Matt Edmundson: Well, hello and welcome to the eCommerce podcast
with me, your host, Matt Edmundson.
The eCommerce podcast is all about helping you deliver eCommerce wow.
And to help us do just that, I am chatting with today's guest, Ryan Flannagan from
Nuanced Media about grow your business with growth driven advertising on Amazon.
Yes, That is actually as sexy as it sounds.
So we are gonna get into that.
But before I jump into that, uh, with Ryan, uh, let me suggest
a few other e-commerce podcast episodes that I think you'll enjoy
listening to around this whole topic.
Uh, there's five steps for..
I need to start that sentence again.
Five Steps for successful Amazon branding with Drew Morgans, who's a top bloke,
and also understanding growth hacking for your business with Chris Raven.
You can find these and our entire archive of episodes on our website,
for free @ecommercepodcast.net.
Now this episode is brought to you by the eCommerce cohort, uh, which is
basically there to help you deliver eCommerce wow to your customers.
Ryan, I'm sure you've met over the years, uh, folks who have got stuck
with their eCommerce website or they've got siloed just working into
one or two areas of their business.
And miss the big picture.
Well, I was the same, exactly the same.
Uh, I nearly lost my entire business as a result of it.
So the eCommerce cohort is here to solve that particular problem.
Yes, it is.
It is like, it's a lightweight, uh, membership group.
Kind of works similar to a mastermind, uh, but it's kinda like you get involved,
you do stuff, you work together and it covers all the areas of eCommerce
to stop you getting siloed, stop you losing sight of the big picture.
It's just a great thing to get involved with if you are involved with eCommerce.
If you've got any questions or you wanna know more, checkout ecommercecohort.com or
you can email me matt@ecommercepodcast.net with any questions cuz I think
it's definitely worth checking out if you are in eCommerce.
So all of that said, let's get in today's topic with Ryan, who
is the CEO of Nuanced Media.
He has spent more than 15 years in eCommerce, uh, multichannel
digital marketing, and third part, third party marketing places.
He's worked with hundreds of companies to establish best practices, focusing
on the 20% that produces 80% of the revenue, the pay Pareto principle.
Now, Ryan is passionate, uh, a passionate thought leader in eCommerce.
He has been interviewed and quoted by the who's who, Buzzfeed,
Modern Retail and many others.
So to crown off his whole life's work and achievements, he thought
the one thing I need to do now is appear on the eCommerce podcast.
Uh, Ryan, thank you so much for joining us.
Great that you are here bud.
Ryan Flannagan: Thanks Matt.
My bucket list is now complete or will be in about an hour.
Matt Edmundson: That's exactly it.
Right?
That's exactly it.
Which is just fantastic.
Oh, it's great that you are here.
Now at Nuanced Media, right?
We talked about that in the bio.
Uh, what, Tell me about Nuanced Media.
What is it?
Ryan Flannagan: Sure.
Nuanced media's a boutique agency.
We've sold hundreds of millions online for our clients.
We've been around about 12 years.
But really what we do that I think is a little bit different than the
rest, is we basically won't work with you unless we can win for you.
We do analysis of anybody we bring in.
We don't just bring in anybody on that.
Mm-hmm.
. And it's really about more value driven based and helping people be
successful on the Amazon platform.
Um, and then we also help people with kind of multichannel on the
Shopify side of those things.
But along with that, um, if we aren't the good fit for you and we're not the
best fit for everybody, uh, we actually have a referral partner group that we
can refer out and find you the right fit for where you are in your business
right now to, to help you be successful.
Um, big fan of win-wins, this life is too short not to help people win.
Yeah.
Um, and that's really what we focus on at Nuanced Media.
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic.
And so I like that.
Uh, we won't work with you if we can't win with you.
I think it's a great phrase.
Um, it's, And have you found that you, the more successful you've got, nuanced
media's got, and you've grown, you can start to be a lot more Choosy is the
wrong phrase, but Do you know what I mean?
You can, you can start to say to clients, Actually, we're
gonna be a good fit for you.
We're not gonna be a good fit for you cuz you've not got that where's
payroll coming from this month?
Fear hanging over your head.
Ryan Flannagan: There's that point.
But there's also in my gauge, um, sometimes a lack of
expectation setting for people.
You know, everybody, you see the YouTube ads all the time.
You see the Facebook ads, Somebody in a highrise talking about how
they made $5 million in two weeks doing this type of thing, $5.
Um, and that's just not the reality.
Right.
And you need to have real conversations with people before you engage in maybe
a 50, $200,000 engagement to say, if you're going to launch this project
or you're going to do this thing, this is what it's really gonna cost.
This is the ad spend.
It's a six month timeline to get there.
You need to get reviews, you need to do these things.
And we find that we have a lot more long-term relationships, and that's
what we're really in for is long-term.
Mm-hmm.
good relationships with people, um, by setting those expectations and being
upfront about 'em from the get-go.
Yeah.
And if you don't do that, you're just not doing people justice.
Right?
Yeah.
Um, and that's hard to sleep at night.
So that's why we try to avoid doing that.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I like that.
And there's an integrity about it, isn't there?
And um, and actually, ultimately, I think it makes your business more successful
because you're, you know, you are, you are, you're picking clients and projects
that actually that you can win for them.
And conversely, they're gonna win for you.
And so, You know that, I remember when we were starting out years
ago, and maybe you've done this, maybe you haven't, Right?
Especially with agency, where you just say yes to everything and everybody,
cuz you just need to get started.
Uh, and you say yes to people that you know full well, that you shouldn't because
you know they're gonna be a royal pain in the backside, but you kind of, you still
do it because you need to make payroll.
I, I can only think of one client that we said no to in the early days and that's
cuz he wanted us to do a porn website.
And I was like, Dude, I've got, I've got a set of standards that I'm not prepared.
Do you know what I mean?
Uh, but, but other than that, and we found actually the, as soon as we started,
uh, weeding out clients and saying no to clients, life became a lot easier because
you could spot the ones that wanted.
You know, the project for the least amount of money, but they were gonna
give you the most amount of hassle.
Right?
Ryan Flannagan: Right.
Yep.
And that, or gain into things that you actually don't do.
Mm-hmm.
and trying to do that for a client.
Right.
And then no one's happy at the end of the day.
So it's two parts.
It's a) making sure that you can be successful for a client by right
Projections by right models, and having the conversation like, Hey, it's a $50,000
gamble and it's a 50-50 shot here, right?
Mm-hmm.
, like, what does that look like?
Um, and we don't really know the data until we get into it either.
Um, as well as this is what we do very well, and if you need social media
advertising or something like that, we don't actually do that, but we do
have partners that we work with that can help you, and then we can help
manage that relationship as well.
Mm-hmm., And that's, that's pretty valuable too because unfortunately, and
Nuanced Media is a full service agency..
Um, but with that, we're full service on the Amazon and kind of Shopify
platforms, but we don't play in those other areas as much as we used to.
Yeah.
Um, because we weren't honestly doing it as well as we wanted to.
Yeah.
Um, so by managing that relationship, by speaking upfront about what you do
and what you don't do, and then having the network where you can help people,
even if you're not going to be a good fit for them, uh, I find that everybody
comes out significantly happier.
Um, and you can see our reviews on Clutch and all these type of things, and
it's worked very well for us by kind of taking more of that, uh, ethical stance.
And just at the end of the day, how do you live a good life?
How do you win?
How do you do that with everybody?
Right?
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
Yeah.
No, it's, it's brilliant.
Absolutely.
And so over the years, I'm guessing as Nuanced Media's been going on,
you've kind of, you've discovered your niche, your talents, you know
what you're going to be good at, you know what you need to stop doing.
Um, I always had a business coach who, um, who asked me the, you know, those
questions, What are you gonna do more of, get rid of, and what you gonna do less of?
And it's, as you grow mature, you figure that out.
So one of the things that you guys have settled into is this whole area
on Amazon and what you call growth driven, uh, advertising for Amazon.
What do you mean by that phrase?
And what, and then let's get into what, what you've sort of discovered there.
Ryan Flannagan: Yeah.
So what we're seeing, I'm going to take a step back and talk about what
we're seeing on Amazon in general, compared to, you know, during Covid or
before that or any of the time period.
When you look at the journey of Amazon, Amazon's been really growing at
exponential rate for a very long time.
Yeah, right.
Uh, five years ago you could throw up a picture and put up some words, uh, words.
You could put up some, uh, information and really start selling right
off the bat and make millions of dollars and grow quickly from that.
But that's not the same anymore On Amazon, we're seeing, uh, again, more and more
competitive on a weekly basis on this.
You're seeing, uh, more aggressive ad spend.
You're seeing basically a maturation of the market.
Um, if you look at the bell curve, I think we're, you know, still
going on the upside, but we're kind of at this level that things are
just getting more competitive and how do you start managing that.
Yeah.
Um, and essentially the old method of just managing pay per click and not
looking at data or segments or any of these type of things is just not
doing it, uh, for clients in general.
The other thing that we see on Amazon is, and we work with a number of different
catalogs and clients that way, but we typically see the Pareto principle, as you
were talking about earlier, but on Amazon, we call it kind of, um, on steroids.
So the Pareto principle 20% makes 80% of your revenue on Amazon.
Sometimes we see like 2% of your catalog is making 98% of your revenue.
Oh, wow.
It's, it's just really insane.
You'll see a SKU or Asin making, you know, um, a hundred thousand dollars
a month or, or more than that, uh, compared to the rest of the catalog.
That's why I'm making 50,000.
Right.
So what we need to do in that level is take our efforts and
make sure that we do not lose that competitive advantage on the, the
ASINs that we're really winning on.
Mm-hmm um, and when you look at that, uh, it comes down to a few different
things, but the first thing is, uh, setting up a segment analysis on this.
So one thing that's been hard to gauge on Amazon, and we
found this extremely valuable.
How is the market performing compared to how it used to perform?
So when looking at your listing, we actually do analysis and take
a, the top roughly hundred ASINs that are similar to your product.
Mm-hmm.
, we're not talking about the beauty catalog.
If we're looking at lip liner or something like that.
We're talking about very tight competitive margins on who are these
people who are lip liners that have sold over $500 a month, that have over 300
reviews that are kind of in this space.
Right.
Um, and then you look at on a monthly basis of how you grew
compared to your competitors.
Mm-hmm.
. Now the important thing of looking at that is if your market's up
a hundred percent, you could be celebrating, you know, looking at,
hey, we're up a hundred percent month over month, but then you look at the
segment and the segment's up 300%.
Mm-hmm.
, well then you're actually losing market share overall.
Hmm.
Um, and on the vice versa, like if you're down 15%, and we've had this right when
some clients were like, Hey, we're down.
What's going on?
You guys aren't doing your job?
Or, or what's happening?
And then we actually look at that and the market's actually down 30%.
Mm-hmm.
, right?
So you have to really establish that, what I like to call kind of a control
group, to find out where you're doing, how you're doing on the marketplace,
and be able to have that real conversation of what's going on and how
do we position ourselves about that.
Now, once you have that established, it really comes into what we like
to call more data driven, uh, advertising, and really holistically
looking at your listings.
So this is a age old concept that we've been talking about.
Google pay per click and these type of things.
If you're running Google Shopping ads and somebody clicks on there
and they come to the website and it takes five seconds to load, you're
not gonna make as many sales, right?
Mm-hmm.
, and you kind of see that, and people take that for granted a little bit on the
Amazon platform because it is all kind of templated and systematic at those levels.
Mm-hmm.
true.
But what we've seen is kind of twofold is one, split testing, basically your
title of your listing, your main image, your a plus content, and you actually
have the capabilities go in there and split test those things on Amazon to
really increase your overall results.
The other side of this is when you're running your pay per click
campaigns and doing those things, you'll find words, you know, phrases
that convert better than others.
Mm-hmm.
. And what we do on that is we find those keywords that are really
converting and then integrate them back into the text of the listing.
Okay.
Because then you can organically rank higher for those and they have a higher
conversion rate, which will drive more sales, which will take the flywheel off
and really start growing on those things.
So we've gotten some pretty interesting results and I can
walk you through some of those.
But that's really kind of the concept of growth driven advertising is don't
treat your full catalog the exact same because it's not the full saying.
You know, look at your hero listings, the one that you're making really, really
strong, uh, return on investment on, and then have a real conversation of how do
we do this better than everybody else?
And a lot the time needed to do that because they are your hero
ones and we're seeing conquesting coming in all the time and you really
don't wanna lose your position.
But also we see by coming in and doing this really right for listings that
already have a good sales velocity we can sometimes do and 3x those.
Yeah.
Uh, by doing that, depending on the opportunity.
Matt Edmundson: So, uh, there's just a lot of common sense there, isn't there?
And it's just that kind of, uh, that kind of idea, which I, I think so
often we just don't think about.
And that's actually, we've got a product here doing well,
how can we make it do better?
And, and so you're starting off with this Pareto principle, and actually this
applies not just on Amazon, but I would say in the e-commerce space, you can look
at your website catalog or your, um, uh, SKUs or ASINs as Amazon like to call them.
You know what?
Basically keep product listing.
Um, and you can see what's performing well and you're like, How do we improve this?
What, what you said, Ryan, that I liked, there's two things that I
wanna dig into a little bit, if I may.
Um, one was the segment analysis and actually just checking your, um, checking
your growth against what's going on in your segment, how do you find that data?
So if I sell to use your example, lip gloss, how do I find the, um, the other
people in that segment who are also selling lip gloss that are doing over
500 a month and have more than 300 reviews or whatever the criteria is.
Um, how is, is that something that Amazon quickly and easily gives you?
Is there some software that I need to do that?
Is there some voodoo magic that I need to partake in?
What, how does it work?
Ryan Flannagan: Right.
So what we do on this is we use a number of third party
softwares to do these analysis.
Some of these costs, um, over 6 figures a year to be able to get the data, do the,
do the analysis, and do those things.
Um, unfortunately, Amazon, uh, while it is opening up more and more
data on a quarterly basis of this level, historically, has been pretty
close to the chest on these things.
Right?
So what we use is a number of different software suites to basically pull
this in in our software stack so we can test, review, launch, uh,
build out all these type of things.
Mm-hmm.
, uh, including keyword tracking it and a variety of things like that.
So that's part of the secret sauce is the upfront investment of being
able to get to the, the software so you can do the analysis to run those.
Now on the other side, if you're looking at some of the a plus, uh, split testing,
uh, or just split testing in general on Amazon, if you're a brand registered,
um, on the platform, and uh, you can typically go into Amazon experiments there
and you can run some of these experiments yourself on the back end as well.
Mm-hmm.
and those have been really helpful.
That's something that Amazon launched three to six months ago,
and that's kind of relatively new.
Matt Edmundson: So that's called Amazon experiments?
Ryan Flannagan: Yeah.
Yep.
Matt Edmundson: Okay.
So then the, uh, so you find this information out using the, the software
stack, which is probably realistically where you're gonna need to go speak
to an agency because you're not, unless you're gonna go and spend crazy
money on getting the software and figuring it out, why would you do that?
Right?
Um, you, you figured out your, um, your segment, you know what's going on there.
So you're not, you are measuring yourself against how you are performing month
on month, week on week, whatever it is.
But you're measuring yourself against how your competitors are performing, which I
think is super important, Like you say.
Um, what are some of the things that you, So to the example, I'm selling
a hundred percent more so I'm happy, but then I realize the industry
or the segment is grown by 300%.
So now I'm in full on panic mode.
Uh, what are some of the things that I need to sort of instantly think
about here and go, hang on a minute.
I need to look at this.
So you've mentioned, for example, split testing your a plus content,
uh, looking at keywords that convert.
But what are some of the maybe more obvious things that um, I
also need to look at if I'm not using an agency like yourself?
Where, where do, where do a lot of people get it wrong?
Ryan Flannagan: Yeah.
So it's a, not really tracking the conversion data, but then
not being aggressive enough, particularly with the ad spend.
So where Amazon's significantly different and it's ironic, but we, we
find other agencies talking about a cost all the time and talking about
lowering aCos and things like that.
And that's great cuz if I advertise on your brand, I can get a great aCos.
Right.
It doesn't mean you're going to grow at all.
It means you're defending your brand, but it doesn't mean much more than that.
Mm-hmm.
What you really need to look at on the Amazon platform is,
uh, what we call your taCos.
So just quickly, I'm pretty sure your, your whole audience understands
what aCos and taCos are, but I'll, I'll give a quick explanation.
So, advertising, cost of sale.
Mm-hmm.
is what you have on that.
So that's typically when you look at Row Ads on Facebook ads or
Google or anything like that, that's normally what you look at, right?
Mm-hmm.
, um, similar kind of terms that way.
So I, I spend $1, I, uh, sell $4 worth at the four, 400% roll offs, right?
Mm-hmm.
or 4X, um, on Amazon.
What you wanna look at is not just your aCos, because the more sales
you make on Amazon, the higher you organically rank , right?
Mm-hmm.
. So unlike Google, Google doesn't care if you're making a million
sales a day or two sales a day.
It's about backlinks and some of these things.
Amazon says, Hey, you're making sales.
We take a commission on everything.
So if you're making more sales, we're gonna rank you higher
cuz you got something going on.
Mm-hmm.
. So when you look at that, you need to really look at your advertising
spend, the organic sales that you made on the platform, okay?
Right.
So with that, it's the total sales that you've made on the platform,
not just advertising sales, and not just organic, but the total sales.
So in the case that we've said before, sometimes you'll be spending, let's say
$30,000 a month and you'll be making a, let's say, um, $300,000 a month organic.
Well, what that is is that's a 10 return on ad spend.
Total return on ad spend on the platform.
Mm-hmm.
, I spent 30,000 and I made 300,000.
Mm-hmm.
overall compared to maybe your pay per click is only giving you 60,000 back.
Mm-hmm.
, so you're like, Oh, I'm spending 30, I'm making a 2x on the aCos side
of that, or it's a .50, uh, aCos.
That's not the full picture.
You need to look at the 10 x you're making on the platform and maybe
even get more aggressive on the aCos.
Matt Edmundson: That's really fascinating.
So the more you spend, the more you're gonna rank organically, which comes
down or comes back to the point you, you raised a few minutes ago that actually
understanding the keywords that then convert, uh, in your paid advertising
should be added then to your copy, so you start to rank organically with those.
So it, this becomes a whole big learning environment.
Ryan Flannagan: Right.
Well, and it's, the more you sell, the more you're gonna rank organically, right?
Mm-hmm..
So spend is definitely a component with that.
Mm-hmm.
, But then again, you don't wanna be spending on things that
you're never gonna rank for
Matt Edmundson: Sure.
However, So yeah.
I got, Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
I got that wrong.
Sure.
Yeah.
So the more you sell the, the more you, you're gonna rank organically.
So is this a case of then with Amazon, there's an old saying, I wish I could
remember who said it, I genuinely can't.
Uh, but I've got this phrase in the back of my head that those that can spend
the most to acquire the customer win.
Um, is it a case of that being true with Amazon?
That actually you've gotta go into it with your eyes open a little bit, which
says, I've, I've got to be prepared to spend on customer acquisition.
Ryan Flannagan: Um, yes and no.
So Amazon looks at conversion rate with everything too.
Mm-hmm..
So if you are spending too much and you're not making sales, well,
they're gonna stop serving your ads.
Right.
So again, Amazon's really down to what gets us the most money back as mm-hmm.
, you know, our overall hypothesis.
So if somebody's spending a ton of money but the sales aren't
converting, then you're going to start, have to spend more on those ads.
Mm-hmm.
, um, or you're not gonna rank as well, you're not gonna be
sticky as far as a rank level.
So the major components you have to look at that when you look at your listing
and optimization for your listing kind of comes down to a few different components.
One is very controllable, and that's what you're listing.
And the copy that we have on your listing are mm-hmm.
, you control that for the most part.
Mm-hmm.
, um, on those things.
The second thing that you need to look at is your reviews if you don't have or
star reviews and, um, something close to what's, uh, competing in the market.
Um, then you're gonna have a hard time doing sales.
And quite frankly, you have to rerun your pay per click campaigns once you
kinda hit, hit the each tier, right?
Mm-hmm.
. So we say 30 reviews on average is the first tier.
Mm-hmm.
, you don't wanna be too aggressive on ad spend until you hit 30 reviews because
no one's going buy you under 30 reviews.
Yeah.
Unless you have great branding off platform and you know, you're the
next big thing that's coming through.
Right.
So that's the, the first step on that.
But then you wanna reanalyze some of those keywords that may not have been
converting when you hit a hundred reviews.
Mm-hmm.
, because the conversion rate kind of goes up every tier you hit right
in the closer you get with that.
Right.
So there is kind of a brand or product journey that you go with every
time as you're kind of escalating and growing with these things.
And a time to reassess the data that you're doing to say.
Well, when do we need to do, integrate these keywords?
When are they converting?
And then when do we need to do ranking strategy around the keywords?
Mm-hmm.
. Matt Edmundson: So, uh, this is, I guess where, coming back to
your sort of growth driven sort of advertising Amazon, isn't it?
Everything's feeding everything else in terms of the data and the learning, uh,
and it's sort of constantly going around.
And so, um, as you're learning more, you are changing the content on your pages as
you're changing the content on your pages, the conversions going at which makes
your advertisements spend more effective.
And it, it seems to be like you're creating this almost
upward spiral, this upward vortex.
Have I understood it, right?
Ryan Flannagan: Yeah.
It's the, that's exactly it.
So the, the analogy I like to use here is the vast majority of companies are
working out like we did in the 80s.
Right.
Like remember the eighties you'd run, you'd do the stuff, you
know, do all that great stuff.
But Rocky was going home every night and eating pizza.
And Rocky wasn't eating pizza, but we were all going home and eating pizza and we
weren't really gaining in better shape.
Mm-hmm.
. Right?
So you were kind taking the one view of your workout plan.
This is how I get, I go to the gym, I work out, I do these type of things.
But as we've evolved in this, we say, Hey, diet is kind of important as well.
Mm-hmm, right?
So, and that would be the listing optimization, the split testing, those
type of things because you're working out.
But if you're eating well and you're doing protein drinks and you're not eating
pizza every day, then you're actually going get shape a lot better and be the
best brand out there that you can be.
Matt Edmundson: That's really, really good.
I like the rocky analogy.
Uh, any, any analogy that includes Rocky is a, is a winner in my book.
Right?
I'm not gonna lie,
Ryan Flannagan: Yeah, I probably include the music, but don't,
Matt Edmundson: Anyway, I shall stop singing there, dear
listener, because frankly you don't need that in your life now.
Ryan Flannagan: Well, but that really comes down to the case of
what is, you know, like we are, Amazon is evolving market, right?
And it's getting more competitive.
So you have to train harder.
You have to be stronger and you have to have as much data and analysis
and try different things to beat out your competitors as much as you can.
Right.
And that's what we're really seeing.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, it's, I'm curious, Ryan, I dunno if you actually
know the answer to this question.
So you, you will have come across, um, a lot of, uh, a lot of products
that just aren't selling for whatever reason on Amazon, right?
So it could be the content.
They could be, they've not got reviews.
How much of it is actually down to the product itself?
Like can you take a rubbish product on Amazon and, and sell it or is it,
Cuz I'm, I slightly loaded question.
I'm, I'm of the opinion in e-commerce that's become very complex to do.
It's much easier to win in eCommerce if you have a product people want to buy in
the first place Do you know what I mean, that's actually got that kind of demand.
Ryan Flannagan: Yeah.
Yeah.
If you don't have a, a product that gets reviews, and reviews are a whole
another conversation on Amazon, right.
Um, you're gonna have a really hard time winning.
Mm-hmm.
If you can't hit keep over or right around that four star mark
or above, um, you know, you might wanna pivot and look at another
product that, that's essentially it.
Uh, you, you're going be significantly handicapped on that.
Now if we're talking about the larger question of brands that have really good
brand and are pushing that way, Um, then there's another conversation of how Amazon
is actually used, um, a as a legitimacy test for people when they're purchasing.
Right.
So we work with a number of larger brands that yes, wanna be selling on Amazon,
but that's not their major concept or what they're really trying to push.
They wanna have the best listings up that they can, They wanna have
good reviews, but it's really for testing the litmus test.
And maybe they're a premium product and they're two times more expensive than
the other lip liner on there, right?
Uh, for example, and they're going to drive sales on Amazon, but
they're never going to be the, the biggest winner on mm-hmm.
, right?
So in that case, there is a concept of getting your listings up, managing
those wells, really doing brand defense so people aren't conquesting
and stealing your sales from that.
And then choosing your battles of where you can scale on
Amazon and where you cannot.
Um, and that's really kind of a price premium level because
buyers on Amazon are very elastic.
Meaning that if something's a dollar less expensive, they're gonna go the
thing that's a dollar less expensive.
Mm-hmm.
, if everything else is equal, similar amount of reviews, color, scope,
product, those type of things.
But when you have a brand that has, uh, brand awareness and those that they'll
come to Amazon before purchasing to check the legitimacy of the brand, and
then maybe they bounce your website and purchase or then they purchase on Amazon.
So to give you a quick example of this, um, again, got Facebook
marketing thing, uh, saw a.
Um, a mosquito, uh, thing that was developed by a 18, uh, 17 year
old in high school and then got 10 millions of dollars of funding and
had different light array and killed mosquito for three kilometers around it.
Mm-hmm.
and so on.
Like, Oh, I need this.
I hate mosquitoes.
Everybody hates mosquitoes.
And then I went up and looked up on Amazon, it had two and a half stars.
Like, okay, well this is marketing.
This, this is hogwash, I'm not touch it.
Mm-hmm.
. Right.
So there is a place for your Amazon brand.
Even if you're not going to go fully on Amazon, uh, there is a place for your
Amazon brand on there for legitimacy test.
Yeah.
And we actually have seen really strong sales for, um, existing brands that have
brand awareness, uh, just by gaining on the Amazon platform, doing it well,
implementing some of the growth driven advertising, uh, principles, and then
really having the kind conversation of this may be just an area that we come
in and do pretty strong defense on this.
And we will make money.
This is never gonna be a $10 million a year product on Amazon because
of the price level, but maybe it's a $2 million a year product.
Right?
So how does that play and where do you go on that?
Matt Edmundson: That's really interesting.
I, I've often heard it said that if you, um, if you do Amazon, well, as a
brand, it does grow your organic traffic to your, excuse me, It does grow the
traffic to your website, your own personal eCommerce website, which is off Amazon.
That actually, as you grow on Amazon, your, your eCommerce
business grows on Amazon as well.
Is that your experience?
Is that what you found?
Ryan Flannagan: Yeah, it's again, very holistic, right?
And, and you have some kind of check boxes with that.
Quite frankly, if you're, you know, if you have a website, you're in a brand and
you're using a Shopify website or any of these other platforms, typically you're
doing some form of advertising on that.
Mm-hmm.
. And what happens when people do advertising, because we're
getting more and more inundated for product advertising, is
they do the legitimacy test.
So they go to Amazon, they see if they can buy it, cause they trust
Amazon, they trust the return policy.
So we actually see it twofolds as a.
, even if you don't direct anybody in Amazon, you're gonna start
making brand sales on Amazon cuz people are going there.
Mm-hmm.
, but also if you are doing things on Amazon, uh, targeting competitor
conquesting, things like that, which you can actually do on Amazon
significantly better than any other platform that I'm aware of.
Mm-hmm.
, Uh, for targeting what your competitors are doing if people are buying liked you?
Uh, there's a few things.
We have Amazon Demand side platform and Nuanced Media cuz we are, uh,
working very closely with Amazon.
Typically you have to spend about $40,000 a month to even
get access to the platform.
Um, but we can offer that to some of our clients, uh, underneath our umbrella.
Uh, but by doing that you can do a pretty strong conquesting and
then track the sales that actually happen on your website as well.
Now all ads go to your listing on Amazon, but you can track the sales that way too.
Yeah.
So, you know, we don't live in a vacuum.
Um, and a advertising you do on the platform is going
drive sales to your website.
Mm-hmm.
a uh, advertising you do to your website is going drive sales to Amazon.
. Mm-hmm.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
I remember sitting down with one of the directors here in the UK of Amazon,
and we were having conversations about all kinds of weird, wonderful things
in their offices down in London.
And one of the things that they said to me, uh, I can't remember
the number they gave me, I wrote it down, I should dig it out.
But there was a really high percentage of people that went to the Amazon
website and didn't buy anything.
They just went to check the reviews.
And that was, that was, you know, he used the example of,
you know, you stood in curries or something and you want to buy a tv.
You don't know if it's any good.
So you're just like, Well, I'm just gonna go and Amazon that sort of
search on Amazon for that specific model and I'm gonna read the reviews.
I want to know what people are saying about that product.
And then I'm gonna make a decision.
Well, do I want to buy it here and now from the store?
Or is it, is it cheaper and easier from Amazon?
I don't really know.
But um, , it was a really interesting concept, uh, that, uh, you know, that
Amazon knew this and they knew a lot of people just went on their site to, to
check out the reviews of products, right?
So like you say, if you are on Amazon, if you've got a brand, or we found
actually as a brand, uh, one of my online businesses wasn't on Amazon, but people,
our wholesalers had put it on Amazon.
And so I realized that the more I was spending on paid media to grow our
website, the more they were selling.
I'm like, How's that even?
And then I realized, aha, they're doing Amazon, so I'm, I'm in effect putting
money into their pocket, as it were.
Ryan Flannagan: Well, there's, there's a whole another conversation
there too, because anybody can sell your products on Amazon.
And if you're not on Amazon, what listing is stood up?
What value props are they talking about?
Are they doing any reputation management whatsoever?
Are there are.
Um, things that you need to be aware of.
It's kind like the old social media conversation that people are
having in the mid two thousands.
Like, should I be on Facebook or not?
And if you're not on there, then people are going be talking about you anyway.
It's better to be a part of the conversation.
Yeah, right.
Um, and that was a big conversation with Twitter back in the day too, particularly
on the customer service side of things.
So you will find, and we deal with a number of brands are preestablished that,
you know, look on Amazon, they're like, we had no clue that all these images were
up and these listings we're selling and they're actually saying the wrong things.
Mm-hmm.
, uh, and, uh, elements to that level.
So yeah, you, you almost have to have Amazon as a brand defense
level and no one likes it, right?
Mm-hmm.
. Um, but it is another thing if you are an established brand, if you're doing
things, what to do, and quite frankly, we can run some analyses, find out how
many people are searching for your brand, those type of things, and say, is it even
viable at this point or is it something you really should not worry about?
Matt Edmundson: So what would you, uh, I, I guess in some respects is that I'm
answering my own question here, Ryan, As I'm thinking it in my head, how long's
a piece of string, but at what point, where, where is that tipping point?
Where is it that actually it makes sense for you to, to, to be on Amazon?
That, that sort of the viability, it's like, Yep, let's do this.
Let's go for it now.
. Ryan Flannagan: So again, what we like to do, and this is kind of going
back to the win-win side, is work closest to the wallet out, right?
So where's your existing catalog?
What is your existing catalog and what's doing the most sales on there, right?
So you don't go in there and try to put up everything just as once, right?
uh, what you need to do is you need to really target out what are the best
products for you and then decide to build those out and continue to do that.
But what I would look at is go on Amazon, depending on uh, your amount of sales.
If you have a product that's doing over, I'd say 10 to $20,000 of sales
for your website, it's probably time to really start looking at it cause
you're really starting to grow on that.
Um, it could be potentially a time to look at even beforehand
because, um, Amazon's about 48% of product search in the United States.
Mm-hmm.
and Google's about 35% of product search.
Okay.
So by just being on Google, you're actually working on a lower marketplace.
Mm-hmm.
. Um, but go on Amazon and search yourself and then see who's advertising above
your brand and see if you can live with them stealing your customers.
Cuz that's what's happening right now.
Yeah.
You're doing advertising.
Uh, people go, Hey I need this mosquito killer.
Uh, and I go by my brand and the mosquito killer is a horrible example
because it is a horrible product.
. But I need the lip liner.
Right.
And then you go look up there and then you see the Lady Gaga lip liner.
Instead you buy the Lady Gaga one cuz you're not available.
Mm-hmm.
, Right?
Matt Edmundson: It's in, Yeah, it's in, I.
There is a very definite strategy for, uh, marketers using Instagram, right?
So you get a product comes upon your Instagram feed buy this product.
You go to their website, um, and it's usually a company shipping from China.
You know this because there's no contact information at all on the website.
Uh, and it'll show you, I'm, I, I can't remember the last example I saw.
So I'm just gonna go with something off the top of my head, like a head
torch for hardcore campers, right?
And they'll show you this image, um, and it's like 30% off for limited time.
You go to their website and it's like 70 bucks.
Um, and then you go to Amazon and you search that exact same product and
it's 30 bucks, uh, and I can get it tomorrow rather than five weeks time.
There seems to be this strategy, which I still don't understand by
marketers, obviously, They're just trying to get people on that sort.
I guess that sort of, uh, you know, that I'm gonna buy right
now, that impulse buy type thing.
So I'm always surprised by how much this actually happens.
Uh, with, with, uh, Instagram, Facebook as a strategy.
I'm gonna sell a product which is cheap on Amazon, but I'm gonna sell
it higher for impulse purchasers, maybe with a sexy image or something.
Um, have you, do you find that, that actually you, obviously you, you focus
on the other side, you focus on Amazon, you're selling the head torch on Amazon.
Does this kind of thing help you or not?
Ryan Flannagan: Um, it actually generates more demand to Amazon and more search.
And because of that, if you're the one advertising there,
you're the one that organically ranks and you have the reviews.
It actually helps because it is driving more traffic because
people are like, I didn't even think about buying a head torch.
Mm-hmm.
. Right?
Um, and that's like a advertising that somebody else does for marketing.
Then they find us organically or CR reviews.
They weren't thinking about the email solicitation they just got for Amazon.
Um, and then they go, Well, I should probably work with a company
that's credible compared to somebody who just emailed me randomly.
Mm-hmm.
go there and you buy and you do that and it's actually.
Another thing that's pretty compelling that's happening in the
Amazon space is Amazon's really pivoting to working more with brands.
They've really cracked down on, um, the review augmentation and all the
fake reviews that were happening, but they're rolling out a whole
bunch of features for brands.
Um, and one of the things that they're doing to continue to drive the flywheel
is if your brand registered, you can basically put in an affiliate Link
to your marketing, and depending on the category, you can get up
to 10% of the referral feedback.
So on Amazon, typical referral fee for the pleasure of being on Amazon is 15%, right?
Mm-hmm.
, you pay on 15% every time you make a sale.
But now if you actually drive to your listing or your store, um,
and somebody purchases and you're using that from a, a Facebook or
Instagram or any external marketing that you're doing, you'll actually
get 10% commissioned back on that.
So then Amazon feed.
Matt Edmundson: That's really interesting.
Yeah, cuz that was gonna be my next question.
If I see the guy advertising the head torch on Instagram for twice
the price, but I actually have the head torch, is there a strategy which
says actually I can pay to appear on Amazon, You know, I I the Amazon
search and I'll pay to appear there.
But should I also think about using Instagram to drive traffic to my Amazon
listing versus my website listing?
I've asked this question, a couple of people had varying degrees of,
uh, response actually on the show about this, so I'm curious to know
what your thoughts are on it, Ryan.
Ryan Flannagan: So what we see on the platform in general is Amazon's
pretty early on that, and I don't a hundred percent trust the, the
data that we're getting for the, the conversion rate or the attribution
for the sales on this, right?
Mm-hmm.
. So, um, it's twofold a test, right?
Mm-hmm.
, try both, right?
Um, but what we typically see on the Amazon platform is Amazon has a
higher conversion rate in general.
When people are shopping on Amazon, they're shopping to buy mm-hmm.
. So we'll see a typical a 5x the conversion rate on your Amazon
store compared to your website.
Okay.
Just in general.
Yeah.
Right.
So, but the customer lifetime value is significantly lower.
Mm-hmm.
Cause you don't own the customer data.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
So what we see on your website is the customer acquisition cost
is higher, but your lifetime value is significantly higher.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Cause you cross sell, you uh, do all those things.
You have their, uh, email address.
You can do look at like audiences, you can do all these other type of things.
Mm-hmm.
. So it really depends on where you are in the journey as a a brand.
Do you have one product that you're selling?
Well then maybe Amazon makes sense cuz you're not cross-selling and
doing all those type of things.
But if you have, this is the first product in a five step product line Yeah.
Then your Shopify site or your website may make more sense of that.
But yeah, honestly you have to get up and test both of those.
Mm-hmm.
to see what happens.
That's at the end of what you have to do.
Matt Edmundson: Very good answer.
Very, uh, very well balanced answer, Ryan.
Uh, it's a very good
Ryan Flannagan: first time.
The first time I've ever said about it.
I swear.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, absolutely.
Um, so left field, let me ask you maybe a bit of a, an odd question,
but I'm curious to know the answer.
So, you know what?
Tomorrow you wake up, you decide, you know what, I am gonna, I'm
gonna set up an Amazon business, I'm gonna start selling stuff on Amazon.
I don't have a product yet.
Um, and I see this all the time, uh, on Instagram, YouTube ads.
Like maybe it's just me, the advertised to me, you know, come do my course and we'll
show you how to make 5 million on Amazon, uh, by selling plastic widgets, which
you buy from China for 12 pence and you sell 'em for 40, whatever it is, right?
Ryan Flannagan: No, no beta switch going on there whatsoever.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
No know, no whatsoever.
Um, and if it was that easy, forget the course, sell the product, leave me alone.
Um, but that's another story anyway.
Um, so you've got that going on, right?
And you said right at the start, it's not actually that straightforward.
It's not that simple.
But obviously there are people who wake up and go, I want to now sell on Amazon.
How would you approach it if you were a total newbie, right?
How would you approach this sell on Amazon thing?
Would you ignore all these courses or are there some that we should think about?
I'm, whatever, whatever comes to mind.
I'm just really curious,
Ryan Flannagan: RIght.
So, um, I would probably take a course, just so you understand it, it's, you
always start out with education, right?
Mm-hmm.
, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a course, but watch the videos on it.
See the product findings, See, see what they're saying on those levels.
But at the end of the day, before you go buy anything, search the
term that you think people are going to use when purchasing those
and look at the listings, right?
Are, are they all really well done?
Are there good reviews?
Are there good images?
Are there video ads?
Like where is that and where is that in the competitive Verizon?
And then look at the pricing of what they're selling, right?
Where I, I think the number one area where people make a mistake is that they
don't look at the unit economics, right?
And that's one thing that we look at for, we work with a lot of existing brands on
Amazon, but if they're the right company and they have the appropriate funding
and they want do it, well, then we will help some certain brands launch, right?
And the first thing that we look at with that is what are the unit economics
and where do you put in, in that price elasticity question on Amazon, right?
Um, so you have to take account the, the 15% on average that, uh, they'll,
Amazon will charge you as a referral fee depending on your category.
And then you have to look at your shipping cost.
Mm-hmm.
, right?
What is the going cost to ship as well?
And then when you look at those two things, you look at your cogs too
and you say, Well, what is my margin at the end of the day based on this?
Because a lot of people will go, Oh, that's only selling for 20 bucks.
My cogs are five, I'll be great.
You know, that's the 75% gross margin.
Well, no, cuz you're not digging the 15% in the shipping.
Mm-hmm.
. So your, your gross margin's actually 25% mm-hmm.
before you do advertising.
Mm-hmm.
. And if you do advertising, you know, the first few months before you
have reviews, before you have these type of things, you may be at a
hundred aCos, you may add 200% aCos.
Right now we shoot for your taCos.
Typically when you launch your, you know, it's kind of almost a one for one on that.
Like I spend $1, I make $1.
Mm-hmm.
on the platform.
Sometimes it's, I spend $3, I make $1 on the platform.
And you have to look at those things, um, until you get the reviews and you really
can start to build that up and grow.
But what we find is gradually you go from that, you know, a hundred percent taCos,
let's call it to 50% taCos, to, we have clients that we work with that, um, you
know, for every dollar they spend on the platform, they make $20 on the platform.
Right.
And then we have other clients that are really well brand and not
optimized and have big retail level that, you know, for every $1 they
spend, they make $85 on the platform.
Right.
And, and it just depends on where you are in that cycle.
But at the bare minimum, if you're thinking about going into this.
Run the math first before you invest any real money or mm-hmm.
, talk to a genuine agency that will say, This is the deal, this is the investment,
this is what you like to look at.
What I pretty much recommend for everybody, if you're going launch
a product on Amazon, is going to, honestly, at the end of the day, cost
you 30 to $50,000 per product and you just have to kind of pencil that in.
Right.
That's not even counting, That's not even counting, you know, buying the
product and doing those type of things.
But we have people come to us all the time that wanna do five products.
You're like, Well hold up.
If you're gonna do five products, then you should pencil in $250,000 to do this.
Or maybe we should look at the five products you're looking at.
Choose the best winner and then go at that and see what this looks like over a six
month period and build out from there.
Matt Edmundson: So the 30, $50,000 to launch a product, this is
over a period of say six months.
Um, and the majority of that fee is going into the paid media to try and figure
out what it is that you are doing, um, who's buying it, and so on and so forth.
Is that right?
Ryan Flannagan: Yes, that's correct.
Matt Edmundson: Okay.
That's a really,
Ryan Flannagan: Now you have to, you know, and that's from the advertising stuff.
It also depends on what agency you work with, standing up the
listings, doing those type of things.
That's, uh, always kind.
Uh, uh, people try to commoditize listing building, right, and building
your listing and doing the images and all those type of things are not.
You don't want to go bargain basement when you're doing those type of things.
Mm-hmm, because the images are the number one critical thing
that you can have on there.
Right.
Okay.
And the content and those things.
So if you try to commoditize that, what you'll end up is you'll end up
with, uh, the head torch that doesn't work and breaks after two weeks.
Right.
Uh, from that side of things.
So you really do wanna take your time to build out the best listing based on
good keyword research, based on really strong images, because particularly
when you don't have reviews, you have to look better than everybody else.
Mm-hmm.
and look more of a premium brand and out those ways.
So those are things that you just need to think about when kind
of going through this process.
Matt Edmundson: So what, uh, I, again, I appreciate, this
is a very open ended question.
Uh, but if you were gonna start today on Amazon, what sort of
products would you look at?
What sort of products would you avoid?
Ryan Flannagan: Yeah, um, so.
So there's big winners, right?
So cosmetics and supplements are very, very competitive markets
on those, but you typically have higher lifetime values, right?
Mm-hmm, so supplements, and everybody's been golden going after
that golden goose for a long time.
Um, but like I'll tell you, like elderberry keyword, you know,
the average price on that's like $17 and the cost per click is $9.
Wow.
Right?
So unless you're really converting on that, you're, you're losing money.
Mm-hmm.
, right?
You really have to have a offsite strategy with that.
So, What I would look at, and you can tell because like you look for elderberry
gummies and you'll see that everybody up there has 2000, 3000, 4,000 reviews.
Mm-hmm..
What I'm doing this on the level is I'm looking for something that a matches the
unit economics, kind of running through the formula that I talked about earlier,
but also has a longer lifetime value.
Right.
Something that people come back and repurchase that will work on subscribe
and save and doing those type of things because it's significantly
harder to win on the platform where you spend that much for customer
acquisition and then they go away.
Mm-hmm..
Cause then it's like every time I'm just rinsing or repeating
the same type of thing compared to like, Hey, I got somebody.
I love these razor blades.
You're my razor blade guy.
I'm gonna buy razor blades from you for the next five years.
And then your customer acquisition is great because I'm willing to spend
two times the cost of the razor blade.
Mm-hmm.
to get somebody to buy because I know they're gonna be with me
for the next two to three years.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
Very good.
Very, very helpful.
Ryan.
Listen, I'm aware of time, so let me ask you my, uh, my
new favorite question, right?
Uh, as you know, the eCommerce cohort is the sponsor for today's podcast.
So you're in a hotel, you've just delivered a keynote speech to all the
eCommerce cohort dudes who've got together for their annual get together, the Shin
dig, the Soiree, uh, and you've been talking about all this stuff on Amazon.
The crowd's going wild.
It's going absolutely crazy.
Um, and so you kind of go on stage, you take your bow and it's like, listen, I
would just like to thank dot, dot, dot.
Who do you thank and why?
Is it a person?
Is it a mentor?
Is it a podcast?
Is it a book?
Who, who, who springs out?
Ryan Flannagan: Um, it would really have to be the people on Nuanced Media
who've been through this journey with me.
Mm-hmm.
, I mean, we've been around 12 years and the people really helped me
build the brand and grow from that.
Um, doing the day in, day out activity and really kinda helping this dream
come to life and continuing to do that.
Um, the other people, that person I like to really thank is, uh,
obviously my wife and daughter for dealing with me all the time while,
while I'm working on these things.
But then, um, my mother and my uncle, who are both, uh, entrepreneurs
in their own level, put out their own shingle, developed it,
had a dream and made it happen.
Um, so that would be the shortlist.
Matt Edmundson: Oh, wow.
Ryan Flannagan: I heard the Oscar music in the background,
so I'm trying to keep it short.
Matt Edmundson: Yes, absolutely.
That's really interesting.
It's what fascinates me is I've started asking this question.
Every uh, husband that comes on the show automatically says, Oh,
obviously my wife, uh, for putting out with me, which is the standard
response, which still makes me smile.
And I think in 10 years time, I'll still be smiling at that answer just
because obviously I'm in the same boat..
Um, it's interesting you mentioned your mum and uncle though.
Uh, so have you come from an entrepreneurial sort
of family and background?
Ryan Flannagan: Yeah, yeah.
Uh, my mother's a psychotherapist.
She's been practicing for 35 years at this point and put out
her own shingle a long time ago.
Mm-hmm..
And then, uh, my uncle works with Veterans Law before it was legal to even
represent veterans and get paid for it.
Um, VA does not great things for our American veterans, and he
kind of founded that type of law.
Oh, wow.
And, and you know, so, and they've been both greatly successful.
So they, uh, gave me, encouraged me to be delusional enough to start my own company.
Matt Edmundson: So that's such a great, That's, that's almost
a brilliant epitaph, isn't it?
Uh, here lies delusional enough to start his own business.
I quite like that.
That's, um, that's brilliant.
And I was thinking your mum's a psychotherapist, so do you feel like,
uh, if you say something, she's kind of analyzing what's going on all the time?
Or is it,
Ryan Flannagan: Oh, we're, we're way beyond that.
Matt Edmundson: There's some people that are beyond help.
Right.
So the way it works, So you, um, One of the things to mention is,
uh, I, I came across, um, your book, The, uh, Marketing is Dead.
Long Live Marketing book, which you wrote in 2019.
Now, this is a, you mentioned this is more of a B2B book about inbound marketing.
Right.
Um, and I guess my question here is, uh, given that you are an author, you
talk a lot about marketing B2B inbound.
Um, obviously you've talked a lot about Amazon.
Since the pandemic, would anything in that book change?
Ryan Flannagan: Um, so let me just be very clear.
So Nuanced Media, all we do is eCommerce, Amazon, that that's all we focus on.
And the funny thing with this book is I probably started two years
before it actually got published, so this was a longer thing that we were
kind of working in the background.
Um, the compelling thing with business to business practices is they really apply
a lot in the consumer D to C side too.
Mm-hmm.
, because it is about building trust, building credibility.
Doing these type of things, but particularly more paired
to more expensive products.
So if you're going to go out and spend, let's say $2,000 on a telescope, it's
actually more of a B2B engagement.
Mm-hmm.
than is a D to C typical engagement when you're buying lip liner for $10.
Yeah.
Right.
Because you do your research, you look at reviews, you need
to make sure it's the best.
All these type of things.
So that's something that I think would be very interesting is Highline in that book
more how this pairs to high value items.
Mm-hmm.
, uh, in Amazon and on Google on your website, compared to just looking at
the B2B side because quite frankly, B2B sales are more about risk than
anything because somebody's job may be on the line, finding the right
company, doing these type of things.
Um, and that's quite frankly why we built out this kinda
partner network at Nuanced Media.
We're not a good fit for somebody, so we can help people still make the
good decision by companies that's actually been doing this for a while
and has vetted a whole bunch of providers on this to make sure you are
not, um, having the issue with this.
Um, but with this part of it, it is about looking at how higher valued
items go through that customer journey, um, and how it really pairs to that.
So that's something that I probably would've added to the book when
looking at, on that side of things.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it's, it is interesting, isn't it?
I mean, I, I remember when we started the eCommerce podcast, we, it was called
the Curiosity Podcast, I think originally back in the day before I changed the name.
Um, and I remember one of our very first guests on the show
was a lady called Chelsea Cohen.
Uh, and she, the title of the podcast was How to Sell a $6,000 Sweater Online.
Right?
And I was like, Who in the world is gonna spend six grand on us?
Apparently there's a lot of people that will spend six grand on a
sweater, but let's not go into that.
And it's, it was interesting cuz you're, what you're saying is actually, if
you are in that field, that sort of luxury and that high end, then actually
some of these more B2B principles do apply and you should be aware of them
in terms of the customer journey and understanding the customer journey.
Um, and that's what she talked about.
And I'd say it's interesting, isn't it, how these sort of
things call form come full circle.
So, uh, so are you gonna update the book or are you just gonna leave it or have
you got another book in the pipeline?
Like how to Kill It on Amazon?
Ryan Flannagan: Yeah.
So we're working on a number of things internally on this right now.
You can check out our blog.
There's a ton of blogs out there.
We publish, you know, twice a week.
I, I pretty much write quite, quite a bit on those type of things.
But, uh, the blog, I mean, the next book I'm probably gonna vet for, I, I
have some ideas that I'm entertained.
I'm not willing to say anything at this point, Matt.
Okay.
Stay tuned on that level.
Matt Edmundson: Done bud when you write the book, come back on the show
and let us know what it's all about.
You know how to kill it on Amazon.
You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen.
so listen
Ryan Flannagan: But the problem that we see with books that to be very
candid, is that in the d to C space, things are changing so quickly.
Mm-hmm, right?
Like, B2B principles are kind of historic and they stay that way.
There, there is, uh, you know, Prospects first leads, how you
qualify, how you get the men, thought leadership, all these type of things.
But what we see in uh, you know, execution on Shopify or Amazon
or any of these things is just changing dynamically on a day to day.
So I don't know if the book model to be some ways is that outdated level there.
There's arguments that classic college education's outdated as well
because things are changing so quickly and I don't know if that doesn't
necessarily apply to the book as well.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
One of the things I've noticed about the podcast is obviously you, you see
the stats and you see which episodes do well and there are some episodes which
come out and they do well straight away.
And there are some episodes which do well over a period of time.
There are people still down downloading certain episodes.
From two, two and a half years ago because they're kind of the,
what they call evergreen content.
It seems to be always constantly relevant.
Uh, which is, I think, hard to do with e-commerce.
I mean, some of it's pretty, you know, there are some standard principles,
but even in markets that change a lot, there's still some, some sort
of, some consistencies aren't there.
And I find, I find the whole thing really fascinating in terms of
what works right now and what's gonna work in a few years time.
You just, you never know, you know, in terms of the content that we put out.
Ryan Flannagan: Well, and, but something that I always get is like, if you
don't have your fundamentals down, don't worry about the bright new thing.
And that's the one thing I have to say that I believe nuanced
probably does better than everybody else, is we get your fundamentals
down to where they really need.
Mm-hmm.
before you start playing with the new cute thing that may work or may not work
because you have a lot of people doing it packed to go back that old, the old.
Uh, Shopify thing that I said at the beginning, Hey, I need to run
a million dollar ad campaign on Google, but my website's taking
five to 10 seconds to load.
Mm-hmm.
, right?
You need to make sure that those things are really taken care
of first before you do that.
So if you're fundamentals aren't good, if you don't have good reviews, you don't
have a good product listening, you're not analyzing, you're not tracking, then
any bright, new, shiny thing that you're going to do isn't going to work for you.
And we honestly find on Amazon and other platforms that the vast
majority of competitors are not doing it to the level that they need to
be doing it to be on this new age.
Matt Edmundson: There's a mic drop moment right there, isn't there?
So, uh, if you are in effect, if you take it then if you are on Amazon
and you're planning, doing some kind of strategy, the advantage at the
moment is not everyone's on there.
There are a lot of things which are competitive, but most of them aren't
doing what they need to do for.
For the, for the long term, for, for winning on Amazon, the, the growth
driven strategy, which you talked about.
And that's where the opportunity is right now.
Ryan Flannagan: Correct.
And in fact, we've put out a guide that you can download
at our site@nuancedmedia.com.
It's a growth driven kind of strategy, Amazon growth driven strategy guide.
Uh, and you can go on there, It'll pop up after you're on
the site for about five minutes.
That kind of goes over some of these key principles, what we see and really
how you should be focusing on some of the things that we actually covered
in this, uh, conversation today.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
Fantastic.
So dude, download that free guide from nuancedmedia.com.
How do people reach you?
How do people connect, Ryan, if they want to reach out, know more, connect?
Ryan Flannagan: Sure.
I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Twitter, I'm on, uh, I got email.
I, I got all the things, but primarily ways to reach out, uh,
is through the website directly or through Twitter and LinkedIn.
I'm probably the most active on LinkedIn, although Matt and I kind of talked about
this, uh, my, uh, please don't judge me for my Twitter presence at this point.
Uh, we've been growing pretty quickly here at Nuanced Media and I've
prioritized maintaining our long term relationships with our active clients
compared to, uh, you know, social media posts and those type of things.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah.
No, I'm with you.
But don't judge me on my Twitter feed either.
Uh, it's just, it's not helpful.
It's, Yeah.
I'm more than my Twitter feed.
I, I feel like I, you know, that's, that's maybe a book I should write,
Why I'm more than my Twitter feed.
Sure.
Uh, listen, it's been great to talk to you, Ryan, and of course we will link
to Ryan's LinkedIn, his Twitter, his websites, get the, the, the strategy
guide, all that sort of stuff you'll find in the transcripts and show notes,
which are available on the eCommerce podcast website, ecommercepodcast.net.
So there you have it.
Uh, my conversation with Ryan.
Thanks again Ryan, for joining me.
It's been an absolute treat and a pleasure bud.
And, uh, great to have you on the show.
Uh, big shout out again to today's show sponsor the eCommerce cohort.
Do head over to ecommercecohort.com.
For more information about this new type of eCommerce community that
you can join, be sure to follow the eCommerce podcast wherever you get
your podcast from because we've got some great conversations lined up and
I don't want you to miss any of them.
And in case no one has told you today, you my friend are awesome, utterly awesome.
It's just a burden we all have to bear.
Can I get an Amen, Ryan?
Ryan Flannagan: Amen.
Hallelujah.
Matt Edmundson: That's just the way it is.
Now, the e-Commerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media.
You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.
The team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon, Josh Catchpole,
Estella Robin and Tim Johnson.
Our theme song has been written by Josh Edmundson and My Good Self.
As I mentioned, if you'd like to read the transcript or show notes,
head over to the ecommercepodcast.net website where you can also sign up
for our newsletter, coincidentally.
So that's it for me.
That's it from Ryan.
Thanks for joining us this week.
Have a fantastic week wherever you are.
I will see you next time.
Bye for now.