Omnichannel Success: The Neuro Story

About Neuro

Most brands reach seven figures by doing the right things: finding a strong product, ranking for the right keywords, running tight PPC. But at some point, they hit the growth plateau where ad costs climb, competitors close in, and the playbook that got them there stops working. 

Kent Yoshimura, co-founder of Neuro (NeuroGum), describes it simply. There are two kinds of Amazon brands: those that are sellers, and those that own a category. Neuro is now a nine-figure company and their brand name is searched on Amazon more than the word “gum” itself. They outsell 5-Hour Energy at CVS nationwide. The distance between where they started and where they are now is due to four strategic shifts, and the data that made each one executable. 

Move 1: Decide what Amazon is for

Early on, Neuro ran the standard e-commerce playbook; keyword rankings, customer acquisition, sponsored ads. It worked until they made a deliberate decision to think about the platform differently. 

Instead of treating Amazon as a place to find new customers, they started treating it as the digital shelf those customers came to after they heard about NeuroGum somewhere else. TikTok, Joe Rogan, a friend’s recommendation. The job of Amazon was no longer to introduce the brand, it was to be ready when an already-interested buyer arrived. That shift changed what they optimized for and conversion become priority over discovery. Branded search volume became the primary measure of brand health, rather than ranking for generic category terms. 

“I transitioned the philosophy to Amazon being more like Google, where I drive the attention and brand awareness off platform, and people come to Amazon to find us directly.” 

Jonathan, Head of Amazon and TikTok, Neuro 

To measure whether it was working, the team tracked branded search volume over time using Helium 10’s keyword data. The signal they were looking for was simple: were people coming to Amazon to search for NeuroGum by name? When that search term began outranking the word “gum” in monthly volume, they had their answer. 

Move 2: Find out who is actually buying from you

Neuro products are designed for high performers: athletes and professionals who want clean, functional energy. That was the intended customer. But the actual customer base, it turned out, was wider and more varied than anyone on the team had assumed. 

When they ran keyword research through Helium 10, they discovered that sexual enhancement was generating significant search traffic that was landing on their listings. It was a high-intent audience they had never targeted and would never have known existed without digging into the data. 

“Helium 10 allowed us to dictate how some of our consumers were potentially using our product and be more nuanced in the way we market to wider audiences.” 

Kent Yoshimura, Co-Founder, Neuro 

The broader lesson here applies to any brand. Consumer intent rarely matches the assumptions you built the product around. Running reverse ASIN and keyword research not just to find ranking opportunities, but to genuinely understand who is buying and why, sharpens every downstream decision from listing copy and ad targeting to creator partnerships and product development. 

Move 3: Use TikTok to build brand awareness, not just make sales 

At the start of 2024, Kent and Jonathan made a personal commitment to post on TikTok every day. The goal was not to drive TikTok revenue directly, rather to build brand awareness at a scale they knew would eventually show up on Amazon. They also partnered with a group of proven creators. 

Five or six months in, one video went viral, and something telling happened. 

“We saw our Amazon numbers skyrocket overnight. The attribution is super weak, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the synergy.” 

The mechanism is straightforward when you understand the first move. TikTok built awareness, and Amazon was the digital shelf those newly aware customers came to. Helium 10’s branded search data made the connection visible in a way raw sales figures alone could not. Neuro has since pulled back on Amazon ad spend and redirected that budget into creator content, because the brand equity it builds compounds over time in a way that PPC does not. As Kent put it, the best Amazon advertising Neuro runs happens on TikTok. 

For any brand running both channels, the implication is worth considering. If you are measuring TikTok purely by TikTok GMV, you are likely undercounting what it is actually doing for your business. 

Move 4: Treat creator partnerships like an extension of your team

Most brands approach influencer marketing as a numbers game. Send enough product, offer a decent commission rate, and hope enough posts get made. Neuro took a more deliberate approach, structuring their creator relationships the way you would structure a sales team. 

Their open commission rate on TikTok Shop is pretty typical. Creators who commit to an active partnership earn between 5-10% more, depending on GMV. Retainer agreements are straightforward: 30 posts in 30 days. To filter out people seeking free product, any creator requesting samples must have generated at least $500 in TikTok Shop GMV in the previous 30 days.  

“We treat them as an extension of our sales team. Their vehicle is making videos. When they win, we win.” 

On content, Neuro shares brand guidelines and product benefits but keeps the creative direction intentionally open. The organic, unpolished quality of native TikTok content is a feature, not a flaw, and over-directing creators tends to drain exactly what makes their content work. 

The bigger picture 

None of these moves require being a nine-figure company to execute. They require a willingness to use data to challenge your assumptions, to measure brand health rather than just short-term revenue, and to think about Amazon as a destination rather than a discovery engine. 

“There is a brand defensibility capacity that Helium 10 has that a lot of people do not take advantage of enough. If you are winning a keyword or a category, how are you truly owning it and finding expansion points so your brand strengthens rather than just becoming another Amazon seller.” 

Kent Yoshimura, Co-Founder, Neuro 

The brands that break through are the ones that stop asking how to rank for a keyword and start asking how to own the category. That is a harder question, but it is the right one.