#762 – Scaling a $4 Million Dollar Brand On Amazon

What happens when a decades-old industrial business starts treating Amazon like a serious growth channel? In this episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley Sutton sits down with Angie Mosqueda from Stardust, a company aiming for roughly $4 million in Amazon sales this year. What began as a traditional B2B business selling industrial products through distributors has evolved into a sophisticated Amazon operation with high-ticket products, business pricing, PPC clicks that can reach $20 or more, and even a six-figure-per-month product.

But one of Stardust’s biggest opportunities didn’t come from a new keyword or advertising campaign. Through persistent networking at Amazon events and leveraging its business certifications, the company eventually became a preferred seller to Amazon itself—meaning Amazon warehouses can now purchase Stardust products. The company also became a preferred seller for Chicago Public Schools through Amazon Business. Angie explains how these opportunities took roughly a year and a half of networking, follow-ups, and navigating Amazon’s programs, showing why sellers shouldn’t overlook certifications, Amazon Business, or simply getting in the room with the right people.

Angie also shares why Stardust recently moved its Amazon advertising away from outside agencies and brought PPC management in-house using Helium 10 Ads. While the account’s overall numbers previously looked healthy, getting closer to the data exposed wasted spend hiding underneath those top-level metrics. She also explains how she’s using Helium 10 Audience to validate creative decisions and the Helium 10 MCP with Claude to analyze bids, identify opportunities, make changes, and learn Amazon advertising as she goes.

Bradley wraps up the episode with a live Cerebro deep dive into Stardust’s top-selling spill kit, revealing how sellers can identify their real competitors, compare relative organic rank, uncover keyword gaps, and study historical advertising and BSR trends. Instead of guessing what might move the needle, sellers can reverse-engineer what changed when a competitor’s sales and rankings improved. Stardust may already be approaching $4 million on Amazon, but this episode proves an important lesson: no matter how established your business becomes, there’s always another layer of opportunity hiding in the data.

In episode 762 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Angie discuss:

• 00:00 – Introduction
• 03:37 – Taking A Legacy B2B Brand Online
• 06:30 – Why Their PPC Clicks Cost $20+
• 09:02 – Launching New Products On Amazon
• 11:49 – Becoming A Supplier To Amazon Warehouses
• 13:16 – Unlocking Amazon Business Preferred Seller Programs
• 15:39 – Certifications And Networking With Amazon
• 16:23 – Bringing Amazon PPC Management In-House
• 17:34 – Using Helium 10 Audience And AI
• 19:11 – Managing Amazon Ads With MCP
• 22:49 – Bradley’s Live Cerebro Competitor Analysis
• 33:50 – Reverse-Engineering Competitor Growth Strategies

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today, we’re talking to a brand who does four million a year and about how they’re taking advertising in-house for the first time and how they position themselves to be able to qualify for special programs at Amazon you’ve probably never heard of, including actually becoming a supplier for Amazon warehouses themselves. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s a completely BS free, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And today we’re not going too far away from me here on the West Coast. We’ve got Angie, but where exactly are you at here? 

Angie:

I’m in Temecula. 

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, Temecula. Okay. So yeah, like maybe only about an hour away or less an hour away from me here, but welcome to the show. So this is your first time on the show. So Temecula, is that where you were born and raised?

Angie:

No, I’m from Los Angeles. I’ve lived in Temecula about a year now.

Bradley Sutton:

About a year. Okay. Um, what what did you do growing up? Like, what do you think you were going to be like? Like, I doubt it was like, hey, I want to be an e-commerce professional when I grew up.

Angie:

Yeah, I wanted to study law. I wanted to be a lawyer.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Did you ever go to school for that?

Angie:

I didn’t. No.

Bradley Sutton:

When you graduated high school, what did you do?

Angie:

I actually moved out of the country. I was living in Central America.

Bradley Sutton:

What part?

Angie:

Panama. 

Bradley Sutton:

Panama. Okay. Now, what was your first kind of like taste of e-commerce then? What year and what, what was it?

Angie:

Uh, it was actually about three years ago. I started working for my now boss, Tim, in a different role in his company and just had a lot of curiosity. They had just got on to Seller Central. And, um, that was kind of my exposure to it. Just a lot of curiosity and, and learning.

Bradley Sutton:

So just learning from the ground up.

Angie:

Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

What did you start doing? Like accounting or something like that?

Angie:

Um, more like just data entry stuff.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. And then you’re like, Hey, raise your hand. I can, I can help with Amazon.

Angie:

Yeah. He had brought on a consultant and in our company meetings, it was just really interesting to me and I could see a lot of things weren’t really being done. So I just started researching them myself and, and finding the answers that Tim wanted that he wasn’t getting.

Bradley Sutton:

I know you guys have multiple brands. What was the first brand that he started? Which one predates the other?

Angie:

So our first brand is Stardust Absorbent. So it’s, it’s like an absorbent powder for spills. That’s our primary brand.

Bradley Sutton:

When did he start it? And like, what’s the backstory?

Angie:

I know bits and pieces of it. It’s Tim’s been in business for over 30 years. Um, he had a business partner. Um, this is his baby. Eventually they went separate ways. And, uh, Tim stayed with Stardust. Um, so this is, this is who we are. Uh, this is who we’re named after. And so he’s the owner and manufacturer of this. And then we also have Star Power, which is our cleaner degreaser. Also, you know, he’s the owner of that as well. And then we started manufacturing spill kits, which I, as I mentioned.

Bradley Sutton:

So obviously 30 years ago, people were not, or nobody was selling on Amazon really. Maybe? 

Angie:

No.

Bradley Sutton:

The books. I don’t think even books was, was a thing yet, uh, at that time. But what was the original market? Was it just like a B2B, uh, kind of business? Do you know?

Angie:

Very much so. Tim has always been a B2B company, industrial. He’s sold to like Grainger, Fast and All, those type of suppliers.

Bradley Sutton:

And then do you know at what point he started going online, you know, .com and, and, and Amazon and things like that? I assume it was before you joined the company. Do you know how long before?

Angie:

I would say if I had to guess about maybe 10 years, but he started off in with Vendor Central. So he was selling on Vendor Central. And then about maybe, maybe almost four years ago is when he got on to Seller Central.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. And now, you know, here in, uh, we’re in 2026, these brands on Amazon, what would your approximate projected gross sales be?

Angie:

for, for 2026? 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah.

Angie:

We’re hoping, uh, we’re hoping 4 million.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Yeah. Now I’m looking at a lot of your, your products and a lot of them have a, a kind of pretty high price point, like your number one seller, what’s the price point of your number one seller?

Angie:

I believe that one is probably in the $90 range.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Yeah. That’s not, that’s what I was looking at here and still selling good amount. So 4 million, probably not a hundred percent B2B, like have you any idea what, you know, like what’s the demographics like on Amazon? I mean, I assume there’s a lot of B, you know, B2B, but, um, are there like people who just get this for their, their house or things like that? Or, or you think like 95% of customers still are actual businesses?

Angie:

We do believe that the majority are businesses, even though it does seem that, um, we’re still about 56% B2C. But we think a lot of that is like small businesses or just businesses that don’t have a B2B account maybe just because our, our, our customers, their, their businesses, the spill kits weren’t, aren’t really something that you’d have, you know, just lying around in your house. Okay.

Bradley Sutton:

So that’s pretty impressive. You know, that’s, you know, like, like a big majority of your sales of a $4 million, you know, business being B2B is, is kind of rare in the, in the Amazon, you know, world. So is, do you, do you run like B2B pricing on all of your, your SKUs and, and have that like a, you know, a discount, uh, to, to kind of, um, incentivize even more B2B? Or since you’re all B2B, do you just have regular pricing because you figure everybody is a business, right?

Angie:

We have, we have, uh, B2B pricing. Yeah, we have it scaled.

Bradley Sutton:

And what, what, what, what do you, um, what’s your standard? You know, like, like, is there a percentage off or a dollar amount off?

Angie:

Uh, there’s a percentage off by the number of units. Yeah. So the more units you buy, then the higher percentage.

Bradley Sutton:

Anything on subscribe and save in your, your, your business, or these are all just like one-off purchases.

Angie:

We do have, um, some subscribe and save, not all of our SKUs, but a few of them.

Bradley Sutton:

And at such a high price point, you’re able to pay a lot more for advertising as far as like cost per click and things like that, you know, somebody who’s selling a $15 product, you know, they, they might not want to go much higher than $2, maybe, or something on, on a cost per click, otherwise now it starts into their profitability. Have you any, for, for your profitable keywords, what is the highest cost per click you’ve seen? Like I I’ve been in your account, so I think I know part of the answer, but, but it’s like probably some of the highest cost per clicks I’ve ever worked on in any, uh, account. People are like, what? That will give me a nightmare. Like, no, it’s fine. When you’re, when you’re talking about an order value of 200 bucks. So what are some cost per clicks that you have?

Angie:

I think on average, a lot of them are around $12, but I do think that there are some that are about 20, maybe a little more.

Bradley Sutton:

I’ve seen 20, I’ve seen 25 in your account, almost up to, to $30. Now what’s for, for your, your competitors in this, you know, absorbents and, and spill kits and things like that niche, are these other U.S. based brands like yours? Are these foreign brands from, from China? What kind of companies are you competing with?

Angie:

So historically they’ve been U.S. based and we’re very well acquainted with all of them, but recently we’ve had some new competitors, uh, come on the market and a lot of, a lot of the new ones are Chinese based.

Bradley Sutton:

Are they undercutting you a lot on price?

Angie:

They are.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. And, and how, I mean, has that affected you or is it, do you have like such brand loyalty that your sales haven’t been affected as much or are you like maybe getting less new customer, new acquisition because of it or, or how has this, this new, you know, source of, of, um, competition affected you?

Angie:

Yeah, I don’t think that we’ve really felt any of the effects from it yet. So we’re just, just keeping an eye on them, but they’re, they’re definitely coming up in the scene. So.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. I see some, I’m not sure if these are U.S. brands or not, but they even have like a lot of your, I don’t know, I almost want to say branding, you know, like your color scheme, you know, like it’s like a, like your yellow color scheme, you know, I’m seeing here, I’m like, wait a minute, this is not, this is not your, your brand here. So, so people are definitely kind of like copying your, uh, you guys, because you were probably the trailblazers, um, on here, what’s your, what’s your process for like, or how often do you guys launch a new product, uh, on Amazon?

Angie:

So our goal was to launch two to three new products a year.

Bradley Sutton:

How do you, how do you pick that? Is it just what you end up launching off Amazon? You know, what your customers have wanted, or do you do any kind of research where it’s like, Hey, you know, in this niche on Amazon, we see some demand that’s not being met or, or what’s your deciding factor on a brand like this when you, when you add new products?

Angie:

So a little bit of all of that, but initially what we’ve been doing is really just using what already works. So a lot of it is just variations or, uh, for example, one of our brands is like a ready to use, uh, polymer cement.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, wow. So that’s a completely different kind of product.

Angie:

And that is a B2C product. It’s a very, you know, DIY-er and that really carries our weekend sales for us. So, um, we’ve had that it’s worked. So then we brought on a two pack. We brought on a four pack and just recently we launched, it was in the color gray. So we launched, um, we launched it in the color white. We also launched a smaller version of it as well, a smaller package. So that’s really been what we’ve been doing. Um, we also had a launch. We have a cleaner degreaser concentrate, um, which is one of our brand’s Star Power. And so we thought, why don’t we bring it, um, a ready to use version of that so that it’s more B2C friendly. So that was one of our launches, uh, this year as well.

Bradley Sutton:

Um, so, so far what’s, what’s your launch strategy when, when you do launch one of these new products, are you doing the same kind of stuff that you hear on like, you know, Maldives honeymoon strategy where we just target keywords or is it different where since it’s B2B, you actually rely more on your existing customer base and letting them know you have a new product or are you doing some similar stuff that regular private label sellers do or are you just trying to, uh, you know, get top of search for like your top five keywords and go from there?

Angie:

Yeah. Um, well for both of those products, they’re actually B2C products. Um, so I guess part of our strategy has been, yeah, doing, doing keyword research, kind of piggybacking off of, you know, our other campaigns that have already been effective. Discounts.

Bradley Sutton:

When you do discounts, do you last sale price? Do you do a coupon? Do you do a prime exclusive discount or what? What do you mean?

Angie:

Yeah, we were doing a sales price, but with our last launch, what we did is we actually let the regular price sit there for 30 days. We let some sales come through and then after 30 days, then we just did a sales price. And so we were able to get the mark through price, which helped. And then we also use the buying program for new launches. Um, so that we’re able to get reviews. And then once we have about 10 reviews is when we start the ad campaign.

Bradley Sutton:

The company owner, he was saying how actually you guys are even becoming a supplier for Amazon. So, so talk a little bit about how, how did that happen? Cause that’s kind of cool. As in a supplier for Amazon, we’re not talking about, Oh, one P we’re talking about Amazon warehouses are using these products. Was it like somebody just saw this sitting in an FBA warehouse? Like, Hey, we actually need this product. Or, or did you guys actually find someone to pitch this to or how in the world did that happen?

Angie:

So we’re really big on any event that Amazon has. We try to be present. And we just believe that networking with Amazonians is so important. And so we went to an event because we’re in a minority owned business. We were invited to an event in Los Angeles at the Paramount studios, I believe, and it was for black history month and we, we had some great conversations with some Amazonians. We followed up and just started having some meetings and kind of just got passed along, but stayed persistent. And it took about a year and a half, but finally, um, we became a preferred seller to Amazon. So now Amazon’s warehouses are buying our products.

Bradley Sutton:

That’s, that’s pretty, did they instantly become like one of your biggest, uh, customers, B2B customers?

Angie:

So that just started this month. Okay. So we’re just now starting to see those sales come through. So we don’t actually have numbers yet, but it is exciting to see it happening.

Bradley Sutton:

That’s pretty cool.

Angie:

Yeah. And then we also became a, through B2B, um, through their EDU entity, we were able to become a preferred seller or preferred vendor for one of the school districts, Chicago public schools, and are looking for other entities within the EDU entity to become a preferred seller as well.

Bradley Sutton:

So, so what does that mean? Tell me about, I don’t know anything about that, that program. Is this like a special program that Amazon has where they contract out and give special rates to school districts or something like that?

Angie:

So they have special contracts with all kinds of companies, fortune 500 companies, um, school districts, hospitals, uh, all kinds of businesses where they agree to, you know, for a certain, um, dollar spend a year. And then within that dollar spend also a certain spend for minority owned businesses or women owned businesses and so forth. And so Amazon basically finds sellers that fit that profile or that have, that can fill those needs for that particular company. And so, um, again, it took about a year and a half to get through the process, but, um, just this month as well, we became a vendor or a seller for, uh, a preferred seller for Chicago public schools. So anytime they, they look up Spill Kit, you know, and, and so that could be anyone within that school district, a principal, school nurse, a teacher, they look up Spill Kit and because of our credentials that we have now will show up in the regular Amazon or is it like a special app or something that they’re using? So it’s a regular Amazon. It’s just with that school district’s account.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, okay. So like, like it kind of like pushes you guys to the top of any, any search that they’re doing. Uh, as long as those people are logged into this school district account.

Angie:

Right. There’s like a special badge, um, that once you meet these qualifications, you have this badge that says preferred seller.

Bradley Sutton:

And now, so for this, was this like through conversations and meeting people or again, this is just by being part of that program and they just, you know, they, they contacted you or, or was it a, oh, you ran into somebody like that?

Angie:

It was networking with Amazonians and then also kind of getting a little bit of the runaround. And so last year at Accelerate, talking to the SAS department is really what helped us to get what we needed to finish this.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, cool. Cool. So, so two things, learnings from this is first of all, everybody out there should be applying for all the badges that, that you can, you know, minority owned, woman owned, uh, you know, look up all the different, you know, small business, look up all those things that you can show certification for and then get those badges and then try to network as much as you can with those from Amazon, do their local events, do their national events. I think it was at Accelerate that we originally met, um, before.

Angie:

Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

And, and so, and so that’s another way that you can get into some of these programs that you guys have never heard about. That’s pretty, that’s pretty cool. Now, how long, you know, we met last year at Accelerate, I believe. Were you already using Helium 10 before that or around that time is when you just started?

Angie:

No. So we were not using Helium 10. We were with an agency, a third party agency was running all of our ads for us. And then, um, but I had already been following Helium 10 podcast. I had been following them on social media and I was a big fan, but it wasn’t until meeting you and then, you know, being able to talk more about Helium 10 that really gave us the confidence to, to make that switch. 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay.

Angie:

So we eventually left the agency and then used Helium 10 ads to run our ads.

Bradley Sutton:

Were you handling the catalog part always though? And just the agency was only doing the ads? 

Angie:

Yes.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So tell me the difference of how your life has changed, uh, you know, as far as managing the accounts with Helium 10, as opposed to like, you know, what I consider flying blind, uh, not, not on the ad side, but, but the, just like, you know, catalog and keyword research and listing optimization and competitor analysis. Like, what is part of your routine now where you’re like, probably thinking like, oh my goodness, I don’t know what, how could I have even done anything before that? Like what are the most game-changing differences from now, uh, compared to like a year ago when you weren’t using Helium 10 at all?

Angie:

Well, that’s a good question. I, I, first of all, I just feel so much more confident with all of it. One of the ones I’ve been using recently a lot, I can’t remember the exact name, but I know it has to do with PicFu.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, Helium 10 audience.

Angie:

Helium 10 audience. Um, I’ve been loving that, being able to get, to do the customer polls and get feedback, especially like for our customer launch. I mean, for our product launch.

Bradley Sutton:

So we are using it for like an image or..

Angie:

Mostly images right now. 

Bradley Sutton:

And, and would you like, would you say that when you use it, it may be, you know, what you thought was the best image was not, or, or did it just validate that? Oh, you know, like this is the one I was going to pick and now I just see it from the customers or what, what experience have you had so far?

Angie:

I think personally for me, what it’s done is a lot of times when the owner and myself don’t disagree, don’t agree on something, it helps me to prove my point.

Bradley Sutton:

Or you’re saying you’re, you’re, you’re, yours is the one that has, uh, that, that has, uh, won.

Angie:

So I’m able to present it to him and show him that this is what customers want, you know, and the reasons why. Um, so that’s been-

Bradley Sutton:

What other tools have you been, uh, using other than Helium 10 audience?

Angie:

Mainly the ads and Helium 10 ads. Um, you’ve helped me set up rules and. Um, the suggestions. Oh, now using the MCP MCPs. That’s correct. Right.

Bradley Sutton:

And we have, were you guys already kind of like using Claude or, or, or other AIs for your business, or this is kind of like the first that you’re, you’re doing something.

Angie:

Yeah, we were using ChatGPT initially. And then I personally moved over to Quad and I was using Quad work, which I loved. But now with the, the MCP, it’s just a game changer, especially now that it has the right permissions, it’s, it’s amazing.

Bradley Sutton:

What kind of, what kind of things are you using for that?

Angie:

I’ve used it to like change bids, you know, analyze a bit, and then it’ll tell me you should lower this. You know, these keywords are pauses campaign or, um, so forth. And then it just, it follows through. And so I think to be new, newer to Helium 10, what I love about the MCP is that I’m watching it work and I’m, I’m able to follow along and see what it’s doing as well. So I’m learning with it.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. And what, what’s, what’s been a big difference other than maybe costs, you know, going on the ad side, going from an agency to running it, you’re yourself. Like, I mean, is it, I mean, it’s not like Helium 10 is free. Like, is it cheaper to use Helium 10 than whatever you’re paying the agency? And, and you know, this, this is a pretty big account and $4 million account. Obviously you’re, you’re probably doing a lot of advertising. I’m not sure how much, maybe over 500 grand or maybe even close to a million a year. I’m not, I’m not sure, but, but I assume it’s just you, you know, handling this. Are you saving money as opposed to what you’re doing at agency? Or is the difference like you’re able to control better, you know, now you’re controlling the catalog and you can just, you know, follow up on the ads or what’s the, what’s the difference of going from, you know, outsourced to, you know, to your own op optimizing.

Angie:

We’re definitely saving money. We we’ve had several agencies throughout the last few years. A lot of them are based on performance. So as you, as you sell more, they get paid more as well. That’s one. And then also, yeah, just being a lot more hands-on and, you know, overall they would present us, you know, the numbers, you know, our TACOS, our ROAS and they seemed fine. But now that I’m like hands-on and able to dig in, I could see that there was a lot of wasted spend and things like that, that overall the account looked good, but there was still a lot that, um, a lot of improvements that could have been made when someone’s, someone is hands-on.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. We’re, we’re definitely gonna be, you know, helping you further on with your advertising. I remember getting into the first time and seeing like some crazy stuff, like when you first switched over, like thousands of dollars of, of spend with clicks and no sales. Oh my goodness. This is hurting my eyes to, to, uh, to see this, but yeah, you’re right. Like overall, you know, your ACoS wasn’t bad, but that’s what, that’s, what’s pretty cool. Like, like once you start using software, you know, you could, you could look from a high, high, you know, far away, you know, angle and everything looks good, but you’re like, oh man, we can do even better if we just optimize some of this stuff that’s been going under the radar and looking at it at the campaign, at the target level, you know, like, like you can get these numbers even, um, even better. I know we just started like the day partying and things like that as well. 

Bradley Sutton:

Now it sounds like you haven’t used much, some of the other tools. So what I want to do right now is we’re just going to do this live. Let’s do something live here. Um, which one is your main seller? Actually, I can probably just find it myself. I don’t want to hit one of your ads, charge you one of these $15 cost per clicks. Oh, this is, see, look at this. I clicked on somebody. It wasn’t even you like they’re copying your images and everything. And I thought it was you. Oh my goodness gracious. These stinkers out there. This is you here. Okay. Is this your, your, your top seller or?

Angie:

That, that kit, but the two pack. So if you click on it, then you can go to the variation.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Here we go. Okay. So, uh, this is your, your top seller. Uh, wow. This is a six figure product per month just by itself. Pretty impressive. Let’s go. I’m going to put that as the first ASIN. And this is Cerebro. So we’re going to put that as the first ASIN. And now, uh, what, what’s one of your main keywords overall? Like a generic, a general keyword, not a branded keyword. Is it, is it spill kit? 

Angie:

Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

Is it okay. Spill kit. All right. Now let’s look at the search results here. There you are. You guys are dominating your top of search. So, so that’s good. Um, you’ve got the first two ads. Now I’m just scrolling here. Obviously some of these, you know, this is something that’s important to, to know for people out there. I’ve said this before in my trainings that you’re not competing with every single person on your main keywords. You know, like the example I’ve given before is accordions. If you type in accordion on Amazon, you’ve got $500 accordions that if you’re trying to be a new member of Banda Machos or Tucanes de Tijuana, like, like a mariachi band or something that you would need a professional accordion, and then you’ve got $50 accordions. If you’re, you know, trying to buy something for your, your, you know, 10 year old nephew or something, those two products are going to show up on page one of the keyword accordion. They are not competing with each other, even though they’re sharing the same real estate, because when somebody types in accordion and is looking for a replacement for being on Los Tucanes, that is in mind, they’re looking only for a $500 accordion, they’re not going to be like, oh, I see at the top of search this 12, you know, $50 one, let me go ahead and buy this instead. No, it’s like, that’s almost invisible. And so here we see a situation like that, where I typed in spill kit, and sure, Stardust products are showing up here, but the, the Amazon brand analytics, one of the top clicked 20% of the clicks, actually, this is a $13 bodily fluid cleanup pack, disgusting sounding here. But this is not a compare. If somebody types in spill kit, and is at a hospital or something, this is what they’re looking for. If somebody is typing spill kit, and they have a warehouse, they couldn’t care less that this product is showing up here. So that’s just something to keep in mind. So would this product be one of your your top competitors here?

Angie:

Yeah, so we have another spill kit just like that in a bucket. Okay, so that that is one of our Yeah, top competitors.

Bradley Sutton:

I’m just gonna throw it in here. So I’m just gonna grab that ASIN. I’m gonna throw it here into Cerebro. Obviously, if we were using the MCP, it would even be a little bit, a little bit better. Is this another? Is this another competitor of yours?

Angie:

Yes.

Bradley Sutton:

AWF. Okay, I’m going to copy that. This one is a pretty cheap one. Is this one like one of the new Chinese ones? No, it’s a USA, it says USA. Maybe the seller is USA. Okay. Is this a competitor though?

Angie:

Yes.

Bradley Sutton:

Or is it too cheap? Okay, let’s go ahead and copy them. All right, so there’s probably others, other competitors you have, but let’s just start with three. So what I’m doing is by putting your ASIN first here, we’re going to compare these other products with yours as far as where you’re ranking, where you’re getting sales from, where they’re getting sales from. So this is step one. We’re also going to take a look at, at historical, uh, historical numbers as well. All right. So overall, 2,000 keywords. So this is not a humongous niche, you know, which makes sense, you know, unlike, you know, some products, um, where there’s a limitless number of different keywords, I can describe it. I imagine the keywords that people are using to find this kind of product very, very narrow. So what I’m going to do first is I’m going to say, Hey, what keywords that have at least 300 search volume, putting minimum 300 search volume, where you’re ranked zero to zero position rank. This is your product. That’s why it’s important that you put your product first, zero to zero. Uh, where is, let’s just say at least, uh, one ASIN, the minimum number of organic competitors is ranking in the top 10. Now the goal of whenever you run this is you want this to be zero. Like you don’t want any products to be show or any keywords to show up where your competitors are getting sales from it, you know, by definition, because they’re ranking the top 10 and you’re not even at all in any of the seven pages. So the goal is to be at zero. Let’s see what we’re at.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, other than of course, like branded keywords and like, like, obviously you’re not going to get sales from their branded keywords. And, and we we’ve got like a, that’s exactly what we have here. So this is good. This is like a, I assume this is kind of like a branded strange keyword here. So you’re doing good there. Now the, the second thing I want to see is where is one of your competitors rank in the top 10, but maybe you’re like 15 or below. So I’m going to put minimum 15 on position rank. And you want this to be zero. All right. So, so this is good. Everything here is, is zero for the, the keywords 300 up. And so this is what you should be doing to like, make sure that your competitors are not getting sales from, from keywords that you’re not. All right. So let’s go ahead and open this up. Okay. And so now I’m looking at the keywords that your competitors for the most part are ranking kind of highly for, and then what you want to look at is your position or rank. All right. 

Bradley Sutton:

So we see here oil spill cleanup kit. There’s a keyword with actually no. All right. So here we’ve got keywords over 300 search volume. Here we go. Spill kits, OSHA approved a thousand search volume. The competitor rank average is 3.7. Why? Because of these top three of, of these top competitors, you’ve got one who’s two, one who’s three, one who’s six. And then you’re seven. So here’s something that you might want to, you know, monitor because here’s one of the top keywords and all three of your competitors are showing up before you. Uh, so this could be something that, you know, you are going to want to, you know, maybe look at, You are number one in sponsored rank. So that’s good. But you see here, your organic rank, you might want to increase because especially sometimes I noticed in your niche, you, uh, this search result page is showing up in this grid form. But then some of your products are showing up in the like, where, where it’s just like one product over another.

Bradley Sutton:

And so what happens there is actually, this is exactly it. This keyword exactly is what I’m talking about. You see the difference of these search results when somebody’s looking on desktop and, and I feel like the B2B products are probably not, uh, being ordered on mobile as much as desktop, as opposed to like somebody just buying a power bank, you know, like if somebody is in a purchasing department and they got to track all their orders and certain things, like they’re probably more likely to be buying on desktop. And so when you have keywords like this, where the search results are on top of each other, as opposed to, if I just have this, I see without even scrolling, I can see five or six products here, the sponsor rank, but then here I have to, you know, I have to scroll a long ways just to be able to see four or five products. And so what happens is on search results like this, products are, uh, you know, or customers might not be scrolling or seeing as many products as on the other. And so like organic position on these might be a little bit more important. And so the fact that you’re showing up just like Helium 10 says, you know, you’re showing up number one in sponsored, but then your competitor here is the first organic and a different competitor is the second or organic. And then you’ve got this sponsored section right here and then you’ve got another sponsored ad here. Um, but look how much I’m scrolling just to see, I still haven’t seen your organic placement. So for somebody who’s just kind of like, oh, I don’t want to see any ads. I’ve been scrolling a lot and I still don’t see your product at all. And here’s another product and here’s another one. And so I still don’t see your product.

Bradley Sutton:

Like you see, they’re organic. Here’s your product all the way down here, halfway through the page, just like Cerebro is saying on the last time it checked you were ranked seven. Yeah, seven. And the others are, uh, ahead. So, so you’re already doing what you can because your sponsored rank is one, but this could be a reason if you’re not getting too many organic sales, it could be, even though you’re on page one, but out of your main competitors, if your relative rank is last, then that’s what you should be paying attention to. You could be ranked 10 organically, but your relative rank is one. What does that mean? That means, all right, you’re 10, but maybe those like, uh, bodily fluid spill kits for hospitals are showing up. It’s almost as if those don’t even count. Nobody’s going to buy those, but if you’re the first one among your competitors to show up, then this is important. So, so here’s something that we’re going to work on later is, Hey, let’s check the relative rank to make sure you’re showing up the first among your direct, uh, competitors. You, um, the, the good thing, like I said, is that you’re not showing up or you’re, you’re not, um, you know, invisible on any keyword that your competitors are getting sales from, at least in this, you know, obviously we should go through that on your, on your other products, but this is what you should be doing. And then I’ll show you later how to do a keyword harvesting, uh, thing where if your competitors start, um, getting sales for a keyword and ranking for a keyword that you’re not indexed for, you’ll get a notification. So you don’t have to, you don’t have to run this. 

Bradley Sutton:

Another thing to do is looking at the historical trends to kind of see what are your competitors doing in advertising. So like, for example, let me hit one of your competitors here. And then, so you can see here that in March and April, they turned off their sponsored brand video ads. I’m not sure if you’re running sponsored brand video ads, and then you can see they’re going heavily in sponsored brand video ads and the rest of the year, you know, do what you want with that information, but you can just kind of see what, what’s, what’s going on. And then you look at this competitor, this competitor is not running sponsored brand at all, but they’ve got some sponsored brand header. Ads and look at this last year during Q4, for whatever reason, they turned off their sponsored brand ads. So now all of a sudden, you know, coming into Q4 this year, this might be something I might look at, Hey, Hey, this is one of my main competitors. Let me see. Are they going to turn off their, their sponsored brand video ads during this months, you know, and in that case, should I go more aggressive? Should I back off a little bit knowing that I’m not going to have some competition? Like, so these are just the insights just by looking at some of this data where you can start making some decisions. Let’s look at another one, a competitor here. Here is another competitor who, wow, they almost turned off all their sponsored product ads, which is kind of shocking.

Bradley Sutton:

Starting in June of last year. So this, this could be something where you look back at yours and you’re like, wait a minute, you know, maybe I could like dial back some of my spend. I was trying to outbid a little bit, but, but maybe I can dial it back and, and perhaps, you know, save, save some money. So, so the other thing I like to do is look at the competitor’s BSR charts and I want to see if they have a big spike in sales or a decrease in sales. So like, for example, right here in May, I see that they kind of like took a step up. Like if you look back at March and, um, April, they were, had a BSR of like in the third, the high 30 thousands. And then all of a sudden May. And then especially in June, they’ve been hovering around 10,000. So for me, what I would do is I would compare, let’s just, let’s, let’s, let’s just pretend here in Cerebro, I would hit this historical, let’s just pretend that this is the customer I was looking at. So what I would do is I would run their ASIN in Cerebro and then hit this monthly comparison. And then I’m like, all right, I want to compare where they were at in like, um, let’s just look here. May compared to June, because there’s a big gap. And so I’m going to choose the May and June and hit apply. All right. And then I’m going to say for the first month for any keyword, 200 search volume, where were they ranked? Like outside of the top 10, 10 to 306. And the second month, which is June, where were they ranked? Like in the top 10, in other words, where did they increase? If anything, and let’s see what we come up with. Okay. So three keywords here, acid spill kits, spill kits, and safety spill kits. In May, they were ranked less than in June. So these could be keywords where they were, where they, these could be keywords where, because they moved up even just slightly, they could have been getting more sales. All right.

Bradley Sutton:

Like, like here’s one where they weren’t advertising safety spill kits. They weren’t advertising at all for this keyword in May. And then all of a sudden they were in June and lo and behold, look what happened to their organic rank. And they started getting more sales. And so then, you know, you take this information and be like, okay, I got to make sure that I’m ranking for safety spill kits. And I’m trying to be on top of search because we can see what the results are when they do. And so this is just kind of like some of the things you can do. Obviously with the MCP, it’ll be super easy to, to do this with certain skills and things. So these are just some of the things that we’re definitely going to be working on to, you know, like you’re, you’re a $4 million business, so obviously you’re doing things right. And, and you, you’ve got a good stranglehold on, on the market here, even with these, these lower priced sellers, but there’s always room to improve, not just optimizing your, your profitability and your advertising, but doing this competitor research where you can discover, you know, Hey, what happens when I move my organic rank up one or two spaces here? You’re not guessing. You can look what happened to your competitor who did it and then decide, Hey, does this, does this warrant the investment? So I’m excited to look into, to this stuff with you. And then maybe in about six or seven months or so, let’s come back and, and maybe we could say that, Hey, you’re actually probably going to be on path for five or 6 million next year because of the things we did. Sounds good.

Angie:

Absolutely. 

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Well I’ll be seeing you in a little bit. Will you be at Amazon Accelerate?

Angie:

I will be. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Tim as well.

Angie:

Tim will be there and Eric will be there as well.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome. We’ll see you there at Accelerate for our one year reunion or anniversary. And then you’ll be on stage with me at Amazon Unboxed a week later in San Francisco, where we’re going to talk about your sponsor brand store and we’re going to do some, some work on that.

So that’s going to be exciting to be able to do that on stage. So anybody who’s out there, you guys want to meet Angie and the, the Stardust team, her boss, you’re not gonna be able to miss him. He’s like what, six foot nine or something about, or how tall is he?

Angie:

Uh, yeah, that sounds about right.

Bradley Sutton:

And you’re like five foot nothing, almost. So if you see a five foot Latina with a six foot nine African American guys, pretty much that’s Stardust and I might be around them. So look out at Accelerate or Unboxed for that, that dynamic duo and say that you, you heard them on, on the Serious Sellers podcast, but we look forward to your next episode and look forward to, you know, the kind of content we’re going to produce together.

---

Enjoy this episode? Be sure to check out our previous episodes for even more content to propel you to Amazon FBA Seller success! And don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to our podcast.

Get snippets from all episodes by following us on Instagram at @SeriousSellersPodcast

Want to absolutely start crushing it on Amazon? Here are few carefully curated resources to get you started:

• Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.
• Helium 10: 30+ software tools to boost your entire sales pipeline from product research to customer communication and Amazon refund automation. Make running a successful Amazon or Walmart business easier with better data and insights. See what our customers have to say.
• Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Verify your Amazon product idea and validate how lucrative it can be with over a dozen data metrics and profitability estimation.
• SellerTrademarks.com: Trademarks are vital for protecting your Amazon brand from hijackers, and sellertrademarks.com provides a streamlined process for helping you get one.