A note from our CEO

Hi everyone and happy holiday-prep season! 

We learn more about this coming holiday season everyday - lots of advice on that below. We’ve been talking about how to make any type of CPG product relevant for the holidays, “even supplements and toothpaste”. If it’s 0% indulgent, it still might be a great stocking stuffer for new years resolutions or “after Thanksgiving/Christmas” resets.  

Big news this month has been AI finally making its way to e-commerce and marketplaces. Walmart (who have long struggled with online) announced an OpenAI shopping collaboration, and it seems like other DTC platforms are following suit in testing AI and LLM shop-ability. 

Amazon has stayed away. There are reports that Amazon’s internal AI, Rufus, is driving some decent numbers, but it’s still a tiny % of sales.  

I have a few reflections on this:  

1. Shopping in search has only kind of worked. Google shopping is big, but I don’t think you hear anyone say it’s their favorite way to shop (I like it for browsing specific running shoe colors). Chat-based or general search results shopping will have to change to win. 

2.  Instant and voice-based shopping has been tried by Amazon a lot. Dash buttons for refills, Alexa shopping by voice or on visual echos, and more. Some people loved these, but not that many. 

3. Attribute-based or comparison shopping doesn’t feel complete. “What are the 3 best car seats for a 12 month old that fit in my car?” Even if you have a perfect comparison grid, people still seem to want to read the reviews.  

4. Recommendation shopping has largely been abandoned in favor of advertising. Amazon used to try really hard on recommended products, then sold the inventory instead. Google shopping did the same. So even if the LLM knows you super well, is shopping on it useful if it’s advertising?  

I think there’s plenty of applications in the commerce value chain, but in terms of the shopping experience, there’s a lot of imagination, customer education, and work to be done before we migrate from a digital shelf to… not a digital shelf.   

In this month's newsletter, you'll find:

• Tips for Winning Winter

• The latest sales and ad spend numbers

• Trending search terms

Feel free to reply direct - it goes to my inbox!

Stay warm and stay tactical,

Chris

Last Month’s Sales and Ad Spend Numbers

Tips From The Team: Winning Winter

1. See Your Product Through the Holiday Shopping Lens

From: Kevin & Tracey

Monitor Search Term Trends & Update Keyword Targets

Try to find a holiday niche to plug your product into. Does your product improve focus or alertness? Try targeting “gifts for gamers.” Is it something that could be useful for staying hydrated and safe out in the sun? Maybe “gifts for golfers” could be worth testing out. Look for long tail terms that are surging in traffic and figure out which ones you can spin your portfolio towards. 

Modify Content & Tagging

Once you’ve locked in your target niches, update your Amazon storefront to match. Add holiday-specific creative, create gift bundles, update your product descriptions, and add badging to help your products stand out to gift-hunting shoppers. 

2. It’s Not All About Christmas & Gifts!

From: Melanie & Toni

Not everyone gives gifts or participates in the end-of-year holidays, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t shopping

Get creative and think about the winter season in more general terms - baked goods and baking accessories, warm scents and flavors, general coziness. If targeting the gifting world doesn’t make sense for your brand, break out of the holiday box and find a wintery spin that does.

The “New Year, New You” scene is also a great opportunity for better-for-you brands to snag new customers and expand sales.

Monitor trending search terms as the holidays wrap up and we approach New Years. As people shift from gifts to self-improvement, it’s an opportunity for many brands in our space to get in front of a wide audience. Help people reinvent themselves and you may end up with some new-to-business purchasers that become repeat customers. 

3. Be Ready for Black Friday - Cyber Monday

From: Hollan

Utilize your DTC email lists to drive additional traffic to your Amazon shop

This can be a great way to re-engage with lapsed buyers (people who have purchased from you in the past but not recently) and engaged non-purchasers (people who browsed your site, provided their email, but never purchased). These audience segments already know about your brand and may be an easy sell. 

Have a Plan B ready

If you aren’t seeing the sales you were hoping for early on in the event, be ready to extend deals across the whole weekend between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Capitalizing on those weekend days between the big bookends can be a fantastic way to drive additional sales. 

For more tips, tricks, and tools you can use to optimize for BF/CM (along with Prime Day and any other tentpole events Amazon may launch in the future), check out our freshly updated (and free!) white paper, A Guide to Navigating Tentpole Events on Amazon. Click here to download.

What We’re Watching

• Holiday search volatility: “Gift” terms are up 35% month-over-month.

• Deal fatigue: CPCs are stabilizing after October Prime Day, creating opportunity for efficient campaigns.

• New Year prep: “Wellness,” “protein,” and “planner” terms are all trending upward, earlier than usual.

Search Term Trends

Each month, we track and analyze search volume and CPCs for popular Amazon search terms. Here are some recent trends from the last month that we found interesting.