This Issue's TLDR...

• A step-by-step playbook to spy on your competitors and copy what works well for them.
• How to determine product ratings by Child ASIN on Amazon.
• I go on a rant about irresponsible Amazon gurus.

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SPONSOR Sellerise ​ I rarely hear about Sellerise in the conversation about top Amazon tools. And maybe I shouldn't be surprised -- they don't buy booths at events or trade shows, they don They just quietly have one of the best, most feature rich, highest value-to-cost toolsets for Amazon sellers. I might have mentioned the enhancements that they've made to Keyword Hunter Pro and Keyword Re-Ranker Pro in this newsletter a while back. Well, I'm mentioning it again because 1) I've been geeking out over both tools recently and 2) I have an upcoming newsletter issue that dives into both. Anyway, hit the link below if you want to give Sellerise a test drive. Try It Out​

BEST from Me

Would you rather figure something out from scratch, or copy someone else's work?

Would you rather swim against the current, or with the current?

Would you rather start at your own 1-yard line, or at your opponent's 1-yard line?

I could go on.

But, suffice it to say, in business, if you're given the answers to the test, you'd be silly not to look at them, right?

Everything is a remix anyway.

So, when I talk about "stealing" today, I'm NOT talking about corporate espionage or anything nefarious.

I'm simply talking about sleuthing the answers to the test, and using those answers to take your business to the next level.

To illustrate what I mean, I'm going to share a real example of how I've been spying on a competitor (technically, a client's competitor) and "stealing" their work.

Let's go....

The Mark

The dog supplement brand Wuffes has been following me everywhere online.

Not surprising, as I'm a dog owner and regularly buy supplements for this good boy.

Anyway, normally I wouldn't go all Sherlock Holmes on a company. But, in this case, like I said, there was a business reason: A brand client of mine is a direct competitor of Wuffes, and they're looking for a leg up.

So, of course, I started with an Amazon deep dive into Wuffes.

I'll save the full findings for maybe another Best@Amazon issue and give you all the TLDR:

• Wuffes was winning ON Amazon because they were crushing it OFF Amazon; and
• Even though my client had a better, more well-run Amazon presence across every conceivable metric and functional area -- e.g., CRO, SEO, PPC -- they were struggling to keep up with Wuffes on Amazon because of Wuffes' off Amazon halo.

This led me to recommend that we deep dive what Wuffes has been doing OFF Amazon and...steal it.

Which leads me to Step 1 in this "How to Steal from Your Competitors" playbook:

Step 1: Figure Out Where Their Traffic is Coming From

For this, you're going to head over to Similar Web.

You'll probably need to sign up for a free 7-day trial. Whatevs. Use a burner email.

Once you're in, enter in the URL of your competitor.

When I did this for Wuffes, I observed that 1) they were getting significant traffic from Social and Paid Search and 2) within Social, most of the traffic was coming from Facebook.

Now that I know where the traffic is coming from, I can move to Steps 2a and 2b...

Step 2a: Steal Their Social Traffic

I headed over to Facebook Ad Library and looked for ads that Wuffes has been running for 6+ months. Why 6+ months? Because any marketer worth their salt will keep pumping money into ads that are working and profitable.

I then studied the ads to look for patterns in why they were working.

Consistent ad copy?

Consisten creatives?

Consistent hooks?

Consistent offers?

Any patterns that I saw, I took note of.

Step 2b: Steal Their Google Ad Traffic

Next, I headed over to ispionage to see which keywords they have been running ads for.

In this case, there was really just one keyword that has been crushing it for them: "dog joint treatment" at a $0.87 cost per click.

Crazy cheap!

Step 3: Steal Their SEO Traffic

Now that I've isolated what they're doing (well) on the Social and Paid Search side, I want to diagnose how they're getting their Direct traffic (and emulate it).

For this, I used Ahrefs to find keywords with 10k+ search volume, and for which Wuffes was ranking for with less than 15 links.

The intuition behind these filters is that my client can either hire bloggers or enlist publishers to build more than 15 links and steal that traffic.

Step 4: Steal Their Ads

This is a more forward-looking type of espionage. With a tool like Moat, I can set up alerts for all new ads that Wuffes runs and more quickly replicate what is working for them.

Step 5: Steal Their Customers

Again, this one is a more forward-looking type of espionage.

With BrandMentions, I can listen to what Wuffes' customers love and hate, and build ad messaging that speak to those points.

(Of course, there are good tools to monitor customer sentiment on Amazon, but I'm assuming most of you know of them already, so I won't get into them.)

Step 6: Steal Their Email Campaigns

Wuffes doesn't seem to do much email marketing. But, if they did, I would use Owletter to capture every email that they send (and maybe copy them).

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There you go!

A step-by-step playbook as to how you can steal from your competitors.

But look, here's where things get fun...

The tools I walked through above are only a select few of the spying tools available.

Some others, that I find myself occasionally using when I'm feeling like Arsene Lupin:

• AdScan.ai (to steal winning ads)
• adspyder.io (to steal Youtube ads)
• Import Yeti (to steal suppliers)
• SpyFu (to steal SEO juice)

Go forth and pilfer!

SPONSOR Prosper Show I'm excited to report that I'll be speaking at Prosper Show this year! My topic is The Miracle of Negative Working Capital -- And Other Ways to Improve Your Cash Flow (big surprise) and I'll be presenting at 10am on March 6. If you're attending Prosper in March, drop me a note so that we can get together! Use promo code SANAR1100OFFSPEAK to get $100 off an all-access pass.

BEST from Everyone Else

Best from the B@A Community

I had the following question from the B@A Community pop into my inbox a few days ago, and I thought that my response was worth sharing more broadly.

Q: Hey Jon, I've asked this question in multiple seller communities that I'm in, but I haven't been able to get a good answer. My question is: How can I find the number of ratings by Child ASIN?

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Hey XXXX, here's a quick step-by-step approach:

• In Seller Central, go to Catalog > Add Products > Variation Wizard.
• In Variation Wizard, enter an ASIN (can be Parent or Child) from the relevant ASIN family. This tool can be used with your own products OR competitor products (which would apply if you're trying to gather market intel) and I prefer to use this because it will ALWAYS show for the full ASIN family tree. It looks like this:

• Now, with the full ASIN family from Variation Wizard, head over to Keepa and go to Product Viewer. In Product Viewer, copy the full ASIN list from the family.
• Next, go to Configure Columns and search for "Ratings - Format Specific". This will show you the number of ratings by Child ASIN, like in the image below.

Hope that helps!

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PS: To level up your Keepa game, use the API and pipe the data into Google Sheets. If you don't know how to do this, ask ChatGPT for help (this is what I did).

Best from X

Virtual Bundles are (maybe) getting a glow up in 2024.

A current WebLab (Amazon's tool for A/B testing) is showing Virtual Bundles above-the-fold.

It seems to only be happening on the mobile app at the moment though.

If this change sticks -- and I believe it will -- it's going to catapult Virtual Bundles to the top of my list of growth levers, since the likely outcome of this improved placement is higher AOV.

Bearded Egg FBA 🛠️ @guyfosel Amazon is experimenting with a new detail page experience for ASINs with Virtual Bundles. In this experiment, Virtual Bundles are being shown above-the-fold, in the page real estate typically occupied by product variations. I’m a fan. 8:27 PM • Jan 23, 2024 0 Retweets 8 Likes Read 3 replies

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Given the (potentially) increased importance of Virtual Bundles, let's talk about a super simple, data-driven approach to creating Virtual Bundles:

1. Head over to Brand Analytics > Consumer Behavior Analytics > Market Basket Analysis.
2. Filter to the time period that makes sense for your business (I typically choose Monthly, given my repurchase rate) and select 'Same Brand Only Combination'.
3. From that list, sort by Combination % for #1 Product Combination, and work your way down the list in creating Virtual Bundles.

The intuition here is, simply: Observe what customers are *already* buying together, and make it even easier for future customers to purchase that combination.

Best from LinkedIn

Ugh. Here we go again.

Like I said last week, I'm a sucker for an Amazon ToS debate.

But this one isn't really a debate.

It's more a Litmus Test of honesty and integrity in the Amazon space.

Here's the context:

Over the past week, multiple prominent personalities and thought leaders in the Amazon space have pushed a narrative that, if you have an Amazon Lending loan, you'll be insulated from account suspensions.

Their arguments have been some combination of:

• It's logical: Amazon doesn't want to lose money on these loans.
• I've been selling on Amazon for a long time and I have personally observed this happening.
• Someone high up at Amazon secretly shared this with me.

My responses to these people were:

• Amazon Capital is the lender on only a small portion of loans; the rest are through third parties. So, Amazon wouldn't, and doesn't care, about the risk of loss of capital. Plus, these loans are often Personally Guaranteed (more on that below), so the lenders will get their money.
• How exactly would one observe this happening? Have sellers on the brink of suspension for, e.g., their ODR exceeding threshold, received messages from Amazon saying "We were going to suspend your account, but we're giving you a break because we see you have an outstanding Amazon Capital loan"?
• "Trust me bro" isn't a reliable source.

I'm fired up about this because:

1. In the 3 years that I spent at Amazon, from 2016-2019, and in a role where I not only managed the 3P marketplace but also worked closely with various Selling Partner Support teams (Dharmesh Mehta's org), I never heard of or observed this happening. Not once.
2. Around 2017, Amazon deprecated an internal mechanism that gave seller account managers advance notice of an enforcement action (these messages were called "PerComms"). When I first started, I could reply to a PerComm and buy one of my sellers an extra 24 hours to respond to and/or appeal a pending enforcement action. But...I *never* had the ability to overrule a policy enforcement team. Internal Amazon policies were very clear on that point.
3. This advice is just...grossly irresponsible. The people peddling it might just be trying to score Amazon "guru points" and I get that. But this is NOT the issue on which to peddle BS. Let's say, hypothetically, a seller takes out an Amazon Loan and signs on for a personal guarantee (which exposes assets like your house, for example, to creditors) under the assumption that Amazon will give that seller a break if the seller runs afoul of policy. But, lo and behold, Amazon *doesn't* give sellers with Amazon Loans a break, and now this seller can't pay back the loan from their Amazon business and a creditor puts a lien on their house. What's the recourse for this seller? That someone on the internet said that they would be insulated from account enforcement actions? Come on, man.

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Best from my Inbox

Best@Amazon reader and "friend of the show" Izzy Benoliel (sometimes) writes a killer newsletter with truly actionable tips for Amazon sellers.

My only criticism is that he doesn't publish more regularly!

But, if I had to guess, his intermittent publishing frequency is because he's actually head's down building Amazon businesses.

That's really the only explanation as to why he's able to speak so intimately about esoteric Amazon tactics.

He is truly IN THE ARENA.

Anyway, his most recent newsletter was about a topic near and dear to my heart: 5 Ways To Improve Your Cash Flow Today.

Go give it a read.

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Best from Youtube Loom

My Twitter friend Jake Martin, runs an Amazon agency called Levo, and regularly drops value bombs in his newsletter.

Recently, he shared a 20+ minute masterclass on how to create effective product inserts.

Well worth a watch.

Updates to the Amazon Private Label Pathway

The inspiration for today's BEST from Me topic came from Chad Rubin, who gave a presentation on "espionage" back in November at AMZ Innovate. I loved his presentation so much that I immediately penciled the topic into my Best@Amazon content calendar.

Anyway, I've added his AMZ Innovate presentation to the Amazon Private Label Pathway. Enjoy!

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Back Story on the Amazon Private Label Pathway, ICYMI...

A few months back, I had a small group of coaching clients that were at the same point in their Amazon seller journeys.

I found myself answering the same questions, and pointing them to the same resources, so, in true Amazon fashion, I asked myself "What's the 1-to-Many solution here?" and built a Notion page of helpful resources, which I've called "Amazon Private Label Pathway."

You can get access to it here: https://auxo.gumroad.com/l/amazonpathway (it's free; but if you want to buy me a beer, I won't object)​

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Amazon Questions? Amazon isn't easy. Everyone needs a little help from a friend sometimes. If you ever have a tough Amazon question, I'm only a phone call away. Let's Chat

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