Optimizing The Needle Moving Metrics On Amazon w/ Marc Jepsen – #50

Ben Donovan  00:00
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of The Brand Builder show. Today’s episode we’re going to be talking about a lot of things really, but analytics, managing your Amazon business growth. And it’s going to be an exciting, exciting episode. And I am excited to have with me today, Marc from ManageByStats. Marc, welcome to the show today.

Marc Jepsen  00:21
Thank you so much. Yeah, pleasure to be here, man.

Ben Donovan  00:23
Awesome. So I think I said excited about three times, but I genuinely am because I love to talk analytics, numbers growth, and there’s gonna be some juicy topics today. So, but before we get into those, why don’t you give us a little bit of a background? Who are you? How did you get into E-commerce? Give us the kind of the snapshot?

Marc Jepsen  00:41
Love it. Yeah. So back in 2014. My, my dad actually got into Amazon, friend told him about an Amazon course. And he was like, Okay, well, let me dive in and see what this is all about. And so he started in 2014, I then he basically said, hey, you need to jump into this you need to you need to this is something that’s, you know, a game changer, and can kind of get you out of the rat race of the nine to five and, and the normal structure out there. So I said, Okay, let’s do it. And got got several products up and running. And started selling basically at the end of 2014. So that kind of was the impetus, we you know, my dad’s brands took off really fast, I had some pretty good success on my brands. And, and then we said, okay, you know, we need to, we need to keep building this up, we started building up additional brands partnering with some friends and family. And, you know, before we knew it, we had, you know, three or four brands, multiple products, a whole bunch of different stuff happening. And trying to trying to manage all of that with Excel. Back in back in 2014. That was, you know, it was time consuming. And it was it was painful. Downloading a whole bunch of reports from Amazon. And there wasn’t any real any softwares out there, there was a couple but they were kind of a little bit janky. So my dad said, okay, you know what, let’s, let’s build it. And he knows enough programming to be dangerous. And so he, he, he created the first kind of structure of this, and and then share it with a bunch of friends on a mastermind. And they were like, holy moly, you have to share this with us. So he kind of created versions for for them and then went from there, we basically started building out an entire software, SAS software for it, and have been building adding features to it ever since. So it’s been it’s been a rocket ride.

Ben Donovan  02:50
Yeah, that’s awesome. And recently acquired by carbon six, how did that sort of go down?

Marc Jepsen  02:55
Absolutely. Yeah, it was interesting. So you know, throughout the years, we’ve had friendships and partnerships and connections with a whole bunch of different people, you know, sellers, coaches, people who train people on how to do Amazon agencies and all those kinds of stuff. And one of them, one person that we’ve known for many years, you know, said, Hey, this, this company, Carbon Six is, is looking at aggregating a bunch of software’s, and making it so that they can actually offer all the different tools to Amazon sellers in a cohesive ecosystem, that will actually make it easier and faster for people to do what they need, and have all the different tools at their fingertips. And that struck a chord with us, because that’s what we’ve basically been trying to do since the beginning, we started off back in 2015, with management in mind, statistics, finances breakdowns, really knowing your numbers. And okay, now that we’ve had that, okay, what what else can we do to automate things? How can we make it easier and faster for you to analyze your information, take action on it, and then go do what you want, you know, go to the beach, go, you know, whatever, right how to live your life, and not have to do all the menial tasks. So, you know, we added in the review request feature, email automation, and just more and more different features over the years to make it basically so that someone could log in and do what they needed to do have all the information they needed inside of ManageByStats. And there’s areas that we never dived into, there’s tools and features that we never even, you know, we wanted to build, we had the desire, like okay, that would be a good tool to add, but we had other stuff that was just on our plate that we wanted to get done first. So we never quite got to these other things. And so we said, hey, if we can have a whole ecosystem, which is what we kind of wanted to create from the beginning. Let’s do it. And you know, the the way that all went down was was very favorable and you know, kept the whole team on here and it kept us all kind of rocking and rolling with it. So, you know, the original thought process and you know, our support staff and our architects and programmers and all that kind of stuff, it made sense like, Hey, this is what we want to this is what we kind of been wanting to build towards. And now we have a bigger system or a more fluid system where we can actually do this.

Ben Donovan  05:21
Yes. And what do you think is the future of Carbon Six, as much as obviously you’re able to speak to, because a lot of people in the industry are talking about what Carbon Six are doing. And there’s been a lot of buzz around it. And I feel like Carbon Six are sponsoring every event I see advertised at the moment. So there’s lots going on. But what’s where’s this all going?

Marc Jepsen  05:43
Yeah, I mean, so I can’t obviously speak for the for the top dog. But I know that, you know, we’re definitely building toward this, this very cohesive ecosystem, where the the advanced seller, the sellers who’ve been doing this for years, the guys who know what they’re doing, and they’re in this for the long haul, they’re going to have at their fingertips, all the different tools that they need, you know, easily and they’re all going to coach coachees together. And it’s, it’s, it’s more than just a suite of tools. It’s, you’ve you’ve the way that they’ve done it, which is really smart. And no one else has done this and all the other similar iterations of this, they haven’t kept the core people who’ve built out these tools, or the minds or the sellers who are key in creating the tools or creating these coaching programs or whatever. They didn’t keep those people on for long. And that’s not the case here. We have every single software suite, this connected, they still have their team there, they still know what they’re doing. They’re all now working. We’re all working together to build this this cohesive ecosystem. So there’s a lot of brilliant minds, a lot of people who’ve been in this industry for years who know what they’re doing. And they’re just, you know, they’re tying in that that knowledge and that expertise to give sellers a lot. A bit more of a leg up on all the other competition out there.

Ben Donovan  07:13
Yeah. Exciting times ahead for Carbon Six.

Marc Jepsen  07:17
Yeah, absolutely. And this is, this is literally just year one. So we’re on a rocket ride.

Ben Donovan  07:24
Yeah, exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. So let’s talk about building an Amazon business, then obviously, something that you’ve got great experience in. And you’ve seen a lot, not just only in your business, but you’ve obviously seen a lot of other businesses through the tool. And you’ve seen, I’m sure some successful ones and less successful ones. And I’d love to try and break down some of those key aspects around the analytic side around the management. Obviously, ManageByStats, it’s a very, it does what it says on the tin kind of name. So let’s talk a bit about that how an Amazon seller really can grow their business by analyzing the data. I suppose starting with Why are analytics so important? Can a seller not just look at their sales? And if their sales are up, then great? If they’re not, then they need to do something? Why can they not just keep it as simple as that?

Marc Jepsen  08:16
Yeah, so we all wish that it could be that simple. And a lot of people brag about their, their their revenue numbers and this kind of stuff. But when when the rubber meets the road, it’s really how much are you able to put in your pocket? Right? So if you if you don’t know, your actual numbers, if you don’t have the breakdowns of all the details of what’s happening with your funds, when you get the sales? Yeah, you might get some, you know, huge revenue numbers. But if, if you’re not able to keep that money, if you know, yeah, you’re basically making Bezos rich, that’s all you’re doing. All right, you’re just working for him. So you have to really know how it all breaks down. And that’s that was the first feature that we built our is our first very first tool, our finances tool. It really breaks down in detail to the penny to really see what’s happening with all of your orders, and how much profit are you getting from each order? How much profit are you getting from each product? If you have multiple brands or multiple account seller accounts? How much profit are you getting from each of those. And if one product is eating up too much profit, you’re going to be able to spot that by having this this clear breakout where you can’t really get you. I mean, you can’t get that on Amazon. Amazon gives you Yeah, you have a whole bunch of reports that you can then sift through but we do all that with the programming, right? When you look on Seller Central, you’re just getting a summary. each pay period of all of your fees and all that kind of stuff. But it’s a summary. It’s a it’s a, an aggregate of all the stuff that you’ve done. You can’t see that broken out by product. You can’t see how each product is performing individually against one another. You can’t see how groups of products are performing together, as compared with other groups, you can’t see how different countries are performing against each other. So there’s a whole bunch of just missing information, right? Which you can get, obviously, yeah, we got it, we have it, we’ve been doing this for, what, seven, eight years now. But there’s a lot to it, there’s a lot that you have to download, there’s a lot that you have to go through, there’s a lot of intricacies that, that we’ve refined over the years. And that’s one thing that kind of makes us stand out is that we’ve been doing this aspect for so long that we know all the little pitfalls, that that Amazon’s back end system has, you know, there’s there’s reports that are updated certain amount of days later. And there’s a whole bunch of different things, right. In addition to that, there’s also hidden fees. They’re not so much hidden, but they are kind of hidden, you see a sum on Amazon fees, or certain kinds of fees, but you don’t see that broken out. And you don’t know if those fees have increased, let’s say you have your, your product dimensions, right. Amazon, you know, updates, your product dimensions to be an inch bigger, that now puts you into this higher fee, right? And you can’t see that comparison to the previous time. But all of a sudden, you just know that your profits lower, you’re like, wait a minute, what’s going on. So having all that broken out, is really, really key, you have to just you have to be able to know your numbers and, and see that broken out per product. Otherwise, you know, you’re just kind of whistling past the graveyard, you just you think that you might be getting good numbers, and you end up with less money in your pocket.

Ben Donovan  11:38
Yeah, yeah, it’s when Amazon sellers first start selling on the platform, they see the number of units they’ve sold and the revenue and they get excited. And then they see what goes in their bank. And they’re like, hold on, hold on. Why? Why is this the way that it is, but it’s so easily can happen. I mean, I had it with one of our products the other day, that we’ve got three variations of a particular product, and one of them was being charged a higher fulfillment fee. It was only a small amount, but because it hadn’t been picked up. You know, we have noticed it essentially holding hands up. It accrued like $500. And, you know, overspend on fees. And so luckily, we got that back. But you know, first and foremost, I think, Geez, Amazon cheeky, they just sometimes push these numbers, and I just wonder how many sellers don’t even realize, you know, how many dollars meaning millions of dollars every year goes unclaimed. It’s crazy. Oh,

Marc Jepsen  12:30
yeah, yeah, I mean, and even goes even further. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, there’s shipments and stock that gets ruined, and stock that gets lost, and all this kind of stuff. You know, if you don’t have a tool to to find those things and get those refunded back from Amazon, Amazon won’t refund them unless you file a claim and blah, blah, blah, right? So, you know, we have Carbon Six as seller investigators that does that, you know, an awesome job of of actually getting that those refunds back to you. So there’s just so many different things to it. If you don’t, if you aren’t looking at all the details, and have a way to quickly parse that information and think with it. Yeah, you’re just you’re you’re kind of just wishing and hoping. And that usually doesn’t work out for most people.

Ben Donovan  13:17
Yeah yeah, absolutely. Okay, so bringing it back for someone that’s maybe a bit of a newer Amazon seller, they are beginning to make sales, they’re seeing the unit’s revenue go up as exciting times. What are your sort of words of warning? What are the major, the key metrics, the key analytics that somebody needs to be really aware of, to make sure that business is headed in the right direction?

Marc Jepsen  13:41
Yeah, good question. So I think, really, so. It’s interesting, having worked with sellers, these last eight years, from all different types, right, new sellers, intermediate sellers, people that are doing a million dollars a month, several million a month, it’s like you kind of get a larger perspective of what what are the key elements that someone should be looking at. And we’ve been analyzing this stuff for years, and we have all the different metrics, we have metrics that Amazon doesn’t have inside of ManageByStats that help you kind of see what’s happening going on with your business. But there’s a lot there’s so many different things that you can be looking at. There’s tons of sales metrics, there’s tons of advertising metrics, there’s there’s account health data, there’s, you know, product inventory, metrics, so there’s, there’s just so many different things you can get, and it can get a little bit overwhelming. You have to be able to, to pick out those that that drop in the ocean and say, Okay, that’s the key datum. That’s the key thing that I need to put my attention on. Because if that starts faltering, I know that bla bla bla will then have, you know, adverse effects. So going through this we kind of distilled it down to and it was kind of funny we we had this like aha moment, and, and then we kind of real as well, that’s kind of dumb, because it’s so obvious, but it took a lot of analyzing to be able to kind of go oh, okay, that’s what that is. And what we did is we actually distilled it down to four key metrics for KPIs that will actually cover every single aspect of selling on Amazon. And if you know what those four are, and what affects those four, you can then actually go kick it, if one of these is dropping, I need to go check this, this and this. And if I get those things checked, and I find that one of them is faltering, and is the reason for this, this main KPI dropping, you get that fixed, that KPI starts to go back up. So we distill that down to these four metrics. And they are they actually follow the lifecycle of Amazon? And that’s what made it kind of like a Oh, that’s, yeah, of course, duh. But, but once you get that, and you see how everything connects, you go, Okay, this is actually this is actually brilliant. So the four metrics are sessions. So people come into your listing conversions, are they buying it or not? profit. So person, will, I’ll go over the lifecycle in a second, profit, and then reviews. So those are the four KPIs, if you look at just those four, you can know how any aspect of your Amazon account was doing. And so kind of going back to that Amazon lifecycle, you advertise your product, either through SEO or through some kind of advertising, it shows up people, you know, decide to look at it, they click on your listing, they’re now on your listing, you now have a session, you now have someone looking at your session, their eyeballs are on it, whether or not they decide to buy is your conversion, right. So they put it in their cart, they decide to buy it, they, you know, they press pay, and they now have paid, Amazon collects that money and gives you a portion of it. A portion of that portion is your profit. Right? So you’re get you’re getting a portion of it, right? So they’re giving you your cut, but only a portion of that is your profit. And you have to be able to know what your profit is. Amazon doesn’t know and they don’t tell you, our software can actually help you do that. And then of course, the person says, Okay, I like this, or I don’t like it, and they leave a good or bad review. Right? So it just follows along that lifecycle. But there’s all the metrics, every single metric, you know, your your inventory stuff, your your advertising, metrics, and KPIs. All the sales KPIs, or all the sales, metrics, stats, all relate to these four, and they’ll affect either negatively or positively one of these four. And so having the kind of discovered that we’re like, Okay, this is this is this is the key this is this is how people can actually understand what’s happening with their business, and know what area they need to dive into. Yeah,

Ben Donovan  17:53
it’s really good, because I think that we talk a lot in our community about PPC, you know, it’s obviously a big topic, big discussion. And everyone wants to drive their A-cost down. But they just think, Well, I’m just going to tweak a few things in my e-course is going to come down without fully understanding what are the metrics that drive those changes, you know, if you’re getting the impressions, but not the clicks, and you need to work on stuff that’s going to impact your click through rate. If you’re getting the clicks, but not the conversions, then you need to work on the stuff that’s going to impact your conversion rate. And it’s, you know, that’s just PPC. But you’re what you’re saying it’s almost like that on a macro level, that, you know, these are the micro things that impact Amazon PPC, which is then going to impact the sort of more macro metric, which is your profit. Right? So are there some things in there that you would having worked with, you know, clients that are doing millions of dollars a month? What are the things that they are doing in order to be successful in those four areas, you know, sessions, conversions, profit, and reviews? Can you give us some sort of insight into your most successful clients what they’re doing?

Marc Jepsen  19:00
Yeah, I mean, the common thing that we’re seeing is that when they analyze what’s going wrong with their business, they want to be able to see immediately what’s happening, right. So what we did here, I’ll share my screen and show you kind of what they’re looking at. And we built this based off of the guidance from from very experienced sellers, right. So you’re able to go on,

Ben Donovan  19:24
and on. On audio, we’ll try and sort of talk you through it, but the link to the YouTube will be in the description. So you can see yours as well.

Marc Jepsen  19:32
Perfect. Okay, so this is a KPIs dashboard that every client of ManageByStats gets, and what it has at the top here is your sessions, your conversions, your profit and your reviews, and it pulls it in for your entire account. And what it does then is it lists out, let’s say for sessions right underneath the sessions KPI graph. It’s going to list out all of the sub metrics that relate to that Key, that KPI. Right, so now you can actually use go, okay? If your sessions are dropping, what are the sub metrics? What are the micro macro items that actually apply to that, that could be causing that drop, right? And so you can look in here and go, Okay, well, I lost the buy box, or I lost my, my sales rank dropped suddenly for some reason. But then you can also compare it right? So you have the same thing for conversions, your conversion rate, your click through rate, your advertising clicks, your average customer reviews, these are all things that will influence or affect your actual conversion rate, right? So you can look at these and kind of compare and go, Okay, well, I had a spike over here, what happened on you know, some of these other graphs that might be affecting around the same time. But each one of these lays out all the different sub metrics that relate to it. Not only that, they that they now know, okay, if one of these metrics drops, I go, Look, I missed this in this area, and I go fix it. Or they have, you know, a partner or VA or someone that does it for them to say, hey, this area needs attention, what are you doing about it, or let’s get this fixed or whatever, right. So now they’re, they’re able to take action faster. In addition to that, we then took all the stuff that that we’ve learned, and that very experienced sellers told us over time, is we created checklists for each one of these KPIs. So all the different various things that could possibly go wrong, that affect that KPI are listed out in these checklists. And you know, you can have them as a downloadable PDF, or just look at them on a little like checklist type format here, and go through and check all these different things. And then you’ll find the area that actually is causing that KPI to go down, and then you know, okay, I need to fix that. And the element here is that, you know, that you’re taking the right action, that’s the thing is you have the confidence of like, oh, this is what’s causing it, this is the problem that I need to dive into. Whereas, you know, a lot of newer sellers, they go, oh, man, my sales are dropping my, my revenue is is much lower, what do I do, right? There’s so many different things that you can do to affect your sales, you kind of don’t know where to start necessarily. So this now gives you guidance and direction, right? The the people who succeed on Amazon who are are successful Amazon sellers, they know all the elements of Amazon. And so they know what to do they know, okay, if this, if I’m having problems over here, I need to go check this, this and this. And that’s what this is kind of that knowledge has kind of been accumulated into these, these, these KPI dashboards, you can actually see really fast, I know, I need to check into this area, and then you go and do that thing. And you have confidence that you’re taking the right action to improve that area of your business. And you know that that will then affect your overall either sales or profits, right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so these, these are, these are powerful. And these can be customized and built out for your whole account, individual brands inside of your account, all the way down to having a KPI dashboard for every single Asin. Right. So it really just breaks it down in a lot more detail. And you just know, okay, this is the area I need jump into. And you can then jump into that. Yeah.

Ben Donovan  23:20
Yeah, I think it’s really good that it’s also actionable, you know, that this this stat, this metric is changing. And therefore, these are the things that impact it. And I think that’s what so many new Amazon sellers don’t? Of course they wouldn’t, because they haven’t had the chance to learn it yet. But that’s where the learning journey needs to take place is understanding what are the proactive things I can do to initiate change in a certain key metrics? I think, yeah, it’s really, really important what you’ve shared through there, because obviously, the market we’re in at the moment is, you know, not the profit margins, let’s say aren’t as maybe generous as they were a few years ago. You know, are you seeing that with your clients? Is that something that you’re having to work with them to grow profitability?

Marc Jepsen  24:14
Yeah, I think the main area is, of course, there’s the obvious right, seeing if you can get lower cogs from your manufacturer, obviously, trying to get the best kind of shipping stuff that you can get. But also really analyzing your cost of goods, when you when you have a change in cost of goods, make sure you have it entered into your system. So you know, you know how much profit is being taken out of each sale, right? But then also, okay, if you look at your advertising, how is your advertising affecting your overall sales? And if you know that down to the individual asin, you can actually go okay, I’m spending too much on this. The key elements that go into that are a couple of things, knowing your breakeven point and is basically figuring out, okay, what is your product cost? How much does it cost to get it to you to yourself and to Amazon. And then how much advertising can you do so that when you get your product out there and you get it sol2d it, you’re not going into debt on that, right? You’re breaking even you’re getting enough profit from the sale or you’re getting enough payout from Amazon from that sale, to justify promoting, promoting it more. So if you know your breakeven point, you know, how much you can spend on your advertising. And, you know, whatever elements that go into getting your product out there, whether it’s on Amazon advertising off Amazon advertising, you know how much dollars you can spend per product to get that sale. And doing that obviously, is going to be a you know, you’re going to try to force exposure on your product and get it out there as much as possible. But that’s just the starting point, you have to then know, what is your commonly referred to your tacos, it’s your total ACLs or true ACLs. Or, you know, advertising cost of total sales. So how much advertising costs are you doing to get your sales, and if you have a, there’s a smart way to work that out for each product. And you have to kind of know what that is. And experienced sellers know what that is for their products. And so they know, okay, I can advertise this much and still maximize the amount of profit that I’m getting from that product. And they can then watch that number. If that number goes, you know, to a point where it’s it’s going to start eating into their their profitability, okay, they know they either need to scale back, you scale back on advertising, optimize the listing a little bit better, be smarter about their their keywords and their targeting. But it all kind of plays together. So having a keen knowledge of what your breakeven is and what your your tacos would be. That way I would say is the key factor. And then you can actually just go, Okay, this is what I can invest into it. This is if I spend this much more, I’m going to be eating too much into my profits.

Ben Donovan  27:14
And then when it comes to customer lifetime value, how does that play into the profitability picture? Obviously, Amazon sellers traditionally hadn’t really thought too much about lifetime value, it’s about getting that sale, and then moving on. But as you know, ecommerce has really matured, you know, my personal opinion. And I don’t want to put words in your mouth. And you can correct me if you want, but we have to more and more see Amazon more as a an acquisition channel, and the first sale is about acquiring a customer. And then we have to deliver on the back end after that. Yeah. How do you see lifetime value? Especially looking at all of the stats? How do you see that playing into a successful Amazon business?

Marc Jepsen  27:53
Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s vital. And a lot of experienced sellers are, have been viewing that and have been looking at that for years. And they and really analyzing that aspect of it, and figuring out how they can use Amazon as their kind of lead gen. Is, is, yeah, it’s everything. We’ve had lifetime value for years, right, everyone’s been able to look at what’s the lifetime value of that customer? And what’s the average lifetime value of your customers? So how much can you spend on on advertising? And feel comfortable with the fact that you’re gonna, you know, you spend that amount, you’re gonna hopefully acquire that many customers who are going to have that kind of lifetime value paying to you, right? So obviously, one off products, you know, yeah, you’re just looking at volume trying to get as much volume as possible. But you still need to know that you still need to know, okay, how much is the customer paying? And do they buy it more than once? Maybe not? And, okay, how much can you spend on your ads? To acquire that customer, you have to kind of have that knowledge for products that are, you know, subscription based, or just you’re gonna have, you’re gonna have a repeat buyer percentage of some sort, you know, whether it’s they buy one, and they’re like, oh, I want that one for my office as well, you know, you need to Yeah, you having that number is going to be vital. But we’ve actually stepped a little bit beyond that, because we’ve been seeing that and hearing about it for years. There’s a feature that not everyone thinks about the same things with smart marketers, and people who’ve been in this in this game for a while they think with it, but it’s the product, lifetime value, separate or distinct from customer lifetime value. And if you look at it by product, you know, okay, what’s the average amount of income or average average amount of revenue that you’re gonna get from that product? Right. So your you do discounts you do your price changes over, you know, over time, if you’re, if you’re trying to be competitive with other sellers. You know, your cost of goods go up, you have to increase your price to be to be profitable, right. So all of that stuff kind of changes over time. And and whether or not you get repeat buyers, knowing your product, lifetime value is key.

Ben Donovan  30:06
Yeah, definitely, I think lifetime value in particular is a metric that gives you such a competitive edge. Because the gives you the, like you said, The words you used was confidence, it gives you the confidence to know I can spend X amount or acquire a customer with that confidence that they will produce x amount of revenue on average for me in the long run. Whereas brands that are measuring that might not spend that money to acquire that customer. And, you know, as the saying goes, isn’t it in e-commerce, the person that are the businesses that can spend the most to acquire the customer usually wins? So yes, why it’s such a such a key metric. And the real takeaway there obviously, is the more informed you are as a seller as a business owner, the better decisions you’re going to make, right?

Marc Jepsen  30:49
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Ben Donovan  30:52
Good stuff. Okay, I feel I’ve covered loads there. There’s obviously the, you know, the reality of managing your business by the analytics by the stats is such an important aspect. What do you see over the next 12 months? E-commerce is continually changing. What do you see for the next 12, 24 months? Do you see many changes in the industry? How can Amazon sellers prepare themselves for what’s ahead? You know, in light of what we’ve talked about today?

Marc Jepsen  31:19
Absolutely, I mean, what I’m seeing a lot of, and I have, you know, being a software that’s been connected to Amazon for the last eight years, you know, we have information that we get from different areas of the Amazon team, specifically for our software, and making sure that, you know, everything’s up to date on on our end. But we also, you know, get some little insights into some of the things that are coming. So a lot of what I’m seeing is, and people have been seeing this over the last, you know, probably a year and a half, two years as well. But I’m just seeing more and more of this happening is the, on Amazon advertising, there’s more and more features and more and more elements that are being added to it, to make it either easier to see what’s what’s being attributed to your outside advertising, but also then being able to use on Amazon advertising to expand outward. So there’s a lot of different types of campaigns and different elements of the campaigns that you can now utilize to get more expansion more kind of more exposure for your products than just the conventional, you know, on Amazon, someone searching on Amazon and seeing seeing an ad, right. So there’s a whole bunch of different things that are that are still very much in play very much in beta. And so I think that’s kind of the main main element that is like, you know, really, really, really analyze your your advertising be it know what that’s all about when new set when new systems come out? Yeah, okay. Don’t just trust them. Right, don’t just trust that this is the new thing that’s gonna explode your sales. But at the same time, you know, like, when video ads came out, you know, that was, I mean, we were seeing crazy good ACLs on video ads, because not everyone was doing them it was the new thing was, you know, it’s like, you know, when, when Amazon first came out, you know, someone’s starting off in 2013. She’s making mad money because he was the only seller of that product. Right? So same thing happened with the video ads, you know, those those started off, you’re the only guy that was promoting that, but you know, on their videos, you had a huge Spa on the page. And there’s more stuff like that that’s happening. There’s there’s the Display Network, there’s a whole bunch of other things that are that are still very much in the pipeline. So I would say really know your numbers know what know what that taco number is. So you can actually analyze your advertising correctly, because there’s a lot to it. And it’s it’s turning into its own world of name, you know, different names and, and acronyms and, and whole bunch of other things. So, yeah, yeah,

Ben Donovan  34:08
yeah, definitely. It’s, you know, now more than ever is important to upskill as an Amazon seller, to really learn the system and you can’t just do an average job if you’re going to be successful. You must commit to it and do the learning and subscribe to podcasts like this in Yes.

Marc Jepsen  34:25
Yeah, I mean, it’s true. You have to constantly be learning there’s there’s constantly someone innovating, doing something new. Your competitors always trying to do something new. There’s always someone else who’s jumping into that arena who’s got some bright idea, same way that you did when you first started your product. You know, you had some bright idea. This is how I can make this product a little bit better. And trying to take over that market share.

Ben Donovan  34:50
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. This is awesome. been really helpful and obviously can really see you know how you built the business you have because there’s lots of lots of great in sight there lots of practical stuff as well. I feel like we could do a whole episode on probably each of the metrics you mentioned. But it’s good to, I think for particularly for newer sellers to really get an overview an idea of what they need to be looking at on a daily basis to make sure you know that their ship is heading in the right direction. So, yeah, really appreciate you coming on and spending some time with us. Absolutely. It’s can people find out more about ManageByStats? If they want to check it out and explore that?

Marc Jepsen  35:29
Yeah, the best way managebystats.com. That’s going to be it’s going to give you all the information you need. Yep, super simple. And, and then I’ll also give you a special signup link as well that you can give to your guys. So we’ll give three months of free service for for people signing up.

Ben Donovan  35:48
Oh, nice. Thank you for that. Yeah, well, then we’ll make sure that that gets put down in the show notes in the description of stuff so people can get stuck into that and it’s a great offer, that’s gonna be a no brainer. So people can, you know, get in and find out all of the, you know, the benefits there, Mark, honestly, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate your time. And we are really excited to see about the next stage of the journey as you’ve joined Carbon Six.

Marc Jepsen  36:13
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure, man.

Ben Donovan  36:17
Awesome. Well, guys, hopefully you enjoyed the episode as much as I did, make sure you do check out ManageByStats link is in the description below. And I will see you in the next episode, same time next week. Take care.