ER 010: Structured Markup for Google, Amazon PPC, Amazon Spark, Amazon dominates new industries

ER 010: Structured Markup for Google, Amazon PPC, Amazon Spark, Amazon dominates new industries

Check out our Amazon SEO guide for optimizing your product listings: http://azmarketers.com/listing 

Shopify App for structured data: https://apps.shopify.com/json-ld-for-seo

Amazon Spark: https://www.amazon.com/Spark/b?ie=UTF8&node=16907772011

Amazon Singapore: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-enters-singapore-with-a-pitch-to-big-spenders-1501120178 

This is The Ecommerce Roundup, Podcast 10, today is July 28, 2017, I’m your host Bryan, and here’s the ecommerce news roundup for this week –

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First off, I just want to say that I know I missed last week’s podcast due to some technical issues I had late in the week, and I wasn’t able to push the podcast out before the weekend.

I apologize as the goal here is to make this a weekly podcast and I’m disappointed I didn’t get the podcast out last week. I’m still trying to get the hang of this podcast thing so I appreciate you tuning in and listening to this now.

So without further adieu, let’s get into it this week! I’m going to go a little longer than usual on this podcast since I need to make up for last week!

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1. Structured Markup for your website
2. Amazon PPC strategies
3. Amazon Spark
4. Wall Street Segment

Structured Markup for your website

In order to optimize your Google Shopping ads, and your SEO, you need structured markup working correctly.

Structured data allows search engines to understand your site on a deeper level than just crawling alone can accomplish.

Structured data is added directly to a page’s HTML markup. Search engines use structured data to generate rich snippets, which are small pieces of information that will then appear in search results. Structured data is the “extra” information that you see next to a website in search. For example, name, address, place data, as well as more complex information such articles, events, products, recipes, etc. on your web site.

If you’re not using structured data, then you’re missing out on an opportunity to perform better with SEO and your Google Ads.

So how do you do it? Unfortunately most Shopify themes don’t come with the right type of structured data included in the theme because it’s not a requirement that Shopify asks for from its theme developers.

That means, you either need to do it yourself, using Google tutorials, hire a developer to do it for you who understands how to do it, or to use an app to make it easy.

I like the last option.

I found a great Shopify app for this and I emailed back and forth with the developer and I think it’s a quality product. It’s also not expensive and updates are included.

I’ll include a link in the shownotes for the app. I’m not an affiliate for it, I just think it’s helpful because we originally looked into getting developers to help us with structured data before we found this app. For one price of $70 apparently now we’re set with respect to structured data for as long as we have our shopify store. Check out the link and email the app developer before buying it to make sure it’s a good fit for your store. Obviously the developer wants to make a sale, but he seems like a friendly and helpful guy so give it a shot.

Everyone who has an ecommerce site should check this out. If you don’t have shopify, then you’ll either need to find a different app, or a developer. One more reason why you should be on Shopify right now!

Shopify App for structured data: https://apps.shopify.com/json-ld-for-seo

Amazon PPC Strategies

Here’s a strategy I came across recently with respect to Amazon sponsored product ads.

If your ACoS or advertising cost of spend is too high, then instead of immediately lowering your bid, try raising it.

Here’s why. Your bid affects your ad’s placement. If you have a low bid then you have bad ad placement and fewer people will see your ad. When fewer people see your ad fewer people will buy your product.

Therefore, spend more per bid to increase clicks by improving ad placement, and even though your ad spend is going to go up you might make up for it with more sales thus decreasing your overall ACoS.

This can be a scary thing to do and you might get crushed if an increased bid doesn’t lead to more sales. But I encourage you to try it for underperforming campaigns. Start small and just do a few keywords or campaigns at a time.

It’s counterintuitive but the logic makes sense. Before decreasing ad spend try raising ad spend, and you might actually perform better! This all depends on your market and product so tread lightly but try it!

Amazon Spark

Last week Amazon launched Spark. It’s been testing for a few months.

Basically Amazon spark is an app within Amazon’s mobile app that helps you find new products by theme or category. It looks like Instagram or Pinterest with its social network feel and features, as well as its feed.

Users can post stories, ideas, and product images, where other people can react with comments and smiles.

To find it, go to your Amazon mobile app, and tap on the Programs & Features menu option in the app’s navigation. Spark will then create a customized feed of products, images, and ideas that relate to what you like.

Within Spark, you can shop for items you see in your feed.

Also, top users are called Enthusiasts who post about products they love. Anyone can become an Enthusiast by just being a Spark contributor, but you must be an Amazon Prime member to post. Non Prime members can only browse spark, they can’t contribute.

This is a new play for Amazon to disrupt product discovery which can be hard given that its all currently based on search, and there can only be so many search results per keyword.

This is also laying the groundwork for a new type of social network based on your Amazon profile and ecommerce. You’ll be able to follow enthusiasts and other people with similar likes as you. In 2 days, on July 30, users will be able to share their previously written product reviews to their Spark profile.

This could be helpful for discovering new products. Especially when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. Say for example, you want to browse for wedding gifts but don’t have anything specific in mind. Amazon has invited influencers and bloggers to post on Spark to seed the content and establish credibility for it.

My questions are: Will people spend time in Amazon app as they spend time in other social media apps? Will people post in Amazon Spark as they do in other social media apps? We just don’t think of Amazon like this right now and it’s hard to change people’s minds.

So how to brands play this? Right now there’s no way to advertise on Spark. Brands will have to work with influencers or enthusiasts on the platform to create sponsored content. You could also make yourself into an influencer or enthusiast. Since it’s in the early days right now, you could try to build up for yourself a strong following. Or, ask your customers to post in Amazon Spark for you. You could email your customers about Amazon Spark and reward them for posting in Amazon Spark. Send them a discount code of they do.

I’ll include a link to Amazon Spark in the show notes so you can check it out.

Amazon Spark: https://www.amazon.com/Spark/b?ie=UTF8&node=16907772011

Wall Street Segment

Amazon filed a trademark for it’s meal kits which are packages of food and ingredients that come in ready to make portions, along with instructions for how to cook the food into dishes. Amazon is currently using third party providers to provide the muscle behind these food kids (meaning they aren’t Amazon branded food kits). For example, Amazon is partnering with Martha Stewart for a meal kit.

This has crushed a brand new stock called Blue Apron since their entire business is these food kits. At the end of the day, it’s hard for a small company to compete with anything Amazon does, especially because Amazon is willing to lose money indefinitely. My opinion is that Blue Apron has to innovate on its business and tack away from this move by Amazon in order for them to remain a viable business. Food kits by themselves are a big industry, but there’s tons of competition, and so that makes it expensive to find new customers. Additionally, keeping customers is a problem since maybe after people learn how to cook they’ll stop using these meal kit services since they aren’t that cheap. Right now, Amazon gets a win and Blue Apron gets a loss.

There are rumblings in the government about Amazon being a monopoly that needs to be broken up since the Whole Foods deal was announced. Retail unions are really nervous that Amazon is going to replace thousands of Whole Foods workers with robots. The real concern here is jobs. If Amazon is able to use more automation then people will lose their jobs. However, in doing this Amazon could make Whole Foods cheaper, which I think most people would appreciate. Do people still call Whole Foods whole paycheck?

Amazon is now selling Sears’s line of Kenmore appliances. This is huge. Sears is admitting defeat and joining the choir onto Amazon. Additionally, if people start buying huge ticket items like appliances on Amazon then Home Depot, Lowes, and other big box retailers should take note.

And what about the $7 trillion business to business space? Amazon has Amazon Business and they want to be the supplier of first choice for the whole B2B community. This includes industrial goods, lighting, electric, automotive, cleaning materials, you name it. Industrial distributors or essentially brokers are going to feel this squeeze. Prices are going to come down when Amazon eliminates the need for middlemen, but here we’ve got the same issue of Amazon efficiences destroying people’s jobs. I’m not in politics so you be the judge if you think this is good for society. But it is happening to every industry because of Amazon. However, high ticket items might be insulated from the Amazon effect because some companies might want more customer service and hand holding than what Amazon can currently offer.

Last point about Amazon. They are launching into Singapore by offering only Prime Now service. This is very interesting as they are going after the high end crowd only right now. But, very cool to see Amazon expand even further internationally! Here’s a Wall Street Journal article about it – https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-enters-singapore-with-a-pitch-to-big-spenders-1501120178

Last, have you seen Bitcoin recently? I think the price per coin is about $2,800 as of right now. It’s been on a tear recently so I’m going to start paying more attention to it since it has implications for ecommerce. Take a look at it if you’ve never heard of it before because it might be the future of transactions.

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That’s it for today. Thanks for listing.

Hit subscribe now so you can be notified of new podcasts coming. What did you think about this podcast? Email us at info@azmarketers.com and tell us. And if you need any help with your ecommerce business, we’re at azmarketers.com.

Until next time, keep selling and keep growing.

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