speaker-0: I've seen partners that you know I managed that were really successful in a certain space and did it really well. And then they tried to kind of move up and then it didn't go so well. You can't really run like the same playbook. Don't don't try to be everything to everyone. Like if you're really good at in a certain area, stay there, build that out, grow that. Think about moving into that next phase of mid market or enterprise. And think through like the nuances that of what you're gonna how you're gonna need to build. A little bit differently for each of them 'cause they have different needs.
speaker-1: Welcome to the Incremental Marketer, a content series where we meet with top marketing executives and leaders across industries to help you drive growth in your business. Welcome everyone to the Incremental Marketer. Today's guest is Sean Evans, a revenue and partnership leader who has helped shape the modern ad tech ecosystem from the inside. Sean has held senior leadership roles at Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, and beyond, most notably serving as global head of strategic tech and agency partnership at Amazon Ads, where he helps scale partner influenced ad spend from $2 billion to $27 billion and built global partner development teams across the US. Europe and APAC. And he's now a fractional go-to-market and sales leader, advising SaaS and ad tech companies, including here at SlingWave, on how to build pipeline, close complex deals, and turn strategic partnerships into real revenue. And today we're diving into what it really takes to help drive revenue growth in today's fragmented advertising landscape. Sean, welcome to the incremental marketer.
speaker-0: Thanks, Paul. It's great to be here on the podcast and look forward to the conversation.
speaker-1: Likewise, you've had these leadership roles at Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon. What originally pulled you into the ad tech and partnerships world?
speaker-0: Yeah, I didn't really have a traditional path into this space. Coming out of college, I I went into teaching and and coached high school basketball for about seven years. And then I said, Well, am I gonna coach in college or am I gonna go into business? And I I decided to kind of around the dot com time move into the business world. Eventually I had had an opportunity. I I was a big Yahoo user as far as finance and news and sports and had an opportunity to join Yahoo. We're talking ⁓ kind of two thousand ten ish. So I I Started as a technical project manager, but then I worked my way onto the the syndication publisher side of the business. So that was kind my first exposure to online search partnerships and digital advertising. ⁓ and then ever since then I've been on that path and kind of spent half my time on the supply side of the business and half the last half kind of on the demand side of with working with agencies and tech partners.
speaker-1: Got it. And and yeah, so you've seen it all from the the four corners of that era. And and so talk to us a bit about Amazon, because we had Slingwave operate natively on the Amazon platform as a strategic partner and we are continuing to build our our tech on Amazon. So you led partner influence spend there at Amazon and and really ballooned that up twenty seven billion in ad spend. So tell us about that journey and what we're The pieces of the puzzle that you put in place there. Yeah.
speaker-0: I have to say when I first came to Amazon, it was not what I would call like a partner friendly organization. I didn't have that tradition like a Microsoft did of really building partner networks. And so that was kind of my first job when I got there was to really be an advocate for partners and within Amazon kind of show like the value that that partners could bring to the business and how it could help it scale. Because there was, you know, there was a lot of wanting to kind of keep the the direct relationships with brands. But, you know, obviously partners can really help to innovate and help address gaps and features that that your your dev teams aren't going to get to. So I really put a lot of focus on that. And you could start to see through the data that brands that were working with partners, whether they were agencies or ad tech providers, were growing, you know, their sales were growing, their ad spend was growing at at a much faster rate. So they were helping to to accelerate the business. ⁓ and then another area I think partners, you know, we're underutilized as far as like they're really another marketing channel, like a evangelist for your business to really get the word out there to their brand clients at at scale. So we don't have to do all that heavy lifting.
speaker-1: And did partner categories, talk to us about the ways that you would define partners, what what partners ⁓ were most interesting to advertisers in the different categories.
speaker-0: Yeah, I mean it kind of evolved over time. I think at at the beginning, when there was just just sponsored products, ⁓ there wasn't necessarily a need for like creative partners and you know, measurement maybe wasn't as big a deal then. ⁓ it was really more traditional campaign management, like which partners can help you scale campaign management analytics. ⁓ then of course agencies are are very important in the mix as well. But as Amazon ads launched sponsor brands and video and DSP. Then it became more critical to really like think about how how how can we help them with the creatives and creative optimization and and the measurement challenges. So that's when a lot of these different types of partnerships became ⁓ more important in the Amazon ecosystem.
speaker-1: Sense. And then you started the view of Amazon was it's this lower funnel, final mile, demand capture kind of channel search is really the play, but it's really evolved such a notable rise of the the platform, DSP and you know, all the all the prime video and OLB C T V world. Talk to us about how are you seeing brands reshaping their Amazon strategy to match the opportunity.
speaker-0: Yeah, it definitely has changed a lot over the last three to four years. ⁓ obviously sponsored products and that that performance marketing lower funnel is still super important and drives great performance. But I think, you know, they've built a really compelling DSP offering with with great quality inventory. So I think, you know, brands and and agencies have to be kind of looking at that more holistically about how do they kind of move. shoppers, you know, through that from from sort of awareness to consideration to conversion and then also becoming a loyal customer through you know subscribe and save and things like that. So you can leverage all these different ad products and and thinking about you you know how do you connect all those pieces. That's why I think measurements become more and more important to really understand each of those ad products and stages of the funnel and how do they you know kind of help to move them. through that funnel it has become super important.
speaker-1: It's actually great to see how much data Amazon does provide in the form of AMC and clean room data, media mix modeling, time series data and other add-ons. But it doesn't always mean clarity. It sometimes actually seems to be even more confusing than ever to navigate. So w how do you find brands embracing it or or where do they struggle with measurement and incrementality on Amazon?
speaker-0: Especially in in an Amazon or a Walmart. I mean, you have sort of the retail side and you had the advertising side. So it's always been very challenging to kind of bring those data points together because they're all in different seller central and vendor central and the ads console, the DSP console. There's all these different areas where you could potentially work and and get data. So with Amazon Marketing Cloud, that's kind of been the first place where you can bring all that data together. And you can also even bring your your you know, your one P data together, but it's still, you know, in the early stages of like how do you leverage all that data to really help you inform your strategy and make changes to your strategy? Brands want to understand, you know, how is traffic that they're pushing from Google and Meta, how is that affecting their D2C site? their Amazon conversions, they want to be able to piece that together to understand like where should they invest more, where should they put their next marketing dollar. So without something like an AMC where you can put bring all that together and come up with a strategy, it can be very challenging. So it's we're definitely not there yet, but I think AMC and other clean rooms that are being built across some of these other marketplaces, I think, are going to be a really important piece in the future.
speaker-1: And let's double click on the Amazon marketing cloud AMC piece because it comes up a lot and you've seen it from the early foundations. So you just talk about structurally how AMC has evolved and where is it now relative to where it's been and then a partner ecosystem on top of AMC. Curious if you can explain the different parties that add value on top of AMC. ⁓
speaker-0: Amazon's made a lot of, you know, they've put out a lot of instructional queries and kind of foundational things that that can is is interesting insights that brands can use, but it's not necessarily actionable. And I think that's that's what brands want is like, give me some insights, but I I need to be able to like know what to do next. ⁓ so just looking at CAC or lifetime value or how many new to brand customers I got doesn't really tell me like what I need to do. So I think That's kind of the next stage of this is how do you get brands these this type of information, whether it's customer acquisition cost, LTV, you know, how do they understand which of their products or ASINs are are driving the best, the best CAC or the highest LTV, those types of things. And being able to go at the campaign level, the creative level, et cetera, is going to be super important. So I would say it's still. kind of the infancy as far as the use of of AMC. Everyone talks about it, but I don't think it's being used and really, you know, used to inform your your strategy on Amazon like it will be in the future. So I think it's really going to be important for not only brands, but I mean agencies to kind of lean into it. And to your point around, you know, measurement partners, I think obviously they play a really important role here because Amazon doesn't provide you with a cross channel view. Right. They're focused on their marketplace, just like Walmart's focused on their marketplace. So I think having a measurement, these third party measurement partners that can really get data from these different channels of of social, you know, influencers, Walmart, Shopify, like bringing all of this data together to help a brand and help an agency understand like what's working, what's not working.
speaker-1: And so on on Amazon Marketing Cloud, Sean, in your experience, what is the average grade of a user, a marketer in terms of their usage of AMC today? And what are the key next steps for the the ones that are doing it best to, you know, I think as you see the the best practices, what are the key next steps to make your AMC experience and usage more effective?
speaker-0: Yeah, I I'd say if I had to give an average grade as ⁓ today, it would be probably a about a D as far as, you know, the actual usage of AMC and getting a lot of value out of it. It I mean, it is a free solution. So, you know, it there is no cost to it. So you but you have to dive into it and start to understand. the type of insights that you can get out of it. So it it does take some investment. And I think just right now there's just not enough education around how to how to use it, how to access certain insights, because it's not just run a report. ⁓ I get these amazing insights and then I just, you know, take action. There's a lot of different reports that you can access, a lot of different insights, but it's like, how do you put those together? I've worked with some brands that are They're trying to tackle some business questions. You know, they're trying to answer some specific questions. And then they utilize different kinds of queries or make custom queries to pull in data that then they can utilize to address those questions. So I think ones that are thinking about it kind of in those terms and taking it one step at a time and kind of building upon it, they're starting to see success informing their strategy, whether it's like, hey, let's try to. You know, we're seeing really good customer acquisition costs with certain campaigns, certain ASINs, or hey, these ACINs are really driving more new to brand customers for our business. Like how do we double down on that? And they they start to really hone in in a certain area. You have to kind of be consistent about looking at the data and then utilizing it and then taking some action and testing and seeing how that affects the effectiveness of your campaigns and your and your marketing budgets. But Well, I think we'll get there, but like I said, I think it's a very still very stages. And I think Amazon hasn't necessarily built it to be marketer friendly, to use like the AMC UI. So I think there's an opportunity here for third parties to come in and help brands and agencies to get the most out of these insights.
speaker-1: That's like XPN and you know, these these larger brands, Perpetua, intent wise, larger platforms. The world that you live in on the first party data, which you mentioned, versus not adding your first party data to the platform, how big of a difference have you seen in marketer outcomes and insights when they are bringing their first party data into Amazon? Which is, by the way, not everybody's favorite thing to do.
speaker-0: Correct. I would say it's not happening that frequently from what at least from what I can see. ⁓ but there are for reasons that that make sense. If you're able to do it, I mean there's a lot that you can do is is, you know, if you bring in sort of your direct to consumer data and looking at, you know, your existing customer base versus, you know, how much of your existing customer base is also on Amazon or how much like new reach is out there potentially for you to draw in new shoppers. And new customers. ⁓ so it gives you a good sense and you can really build audiences. I think that's the other piece of AMC that's getting a lot of attention. It's definitely being utilized, but I think there's a lot of testing going on, trying to figure out what works from an audience perspective. But I don't think there's a ton of kind of best practices of like where do I start as far as audience building and how should I think about doing custom audiences? But that's I think the next. place to go because you can you can do some pretty amazing targeting and build, you know, some very creative audiences. And I think having that one P data just just gives you that extra where you can start looking at overlap or you can exclude shoppers and things like that. So it it gives you a chance to even refine it a little bit more.
speaker-1: Makes sense. And then there's the DSP versus sponsored ads element. What is the unlock when you are running a DSP campaign that you get an AMC that you don't if you're just on sponsored ads only?
speaker-0: DSP and AMC were kind of launched almost ⁓ together. They were tied at the hip when they first came out from Amazon. But I think that's changed because obviously you can you can get a lot of great insights on the sponsored ad side as well within AMC. But I think th for those brands that are moving up the funnel, which I think we're seeing more and more of, and that's obviously a a focus area for as they've, you know, as they've built really a top tier DSP now. What kind of incrementality is that really driving? Like is it cannibalizing? Is it would I've have gotten these conversions anyway? Is it driving more awareness or more new to brand customers? Like what what part does it play in this path to purchase or path to conversion? So I think with AMC data, you can start to you can start to tease that out to kind of see where DSP is playing, you know, in that path and how frequently is it is it in that path? And obviously you could you could run different types of tests. with DSP, without DSP. A lot of that is going on now, I think, where they're they know brands know they need to be spending on DSP or at least trying it and testing it and seeing how it performs. ⁓ but you you can't just think about, ⁓ let's just compare it to sponsored ads or sponsored products. I mean, it's it has a different place kind of in that, in that path. So understanding kind of what that value is and and ⁓ investing, you know, properly is is kind of can take some time to figure that out.
speaker-1: And I'm wondering, are you a hard grader? Because a D is pretty pathetic across the ecosystem.
speaker-0: Typically I am, but I I also have just been, I guess, not impressed with you, like everyone says they have AMC or they support AMC if I think about agencies and partners, but it it it's really just a lot 90% of it is they've just kind of taken what Amazon, like the reports, the basic reports and structural queries, like that is their idea of supporting AMC. It's not like taking it to the next level. There's that ten percent probably that are like really leaned in, trying to figure it out, testing and and it's really like top of mind. And I think whether they're a direct brand or an agency, like they're gonna see the results and, you know, it's gonna help their business grow.
speaker-1: Yeah. That's great point. ⁓ well hopefully you can get as many up to an A as possible in this journey. ⁓ have you seen any? Are there any A A A plus ⁓ students in your
speaker-0: That's the goal. portfolio. I there's definitely there's definitely ones that are very sophisticated brands that ⁓ I've had a chance to work with now. You know, I won't I won't name any names, but they're ⁓ I've been impressed with how they've just wanted to dive into AMC. You know, they do have some analysts on their team that they can leverage, which you know can can be very helpful. But they're just they've taken the time to like really understand They're open to being educated and they've made it, you know, they've made it a priority where it's it's easy to kind of push it aside because it's not it's because it's complex.
speaker-1: Sure. Right. And is the planning function or the strategy function getting a a hook into EMC? We know strategy groups who love the idea of being able to understand what's in there. And so are you seeing that as well in cross agencies and that that function?
speaker-0: Yeah, I mean there's definitely a there's a f you know, definitely a few agencies that I've worked with that are they know they need to integrate AMC and they need to like sort of arm their team with with these insights ⁓ to kind of get to the next level and differentiate themselves. So yeah, and and I think, you know, most of the the leadership within the agencies, I mean, they wanna and the brands, they wanna know like, you know, what are we doing with AMC and What types of insights are in there and what and what are we doing with them? And I mean there there's questions are out there. So I think the teams on the ground and that are trying to dig into that data and and make sense of it, you know, they've got their work cut out for ⁓ but they have to really like I said, they have to make it a priority. It can't just be kind of, well, we'll get back to it.
speaker-1: Switching gears to the measurement piece that you mentioned, you said obviously there's a gap and and you're not seeing the cross-channel impacts that Amazon, you know, is in a total mix where it's it is influencing direct to consumer. ⁓ you know, if you're on D DSP, for example, and direct to consumer is influencing Amazon. So where do you see that gap in the market? And and from the sling wave standpoint. What do you what's interesting to you in terms of how we've approached that?
speaker-0: When I was, you know, at Amazon and working on strategic partnerships, it was many of the partners were very Amazon focused. There weren't a ton of partners that were supporting Google and Meta and some of the others that were truly cross-channel. And I think obviously the Amazons and Walmarts of the world, they're focused on their marketplace and and making sure you have the data and insights you need to be successful in that marketplace. But brands want to understand, you know. all of their marketing spend and all the channels that they're in and and and think about that holistically. So I think that's where I see tech like Slingwave that that you know has kind of deep expertise like with Google and Meta has obviously connected into Amazon and can really help kind of put those puzzle pieces together. And I think doing it in a way where It's not like looking at what happened six months ago or three months ago. It's like being able to look at quickly look at like what's what does that data look like? Where's my performance doing well, not doing so well, and then predicting like where should I be moving budget in the future from day to day, week to week? Because I think that things are always changing. There's seasonality, being able to look at year over year trends and make adjustments. I mean, those are all very important. So I think that's really a big part of this. And I think also having when you think about a a a you know, a Walmart where you have all the store data, you've got the influencers now, you've got podcasts, like all these different potential channels that could be driving traffic and interest and awareness. But how do you really measure that to see what's effective and what you should continue to invest in? So I think that's what kind of excites me about what what SlingWave has been able to build ⁓ and continues continues to build. It just really will help brands get smarter about, you know, their marketing budgets and and and really can get a sense of of actionable insights of what they should be doing with as their next step.
speaker-1: And it's interesting because as you mentioned, like Walmart has taken a big step forward as well. And we don't talk about them much yet on this podcast, but we're always measuring Walmart. So when you were inside the walls of Amazon, how ⁓ formidable was Walmart at the time and how do you think that's evolved?
speaker-0: Well, when you're at Amazon, you don't focus on the competition. That's one of the things you're you're ⁓ you've got plenty of other things to focus on. But ⁓ yes, I mean obviously over the years Walmart became a a bigger part of the conversation. I think brands knew that they had to explore that. I think agencies and tech providers knew that they had to think about integrating with with Walmart ⁓ Connect. And yeah, they've done a great job of of investing and growing their business and really making an impact and made some acquisitions, et cetera. So they're they're becoming a force. I mean, they're getting some of the the China based sellers that were on Amazon are kind of moving into Walmart, which is a big a big piece of of Amazon's business as well. So yeah, they have a lot of things going for them right now, good momentum. ⁓ I know they're also looking at data clean rooms and and you know their early stages there, but I would assume that that's going to follow something similar to to to AMC. So that'll be really interesting when that comes out because I think there's a lot of great data with, you know, they're in store. I mean they've got the Visio acquisition, there's with so CTV data or just on screen data. So there'll be a lot of interesting data points there that'll be important for SlingWave and others to integrate with Walmart as well.
speaker-1: I love it. And and when you're thinking about the mix that you see today and how do you think Amazon is funded relative to Google and Meta? Do you still think it's underfunded? And you did that you had this role where you're bringing budget into the ecosystem, but ⁓ is there still more to go toward Amazon and away from Google and Meta?
speaker-0: ⁓ I think there is, especially with the the DSP, like the how compelling that is. I think the the non-endemic space or the sellers that are that are not selling, I guess, well, companies that are not seller sellers on Amazon, but they but they can advertise on Amazon. So you think about insurance, financial services, right, automobiles, et cetera. There's you know, they have big ad budgets on TV where you know they're not necessarily advertising much on Amazon today. So I think that's like an untapped opportunity ⁓ that's pretty massive. So I I would say they probably don't have their fair share of of that wallet yet. And then there's obviously the the the endemic space that they have that they can then move from kind of that sponsored products and sponsor brands and move them up in into DSP ⁓ to get more of that sort of programmatic spend as well. So yeah, I think there's you know, their sponsor products is still obviously the the big revenue driver, but I think, you know, every year, every quarter you you see that like that DSP spend percentage wise keeps creeping up. ⁓ there's still strong growth rates. So yeah, I still I still still see a big opportunity for Amazon in that to to take on more budget.
speaker-1: Well, to that end, how about Microsoft? You were at a Microsoft priority Amazon and ⁓ they have some assets. So where where's ⁓ Microsoft's role, do you think, in the next couple of years?
speaker-0: Yeah, I think it'll be it'll be interesting. I mean, they've definitely made some changes and like you know, where they've kind of moved parts of their business out of, you know, they've sold them off or they've outsourced and so they've they've kind of changed direction a few times. Obviously, with like the you know, with the whole AI search, ⁓ you know, and the way that that's going and how are how are ads going to play into that. I mean, that still is gonna play out here, I guess, with all the different models to see how agentic. commerce plays into all these different models, including with Microsoft. So I wouldn't count them out, I guess, in this in this space, but obviously they don't have like a native retail marketplace and and they don't have the necessarily the search volume and everything that Google does. So it'll be interesting to see how they, you know, how they kind of stay stay relevant in this in in the space and and think about, you know, maybe there's ⁓ something within the new AI s search space that'll that'll Or the agentic space that'll allow them to expand there.
speaker-1: Makes sense. And and in your experience on the retail media side, is retail media in a bubble? I know we've seen this gold rush in retail media explosion of of networks. So are we about to see a correction in terms of the growth of retail media?
speaker-0: I would assume over time like the amount of retail media networks is gonna have to you know, w consolidate in some way. I think Macy's recently adopted Amazon ads and kind of made them into their tapped into them for their re for their retail media network. So, you know, I would imagine there'll be probably more of that over time because I think I don't think you can have, you know, two hundred plus retail media networks. It's just not gonna be digestible for for brands, ⁓ you know, to work across across that many networks. So I I think those you know there has to be some sort of consolidation there. But yeah, I mean I don't I mean I think it'll it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I s I especially with this AI and the the ads and chat GPT, et cetera, to see are how much, you know, how what percentage of traffic continues to move over into these models year after year, ⁓ to see how that imp impacts ⁓ you know, advertising budgets as well. So Yeah, it's an i it's this is why I like this space. Like it it's it's always evolving and it's hard to predict. So yeah, I don't I don't have a crystal ball, but it's it's a fun space to be in. Well we
speaker-1: We could go deep dive on incrementality of retail media networks if we want. So maybe next episode backing up to the you know per place that you help startups and tech companies with in terms of establishing partnerships with the big platforms like Amazon. So from a advice standpoint, you're a Martech startup, you're in a you know company trying to grow a partnership with Amazon. What's the biggest mistake you see people making when they're trying to ink that first enterprise grade ⁓ partnership with an Amazon.
speaker-0: Things I've learned at Amazon were like, you know, you have to be customer obsessed. So whatever whatever you do, whether your customer is you're trying to go after an account, so it's like a brand that you're trying to bring onto your platform, or I'm just want to have a partnership with Amazon and build that. ⁓ just thinking about like what what's important to them, you know. So, you know, from a partnership perspective, what are they interested in? How can I help them advance that if you're ⁓ an ad tech platform trying to sell into brands. It's just, you know, it's not about how great your product is and, you know, the shiny object and everything else. It's really just how does it resonate with the brand? Like does it, does it solve a problem that they're facing? So I think that's that's what you have to stay focused on is really understanding your customer ⁓ and building products that like We always say like delight, you know, delight your customer. They don't always know what they want you to build. They they they know that like this doesn't work or I I need this feature or whatever, but they're not necessarily thinking bigger about, ⁓ maybe we could, you know, I'm hearing these points and then we can build something that just solves a lot of problems for them. So I think you need to think in that way. The other thing is like don't I've seen partners that, you know, I managed that that were really successful in a certain space. Like they were servicing, let's say, SMB clients and did it really well. And then they tried to kind of move up into into enterprise. And then it didn't go so well. So it it's you can't really run like the same playbook. So yeah. Like don't don't try to be everything to everyone. Like if you're really good at in a certain area, just stay there, build that out, grow that. Think about moving into that next phase of mid market or enterprise and think through like the nuances that of what you're gonna how you're gonna need to build a little bit differently for each of them because they have different needs.
speaker-1: see too many SAS companies in their go to market are are not narrowly focused enough? The too broad, or what's your general observation on that for SaaS brands?
speaker-0: I've just seen the ones that are like that are very focused and kind of know what they're good at. ⁓ like they, you know, they've just been able to build a very successful business. Maybe they get bought by a company that's like focused on enterprise and they were focused on S and B. ⁓ but I haven't seen as many that have just been able to keep kind of expanding into different areas and like continue to be successful, or maybe you take your eye off the ball, like the eye off what really is your bread and butter. And then, you know, and then that sort of starts eroding because you have other partners that are coming in and it's a very competitive space, I think, in the ad tech space. So there's a lot of price and different products and you know, it can become a commodity. So I think you really have to think about how you differentiate yourself and ⁓ and really stick with what you're really good at.
speaker-1: Sean, this has been great. Thank you for joining us. How can people get in touch with you?
speaker-0: Yeah, thank you for having me on. I really enjoyed it. It's been like a trip down memory lane, but it was a fun conversation. ⁓ but yeah, to reach me you can you can find me on LinkedIn. So just look for Sean Evans and in the Nashville area and you'll find me. For all
speaker-1: Listeners out there, thank you for joining us on today's episode of The Incremental Marketer. Stay tuned for more voices, more lessons, and more proof that incremental moves can drive big growth. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe, like, and share, and join us for more episodes with the leaders shaping the future of marketing.
speaker-1: Welcome to the Incremental Marketer, a content series where we meet with top marketing executives and leaders across industries to help you drive growth in your business. Welcome everyone to the Incremental Marketer. Today's guest is Sean Evans, a revenue and partnership leader who has helped shape the modern ad tech ecosystem from the inside. Sean has held senior leadership roles at Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, and beyond, most notably serving as global head of strategic tech and agency partnership at Amazon Ads, where he helps scale partner influenced ad spend from $2 billion to $27 billion and built global partner development teams across the US. Europe and APAC. And he's now a fractional go-to-market and sales leader, advising SaaS and ad tech companies, including here at SlingWave, on how to build pipeline, close complex deals, and turn strategic partnerships into real revenue. And today we're diving into what it really takes to help drive revenue growth in today's fragmented advertising landscape. Sean, welcome to the incremental marketer.
speaker-0: Thanks, Paul. It's great to be here on the podcast and look forward to the conversation.
speaker-1: Likewise, you've had these leadership roles at Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon. What originally pulled you into the ad tech and partnerships world?
speaker-0: Yeah, I didn't really have a traditional path into this space. Coming out of college, I I went into teaching and and coached high school basketball for about seven years. And then I said, Well, am I gonna coach in college or am I gonna go into business? And I I decided to kind of around the dot com time move into the business world. Eventually I had had an opportunity. I I was a big Yahoo user as far as finance and news and sports and had an opportunity to join Yahoo. We're talking ⁓ kind of two thousand ten ish. So I I Started as a technical project manager, but then I worked my way onto the the syndication publisher side of the business. So that was kind my first exposure to online search partnerships and digital advertising. ⁓ and then ever since then I've been on that path and kind of spent half my time on the supply side of the business and half the last half kind of on the demand side of with working with agencies and tech partners.
speaker-1: Got it. And and yeah, so you've seen it all from the the four corners of that era. And and so talk to us a bit about Amazon, because we had Slingwave operate natively on the Amazon platform as a strategic partner and we are continuing to build our our tech on Amazon. So you led partner influence spend there at Amazon and and really ballooned that up twenty seven billion in ad spend. So tell us about that journey and what we're The pieces of the puzzle that you put in place there. Yeah.
speaker-0: I have to say when I first came to Amazon, it was not what I would call like a partner friendly organization. I didn't have that tradition like a Microsoft did of really building partner networks. And so that was kind of my first job when I got there was to really be an advocate for partners and within Amazon kind of show like the value that that partners could bring to the business and how it could help it scale. Because there was, you know, there was a lot of wanting to kind of keep the the direct relationships with brands. But, you know, obviously partners can really help to innovate and help address gaps and features that that your your dev teams aren't going to get to. So I really put a lot of focus on that. And you could start to see through the data that brands that were working with partners, whether they were agencies or ad tech providers, were growing, you know, their sales were growing, their ad spend was growing at at a much faster rate. So they were helping to to accelerate the business. ⁓ and then another area I think partners, you know, we're underutilized as far as like they're really another marketing channel, like a evangelist for your business to really get the word out there to their brand clients at at scale. So we don't have to do all that heavy lifting.
speaker-1: And did partner categories, talk to us about the ways that you would define partners, what what partners ⁓ were most interesting to advertisers in the different categories.
speaker-0: Yeah, I mean it kind of evolved over time. I think at at the beginning, when there was just just sponsored products, ⁓ there wasn't necessarily a need for like creative partners and you know, measurement maybe wasn't as big a deal then. ⁓ it was really more traditional campaign management, like which partners can help you scale campaign management analytics. ⁓ then of course agencies are are very important in the mix as well. But as Amazon ads launched sponsor brands and video and DSP. Then it became more critical to really like think about how how how can we help them with the creatives and creative optimization and and the measurement challenges. So that's when a lot of these different types of partnerships became ⁓ more important in the Amazon ecosystem.
speaker-1: Sense. And then you started the view of Amazon was it's this lower funnel, final mile, demand capture kind of channel search is really the play, but it's really evolved such a notable rise of the the platform, DSP and you know, all the all the prime video and OLB C T V world. Talk to us about how are you seeing brands reshaping their Amazon strategy to match the opportunity.
speaker-0: Yeah, it definitely has changed a lot over the last three to four years. ⁓ obviously sponsored products and that that performance marketing lower funnel is still super important and drives great performance. But I think, you know, they've built a really compelling DSP offering with with great quality inventory. So I think, you know, brands and and agencies have to be kind of looking at that more holistically about how do they kind of move. shoppers, you know, through that from from sort of awareness to consideration to conversion and then also becoming a loyal customer through you know subscribe and save and things like that. So you can leverage all these different ad products and and thinking about you you know how do you connect all those pieces. That's why I think measurements become more and more important to really understand each of those ad products and stages of the funnel and how do they you know kind of help to move them. through that funnel it has become super important.
speaker-1: It's actually great to see how much data Amazon does provide in the form of AMC and clean room data, media mix modeling, time series data and other add-ons. But it doesn't always mean clarity. It sometimes actually seems to be even more confusing than ever to navigate. So w how do you find brands embracing it or or where do they struggle with measurement and incrementality on Amazon?
speaker-0: Especially in in an Amazon or a Walmart. I mean, you have sort of the retail side and you had the advertising side. So it's always been very challenging to kind of bring those data points together because they're all in different seller central and vendor central and the ads console, the DSP console. There's all these different areas where you could potentially work and and get data. So with Amazon Marketing Cloud, that's kind of been the first place where you can bring all that data together. And you can also even bring your your you know, your one P data together, but it's still, you know, in the early stages of like how do you leverage all that data to really help you inform your strategy and make changes to your strategy? Brands want to understand, you know, how is traffic that they're pushing from Google and Meta, how is that affecting their D2C site? their Amazon conversions, they want to be able to piece that together to understand like where should they invest more, where should they put their next marketing dollar. So without something like an AMC where you can put bring all that together and come up with a strategy, it can be very challenging. So it's we're definitely not there yet, but I think AMC and other clean rooms that are being built across some of these other marketplaces, I think, are going to be a really important piece in the future.
speaker-1: And let's double click on the Amazon marketing cloud AMC piece because it comes up a lot and you've seen it from the early foundations. So you just talk about structurally how AMC has evolved and where is it now relative to where it's been and then a partner ecosystem on top of AMC. Curious if you can explain the different parties that add value on top of AMC. ⁓
speaker-0: Amazon's made a lot of, you know, they've put out a lot of instructional queries and kind of foundational things that that can is is interesting insights that brands can use, but it's not necessarily actionable. And I think that's that's what brands want is like, give me some insights, but I I need to be able to like know what to do next. ⁓ so just looking at CAC or lifetime value or how many new to brand customers I got doesn't really tell me like what I need to do. So I think That's kind of the next stage of this is how do you get brands these this type of information, whether it's customer acquisition cost, LTV, you know, how do they understand which of their products or ASINs are are driving the best, the best CAC or the highest LTV, those types of things. And being able to go at the campaign level, the creative level, et cetera, is going to be super important. So I would say it's still. kind of the infancy as far as the use of of AMC. Everyone talks about it, but I don't think it's being used and really, you know, used to inform your your strategy on Amazon like it will be in the future. So I think it's really going to be important for not only brands, but I mean agencies to kind of lean into it. And to your point around, you know, measurement partners, I think obviously they play a really important role here because Amazon doesn't provide you with a cross channel view. Right. They're focused on their marketplace, just like Walmart's focused on their marketplace. So I think having a measurement, these third party measurement partners that can really get data from these different channels of of social, you know, influencers, Walmart, Shopify, like bringing all of this data together to help a brand and help an agency understand like what's working, what's not working.
speaker-1: And so on on Amazon Marketing Cloud, Sean, in your experience, what is the average grade of a user, a marketer in terms of their usage of AMC today? And what are the key next steps for the the ones that are doing it best to, you know, I think as you see the the best practices, what are the key next steps to make your AMC experience and usage more effective?
speaker-0: Yeah, I I'd say if I had to give an average grade as ⁓ today, it would be probably a about a D as far as, you know, the actual usage of AMC and getting a lot of value out of it. It I mean, it is a free solution. So, you know, it there is no cost to it. So you but you have to dive into it and start to understand. the type of insights that you can get out of it. So it it does take some investment. And I think just right now there's just not enough education around how to how to use it, how to access certain insights, because it's not just run a report. ⁓ I get these amazing insights and then I just, you know, take action. There's a lot of different reports that you can access, a lot of different insights, but it's like, how do you put those together? I've worked with some brands that are They're trying to tackle some business questions. You know, they're trying to answer some specific questions. And then they utilize different kinds of queries or make custom queries to pull in data that then they can utilize to address those questions. So I think ones that are thinking about it kind of in those terms and taking it one step at a time and kind of building upon it, they're starting to see success informing their strategy, whether it's like, hey, let's try to. You know, we're seeing really good customer acquisition costs with certain campaigns, certain ASINs, or hey, these ACINs are really driving more new to brand customers for our business. Like how do we double down on that? And they they start to really hone in in a certain area. You have to kind of be consistent about looking at the data and then utilizing it and then taking some action and testing and seeing how that affects the effectiveness of your campaigns and your and your marketing budgets. But Well, I think we'll get there, but like I said, I think it's a very still very stages. And I think Amazon hasn't necessarily built it to be marketer friendly, to use like the AMC UI. So I think there's an opportunity here for third parties to come in and help brands and agencies to get the most out of these insights.
speaker-1: That's like XPN and you know, these these larger brands, Perpetua, intent wise, larger platforms. The world that you live in on the first party data, which you mentioned, versus not adding your first party data to the platform, how big of a difference have you seen in marketer outcomes and insights when they are bringing their first party data into Amazon? Which is, by the way, not everybody's favorite thing to do.
speaker-0: Correct. I would say it's not happening that frequently from what at least from what I can see. ⁓ but there are for reasons that that make sense. If you're able to do it, I mean there's a lot that you can do is is, you know, if you bring in sort of your direct to consumer data and looking at, you know, your existing customer base versus, you know, how much of your existing customer base is also on Amazon or how much like new reach is out there potentially for you to draw in new shoppers. And new customers. ⁓ so it gives you a good sense and you can really build audiences. I think that's the other piece of AMC that's getting a lot of attention. It's definitely being utilized, but I think there's a lot of testing going on, trying to figure out what works from an audience perspective. But I don't think there's a ton of kind of best practices of like where do I start as far as audience building and how should I think about doing custom audiences? But that's I think the next. place to go because you can you can do some pretty amazing targeting and build, you know, some very creative audiences. And I think having that one P data just just gives you that extra where you can start looking at overlap or you can exclude shoppers and things like that. So it it gives you a chance to even refine it a little bit more.
speaker-1: Makes sense. And then there's the DSP versus sponsored ads element. What is the unlock when you are running a DSP campaign that you get an AMC that you don't if you're just on sponsored ads only?
speaker-0: DSP and AMC were kind of launched almost ⁓ together. They were tied at the hip when they first came out from Amazon. But I think that's changed because obviously you can you can get a lot of great insights on the sponsored ad side as well within AMC. But I think th for those brands that are moving up the funnel, which I think we're seeing more and more of, and that's obviously a a focus area for as they've, you know, as they've built really a top tier DSP now. What kind of incrementality is that really driving? Like is it cannibalizing? Is it would I've have gotten these conversions anyway? Is it driving more awareness or more new to brand customers? Like what what part does it play in this path to purchase or path to conversion? So I think with AMC data, you can start to you can start to tease that out to kind of see where DSP is playing, you know, in that path and how frequently is it is it in that path? And obviously you could you could run different types of tests. with DSP, without DSP. A lot of that is going on now, I think, where they're they know brands know they need to be spending on DSP or at least trying it and testing it and seeing how it performs. ⁓ but you you can't just think about, ⁓ let's just compare it to sponsored ads or sponsored products. I mean, it's it has a different place kind of in that, in that path. So understanding kind of what that value is and and ⁓ investing, you know, properly is is kind of can take some time to figure that out.
speaker-1: And I'm wondering, are you a hard grader? Because a D is pretty pathetic across the ecosystem.
speaker-0: Typically I am, but I I also have just been, I guess, not impressed with you, like everyone says they have AMC or they support AMC if I think about agencies and partners, but it it it's really just a lot 90% of it is they've just kind of taken what Amazon, like the reports, the basic reports and structural queries, like that is their idea of supporting AMC. It's not like taking it to the next level. There's that ten percent probably that are like really leaned in, trying to figure it out, testing and and it's really like top of mind. And I think whether they're a direct brand or an agency, like they're gonna see the results and, you know, it's gonna help their business grow.
speaker-1: Yeah. That's great point. ⁓ well hopefully you can get as many up to an A as possible in this journey. ⁓ have you seen any? Are there any A A A plus ⁓ students in your
speaker-0: That's the goal. portfolio. I there's definitely there's definitely ones that are very sophisticated brands that ⁓ I've had a chance to work with now. You know, I won't I won't name any names, but they're ⁓ I've been impressed with how they've just wanted to dive into AMC. You know, they do have some analysts on their team that they can leverage, which you know can can be very helpful. But they're just they've taken the time to like really understand They're open to being educated and they've made it, you know, they've made it a priority where it's it's easy to kind of push it aside because it's not it's because it's complex.
speaker-1: Sure. Right. And is the planning function or the strategy function getting a a hook into EMC? We know strategy groups who love the idea of being able to understand what's in there. And so are you seeing that as well in cross agencies and that that function?
speaker-0: Yeah, I mean there's definitely a there's a f you know, definitely a few agencies that I've worked with that are they know they need to integrate AMC and they need to like sort of arm their team with with these insights ⁓ to kind of get to the next level and differentiate themselves. So yeah, and and I think, you know, most of the the leadership within the agencies, I mean, they wanna and the brands, they wanna know like, you know, what are we doing with AMC and What types of insights are in there and what and what are we doing with them? And I mean there there's questions are out there. So I think the teams on the ground and that are trying to dig into that data and and make sense of it, you know, they've got their work cut out for ⁓ but they have to really like I said, they have to make it a priority. It can't just be kind of, well, we'll get back to it.
speaker-1: Switching gears to the measurement piece that you mentioned, you said obviously there's a gap and and you're not seeing the cross-channel impacts that Amazon, you know, is in a total mix where it's it is influencing direct to consumer. ⁓ you know, if you're on D DSP, for example, and direct to consumer is influencing Amazon. So where do you see that gap in the market? And and from the sling wave standpoint. What do you what's interesting to you in terms of how we've approached that?
speaker-0: When I was, you know, at Amazon and working on strategic partnerships, it was many of the partners were very Amazon focused. There weren't a ton of partners that were supporting Google and Meta and some of the others that were truly cross-channel. And I think obviously the Amazons and Walmarts of the world, they're focused on their marketplace and and making sure you have the data and insights you need to be successful in that marketplace. But brands want to understand, you know. all of their marketing spend and all the channels that they're in and and and think about that holistically. So I think that's where I see tech like Slingwave that that you know has kind of deep expertise like with Google and Meta has obviously connected into Amazon and can really help kind of put those puzzle pieces together. And I think doing it in a way where It's not like looking at what happened six months ago or three months ago. It's like being able to look at quickly look at like what's what does that data look like? Where's my performance doing well, not doing so well, and then predicting like where should I be moving budget in the future from day to day, week to week? Because I think that things are always changing. There's seasonality, being able to look at year over year trends and make adjustments. I mean, those are all very important. So I think that's really a big part of this. And I think also having when you think about a a a you know, a Walmart where you have all the store data, you've got the influencers now, you've got podcasts, like all these different potential channels that could be driving traffic and interest and awareness. But how do you really measure that to see what's effective and what you should continue to invest in? So I think that's what kind of excites me about what what SlingWave has been able to build ⁓ and continues continues to build. It just really will help brands get smarter about, you know, their marketing budgets and and and really can get a sense of of actionable insights of what they should be doing with as their next step.
speaker-1: And it's interesting because as you mentioned, like Walmart has taken a big step forward as well. And we don't talk about them much yet on this podcast, but we're always measuring Walmart. So when you were inside the walls of Amazon, how ⁓ formidable was Walmart at the time and how do you think that's evolved?
speaker-0: Well, when you're at Amazon, you don't focus on the competition. That's one of the things you're you're ⁓ you've got plenty of other things to focus on. But ⁓ yes, I mean obviously over the years Walmart became a a bigger part of the conversation. I think brands knew that they had to explore that. I think agencies and tech providers knew that they had to think about integrating with with Walmart ⁓ Connect. And yeah, they've done a great job of of investing and growing their business and really making an impact and made some acquisitions, et cetera. So they're they're becoming a force. I mean, they're getting some of the the China based sellers that were on Amazon are kind of moving into Walmart, which is a big a big piece of of Amazon's business as well. So yeah, they have a lot of things going for them right now, good momentum. ⁓ I know they're also looking at data clean rooms and and you know their early stages there, but I would assume that that's going to follow something similar to to to AMC. So that'll be really interesting when that comes out because I think there's a lot of great data with, you know, they're in store. I mean they've got the Visio acquisition, there's with so CTV data or just on screen data. So there'll be a lot of interesting data points there that'll be important for SlingWave and others to integrate with Walmart as well.
speaker-1: I love it. And and when you're thinking about the mix that you see today and how do you think Amazon is funded relative to Google and Meta? Do you still think it's underfunded? And you did that you had this role where you're bringing budget into the ecosystem, but ⁓ is there still more to go toward Amazon and away from Google and Meta?
speaker-0: ⁓ I think there is, especially with the the DSP, like the how compelling that is. I think the the non-endemic space or the sellers that are that are not selling, I guess, well, companies that are not seller sellers on Amazon, but they but they can advertise on Amazon. So you think about insurance, financial services, right, automobiles, et cetera. There's you know, they have big ad budgets on TV where you know they're not necessarily advertising much on Amazon today. So I think that's like an untapped opportunity ⁓ that's pretty massive. So I I would say they probably don't have their fair share of of that wallet yet. And then there's obviously the the the endemic space that they have that they can then move from kind of that sponsored products and sponsor brands and move them up in into DSP ⁓ to get more of that sort of programmatic spend as well. So yeah, I think there's you know, their sponsor products is still obviously the the big revenue driver, but I think, you know, every year, every quarter you you see that like that DSP spend percentage wise keeps creeping up. ⁓ there's still strong growth rates. So yeah, I still I still still see a big opportunity for Amazon in that to to take on more budget.
speaker-1: Well, to that end, how about Microsoft? You were at a Microsoft priority Amazon and ⁓ they have some assets. So where where's ⁓ Microsoft's role, do you think, in the next couple of years?
speaker-0: Yeah, I think it'll be it'll be interesting. I mean, they've definitely made some changes and like you know, where they've kind of moved parts of their business out of, you know, they've sold them off or they've outsourced and so they've they've kind of changed direction a few times. Obviously, with like the you know, with the whole AI search, ⁓ you know, and the way that that's going and how are how are ads going to play into that. I mean, that still is gonna play out here, I guess, with all the different models to see how agentic. commerce plays into all these different models, including with Microsoft. So I wouldn't count them out, I guess, in this in this space, but obviously they don't have like a native retail marketplace and and they don't have the necessarily the search volume and everything that Google does. So it'll be interesting to see how they, you know, how they kind of stay stay relevant in this in in the space and and think about, you know, maybe there's ⁓ something within the new AI s search space that'll that'll Or the agentic space that'll allow them to expand there.
speaker-1: Makes sense. And and in your experience on the retail media side, is retail media in a bubble? I know we've seen this gold rush in retail media explosion of of networks. So are we about to see a correction in terms of the growth of retail media?
speaker-0: I would assume over time like the amount of retail media networks is gonna have to you know, w consolidate in some way. I think Macy's recently adopted Amazon ads and kind of made them into their tapped into them for their re for their retail media network. So, you know, I would imagine there'll be probably more of that over time because I think I don't think you can have, you know, two hundred plus retail media networks. It's just not gonna be digestible for for brands, ⁓ you know, to work across across that many networks. So I I think those you know there has to be some sort of consolidation there. But yeah, I mean I don't I mean I think it'll it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I s I especially with this AI and the the ads and chat GPT, et cetera, to see are how much, you know, how what percentage of traffic continues to move over into these models year after year, ⁓ to see how that imp impacts ⁓ you know, advertising budgets as well. So Yeah, it's an i it's this is why I like this space. Like it it's it's always evolving and it's hard to predict. So yeah, I don't I don't have a crystal ball, but it's it's a fun space to be in. Well we
speaker-1: We could go deep dive on incrementality of retail media networks if we want. So maybe next episode backing up to the you know per place that you help startups and tech companies with in terms of establishing partnerships with the big platforms like Amazon. So from a advice standpoint, you're a Martech startup, you're in a you know company trying to grow a partnership with Amazon. What's the biggest mistake you see people making when they're trying to ink that first enterprise grade ⁓ partnership with an Amazon.
speaker-0: Things I've learned at Amazon were like, you know, you have to be customer obsessed. So whatever whatever you do, whether your customer is you're trying to go after an account, so it's like a brand that you're trying to bring onto your platform, or I'm just want to have a partnership with Amazon and build that. ⁓ just thinking about like what what's important to them, you know. So, you know, from a partnership perspective, what are they interested in? How can I help them advance that if you're ⁓ an ad tech platform trying to sell into brands. It's just, you know, it's not about how great your product is and, you know, the shiny object and everything else. It's really just how does it resonate with the brand? Like does it, does it solve a problem that they're facing? So I think that's that's what you have to stay focused on is really understanding your customer ⁓ and building products that like We always say like delight, you know, delight your customer. They don't always know what they want you to build. They they they know that like this doesn't work or I I need this feature or whatever, but they're not necessarily thinking bigger about, ⁓ maybe we could, you know, I'm hearing these points and then we can build something that just solves a lot of problems for them. So I think you need to think in that way. The other thing is like don't I've seen partners that, you know, I managed that that were really successful in a certain space. Like they were servicing, let's say, SMB clients and did it really well. And then they tried to kind of move up into into enterprise. And then it didn't go so well. So it it's you can't really run like the same playbook. So yeah. Like don't don't try to be everything to everyone. Like if you're really good at in a certain area, just stay there, build that out, grow that. Think about moving into that next phase of mid market or enterprise and think through like the nuances that of what you're gonna how you're gonna need to build a little bit differently for each of them because they have different needs.
speaker-1: see too many SAS companies in their go to market are are not narrowly focused enough? The too broad, or what's your general observation on that for SaaS brands?
speaker-0: I've just seen the ones that are like that are very focused and kind of know what they're good at. ⁓ like they, you know, they've just been able to build a very successful business. Maybe they get bought by a company that's like focused on enterprise and they were focused on S and B. ⁓ but I haven't seen as many that have just been able to keep kind of expanding into different areas and like continue to be successful, or maybe you take your eye off the ball, like the eye off what really is your bread and butter. And then, you know, and then that sort of starts eroding because you have other partners that are coming in and it's a very competitive space, I think, in the ad tech space. So there's a lot of price and different products and you know, it can become a commodity. So I think you really have to think about how you differentiate yourself and ⁓ and really stick with what you're really good at.
speaker-1: Sean, this has been great. Thank you for joining us. How can people get in touch with you?
speaker-0: Yeah, thank you for having me on. I really enjoyed it. It's been like a trip down memory lane, but it was a fun conversation. ⁓ but yeah, to reach me you can you can find me on LinkedIn. So just look for Sean Evans and in the Nashville area and you'll find me. For all
speaker-1: Listeners out there, thank you for joining us on today's episode of The Incremental Marketer. Stay tuned for more voices, more lessons, and more proof that incremental moves can drive big growth. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe, like, and share, and join us for more episodes with the leaders shaping the future of marketing.
