[00:00:00] Welcome to the professors podcast where we discuss the best strategies to massively improve the reach and bottom line of your business. In the current virtual and economic landscape, your host, Howard Tai, generates over $5 billion for his clients on UNE using innovative tactics, both on and off Amazon.
[00:00:21] Everyone welcome to the first ever. Professors podcast. And today we've got our very first guests ever, so he's going to [00:00:30] be in the hall of fame one day and he's here to talk about something extremely exciting. But before we get him on, let me kind of, let me kind of explain what's going to happen here and who I am.
[00:00:41] My name is hurricane Liz in, I have the absolute pleasure of always. Hanging out with this guy that I'm about to introduce. This is his podcast, but I am the MST and I typically emcee his actual $12,000 per person mastermind events that happen around four times a year, [00:01:00] and as always, I lead that intro was saying, this is none other than the man, the myth, the legend, the professor.
[00:01:07] Howard tied himself, who's been featured in the wall street journal and all sorts of other publications. Just focusing on the fact that not only is he had the 43rd highest selling story in all of Amazon, but he absolutely crushes it and delivers the most impactful, tactful, and strategic information in all of Amazon.
[00:01:27] So how are we, how do you feel about that introduction and [00:01:30] how do you feel about this exciting podcast thing that you're going to get started here. Well, actually, I'm really excited. This is like my first podcast, um, that I'm going to create. So I'm sure there's going to be tons of tons of other ones, but, uh, right now this one is going to be my first, and I'm babying it.
[00:01:49] We prepped a lot of stuff before we, uh, went on, uh, today's, uh, event. So, uh, I hope it pays off. Yeah, absolutely. We have our very first [00:02:00] inaugural kickass here that I'm going to just talk briefly about here in a second, and what we're here to talk about today is how he's versed and how he, that's the name I call Howard.
[00:02:10] That's the nickname here. First ever online mastermind. Now keep in mind, we usually meet four times a year, and it's just an amazing Austin time that we have. We not only party, we have fun, we get the real secrets of people have a little too much to drink. I'm not going to mention any names here, but [00:02:30] among that in many other things, we also get to know one another.
[00:02:33] However. Of course, thanks to the current pandemic that's going around in the world. We're not going to be able to do that this time. However, we improvise and we've come up with something that we think is going to be even more amazing, and it's deemed as the first ever inaugural professors' pandemic event or the PPE event, or we're not only going to talk about what's hot in Amazon right now, but.
[00:02:56] We're going to talk about strategies and tactics that work in today's [00:03:00] current new frontier of Amazon, because that's where we really see it headed. An entirely new frontier, and there's going to be strategies and tactics that we share that are going to help you, not only in your Amazon business, make some additional cash right now, but it's going to help you.
[00:03:13] In the next six to 18 months. So how we tell us a little bit more about that actual whole event and what people have to look forward to when they actually participate in that. So this event is mainly focused on how, what we see out there right now on [00:03:30] the pandemic. How do we prepare ourselves for the next one?
[00:03:34] Or how do you make sure our Bulletproof, your FBA business. So we're trying to see what we can do in order for you guys to survive. You're, make sure that you're business survive. So, um, we're going to talk about a lot of, uh, about the state of the art technology that can help your Amazon business as well as right now it's going to be the ear of [00:04:00] external traffic.
[00:04:01] Uh, so how outside traffic, how to bring outside traffic into your Amazon listing and improve your ranking. That's one of the major goals that we're trying to do here at this event. Right. Absolutely. And you mentioned outside traffic, so who other than bringing on then the actual guests I'm about to introduce.
[00:04:18] But before I introduced him, let me just say, I want you to remember that this particular event is not like the typical masterminds where you obviously have a lot of interaction. You get to go out to the bar afterwards [00:04:30] and do all sorts of crazy stuff that what happens is wherever it happens, stays wherever it happens.
[00:04:35] On this one, we're going to be live. We're going to be. Interacting with the audience as well as fellow Amazon introverts, because I do find that we're almost in a world of introvert. So what better way in place to do that than online in the comfort of your own home. So it's a little different. And the actual guests have all been hand selected, handpicked, and we've got to make sure that they have the best of the best information as well as they are active.
[00:05:00] [00:04:59] In the whole Amazon environment in pretty much the innovators of the space. So our first guests, none other than George George now helped me pronounce your last name because I don't want to mess it up. I can barely read sometimes. So just tell me. George Maresa. I just didn't want to butcher it. So carriage Maresa who, trust me when I say this, this is by far been exciting.
[00:05:23] One of the most exciting things of the week, and I can tell you that there's a lot going on right now in the world, but the [00:05:30] information that I've actually learned about George. Excited me. And how did you feel about it? How he just started curiosity, all the information. I know you've met with George multiple occasions, but how exciting is it for Amazon sellers?
[00:05:41] Well, when I first learned about what a George did, I think it was a year or two ago, it was eyeopening how, what he could do with the knowledge that he has and the, the power of the. The technology that he provides other people. Absolutely. And you know, [00:06:00] George, I don't want to butcher what exactly you do.
[00:06:02] So let's just play pretend here. So I'm going to go ahead and tag team George. It's not that kind of show people, but I'm going to tag team cords with Howie. And what we're going to actually talk about, we're going to have, we're going to pretend that George and Howard are on an elevator. George, you're on an elevator with Howard and you know that he's obviously the man, the myth, the legend, and.
[00:06:23] You want to deliver the pitch of what you're so great at. So George, in a quick two minutes, [00:06:30] give us the elevator pitch with how he himself and how you would convince him that you're worthy of speaking at one of his events. Okay, great. Uh, I would say, Hey, how, Hey, Howard first, uh, um, and then, uh, I don't know.
[00:06:45] Um, yeah, so, uh, I think w what I specialize in is Amazon DSP, which stands for demand side platform. So this is Amazon's, um, programmatic way of advertising. Um, so to kind of, to kind of [00:07:00] simplify that, uh, Amazon's DSP is a form of display ads. Um, it's native ads. It's completely separate to what you see through sponsored ads and through vendor central or seller central, it lives in its own entity.
[00:07:14] Um, and the demand side platform, uh, is one of the most powerful platforms out there right now. Allowing you to reengage with people who have purchased your products. I'm allowing you to use Amazon's first PI data and look at [00:07:30] other people's purchasing behaviors, what they're looking at to re advertise to them, not only within Amazon, but also outside of Amazon and everything is tracked.
[00:07:41] So, um, I know you said that you're an expert on the PSP, the demand side cut form. Right? So can you tell me what area. Oh, that, that you're specializing. Why would Amazon themselves come to you and ask you how are you using, how are they using, how are you using their [00:08:00] platform? What are they, what are their, where are they at?
[00:08:04] Right. That's a good question. How would say before June last year. Yeah. There were, um, already set out audiences that you can target so you can target people who have kids aged between zero and six months, six months to 12 months, 12 months to a year, free to five years. So they've got these incredibly segmented groups, but we're limited to those groups.
[00:08:24] Now. In June, July last year, they introduced the Bita and they'll be today in true [00:08:30] introduced, um, allowed people to create their own audience. Which is absolutely crazy. So you could, you could, you know, if you're selling yellow stools, you can target every single person who's selling yellow stools and you can target anyone who's viewed their listing.
[00:08:47] And you can have ads shown to them. If you're selling phone cases, you can talk to everyone who's just bald, the latest iPhone, the latest iPhone 11, and you can target them in five [00:09:00] days, 10 days into their purchase with a case, a phone case. Um, so there's so many ways that we could use that. And actually, uh, the, the person who.
[00:09:10] Create audience builder. He actually reached out to me and I, and we, we've got discussion later this week because they want to understand how we're using the tool and for our clients. But this tool basically, uh, I think, uh, is one of the most powerful tools in the whole digital space right now. [00:09:30] Okay. Um, so how do you think outside of the box compare to the other experts in your field?
[00:09:37] Right. Well, to be honest, there's not really many other experts in my field, so it's not hard to do that, but it's very closed. So there's two ways that you can get on to Amazon DSP and one is. You go through Amazon directly and they ask for a large, large budget, but decent sized budget, and it's quite a lot to commit to.
[00:09:56] Whereas with us, uh, w we're more flexible. [00:10:00] We have an entity and we can take on accounts, um, to manage. Um, and it's very close. So we have our own entity, which we manage within Amazon. Um. So that's kind of what makes us different. Um, so we have the access and, and we, one of the first to actually do it. We were fortunate enough to have one or two clients at the beginning who gave us a whole load of cash, said spend it and test.
[00:10:25] So we were able to test a whole load of different types of advertising that's [00:10:30] available through the demand side platform, um, to find out what works and what doesn't. We created, um, uh, kind of, uh, a curriculum which I have. Kind of taught the team on how to manage it efficiently. So at the moment it's not, there's not enough people to eat, let alone managing it properly.
[00:10:49] And I think at the moment, we're ahead of the game in terms of what we're doing and what we're testing and what I ask them and what works through DSP. Yeah. You know, George, you've obviously convinced me to [00:11:00] have you not only. Show people all that you've actually discussed, but there's a lot of topics that come to my head just when I hear you talking about it.
[00:11:08] And also I hear your excitement, passion in the actual field. It really gets me excited. But one thing that you told me before this call, and I know there's several other topics you have in mind, but talk to people a little bit about what the actual, maybe three random topics that you could talk about that are going to absolutely wow them as [00:11:30] Amazon sellers.
[00:11:31] Right. Okay. Um, so I just want to simplify it again. For those of you who do Facebook ads, right? Facebook is a DSPs demands high platform. Now with Facebook, you can target audiences, right? And you can target ages, their interests. Um, and sometimes Facebook does buy third party data to try and kind of allow you to guesswork and find this audience.
[00:11:55] The most powerful thing about Amazon, DSP. And I know a lot of people find it [00:12:00] hard to digest this with dealing with first party data. This isn't guesswork. This is raw sales numbers that we can target. Right? Um, um, and that's, I think the craziest thing. The first craziest thing. Um, second is the ability to track outside traffic and generate, uh, sales and track the sales.
[00:12:21] I know attribution B has come out. It's not there yet. Whereas DSP, it's, it's there, like we're seeing in some of our [00:12:30] campaigns, the, the sales that come from outside of Amazon beat the rise of the sales side come from Amazon. Um, there are features bill into this that you just don't have access to. Within sponsored ads, you can target different States.
[00:12:44] You can target. You can target different times of the day. Um, um, you have to separate mobile and desktop. So you can have mobile focused ads. You can target, um, iOS users only. You can target Android users only. You could target just [00:13:00] the possibilities of this is, it's just endless. Um. Yeah. Yeah. That gets me kind of curious, George.
[00:13:05] I'm a hardcore Facebook advertiser. One of the things that I love about Facebook is lookalike audiences. Is there anything like that currently on DSP. Yeah. So there's something called similar, a similar product views. So it looks at the ACEs you put in, and then it finds other ACEs that are similar to the ACN.
[00:13:26] And that's an essence of kind of the lookalike. And then you can use that. But we [00:13:30] take it to another level. We, we, we. We actually just, rather than using Amazon's guesswork to find our audience, we just create it. So we just go through and find every Aislynn and we'll be detailed about it. So we wouldn't just talk to everyone who's selling a similar item to you.
[00:13:46] We'll look at, okay, what do people recently purchase with your item wasn't a recently bought together items. We could create an audience of everyone who's purchased similar items to what they would buy and then, and then re advertise your [00:14:00] product. Um, um, and, um, one of the special things I'm going to be doing at Howard's event is I'm actually going to show everyone the interface.
[00:14:08] I've never done this before on any podcast anywhere. I'm going to show the interface. I want you to see with your own eyes what it can do. And I haven't even spoken about the report in the report in itself is just insane. Like the amount of fields that you have and the amount of data Amazon gives you, it's unbelievable.
[00:14:34] [00:14:30] So I know that, um, how we was going to start talking about you got all this incredible information right in front of you. Is there an a more effective way, like how else can sellers benefit from this information other than just advertising? Is there anything extra like, you know, on Facebook we get not only.
[00:14:53] We can look at similar audiences and we can kind of guess what our demographic is searching for. But is there any other information [00:15:00] that would help sellers become better at selling their thing? That is a good question. One example I can, I can share with you is, um, it's just, I, again, it's going back to the audience builder is, uh, if, if someone, hi, has had a, an incredible amount of publicity, uh, Frida ASEN.
[00:15:21] I guess you could track how well it's done by serving ads to that audience. And there's been one or two occasions when, um, [00:15:30] uh, someone's listing has been on the telly and has been kind of floating about in the media. Um, and everyone who's viewed that product, we've showed our ads to them and we've seen crazy spikes and sales.
[00:15:42] Um, so that's kind of one way kind of, I hope that answers your question. Yeah, I was just looking for like any other bits, but thank you so much for that answer to that. That's exactly what it's looking for. I wanted to ask you, um, so what, what problems are you seeing that Amazon [00:16:00] sellers right now in 2020 in particular?
[00:16:03] Like what problems do you see other of, yeah, I guess, um, I think the bigger picture, and this is something I've seen for quite a while now, is I miss it. The same trend I seen in Google. Uh, is, uh, I'm, as in, have figured out, you know, this is a fantastic revenue stream for them. Amazon, uh, spot sponsored ads.
[00:16:24] It's an incredible revenue stream for them. Um, and they've started to populate the real [00:16:30] estate on the search result pages with sponsored ads. This is only gonna get worse. Uh, we've seen this, um, uh, kind of evolve, um, often is going to look for more similar to organic rankings. This work that's going to help people click more on PPC rather than organic.
[00:16:47] And it's just going to be harder because it's going to become a pop place. You can't do. What you did a few years ago as an Amazon seller and just start making sales organically, uh, you need [00:17:00] PPC is now, it's not just an extra bonus add on it's foundation to any given account. Um, another thing that I'm seeing, um, um, how it is, I'm seeing a lot of big four firms go onto Amazon.
[00:17:15] Uh, a whole lot of big firms, they're taking on individual sellers of doing really well, and they're getting them to help them put their listings up so they're doing it properly. Okay? So this is making the whole landscape aggressive, and these guys are not [00:17:30] looking to get a good eight cost. They're not looking to make a profit.
[00:17:33] They're looking for aggressive market share. When you're, when you're competing against someone who doesn't care about how much money they make, and then they go in aggressively, it's going to have a massive knock on effect on your business. Um, and then if we add on how you just asked about the pandemic, that's an additional.
[00:17:53] Um, uh, kind of external factor. It's going to have a huge impact on businesses. Um, we're fortunate enough [00:18:00] that a whole load of our clients are sitting on the, on the winning side of this, and their business is absolutely flying. Um, but, um. This is the big issues we're seeing right now than Amazon.
[00:18:16] Yeah. And you know, that brings me to an actual interesting question, George, as a result of the pandemic. Any idea on your, just from what you've seen, cause you're obviously an expert in paid advertising, is there more people advertising? Is there less people [00:18:30] advertising because of the fact, I mean, I personally am running out of stock.
[00:18:34] Faster than people. An indescribable how fast I'm running out of stock. I actually had to turn down all my PPC campaigns, but I was just curious what you've seen with all your clients, and I'm sure there's a lot of other Amazon sellers out there that are wondering the same thing and how is that going to affect us in the next six to 18 months?
[00:18:53] Do you see it coming back to normal or, Oh my gosh, yes, but I don't think [00:19:00] people are seeing the bigger picture here. Like if you take a step back. I'm as an adjust go in free growth pains. This whole pandemic has educated more people that would have never used Amazon to now purchase on Amazon to buy the groceries is safer to buy from home.
[00:19:19] So there's more people on Amazon. Amazon have had to, uh, slow push back, um, and delivery days. They, they actually helped FBM, [00:19:30] uh, um, rank a little bit better than FBA in certain times. Um, just so that they can. Keep up with the sales. What's going to happen is when everything opens up, when things go back to some form of normality, um, we're going to see that Amazon's going to come out of this stronger and bigger.
[00:19:49] And I want to, all I want to say is watch out anyone selling outdoor equipment? Anyone selling anything to do with, um, going out. That's going to be the next [00:20:00] blow up. That's going to be the next bit that just explodes. So I think as an Amazon seller, if you are in Amazon, you are in the right place right now.
[00:20:08] Like, um, you know, you might just be seeing some trends that are working against you if you're on the other side of this and the wrong side of this. But it will normalize it. Set a stage. And, um, and I know there's a, there's a, uh, a few of our clients have been incredibly dynamic, so they've had issues with FBA and getting their products in.
[00:20:26] So they just. Found a free PL FBM and some of them [00:20:30] even just started shipping this stuff to their house and delivering themselves and getting friends and family to help. So, um, there's been an incredible amount of creativity within this space that I've seen too. Right. And before Howard jumps into opportunities.
[00:20:45] I have one more question. And this is kind of like for the mid level Amazon sellers like myself, because although I've heard about DSP through Howard w when he said that to me, I thought he was speaking another language and I had to remind him, Howard, I only speak. [00:21:00] English and some Spanish and some Russian.
[00:21:02] I don't speak that other language, but what that question is, what do these ads actually look like? Are they pretty standard headline sponsored ads, or are they the same ads that we're all seeing? Are those, is there any way to tell the difference between these DSPs. And where they're coming out on or what, what sites.
[00:21:23] Oh, easy. Yeah. So, um, uh, the display ads that look completely separate, different to, um, what [00:21:30] you have, uh, what you see in sponsored ads. And these are the ads that, you know, if you go into a product and just under the buy now button, you'll see, uh, you'll see a DSP ad just below, um, uh, just below. The product.
[00:21:44] So just before you get to the enhanced brand content, there's a display ad on the, on the left hand side. When you're on the search results page, that tends to be a banner. Um, in terms of these dynamic ads, there's so many benefits. You can copy and paste any section of any [00:22:00] review onto the ad as long as you put a link so that I'm physical verified, it's genuine, and you've kind of kept word for word.
[00:22:08] You could put anything anyone said on that. You can, you can. I'll upload a logo and put whatever headline you want on the ad. Um, and then you can even go outside of that and create your own ads. You can create custom image ads with whatever message you want on there. Um, so there's, uh, you know, you're going to see a whole load of different types of ads and it's [00:22:30] stuff that I'm going to share during the most of mine.
[00:22:32] I'm going to go into detail, show what these different types of items look like. We haven't even talked about video ads. But we haven't even talked about that. And that's like, you know, that's another ball game. Um, NASA, we're looking now to test aggressively. Um, I just noticed on Wednesday last week, I'm, as in introduced a new video, Bita  builder.
[00:22:53] I don't know what that can do, but it's on, so my list now to test. Um, and I know, um, [00:23:00] Amazon have acquired seismic, and they've done this so that they can track, um, say fruit, Amazon's DSP. And when that happens, you know, you know, it's like they're just on another level because that's, you know, you can be watching videos on Amazon prime or on am DB and it can be served a custom ad.
[00:23:19] You know, who's doing that right now? So it's like, it's free. Yeah. Interesting. So right now, um, there's, um, there's, um, [00:23:30] some clients that me and you, uh, both know of, uh, they're doing about three or $400,000 a day based on this pandemic. So I wanted to ask you, um, right now in 2020, what opportunities do you see for the Amazon sellers?
[00:23:48] In particular in particular, what opportunity do you see as a result of this current pandemic? Um, is, is this, uh, is this kind of focused on Amazon DSP or is [00:24:00] always a general question, or is it just a general question? You have DSP, that would be great. Yeah. Yeah, but, but man, like, uh, marketplaces, I like shooting up everywhere.
[00:24:12] Um, Walmart is just opening up. Uh, we're looking to get an agency account with Walmart now. So we've just in the process, um, uh, the ratio of sellers to purchases on a Walmart is ridiculous. We've got a few clients doing a few thousand a day. On Walmart with no PPC. So that's an interesting [00:24:30] space. And the shop app to Shopify have created their own app, uh, that so people can buy our mobiles, and that's already got 20 million downloads.
[00:24:39] And if you've got a Shopify store, you can apply to that. So that's another marketplace. Google shopping actions is one. I'm watching very, very closely because the big issue of Google was always been, they don't. Own, take ownership of the complete process. So with Amazon, you can, you can use a sales and add to [00:25:00] cart as a way to right as a way to see how well our products do in and then I, and help that product.
[00:25:06] Whereas if Google, they then lost the process from when they click on the website. Whereas with Google shopping actions, you, it's a marketplace just like Amazon on Google. Now, if they get this right. It's going to be a good content of Amazon. It's going to overtake, but it's going to be an incredible contender because in terms of traffic, Google wins if they get the shopping sorted out, and an ad ads express is gonna.
[00:25:30] [00:25:30] It's gonna take preference to other shopping apps because they take a cut of every sale. So market places are opening up. Um, it's a fantastic opportunity for sellers to then move their listings on to other places, and it's incredible. There's incredible tools. Let me see if I can find one of them. Um, ah, mirror listings and I need to find the name of it.
[00:25:54] But there's incredible tools that are helped you clone all of your listings on Amazon and put it onto these other marketplaces. [00:26:00] So that's, I think, the biggest opportunity I see right now in this space. I think it's called listening mirror. Yeah, that's the one. That's the one I'm missing. You already know about it, how it, yeah, that sounds amazing, George and Mike, my question for you is, do you think that in the future, like obviously right now DSP has rolled out to agencies, but do you think, say, how long do you say that it is before Amazon actually starts rolling this out to individual sellers, or is it ever going to actually go [00:26:30] there?
[00:26:30] I'll think, I'll think in about two years. I think in about two years I'll do that. But there's already symptoms of this. So, so the, the display ads that you see in your account, especially if you knew us, it was a Bita, but now a lot more, more and more sellers have it. That is a form of DSP. So they're trying to introduce light versions of it.
[00:26:49] The customization of it is so much more basic than what you can do in DSV, but that is. Yes. We, they've just recently allowed you to target customers, um, other people [00:27:00] with acents, uh, through a display ad. So they're trying to slowly evolve it by the moment. It's a complicated beast to, and to try and simplify it, they're going to have to do it in small chunks.
[00:27:11] So, so is the DSP is also the old AMG right? Or is that different? No, it's complete there. No, it's just the old AAP that used to be called Amazon advertising a platform. Okay. Yeah. So let's wrap it up. Are there any final [00:27:30] words that you would want to leave our audience here? Um, I, I guess what I'm saying is, um, if you were in the Amazon space right now and you're doing good numbers, ah, man, like the world's your oyster right now because I think it's going to get better.
[00:27:44] But that's literally, it's amazing. Thank you George so much for joining us. I learned a lot just listening to what you said as well. It's like the possibilities, the possibilities are endless. Particularly if you're already on Amazon and you have any knowledge [00:28:00] whatsoever. Even somebody like me who's at somewhere along the middle of the road, I mean, well, obviously not doing $300,000 a day, but the fact of the matter is some of the information that George shared.
[00:28:11] I'm excited for because I know that it's going to make my business better, so make this much and how we think again, for hosting this podcast, I'm really excited about the professor's pandemic event or the PPE event, and if you want more information on the professors pandemic event. We'll need to go [00:28:30] to  mastermind.com forward slash PPE to find out more information.
[00:28:36] So that's pretty much a wrap. Thanks again for joining us. The first inaugural professors podcasts guys. Welcome to the professors podcast where we discuss the best strategies to massively improve the reach and bottom line of your business. In the current virtual and economic landscape, your [00:29:00] host, Howard Tai, generates over $5 billion for his clients annually using innovative tactics, both on and off Amazon.