your websites out there, getting your brands out there. The average CPC on Google is a little bit higher still than it is on Amazon. Amazon’s slightly more in the early stages as far as PPC products go. Google’s tends to be between $1 and $2. Amazon’s average CPC is usually below $1, closer to 80 cents.
It’s becoming a competitive area for sure. But it’s also an effective area. More than half of brands selling on Amazon say they pay for Amazon advertising, so they’ve invested in sponsored products or sponsored brands. Then of those people who are running advertising, 97 percent, which is a huge number, 97 percent say they see value in their advertising efforts. Investing in advertising is giving them the ROI that they’re looking for. Whether it’s in the way of new audience capture, more traffic, or in the way of more sales. 97 percent of people using these tools that Amazon offers do see results from it.
It’s easy to leverage, easy to get set up. It does require some management and maintenance. We’ll go more into that on the next slide. But you do, and most people do see that they get what they pay for.
Like I said, getting your first campaign set up on Amazon’s easy-peasy. Takes about 30 seconds. But that’s never the end of it, right? You still have to maintain that. How do you scale your business? How do you scale your advertising on Amazon? You’ve gotten started. It’s doing well for you. You’re starting to see that increased traction. You’re adding more and more products everyday. How do you scale your business?
First you need to figure out a process. This process needs to be scalable. I see it a dozen times a day. I hear it from our customers all the time. “I started making a campaign per product”. Or, “Every time I would add, I would start new advertising”. But it’s just not a scalable way. You have 10 products today, maybe you could manage it. But if you have 100 products tomorrow, that system’s just not going to work.
There’s a lot of behind the scenes activity that goes into seeing success with those ads. If you want to be among those 97 percent of people, you have to have the right campaign structure. You have to be adjusting your bids. For those of you unfamiliar, you offer up a bid, almost like an auction, for particular searches. You have to go against other people offering up their bids, and Amazon picks the winner based on a whole bunch of criteria. But having the right bid amount is incredibly important, so you can see the success, and then also get the sales that you’re looking for.
It also requires keyword actions. That’s basically finding the right searches, targeting them, and making sure you’re eking as much out from each sale as possible. If a lot of this sounds unfamiliar, you can let me know. This goes to show that there’s a lot of specialization, a lot of information, and kind of self education that’s required to be successful on Amazon, and to be successful as an Amazon advertiser.
That’s when partnerships come in. There are a lot of experts in the field, so leverage their expertise. There’s this huge cottage industry around Amazon and Amazon advertising. There are people who have been doing it for years, who have been talking to hundreds of sellers, hundreds of customers. They know what it takes to get the best results on Amazon. Leverage those partnerships. Reach out to those experts.
Then automate when possible. We work in that space. We offer a solution for people looking to automate their Amazon campaigns. In some ways it’s almost impossible to compete in Amazon as a marketplace without automation. You don’t have the time to change bids all the time. You’re not going to get the math right on those bids. That’s why we have computers, and that’s why we have data scientists who could do that for you. That’s going to give you better results as well.
This is really a matter of figuring out where your strengths lie, and kind of outsourcing the remaining aspects of your business. Particularly with advertising on Amazon. Which is probably what you’re already doing beyond Amazon, and for your own website. You’re always seeking out those experts, seeking out the best software out there. That’s what you would need to do here as well, to see the results that you are looking for.
Then speaking of going beyond Amazon, I’ll hand it over to the expert in that realm. Josh from Privy. He’s going to show us more about building your brand beyond Amazon.
Great. Thanks, Gauri. Really interesting stuff. Amazon’s awesome. I always think about, as a shopper, Amazon makes things more convenient, more price effective, and the discoverability is truly amazing as a shopper. But as a marketer I often think about, is that the best way to build a brand? I’m going to talk a little bit about some of the ways that you can do things on your website to increase engagement, and build your brand in a way that, that are sort of in some of those cons lists that Gauri talked about earlier.
I’ll start with a quote. This is from Toby, who is one of the founders of Shopify. Obviously huge E-commerce platform. He makes a really great point here, right? “Email lists and websites are literally the only two things you can own on the internet. Everything else is rented”. I think really when you’re thinking about, how do you invest your time as a merchant, when you’re thinking about Amazon versus your own website, or even through something like the new Instagram Checkout capabilities, it’s really a question of, are you renting your audience or are you buying?
The good news is, there’s value in both and you don’t totally have to choose. With Amazon, you’re probably going to get better short term results. But if you’re going to build a sustainable brand, you really need to be investing in your own website as much as in your Amazon presence.
Before I go down the road of all the great things you could do with your website, just because you own it, that doesn’t make it easy either. Most online stores are converting less than three percent of traffic into subscribers or customers. 72 percent of merchants consider reducing the number of abandoned carts to be one of their top challenges, losing over 40 percent of carts each month.
There’s a lot of work here to be done, as we talk about the shopper’s journey. When I say the shopper’s journey or the shopper funnel, what I’m really talking about is a sort of standard set of steps that any shopper goes through before they make a purchase. They have to become a visitor. This holds true whether it’s on Amazon, or on your own website. That’s being driven by whether it’s Google search, whether that’s product listing ads, whether that’s Instagram ads. Whatever it is, SEO investments, how are you getting people to your site?
But once they’re there, how are you introducing them to your products? Letting them shop around. At some point they’re going to hopefully add something to their cart. They’re going to reach the checkout stage, and they’re going to buy. Amazon really kills it at this visitor to shop area, but the rest, there’s a lot of things you can do to influence the shopper as they go through. Through all these different points at which someone might fall out of the funnel.
They get to your site. They decide it’s not for them. They shop. They’re a ghost, right? They start shopping around, but they don’t add anything to cart. They’re out of here. Right? They add something to cart, but they don’t make it to checkout. Another opportunity to drop off. Then between checkout and buy there’s an opportunity to drop off.
On Amazon, you have no ability to save or reengage shoppers who fall out of the buying process. Now, Amazon will do things on your behalf. But you as a merchant don’t have a ton of power here. In fact most people, whether they’re on Amazon or on your website, are sort of in this abandonment danger zone. Before they become a known customer to you, or a known shopper.
On your website, that’s in a lot of cases, if you’re using sort of a standard abandoned checkout email, as your only way to save people is to send this email that goes only to people that have gotten all the way to checkout. They’ve entered their email in the checkout flow, and then they receive an abandoned cart email from you. That’s what a lot of merchants are doing as their way to really engage people on the site and drive them back.
But there’s actually a lot more you can be doing to drive conversion and reduce abandonment, by capturing emails throughout the buyer’s journey. When someone first comes to your site, you can give them a reason to sign up for your email list. As they’re shopping, if they go to abandon, you could give them a message that stops abandonment before it happens. Whether that’s with an email capture, or just a special offer.
Then if they have entered their email at any poin in the process, you can actually reach them with an abandonment email based on what’s in their cart, to get them to come back to your site.
I’m going to walk through some more specific examples of how you can do this. But by engaging shoppers throughout this funnel, you can increase the pool of people who might eventually be a customer, or a repeat customer.
It really starts with using what you know about your customers to serve up relevant messaging and offers. To start with, that means offering a warm welcome to new visitors. Think about that first experience when you reach someone’s website, or when someone reaches your website. What is that sort of branded motion driving experience that someone’s having?
This is an example I really like, for a customer of ours called Fire Cider Apple Cider Vinegar. That have this really nice branded pop-up that shows, “Be in the know”. Gives you a reason to sign up for their email list. They do a really nice job. It’s on brand. It’s beautifully designed. It really fits with their website.
Then once you sign up, they have this very warm welcome email. “Welcome to the family. You’re on the list”, and it gives you some more information about why they do what they do, and the types of products that they sell.
The next example goes even further. It’s an example that I really love. This is a former, this is a customer of ours who was on Shark Tank. They really take this notion of a warm welcome to a whole other level. This is a company called Firehouse Chef. This is a dad who started a business selling this leak free cutting board. Cool product, but not particularly unique. I mean, maybe it’s unique. I don’t own a lot of cutting boards. I only own one.
But sadly, he passed away from health issues caused by 9/11 cleanup, in his role in the fire department in New York. That happened, he died before they went on Shark Tank. Which is a show that, as someone who loves small businesses, I watch religiously, and was really moved by. As I said, it’s a cool product, but that’s not really why I fell in love with it. I sort of went through this process that I always do when I watch that show. Which is, I go to their website as the episode airs. I join their email list. I’ll often check to see if they’re using Privy, because I have an illness.
But then I sort of expected some sort of Shark Tank discount, or something else. But what I got was far better. I got this personal warm and emotional response email, auto-responder, that was actually not about their products. It was looking to raise money for a charitable organization that they believed in. What I ended up doing is donating to this thing, and also putting my name on a list for when the product becomes available, because they were sold out. But it was really an opportunity to build a relationship with this family and this brand, that could only be achieved through their website.
The next thing you can do, using the information you know about a customer, is to greet your returning visitors. You know people are leaving a digital footprint, right? We know when people are coming to your site for the first time or the second time, or the 10th time. You can really recognize repeat visitors to your site, and treat them a little bit differently.
If they’re not already on your email list, a simple welcome back message with an opt in feels a lot better than sort of that thing they already saw and dismissed, right? “I know that you’ve been here before. I’d still love you to join my list. Here’s what you’re going to get out of it”. If they have already joined your email list, they’ve already taken that option, you’re going to want to push them in a different direction.
The example on the right is a customer we love. It’s the Bruce Lee merchandise store. They do all kinds of cool things here. This one is, there’s a special offer just for repeat visitors. Instead of asking for a form, there’s just a button that says, “Show me the sale”. Again, very on brand experience, that engages the user as soon as they hit the site.
This is a third example that I really like. This is from a company called Slide Belts. They have this message that’s just for repeat visitors who have left an item in their cart. They’re welcoming back the shopper, and they’re making it easy for them to get back to where they were and complete the purchase.
As people are moving through their shoppers journey, bouncing around your site, there are a bunch of other ways that you can influence what they’re doing. By recommending products, offering highly targeted discounts, and using things like custom timers to drive urgency. Or you can even do these upsell campaigns.
The example in the middle is, based on the items that is in someone’s cart, they’re showing this display suggesting an additional product with an add to cart. A single click add to cart button. In other cases it’s for repeat visitors who, there’s sort of this gamified spin to win wheel hat is encouraging people to try to win a discount.
Then the other example here is from Leesa Mattress, who’s another customer, who’s really driving urgency for their different sales using this custom timer that gives people a reason to make a purchase today instead of just waiting.
The next opportunity to really drive people through that shopper funnel is to stop abandonment before it happens. What I mean by that is using what we call exit intent pop-ups, that detect when a user is going to X out of a browser or hit a back button. You can pop up a specific message that encourages them to either stay on site, or join the list so you can continue to market to them.
Again, a Bruce Lee example here. Just really like their design. Another example is from the Tennessee Titans merch store. This one is shown to anyone who abandons with an item in their cart. Then the one on the left, it’s a little small here, is actually only shown to high value customers, who are given something special if they have over a certain amount in their cart at the time that they go to abandon.
If people do happen to abandon despite your attempts to keep them on your website, you can also use these highly branded cart abandonment emails to drive them back. You can basically say, “Based on the value of what’s in their cart, and the time since they abandoned, I’m going to send them an email to encourage them to come back”. That may or may not have a special discount involved. Or a time based discount.
It could just be a reminder that they’ve abandoned. Maybe they got distracted by life or whatever else. But you send them this email, and it drives people back to the site. We see people recovering carts, anywhere between five and 18 percent of the abandoned cart emails that they’ve sent. If you do it the right way, using a system like ours, but not only ours, you can actually send this to a broader range of people. Not just those who have already reached the checkout stage, but actually anyone who leaves your site who’s filled out a form at any time, who leaves with something in their cart.
Then finally, one of the ways to turn these one time shoppers into loyal customers is the same thing your mom taught you when you were a little kid, which is to say thank-you. To do the sort of post purchase highly branded thank-you. On the left you’re seeing one from a company called Kinky Curlyaki. This shows after someone has completed a purchase. This is a pop-up that shows up on the site, with a very warm and friendly image and a huge thank-you. Kind of showing that they don’t take their customers for granted.
The other is this push purchase email from Relay Foods. They’re taking the opportunity to say thank-you, as well as reinforcing their customer satisfaction guarantee, talking about their mission, some next steps. A really nice branded and warm experience for a first time shopper.
You might be sitting there thinking, “I can … Amazon will send abandoned cart emails on my behalf”, or a followup email on their behalf. These are just two that I happened to get this week. I found it really interesting as a comparison point. The one on the left is a pair of headphones that I was looking at. I don’t even know who sells it, right? I know what the brand is, because I searched for Beats headphones. But I’m not even sure who the seller is.
On the right is sort of a post purchase followup, asking me to review, to write an Amazon review. But it’s still coming from Amazon. It doesn’t feel like I have any relationship with this brand. I think that’s the opportunity that you have on your website, that you just don’t have as an Amazon merchant.
A few key takeaways. Amazon provides an incredible opportunity to drive short term business for your brand. Investing in your brand site is essential, however, to building these sort of long term relationships. I think you want to take every opportunity to engage shoppers before, during, and after a purchase.
I think there’s also a really important message here that we haven’t totally touched on. Which is that regardless of whether you’re engaging a shopper on your Amazon store or on your website, it’s really important to keep your brand tone, your brand style, your product descriptions, and your images consistent across your website and your Amazon presence. You don’t want people going from one to the other, whether it’s price shopping or whether it’s, they’re trying to figure something out or they’re getting confused because things don’t line up.
That sort of consistency, if you think about your brand, it actually applies to every touch point that you have with a customer. Whether that’s an email, whether that’s your own website, or your Amazon presence. Consistency is super important.
Great. Thank-you both. We just had a few questions come in during the presentation. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to ask a couple.
Sure.
Yeah, go ahead.
The first question I have here, Gauri, this is probably best for you. “How do you decide which Amazon advertising tool to use first?”.
That’s a really good question. I’d recommend for anyone just getting stared on Amazon or with Amazon advertising, that you start first with sponsored products. It’s the easiest and quickest to get off the ground. The simplest to set up. It doesn’t require any investment in copy or images. It’s really just selecting what you want to advertise, and getting your first campaign off the ground.
Great, thank-you. I have another, I have a followup to that one. “How do you know if your ads are working?”.
That’s a slightly more complex question. Kind of depending on what you’re trying to accomplish is how you would measure your success. It’s going to be different KPIs, different performance indicators based on what stage you’re in. If you’re launching a new product, you might get success out of driving more traffic, or getting more impressions. More visibility.
If you’re in the growth stage of your product, you can measure success by what kind of sales volume you’ve achieved, or what kind of conversion rate you achieved. Then if you have a product that’s kind of in the maturation stage, you’re focused on profitability, then you might measure success through your ROI and how efficient your advertising campaign is.
Keeping your objective in mind is critical to figuring out whether or not your advertising is successful. You need to be aware of what metrics reflect that success at each stage.
Great. Thank-you. Now I have one for Josh. Someone’s asking, “I’m worried about annoying my shoppers. Will pop-ups drive them away?”.
It’s a great question. It’s something we certainly hear a lot. I think a lot of it comes down to creating a relevant message, and doing it in a way that’s honestly not super annoying. You have the ability to speak directly to shoppers, depending where they’re coming from, and what page they’re on. You can do it in a way that feels a lot more appropriate for that time.
You can also control how often something might be shown. I don’t think you want to set yourself up where you’re running 27 different campaigns on different pages, and it’s just like you’re being attacked when you’re just trying to shop. That will absolutely turn people away. But if you’re greeting people with a warm message and offering more information, or a special discount based on what actions they’re taking on your site, we find that that actually helps the shopper accomplish their task instead of distracting them.
Great. Then I have one more for you, Josh. Before we sign off. This one is around the Instagram Checkout concept that you briefly mentioned. This person wants to know, “Will it impact stores and Amazon channels?”.
You know, I think there’s definitely a movement to make it easier for people to shop no matter where they’re engaging. As we all know, Amazon kills it with convenience and with search and all of that. You’re getting customers who, they go searching for something, not necessarily you. I think Instagram has a certain similarity, in the fact that you’re already spending time on Instagram. It’s a different kind of advertising, where it’s more interruptive.
But I think still there, you’re beholden to the Instagram platform. What they decide to change or invest is still in their control, not yours. I think it can help from a revenue generating standpoint. But I think it still comes back to that rent versus buy conversation. Where ultimately, for long term success, you’re going to want to have customers that you can market to, that you can engage with. Through email specifically, in a way that you’re probably not going to get through Instagram Checkout.
Yeah, great. Thank-you both, Gauri and Josh, and thank-you everybody for tuning in today. But we are out of time. If you tuned in late, or if there was anything that you missed, or if you just simply want to re-watch the whole thing, we will followup with the recording with you via email. Be on the lookout in your inbox for that. Yeah, and we hope to see you next time.
Thank-you.
Thanks everyone.
