January 21, 2025 • 38 mins
Ever wondered how to turn a side hustle into a thriving business? Join us as we chat with Ritu Java, the innovative co-founder of PPC Ninja, whose journey from an Etsy venture in 2010 to mastering the art of Amazon advertising is nothing short of inspiring. Discover how Ritu navigated the complexities of Amazon’s PPC landscape, confronting challenges like increased placement saturation and escalating costs per click, all while evolving into a data-driven decision-maker. With her unique insights, Ritu offers invaluable lessons for any e-commerce entrepreneur eager to refine their advertising strategies.
As we gaze into the future of Amazon PPC, the conversation uncovers pivotal strategies essential for 2025. Ritu emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach, integrating SEO, PPC, and an awareness of surrounding ads to outshine the competition. Delve into the transformative role of Rufus, Amazon's AI shopping assistant, and learn how to future-proof your listings through enhanced product visibility and strategic use of FAQs and infographics. The discussion also sheds light on the intricate relationship between PPC, conversion rates, and reviews, preparing sellers to avoid common keyword ranking mistakes and create comprehensive PPC campaigns.
Our exploration doesn’t stop there. Navigate through the complexities of Amazon advertising success by embracing day partying strategies and branded campaigns. Ritu illustrates how PPC Ninja software helps sellers safeguard budgets by pausing campaigns during low-conversion hours and shares insights into managing budgets during key events like Prime Day. Wrap up the session by understanding the ideal client profile for PPC Ninja Agency and how to connect with Ritu and her team for further collaboration. Whether you're a seasoned seller or just embarking on your e-commerce journey, this episode is packed with strategies to propel your Amazon advertising endeavors forward.
Want to connect with Ritu?
Website: https://ppcninja.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/Ritujava
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ppcninja
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast.
On today's episode, we arethrilled to have Ritu Jhava, the
co-founder of PPC Ninja, joinus.
Ritu is an expert in Amazonadvertising and PPC management,
helping e-commerce entrepreneursoptimize their advertising
strategies for maximumprofitability.
(00:45):
With a strong background indigital marketing and a passion
for data-driven decision-making,she has helped countless
sellers navigate thecomplexities of Amazon PPC.
In this episode, we'll diveinto Ritu's journey and discuss
the evolving Amazon advertisinglandscape.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Welcome to the show Ritu.
Hey David, thanks so much forhaving me.
I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Absolutely so.
To start things off, can youshare with our audience a little
bit about?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
your background and path to PPC Ninja.
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
So I actually started mye-commerce journey way back in
2010.
And this was on Etsy.
I used to live in Japan at thetime and had this day job and I
wanted to do a side hustle andso I got into Etsy and then I
(01:43):
realized that it's not justabout creating a listing and
uploading your products and justselling.
It doesn't happen that way.
So I had to do a lot of work totrain myself on marketing.
I had to teach myself Facebookads, google ads, youtube
blogging, custom audiencegeneration all of that good
stuff.
So it just led me to learning alot about marketing.
(02:05):
And then I decided to go back toschool and do a formal degree
in data science.
I'm an engineer of a background, so this was like an add-on and
I was always interested in dataand I just thought that
everything is about the numbers,including which products you
pick or how you sell them, howefficiently you sell them, and
you might think that you're inthe business of selling products
(02:27):
, but actually you're in thebusiness of leveraging data.
That's what I learned, you know, from my experience back then,
and so I was able to kind of getinto the data analytics space
and then came across Amazon.
I was like, oh my God, thisconversion rate on Amazon is
like way better than anythingI've seen in the past, and so
that's how I kind of got intoAmazon and Amazon advertising
(02:49):
per se.
And then in 2020, I founded theagency so PPC Ninja agency,
which is helping seven, eightand nine figure sellers on
Amazon as well as on Walmart andwith Google ads, et cetera, on
Amazon as well as on Walmart andwith Google ads, et cetera.
So we're we're an agency thatfocuses on PPC as well as SEO
(03:10):
and we help our customers kindof get that whole flywheel going
on Amazon.
And it's been an exciting and,you know, interesting journey
and I'm super passionate abouteverything I do, including like
data, ai and everything to dowith Amazon and AI.
It's very, very exciting for me.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Very nice, very nice.
I love that background I willshare with you in.
The audience has heard me saythis a million times I'm a
retired accountant andaccountants and engineers there
tends to be some overlap in howtheir brain is wired and their
attention to data-drivendecisions, and so it's exciting
(03:49):
to hear that from you and, aswe're getting into our
discussion on Amazon PPC, feelfree to go deep on those
data-driven decisions and whatyou're looking for when you're
looking at an account.
So why don't we turn the cornerand start that discussion?
So Amazon PPC has changed quitea bit over since I've been
(04:14):
selling, which has been about adecade now.
So let's just look at the lastfive years.
What have been some of themajor changes in Amazon PPC?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
years.
What have been some of themajor changes in Amazon PPC?
Yeah, so I think the biggestchange has been placement
saturation.
I just think that there's a lotmore ads now and there's a lot
of very similar looking productsvying for the same spots and
it's very hard for, you know,buyers to kind of make up their
mind about what is a goodproduct versus what is not.
(04:47):
I mean, yes, of course they cansee review counts and price and
all that stuff, but it's veryhard for people in general to
decide which one is a betterproduct, right?
And so I think that that kindof led to everybody trying to
kind of get those top spotsabove the fold, because organic
(05:08):
ranking has become harder andharder over the years and it's
getting diluted in some ways,also because Amazon has opened
up a lot of different placementson Amazon as well as off Amazon
, and so it's really really hardfor most people to decide which
one is a good product, eventhough they might be showing up
(05:29):
in the recommended at the top.
Now, what that also manifests interms of challenges for sellers
is the cost to advertise right.
The cost per clicks are justgoing up and up and up every
single year to advertise, right,the cost per clicks are just
going up and up and up everysingle year and I believe at
this point the average CPC onAmazon is very close to $1.5 per
(05:49):
click, which is quite a lot.
If you're selling a lower ASPproduct, you have two clicks and
that's the end of your ACOSgoals.
Like you already exceeded themwith just two clicks.
But then there's also the wholeidea of conversion rate.
Like your conversion rates havealso suffered over time because
(06:10):
there's so many options.
Right, every single page hasalternatives that might be
equally good, you know.
So there's a lot of bouncingoff that happens on those pages.
You bring someone in and thensomeone else takes the fail
right.
So that's another kind ofchallenge because of this
placement saturation and justcompetition in general.
And I think the second kind ofbig change that's happened on
(06:33):
Amazon is just the range ofoptions and settings and it's
becoming harder and harder forjust normal sellers to even set
up PPC campaigns and do a goodjob with it.
I mean, it's not enough just todo one or two or three or four
campaigns.
You've got to do so much.
You've got to domicromanagement, you've got to
slice and dice your data and tryto get impressions, when you
(06:56):
think, okay, a $1 bid should buyyou impressions, but it doesn't
, and then you want to kind ofput more money behind that, but
that ends up in creating like apendulum effect with high cost
and then you bring it down, andso that has been kind of the
trend I've seen, with peoplestruggling with their PPC and
(07:16):
not knowing how to optimize it,how to scale it.
It's just getting quite hard,and that's why, at our agency,
we try to keep that mantra of wedeliver profitable growth.
It's not just growth, it's notjust profitability, it's both at
the same time.
So, which is challenging, butthat's the only thing that
matters at the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Absolutely, absolutely.
One thing I took note of in yourresponse was you were talking
about the organic versus PPC aswell as the rising cost per
click, and I'll share with you.
I have had one particular brandfor six years and every single
week I go through and I look ata bunch of different metrics,
(07:59):
but one of those metrics I lookat is what's the percentage of
my PPC versus organic?
And I would say two to threeyears ago we were probably about
30% PPC and 70% organic, and somy thought during that time was
okay, well, if I have a 30%break-even point on my products,
(08:23):
then that's going to be kind oflike my target ACOS.
I'm willing to break even on30% of my sales because I'm
going to have profitable saleson the rest of my sales, and
what I've noticed is that haseroded slowly and surely and it
is now flipped on its head towhere we're at about 70% PPC and
(08:46):
30% organic.
And so my question to you is isthat unique to me, or are a lot
of sellers seeing that?
And how do you handle that fromlike an economic standpoint of
breaking even on a percentage ofsales?
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Absolutely.
What you're seeing is prettyuniversal.
I would say you'd be lucky ifyou could get like a 50-50 split
between PPC and organic at thispoint, and one of the reasons
is that Amazon has changed theirlayouts over time, so it used
to be that you would only havelike one or two ads up at the
top above the fold and the restmaybe three or four placements
(09:24):
or two to three placements onthe right were all organic.
But they have forced this wholeidea of like you first see
sponsored ads.
You see a big sponsored brandad, then you see four sponsored
product ads and maybe you'll seeone organic above the fold.
But that's also not guaranteed.
In some cases you'll see allsponsored ads above the fold not
(09:47):
guaranteed.
In some cases you'll see allsponsored ads above the fold.
So for a shopper who's lookingfor the right product, they'll
probably assume that what Amazonis promoting at the top is the
recommended option and with allthose badges you see, and
there's a lot of gaming thatgoes on.
If you see a deal or somethingthat's prioritized above the
fold, then that's where yourpeople are led.
They're not actually going todiscover your organic listing at
(10:10):
all.
It could be below the fold, andit's not that kind of time that
people have to kind of goexploring and say, oh, let let
me skip, skip over these ads,why should I waste their money?
Let me go and check in theorganic section.
No, they don't do that becausethere's no difference visually
between an organic listing andan ad.
It looks the same.
There's no special flashycolors on your ads that deter
(10:31):
people from clicking into them.
People just go ahead and click.
They don't have time, right?
So because of that, I think theratios have flipped, because
people are clicking more andmore on ads rather than on
organic.
And so what do you do aboutthat?
Right?
First of all, that ratio can'tbe managed that much, but you
(10:52):
can try to be more profitable inthe choices of what do you go
after, what targeting should youdo, and so on.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Okay, it's good to hear that it's not just me
that's experiencing that, and Ithink that is a really good
perspective on this changinglandscape, and so I think we
have good coverage on a lot ofthe changes.
Why don't we talk about whatdoes a winning PPC strategy look
like in 2025?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah.
So I think a winning PPCstrategy definitely needs to
assume that your product is awinning product.
First of all, you can't justrun PPC on a product that isn't
optimized in all possible ways,which means your listings are
optimized for not only humanreadability, but also for the
(11:45):
algorithm and now for Rufusright.
So those three things need tobe true about your listing that
it's perfectly optimized.
Then you've got to make surethat you don't have any negative
signs that might deter peopleaway from your listings, like
negative reviews that aretanking everything or those
frequency return patches.
(12:06):
Things like that can alwaysdeter people away.
And then there's this wholeidea of Amazon showing ads all
around right.
So if you're not doingdefensive marketing, there's a
chance that your hard-won leadwho's coming to your page is
actually going to see somethingelse and then just disappear
from your page right Veryquickly.
(12:27):
So I think a winning strategywill require you know, paying
close attention to everythingthat's on that page, including
what you're putting out, as wellas what Amazon is putting out
on your page.
All of the ads that are showingup around you.
You need to watch them right.
Showing up around you, you needto watch them right, and so
(12:49):
there's got to be like a goodfly wheel, a solid fly wheel
between your SEO, your PPC andthe ads that are showing up on
your page, in order to make surethat you're getting people's
attention but then you'rekeeping it as well.
I think the second thing I'dlike to say about a winning PPC
strategy is to kind of alreadystart future-proofing your
listings for Rufus.
(13:09):
Now, rufus is kind of new andmaybe we can talk about it in a
little bit more detail, but Ijust want to say that Rufus is
already prompting people towardscertain products and it shows
up on your product detail pageas well as on the search results
page, right?
So people are shiftingbehaviors slowly towards an
(13:34):
LLM-assisted chatbot who cantell you quickly where to go
rather than spending their owntime.
And people are getting lazierbecause it's an easier
interaction with an LLM to say,hey, which product will solve
all of these things and it'sgoing to tell you what it is
right.
So if your listings aren'toptimized for Rufus, then down
(13:55):
the line you will have a certainamount of loss there, because
Rufus is going to be indexed forcertain things and it's going
to give people a different path.
So those are some of the thingsthat I think a winning strategy
in 2025 need to include.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Okay, I'm glad that we're talking about Rufus.
It seemed like six to ninemonths ago.
I started receiving some emailsfrom Amazon indicating some of
these changes coming up fromAmazon indicating some of these
changes coming up.
It has been recently, in thelast month, that I've noticed,
as a shopper, where Rufus ismaking some suggestions, and
it's interesting to be an Amazonseller as well as an Amazon
(14:33):
customer where you can kind ofnotice these things.
And so what are some wayspeople can optimize for Rufus
and get those?
You know you use the wordfuture proof, which I really,
really like.
What are some ways that theycan do that?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, okay, so let's talk about Rufus.
So Rufus is this AI shoppingassistant that has deep
knowledge of your product, whichmeans it knows everything that
you put out there on yourproduct, as well as everything
that other people say about yourproduct.
It also has all the informationabout external signals that are
(15:14):
coming to your product, wherethey're coming from, what the
source was, et cetera.
So it's got like deep productknowledge, right?
So, um, I would say that inorder for us to understand Rufus
, we've got to start payingattention to what prompts Rufus
is pre-populating in its windowwhen you're on your page.
So if you can start looking atyour own page, just clicking on
(15:37):
the Rufus button and seeing whatshows up like what are the
questions, the common questionsthat people typically ask and
you know I've been noticing thatspace quite a lot and it just
changes all the time.
And you know I've been noticingthat space quite a lot and it
just changes all the time Likethere's different questions that
get populated from time to timebased on you know the dynamic
nature of like who's asking.
They also know me.
(15:57):
They know what kind ofquestions I might ask because of
how I might interact withproducts in general on Amazon,
so they also know the shopperRight, so that's the other kind
of piece that they're aware of.
So I think it's important for usto pay attention to what Rufus
is pre-populating and then goand click on those answers and
see what shows up.
(16:17):
I've just recently developed atool using AI that can help to
quickly extract what Rufus isasking and you can just kind of
copy it in memory and so on.
But I think even if you were todo it manually, there's no
problem.
Just have someone go to yourlistings and just make a note of
(16:38):
all the questions that areshowing up and then try to
answer those questions.
Either you're going to answerthem through an infographic on
your listing, because it can nowread images as well, or it
could be just you know, just anFAQ section that can answer
these questions.
So there's many ways to addressquestions that people are
asking, and I think the bestthing would be to, you know,
(17:02):
start building out thosesections already so that when
the switch happens and whenpeople actually start using it
in large numbers, then yourlisting is promoted by Amazon.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I really like that response and it's really
interesting.
One thing I've taken note of aswe've been talking is, yes, the
subject of this is PPC, butwe're spending a lot of time
talking about other things thatsupport PPC, and I think that's
a really critical topic forpeople to think about is, yes,
(17:40):
you can have well-optimized PPC,but that is reliant on having a
good conversion rate, havinggood reviews and optimized
listing and, as Rufus is beingrolled out, I think, having a
listing that is optimized forRufus, and so I really like that
, and so I have a couple.
(18:03):
Let's stay on the PPC topic.
What are some mistakes thatyou're seeing a lot of sellers
make as they are navigatingAmazon PPC?
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So I think you know we can.
We can start with, just mayberanking mistakes, right?
I think ranking is a pretty hottopic, like, everybody wants to
rank their keywords and theywant to be on top of search,
which is, you know, obviouslythe goal, right, you want to be
the most visible where you canbe.
(18:36):
But I think one of the mistakespeople make is assuming that
every product can rank.
I don't think every product canrank.
Even if you were to put in yourbest efforts, it won't rank
because of the way Amazonprioritizes cheaper products
over more expensive products,right?
(18:58):
So to give you an example, wehave a furniture brand that we
work with.
Their products start at $500and go up to $800, $900.
And they're selling.
Let's just say, let's say,coffee tables, just making this
up, but let's say they'reselling coffee tables.
Now, when you type the keywordcoffee table, what shows up at
(19:20):
the top?
You're going to get $80, $90products, cheap products that
Amazon will prioritize becauseAmazon wants to make their
shoppers feel like they'regetting the best deal.
Amazon has trained us to findthe best deals on Amazon, right?
So that's going to show upthere and if you fool yourself
into thinking that you can rankfor the keyword coffee table and
(19:43):
crush it all the time.
It's a mistake.
You might be able to somehowget the maximum bid, go after
$49 a click and somehow getthere for a little bit, but as
soon as you kind of go back tonormal standards, more
profitable PPC, you're going tostart losing those ranks very
(20:04):
quickly.
So what do you do instead?
Like, do you keep going afterthose keywords or do you do
something else?
There's other alternatives thatyou could do.
So what we generally do for suchclients that have pretty high
ASP is that we go aftercategories and not keywords.
(20:25):
So categories are basically thegroup of products, the
collection of products that meeta certain price requirement.
So, for example, for a $500product, we will set up a
category targeting ad with pricerefinements starting at $500 or
at least $400, because you knowthat people who are visiting
(20:49):
pages that are $500 products or$400 products are the right
audience because they've alreadybought into this idea of buying
a premium product.
They're not looking for thecheap products out there.
They are looking for a premiumproduct that meets a certain
style or has a certain attributethat you don't get, you know,
with the general keyword.
(21:09):
So when we do it this way, weare actually able to rank our
keywords within those pricebands way faster than if we were
to go after the keyword andwaste and blow through a bunch
of cash and not get anywherewith it, right?
So it's a choice of are wedoing keyword ranking for the
(21:29):
sake of ranking, or are we doingit the smart way and then
getting the ranking becauseyou're in the right band, in the
right price band, right?
So that's one of the mistakesthat I see people making over
and over again thinking thatevery product can be ranked on
page one.
That's one.
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I really like that and that's a sad reality for a
lot of sellers.
I look at the evolution of myselling.
When I started, I did have a lotof Me Too products, products
that were under $20, and theyfit in a backpack, just like I
learned in all the classes thatI took along with everybody else
.
And so it is.
(22:12):
It is seemed and I'm interestedin your opinion on this but it
it has seemed like brands withthose me too products are
getting crushed currently, like2024 was a challenging year for
those types of brands, and I'minterested in your opinion on
this, and you have a veryinteresting lens that you look
at this through, in that you'reinteracting with a lot of
(22:34):
different seller accounts andyou're seeing the data, and so
one thing I've tried to dopersonally is move to higher
priced items, like items above$50.
And I've also seen someopportunities in oversized.
But what you know, if you thinkof your clients that you're
working with, who who's winning?
Uh, and I'm not asking forspecific people, but like what
(22:57):
are some characteristics oftheir products or their account
that make it a winning accountrelative to ones that are
underperforming?
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, so definitely the age of small Me Too products
under 20 is over.
I think we should just let Timuand Sheen take care of those
and not bother on Amazon.
But I think the product typesthat are winning are ones with
higher average order value.
So they're bigger, like they'remore expensive.
(23:29):
For some reason they're moreexpensive and there's a
justifiable reason for whythey're more expensive.
That's number one.
Second is multi-pack.
Multi-packs are better thanjust selling one product,
because for the cost of oneclick you're getting to sell two
products right.
So it's like improving yourmargins right there.
(23:52):
But just having a multi-packright, that's the second level.
And I think the third type ofproduct that does really well is
one that has a repeat purchaserate associated with it.
So, for example, if you havelike a supplement or
replenishable or, let's say, adog chew that people like the
(24:13):
flavor, the dogs like the flavorof, and you want to keep
selling to them over and overagain, then you're essentially
spending not on one sale.
You're not spending your PPCdollars on one sale but on a
customer acquisition which thenyou can lead into subscribe and
save, or you can remarket tothem through a sponsored display
(24:36):
ad, a remarketing ad, so youget a better return on your PPC
investment if you have a repeatfunctionality there.
If people are just by designcoming back for more because
they need a refill or they justlike your product, that you can
sell to them over and over againfor the same initial cost of
customer acquisition.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I really like that, and while you were talking, I
was making notes of the bundlingon or the quantity packs.
I think that's a really reallygood strategy that doesn't take
a ton of legwork right.
The creatives are already done,the listing's already there.
Adding a variation doesn't seemto take that long, and so I
(25:17):
really really like that, alongwith your other suggestions, and
so one another question that Ihave, specific to PPC, is day
partying, and when I first heardof this, it was like, oh, I can
turn my PPC off and maybe keepmy organic ranking.
How wonderful in this pay toplay atmosphere.
(25:39):
And there were a series ofthird party providers that were
doing day partying, and then, Ibelieve now Amazon is offering
this as a tool, and so I'mcurious what have been your
experiences with day partying,and what do you think is the
right move for sellers in 25 andbeyond?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I love day partying and I'll share different ways to
do day partying and I'll tellyou which one is my favorite.
Okay, so so one of the waysthat people try to do day
partying is by altering theirbids throughout the day.
So, for example, you know, ifyou, if you sell more between 8
(26:21):
AM and 4 PM, then during thosehours you keep your bids
elevated.
Rest of the time you keep yourbids lower, right Now the thing
is, with that strategy therecomes some disadvantages,
because when you lower your bid,what happens is that you're
risking your ad showing up in adifferent placement altogether.
(26:45):
You know, because we have onebid that represents three
placements.
I wish they had three differentbids for the three placements,
but they don't.
So what you're doing is you'rerisking not showing up on top of
surge, for example, and theninstead showing up on the worst
placement, the product pagesplacement, where your conversion
rate drops.
You thought you were savingmoney by lowering your bid, but
(27:09):
end up seeing worse results,worse ACoS, worse conversion
rate, and so I don't think thatstrategy works.
So we don't do that.
I know that Amazon does that.
They have their internalbidding.
The bid adjustment throughoutthe day can basically do that,
(27:29):
but I don't think that's a goodstrategy for this reason.
And then the other approach isthat you could, you know, change
your budget throughout the day.
You can maybe change yourbudgets so that you have a
certain budget cap in themorning and a different budget
cap in the afternoon, differentbudget cap in the evening, but
(27:52):
that's so hard and clunky tocontrol, because guess what
Amazon can actually spend aboveyour budget.
It doesn't mean that if you setyour campaign budget to, let's
say, $50, that they'll spendexactly $50 on that day.
In fact, they make you choosebetween either a 25% increase or
(28:13):
a 100% increase over yourcampaign budget caps in one of
the settings, right?
If you haven't noticed, youshould just go and check that
out, because you're at leastallowing Amazon 25% over and
above whatever cap you've set atyour campaign level.
So if that's the case, then howdo you actually control it,
right?
And how do you change thatthroughout the day?
(28:35):
It's very clunky.
And the third method is whereyou basically find out what
hours of the day your conversionrates are the worst, your ACoS
is the worst and you're barelygetting any sales, and turn your
campaigns off in those hours sothat your budget is intact.
(28:55):
For the rest of the hours whereit does have a good impact,
where you do have a betterconversion rate and you can make
more profitable sales duringthat time, use your budget for
that time period and then thatway you can get best of both
worlds.
And that's the strategy that weuse.
We have our own proprietarysoftware that does this kind of
(29:16):
turning on and off all day long,and we also kind of do a day of
week partying as well, becausesometimes you have business
buyers and their businessesdon't work so well on weekends,
so we try to turn them off.
The only thing that we keeprunning is branded campaigns,
because branded campaignsrepresents your brand and if you
(29:37):
have a strong brand and peopleare looking for your products,
they shouldn't be seeing otherpeople's products when they're
looking for yours, so just makeit easy for them.
The only thing we changed inthat case is the targeted cost,
which means that we make surethat our branded campaigns don't
exceed a certain targeted cost,but they are allowed to run all
(29:57):
day long.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Okay, and one thing I want to highlight is that when
you are employing that thirdstrategy that you mentioned, you
are you're using PPC Ninjasoftware.
You are not using the Amazonday party module.
I, that's something.
When that came out, I rememberthinking to myself, you know, I
(30:18):
really don't think Amazon'sgoing to help me spend less with
them.
Like, I was skeptical of that,and so that's.
I think that's a decisionpeople need to make.
Am I going to do day partyingor not?
And if I am, how am I going todo it?
And so what about?
So I guess I don't know whatthe word would be for this, but
(30:38):
essentially, day partying whenyou're looking at a year.
So I one thing I usually do isI will turn PPC budgets to a
dollar from December 23rd toJanuary 2nd.
That seems to be a really slowtime for me.
Are there any strategies whenyou're looking at the course of
a year that you find to be veryeffective?
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Yeah, I think you know, especially around tentpole
events.
You know some products aren'treally aligned for tentpole
events, especially if they'renot offering deep discounts.
So any tentpole event, likePrime Day or the Cyber Monday,
people are there for the deals.
(31:21):
If you don't have a deal, ifyou really shouldn't be
advertising during that time, sowe actually turn our campaigns
off during tentpole events ifthere is no deep discount being
offered.
And by discount I don't meanjust the typical 5%, 10% type of
discount.
I'm talking about at least 20%to 30% discount, which is what
people are expecting on thosedays.
(31:43):
And, better still, if you havea red badge of some sort, either
the lightning deal or deal ofthe day or deal of the week or
prime day deal, et cetera, thoseare fine, those you want to be
visible.
So definitely run ads duringthat time, but other than that,
we turn our campaigns off.
We don't even do the $1.
(32:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Okay, that's really good to know.
That's really good to know.
Yeah, all right.
Well, final question before weget into the fire round what
types of clients does PPC NinjaAgency work with?
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Yeah.
So we work with seven, eight,seven, eight and nine figure
sellers and we, first of all, wewant to make sure that they
have a good product and thatthey have a good conversion rate
, and if the conversion rate isat least 8%, then they are a
good fit for us, because PPConly works when there is a good
(32:40):
conversion rate.
So that's one of the reallyimportant metrics that any
agency or PPC manager should belooking at, which is to say, how
many clicks would it take forme to make a single sale?
That's essentially whatconversion rate is right.
If you have a conversion rateof, let's say, 20%, it means
that you need five clicks tomake one sale, and if I just do
(33:03):
the math and say five clickstimes a dollar each, that's $5
spent to make, let's say, $50 insale.
I know my ACoS before I evenget started, right.
So that's what the conversionrate does.
Now, if your conversion rate isreally bad let's say 1% this
means that you need 100 clicksto make one sale right and $100
(33:24):
to sell a $50, you know that youhave a 200% ACoS right there.
So we don't work with brandsthat have a poor conversion rate
.
Now in some cases, conversionrate could be low because they
have a very high price product,and that's okay.
So let's say they have a $300,$400, $500 product, um, and they
(33:44):
have a conversion rate of,let's say, 2% or 3%, uh, which
means, again, you have, you need33 clicks to make one sale, you
know, uh, and that's fine,because the the price of each
click easily absorbed in in thesale price, and so we don't mind
that.
And so that's the kind ofcustomer we would be working
(34:04):
with.
The other type of customer thatwe're, the ideal customer
profile for working with ouragency, is one that's not 100%
reliant on Amazon alone.
We would like them to have,like, some sort of
diversification and otherchannels as well, cause
otherwise the longevity of, youknow, their time with us is
probably going to be verylimited, because they'll be like
(34:27):
, you know, I just want to makemy Amazon sales go up and then,
you know, I'll be fine, I'llbring it in-house, et cetera.
So we like to work with clientsthat are more diversified and
have, you know, like a brandmindset rather than a well I'm
just going to sell this productand see if it works kind of
mindset.
So we want to work with realbrands.
(34:47):
That's our ideal customeraudience.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Outstanding, outstanding.
All right, well, this has beena really good interview.
Before we close it out, I wouldlike to go through the fire
round, which is four questions.
We ask everybody at the end ofthe episode Are you ready for
the fire round?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Yes, I am ready.
All right Sounds good.
What is your favorite book?
It is the Goal by EliyahuGoldratt.
That's his name, eliyahuGoldratt, and this is a book I
read in the 90s, so it isfoundational to everything I do,
and it's all about bottlenecksand business process
(35:25):
optimization.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Very nice, very nice.
What are your hobbies outsideof e-commerce?
Speaker 3 (35:33):
I like to hike and I like snowshoeing, like climbing
mountains and things like that.
It frees up my mind and it getsme ready for the week.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Very good, very good.
What is one thing you do notmiss about working for the man?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
My paycheck.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Very nice, very nice.
And final question what do youthink sets apart successful
entrepreneurs from those whogive up, fail or never get
started?
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Oh, that's a good one .
What sets them apart is vision,I would say, because if they
know where they want to be, youknow, then they can just no
matter what, they'll get there.
But if their vision isshort-sighted or if they're just
looking for, like, a quick win,they might get deterred when
(36:36):
things don't go their way.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
So I think vision is the one thing that sets
everybody apart.
Very good, very good, all right.
Well, if people are interestedin getting in touch with you or
working with PPC Ninja Agency,what would be the best way?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah, so I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.
It's my full nameR-I-T-U-J-A-B-A Ritu Java.
Other than that, you can reachout to us at support at
ppcninjacom to work with us atppcninjacom to work with us, and
you can also check out our page, our ppcninjacom website, and
(37:10):
we also have an AI website andan AI newsletter.
That's ppc-ninjacom.
You'll be able to get access toour newsletters.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Outstanding and for all of our listeners that are
driving, that will be posted inthe show notes.
Uh ritu, thank you so much foryour time today and looking
forward to staying in touch yeah, thank you so much, david, for
having me, I appreciate it.
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast.
On today's episode, we arethrilled to have Ritu Jhava, the
co-founder of PPC Ninja, joinus.
Ritu is an expert in Amazonadvertising and PPC management,
helping e-commerce entrepreneursoptimize their advertising
strategies for maximumprofitability.
(00:45):
With a strong background indigital marketing and a passion
for data-driven decision-making,she has helped countless
sellers navigate thecomplexities of Amazon PPC.
In this episode, we'll diveinto Ritu's journey and discuss
the evolving Amazon advertisinglandscape.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Welcome to the show Ritu.
Hey David, thanks so much forhaving me.
I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Absolutely so.
To start things off, can youshare with our audience a little
bit about?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
your background and path to PPC Ninja.
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
So I actually started mye-commerce journey way back in
2010.
And this was on Etsy.
I used to live in Japan at thetime and had this day job and I
wanted to do a side hustle andso I got into Etsy and then I
(01:43):
realized that it's not justabout creating a listing and
uploading your products and justselling.
It doesn't happen that way.
So I had to do a lot of work totrain myself on marketing.
I had to teach myself Facebookads, google ads, youtube
blogging, custom audiencegeneration all of that good
stuff.
So it just led me to learning alot about marketing.
(02:05):
And then I decided to go back toschool and do a formal degree
in data science.
I'm an engineer of a background, so this was like an add-on and
I was always interested in dataand I just thought that
everything is about the numbers,including which products you
pick or how you sell them, howefficiently you sell them, and
you might think that you're inthe business of selling products
(02:27):
, but actually you're in thebusiness of leveraging data.
That's what I learned, you know, from my experience back then,
and so I was able to kind of getinto the data analytics space
and then came across Amazon.
I was like, oh my God, thisconversion rate on Amazon is
like way better than anythingI've seen in the past, and so
that's how I kind of got intoAmazon and Amazon advertising
(02:49):
per se.
And then in 2020, I founded theagency so PPC Ninja agency,
which is helping seven, eightand nine figure sellers on
Amazon as well as on Walmart andwith Google ads, et cetera, on
Amazon as well as on Walmart andwith Google ads, et cetera.
So we're we're an agency thatfocuses on PPC as well as SEO
(03:10):
and we help our customers kindof get that whole flywheel going
on Amazon.
And it's been an exciting and,you know, interesting journey
and I'm super passionate abouteverything I do, including like
data, ai and everything to dowith Amazon and AI.
It's very, very exciting for me.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Very nice, very nice.
I love that background I willshare with you in.
The audience has heard me saythis a million times I'm a
retired accountant andaccountants and engineers there
tends to be some overlap in howtheir brain is wired and their
attention to data-drivendecisions, and so it's exciting
(03:49):
to hear that from you and, aswe're getting into our
discussion on Amazon PPC, feelfree to go deep on those
data-driven decisions and whatyou're looking for when you're
looking at an account.
So why don't we turn the cornerand start that discussion?
So Amazon PPC has changed quitea bit over since I've been
(04:14):
selling, which has been about adecade now.
So let's just look at the lastfive years.
What have been some of themajor changes in Amazon PPC?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
years.
What have been some of themajor changes in Amazon PPC?
Yeah, so I think the biggestchange has been placement
saturation.
I just think that there's a lotmore ads now and there's a lot
of very similar looking productsvying for the same spots and
it's very hard for, you know,buyers to kind of make up their
mind about what is a goodproduct versus what is not.
(04:47):
I mean, yes, of course they cansee review counts and price and
all that stuff, but it's veryhard for people in general to
decide which one is a betterproduct, right?
And so I think that that kindof led to everybody trying to
kind of get those top spotsabove the fold, because organic
(05:08):
ranking has become harder andharder over the years and it's
getting diluted in some ways,also because Amazon has opened
up a lot of different placementson Amazon as well as off Amazon
, and so it's really really hardfor most people to decide which
one is a good product, eventhough they might be showing up
(05:29):
in the recommended at the top.
Now, what that also manifests interms of challenges for sellers
is the cost to advertise right.
The cost per clicks are justgoing up and up and up every
single year to advertise, right,the cost per clicks are just
going up and up and up everysingle year and I believe at
this point the average CPC onAmazon is very close to $1.5 per
(05:49):
click, which is quite a lot.
If you're selling a lower ASPproduct, you have two clicks and
that's the end of your ACOSgoals.
Like you already exceeded themwith just two clicks.
But then there's also the wholeidea of conversion rate.
Like your conversion rates havealso suffered over time because
(06:10):
there's so many options.
Right, every single page hasalternatives that might be
equally good, you know.
So there's a lot of bouncingoff that happens on those pages.
You bring someone in and thensomeone else takes the fail
right.
So that's another kind ofchallenge because of this
placement saturation and justcompetition in general.
And I think the second kind ofbig change that's happened on
(06:33):
Amazon is just the range ofoptions and settings and it's
becoming harder and harder forjust normal sellers to even set
up PPC campaigns and do a goodjob with it.
I mean, it's not enough just todo one or two or three or four
campaigns.
You've got to do so much.
You've got to domicromanagement, you've got to
slice and dice your data and tryto get impressions, when you
(06:56):
think, okay, a $1 bid should buyyou impressions, but it doesn't
, and then you want to kind ofput more money behind that, but
that ends up in creating like apendulum effect with high cost
and then you bring it down, andso that has been kind of the
trend I've seen, with peoplestruggling with their PPC and
(07:16):
not knowing how to optimize it,how to scale it.
It's just getting quite hard,and that's why, at our agency,
we try to keep that mantra of wedeliver profitable growth.
It's not just growth, it's notjust profitability, it's both at
the same time.
So, which is challenging, butthat's the only thing that
matters at the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Absolutely, absolutely.
One thing I took note of in yourresponse was you were talking
about the organic versus PPC aswell as the rising cost per
click, and I'll share with you.
I have had one particular brandfor six years and every single
week I go through and I look ata bunch of different metrics,
(07:59):
but one of those metrics I lookat is what's the percentage of
my PPC versus organic?
And I would say two to threeyears ago we were probably about
30% PPC and 70% organic, and somy thought during that time was
okay, well, if I have a 30%break-even point on my products,
(08:23):
then that's going to be kind oflike my target ACOS.
I'm willing to break even on30% of my sales because I'm
going to have profitable saleson the rest of my sales, and
what I've noticed is that haseroded slowly and surely and it
is now flipped on its head towhere we're at about 70% PPC and
(08:46):
30% organic.
And so my question to you is isthat unique to me, or are a lot
of sellers seeing that?
And how do you handle that fromlike an economic standpoint of
breaking even on a percentage ofsales?
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Absolutely.
What you're seeing is prettyuniversal.
I would say you'd be lucky ifyou could get like a 50-50 split
between PPC and organic at thispoint, and one of the reasons
is that Amazon has changed theirlayouts over time, so it used
to be that you would only havelike one or two ads up at the
top above the fold and the restmaybe three or four placements
(09:24):
or two to three placements onthe right were all organic.
But they have forced this wholeidea of like you first see
sponsored ads.
You see a big sponsored brandad, then you see four sponsored
product ads and maybe you'll seeone organic above the fold.
But that's also not guaranteed.
In some cases you'll see allsponsored ads above the fold not
(09:47):
guaranteed.
In some cases you'll see allsponsored ads above the fold.
So for a shopper who's lookingfor the right product, they'll
probably assume that what Amazonis promoting at the top is the
recommended option and with allthose badges you see, and
there's a lot of gaming thatgoes on.
If you see a deal or somethingthat's prioritized above the
fold, then that's where yourpeople are led.
They're not actually going todiscover your organic listing at
(10:10):
all.
It could be below the fold, andit's not that kind of time that
people have to kind of goexploring and say, oh, let let
me skip, skip over these ads,why should I waste their money?
Let me go and check in theorganic section.
No, they don't do that becausethere's no difference visually
between an organic listing andan ad.
It looks the same.
There's no special flashycolors on your ads that deter
(10:31):
people from clicking into them.
People just go ahead and click.
They don't have time, right?
So because of that, I think theratios have flipped, because
people are clicking more andmore on ads rather than on
organic.
And so what do you do aboutthat?
Right?
First of all, that ratio can'tbe managed that much, but you
(10:52):
can try to be more profitable inthe choices of what do you go
after, what targeting should youdo, and so on.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Okay, it's good to hear that it's not just me
that's experiencing that, and Ithink that is a really good
perspective on this changinglandscape, and so I think we
have good coverage on a lot ofthe changes.
Why don't we talk about whatdoes a winning PPC strategy look
like in 2025?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah.
So I think a winning PPCstrategy definitely needs to
assume that your product is awinning product.
First of all, you can't justrun PPC on a product that isn't
optimized in all possible ways,which means your listings are
optimized for not only humanreadability, but also for the
(11:45):
algorithm and now for Rufusright.
So those three things need tobe true about your listing that
it's perfectly optimized.
Then you've got to make surethat you don't have any negative
signs that might deter peopleaway from your listings, like
negative reviews that aretanking everything or those
frequency return patches.
(12:06):
Things like that can alwaysdeter people away.
And then there's this wholeidea of Amazon showing ads all
around right.
So if you're not doingdefensive marketing, there's a
chance that your hard-won leadwho's coming to your page is
actually going to see somethingelse and then just disappear
from your page right Veryquickly.
(12:27):
So I think a winning strategywill require you know, paying
close attention to everythingthat's on that page, including
what you're putting out, as wellas what Amazon is putting out
on your page.
All of the ads that are showingup around you.
You need to watch them right.
Showing up around you, you needto watch them right, and so
(12:49):
there's got to be like a goodfly wheel, a solid fly wheel
between your SEO, your PPC andthe ads that are showing up on
your page, in order to make surethat you're getting people's
attention but then you'rekeeping it as well.
I think the second thing I'dlike to say about a winning PPC
strategy is to kind of alreadystart future-proofing your
listings for Rufus.
(13:09):
Now, rufus is kind of new andmaybe we can talk about it in a
little bit more detail, but Ijust want to say that Rufus is
already prompting people towardscertain products and it shows
up on your product detail pageas well as on the search results
page, right?
So people are shiftingbehaviors slowly towards an
(13:34):
LLM-assisted chatbot who cantell you quickly where to go
rather than spending their owntime.
And people are getting lazierbecause it's an easier
interaction with an LLM to say,hey, which product will solve
all of these things and it'sgoing to tell you what it is
right.
So if your listings aren'toptimized for Rufus, then down
(13:55):
the line you will have a certainamount of loss there, because
Rufus is going to be indexed forcertain things and it's going
to give people a different path.
So those are some of the thingsthat I think a winning strategy
in 2025 need to include.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Okay, I'm glad that we're talking about Rufus.
It seemed like six to ninemonths ago.
I started receiving some emailsfrom Amazon indicating some of
these changes coming up fromAmazon indicating some of these
changes coming up.
It has been recently, in thelast month, that I've noticed,
as a shopper, where Rufus ismaking some suggestions, and
it's interesting to be an Amazonseller as well as an Amazon
(14:33):
customer where you can kind ofnotice these things.
And so what are some wayspeople can optimize for Rufus
and get those?
You know you use the wordfuture proof, which I really,
really like.
What are some ways that theycan do that?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, okay, so let's talk about Rufus.
So Rufus is this AI shoppingassistant that has deep
knowledge of your product, whichmeans it knows everything that
you put out there on yourproduct, as well as everything
that other people say about yourproduct.
It also has all the informationabout external signals that are
(15:14):
coming to your product, wherethey're coming from, what the
source was, et cetera.
So it's got like deep productknowledge, right?
So, um, I would say that inorder for us to understand Rufus
, we've got to start payingattention to what prompts Rufus
is pre-populating in its windowwhen you're on your page.
So if you can start looking atyour own page, just clicking on
(15:37):
the Rufus button and seeing whatshows up like what are the
questions, the common questionsthat people typically ask and
you know I've been noticing thatspace quite a lot and it just
changes all the time.
And you know I've been noticingthat space quite a lot and it
just changes all the time Likethere's different questions that
get populated from time to timebased on you know the dynamic
nature of like who's asking.
They also know me.
(15:57):
They know what kind ofquestions I might ask because of
how I might interact withproducts in general on Amazon,
so they also know the shopperRight, so that's the other kind
of piece that they're aware of.
So I think it's important for usto pay attention to what Rufus
is pre-populating and then goand click on those answers and
see what shows up.
(16:17):
I've just recently developed atool using AI that can help to
quickly extract what Rufus isasking and you can just kind of
copy it in memory and so on.
But I think even if you were todo it manually, there's no
problem.
Just have someone go to yourlistings and just make a note of
(16:38):
all the questions that areshowing up and then try to
answer those questions.
Either you're going to answerthem through an infographic on
your listing, because it can nowread images as well, or it
could be just you know, just anFAQ section that can answer
these questions.
So there's many ways to addressquestions that people are
asking, and I think the bestthing would be to, you know,
(17:02):
start building out thosesections already so that when
the switch happens and whenpeople actually start using it
in large numbers, then yourlisting is promoted by Amazon.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I really like that response and it's really
interesting.
One thing I've taken note of aswe've been talking is, yes, the
subject of this is PPC, butwe're spending a lot of time
talking about other things thatsupport PPC, and I think that's
a really critical topic forpeople to think about is, yes,
(17:40):
you can have well-optimized PPC,but that is reliant on having a
good conversion rate, havinggood reviews and optimized
listing and, as Rufus is beingrolled out, I think, having a
listing that is optimized forRufus, and so I really like that
, and so I have a couple.
(18:03):
Let's stay on the PPC topic.
What are some mistakes thatyou're seeing a lot of sellers
make as they are navigatingAmazon PPC?
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So I think you know we can.
We can start with, just mayberanking mistakes, right?
I think ranking is a pretty hottopic, like, everybody wants to
rank their keywords and theywant to be on top of search,
which is, you know, obviouslythe goal, right, you want to be
the most visible where you canbe.
(18:36):
But I think one of the mistakespeople make is assuming that
every product can rank.
I don't think every product canrank.
Even if you were to put in yourbest efforts, it won't rank
because of the way Amazonprioritizes cheaper products
over more expensive products,right?
(18:58):
So to give you an example, wehave a furniture brand that we
work with.
Their products start at $500and go up to $800, $900.
And they're selling.
Let's just say, let's say,coffee tables, just making this
up, but let's say they'reselling coffee tables.
Now, when you type the keywordcoffee table, what shows up at
(19:20):
the top?
You're going to get $80, $90products, cheap products that
Amazon will prioritize becauseAmazon wants to make their
shoppers feel like they'regetting the best deal.
Amazon has trained us to findthe best deals on Amazon, right?
So that's going to show upthere and if you fool yourself
into thinking that you can rankfor the keyword coffee table and
(19:43):
crush it all the time.
It's a mistake.
You might be able to somehowget the maximum bid, go after
$49 a click and somehow getthere for a little bit, but as
soon as you kind of go back tonormal standards, more
profitable PPC, you're going tostart losing those ranks very
(20:04):
quickly.
So what do you do instead?
Like, do you keep going afterthose keywords or do you do
something else?
There's other alternatives thatyou could do.
So what we generally do for suchclients that have pretty high
ASP is that we go aftercategories and not keywords.
(20:25):
So categories are basically thegroup of products, the
collection of products that meeta certain price requirement.
So, for example, for a $500product, we will set up a
category targeting ad with pricerefinements starting at $500 or
at least $400, because you knowthat people who are visiting
(20:49):
pages that are $500 products or$400 products are the right
audience because they've alreadybought into this idea of buying
a premium product.
They're not looking for thecheap products out there.
They are looking for a premiumproduct that meets a certain
style or has a certain attributethat you don't get, you know,
with the general keyword.
(21:09):
So when we do it this way, weare actually able to rank our
keywords within those pricebands way faster than if we were
to go after the keyword andwaste and blow through a bunch
of cash and not get anywherewith it, right?
So it's a choice of are wedoing keyword ranking for the
(21:29):
sake of ranking, or are we doingit the smart way and then
getting the ranking becauseyou're in the right band, in the
right price band, right?
So that's one of the mistakesthat I see people making over
and over again thinking thatevery product can be ranked on
page one.
That's one.
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I really like that and that's a sad reality for a
lot of sellers.
I look at the evolution of myselling.
When I started, I did have a lotof Me Too products, products
that were under $20, and theyfit in a backpack, just like I
learned in all the classes thatI took along with everybody else
.
And so it is.
(22:12):
It is seemed and I'm interestedin your opinion on this but it
it has seemed like brands withthose me too products are
getting crushed currently, like2024 was a challenging year for
those types of brands, and I'minterested in your opinion on
this, and you have a veryinteresting lens that you look
at this through, in that you'reinteracting with a lot of
(22:34):
different seller accounts andyou're seeing the data, and so
one thing I've tried to dopersonally is move to higher
priced items, like items above$50.
And I've also seen someopportunities in oversized.
But what you know, if you thinkof your clients that you're
working with, who who's winning?
Uh, and I'm not asking forspecific people, but like what
(22:57):
are some characteristics oftheir products or their account
that make it a winning accountrelative to ones that are
underperforming?
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, so definitely the age of small Me Too products
under 20 is over.
I think we should just let Timuand Sheen take care of those
and not bother on Amazon.
But I think the product typesthat are winning are ones with
higher average order value.
So they're bigger, like they'remore expensive.
(23:29):
For some reason they're moreexpensive and there's a
justifiable reason for whythey're more expensive.
That's number one.
Second is multi-pack.
Multi-packs are better thanjust selling one product,
because for the cost of oneclick you're getting to sell two
products right.
So it's like improving yourmargins right there.
(23:52):
But just having a multi-packright, that's the second level.
And I think the third type ofproduct that does really well is
one that has a repeat purchaserate associated with it.
So, for example, if you havelike a supplement or
replenishable or, let's say, adog chew that people like the
(24:13):
flavor, the dogs like the flavorof, and you want to keep
selling to them over and overagain, then you're essentially
spending not on one sale.
You're not spending your PPCdollars on one sale but on a
customer acquisition which thenyou can lead into subscribe and
save, or you can remarket tothem through a sponsored display
(24:36):
ad, a remarketing ad, so youget a better return on your PPC
investment if you have a repeatfunctionality there.
If people are just by designcoming back for more because
they need a refill or they justlike your product, that you can
sell to them over and over againfor the same initial cost of
customer acquisition.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I really like that, and while you were talking, I
was making notes of the bundlingon or the quantity packs.
I think that's a really reallygood strategy that doesn't take
a ton of legwork right.
The creatives are already done,the listing's already there.
Adding a variation doesn't seemto take that long, and so I
(25:17):
really really like that, alongwith your other suggestions, and
so one another question that Ihave, specific to PPC, is day
partying, and when I first heardof this, it was like, oh, I can
turn my PPC off and maybe keepmy organic ranking.
How wonderful in this pay toplay atmosphere.
(25:39):
And there were a series ofthird party providers that were
doing day partying, and then, Ibelieve now Amazon is offering
this as a tool, and so I'mcurious what have been your
experiences with day partying,and what do you think is the
right move for sellers in 25 andbeyond?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I love day partying and I'll share different ways to
do day partying and I'll tellyou which one is my favorite.
Okay, so so one of the waysthat people try to do day
partying is by altering theirbids throughout the day.
So, for example, you know, ifyou, if you sell more between 8
(26:21):
AM and 4 PM, then during thosehours you keep your bids
elevated.
Rest of the time you keep yourbids lower, right Now the thing
is, with that strategy therecomes some disadvantages,
because when you lower your bid,what happens is that you're
risking your ad showing up in adifferent placement altogether.
(26:45):
You know, because we have onebid that represents three
placements.
I wish they had three differentbids for the three placements,
but they don't.
So what you're doing is you'rerisking not showing up on top of
surge, for example, and theninstead showing up on the worst
placement, the product pagesplacement, where your conversion
rate drops.
You thought you were savingmoney by lowering your bid, but
(27:09):
end up seeing worse results,worse ACoS, worse conversion
rate, and so I don't think thatstrategy works.
So we don't do that.
I know that Amazon does that.
They have their internalbidding.
The bid adjustment throughoutthe day can basically do that,
(27:29):
but I don't think that's a goodstrategy for this reason.
And then the other approach isthat you could, you know, change
your budget throughout the day.
You can maybe change yourbudgets so that you have a
certain budget cap in themorning and a different budget
cap in the afternoon, differentbudget cap in the evening, but
(27:52):
that's so hard and clunky tocontrol, because guess what
Amazon can actually spend aboveyour budget.
It doesn't mean that if you setyour campaign budget to, let's
say, $50, that they'll spendexactly $50 on that day.
In fact, they make you choosebetween either a 25% increase or
(28:13):
a 100% increase over yourcampaign budget caps in one of
the settings, right?
If you haven't noticed, youshould just go and check that
out, because you're at leastallowing Amazon 25% over and
above whatever cap you've set atyour campaign level.
So if that's the case, then howdo you actually control it,
right?
And how do you change thatthroughout the day?
(28:35):
It's very clunky.
And the third method is whereyou basically find out what
hours of the day your conversionrates are the worst, your ACoS
is the worst and you're barelygetting any sales, and turn your
campaigns off in those hours sothat your budget is intact.
(28:55):
For the rest of the hours whereit does have a good impact,
where you do have a betterconversion rate and you can make
more profitable sales duringthat time, use your budget for
that time period and then thatway you can get best of both
worlds.
And that's the strategy that weuse.
We have our own proprietarysoftware that does this kind of
(29:16):
turning on and off all day long,and we also kind of do a day of
week partying as well, becausesometimes you have business
buyers and their businessesdon't work so well on weekends,
so we try to turn them off.
The only thing that we keeprunning is branded campaigns,
because branded campaignsrepresents your brand and if you
(29:37):
have a strong brand and peopleare looking for your products,
they shouldn't be seeing otherpeople's products when they're
looking for yours, so just makeit easy for them.
The only thing we changed inthat case is the targeted cost,
which means that we make surethat our branded campaigns don't
exceed a certain targeted cost,but they are allowed to run all
(29:57):
day long.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Okay, and one thing I want to highlight is that when
you are employing that thirdstrategy that you mentioned, you
are you're using PPC Ninjasoftware.
You are not using the Amazonday party module.
I, that's something.
When that came out, I rememberthinking to myself, you know, I
(30:18):
really don't think Amazon'sgoing to help me spend less with
them.
Like, I was skeptical of that,and so that's.
I think that's a decisionpeople need to make.
Am I going to do day partyingor not?
And if I am, how am I going todo it?
And so what about?
So I guess I don't know whatthe word would be for this, but
(30:38):
essentially, day partying whenyou're looking at a year.
So I one thing I usually do isI will turn PPC budgets to a
dollar from December 23rd toJanuary 2nd.
That seems to be a really slowtime for me.
Are there any strategies whenyou're looking at the course of
a year that you find to be veryeffective?
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Yeah, I think you know, especially around tentpole
events.
You know some products aren'treally aligned for tentpole
events, especially if they'renot offering deep discounts.
So any tentpole event, likePrime Day or the Cyber Monday,
people are there for the deals.
(31:21):
If you don't have a deal, ifyou really shouldn't be
advertising during that time, sowe actually turn our campaigns
off during tentpole events ifthere is no deep discount being
offered.
And by discount I don't meanjust the typical 5%, 10% type of
discount.
I'm talking about at least 20%to 30% discount, which is what
people are expecting on thosedays.
(31:43):
And, better still, if you havea red badge of some sort, either
the lightning deal or deal ofthe day or deal of the week or
prime day deal, et cetera, thoseare fine, those you want to be
visible.
So definitely run ads duringthat time, but other than that,
we turn our campaigns off.
We don't even do the $1.
(32:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Okay, that's really good to know.
That's really good to know.
Yeah, all right.
Well, final question before weget into the fire round what
types of clients does PPC NinjaAgency work with?
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Yeah.
So we work with seven, eight,seven, eight and nine figure
sellers and we, first of all, wewant to make sure that they
have a good product and thatthey have a good conversion rate
, and if the conversion rate isat least 8%, then they are a
good fit for us, because PPConly works when there is a good
(32:40):
conversion rate.
So that's one of the reallyimportant metrics that any
agency or PPC manager should belooking at, which is to say, how
many clicks would it take forme to make a single sale?
That's essentially whatconversion rate is right.
If you have a conversion rateof, let's say, 20%, it means
that you need five clicks tomake one sale, and if I just do
(33:03):
the math and say five clickstimes a dollar each, that's $5
spent to make, let's say, $50 insale.
I know my ACoS before I evenget started, right.
So that's what the conversionrate does.
Now, if your conversion rate isreally bad let's say 1% this
means that you need 100 clicksto make one sale right and $100
(33:24):
to sell a $50, you know that youhave a 200% ACoS right there.
So we don't work with brandsthat have a poor conversion rate
.
Now in some cases, conversionrate could be low because they
have a very high price product,and that's okay.
So let's say they have a $300,$400, $500 product, um, and they
(33:44):
have a conversion rate of,let's say, 2% or 3%, uh, which
means, again, you have, you need33 clicks to make one sale, you
know, uh, and that's fine,because the the price of each
click easily absorbed in in thesale price, and so we don't mind
that.
And so that's the kind ofcustomer we would be working
(34:04):
with.
The other type of customer thatwe're, the ideal customer
profile for working with ouragency, is one that's not 100%
reliant on Amazon alone.
We would like them to have,like, some sort of
diversification and otherchannels as well, cause
otherwise the longevity of, youknow, their time with us is
probably going to be verylimited, because they'll be like
(34:27):
, you know, I just want to makemy Amazon sales go up and then,
you know, I'll be fine, I'llbring it in-house, et cetera.
So we like to work with clientsthat are more diversified and
have, you know, like a brandmindset rather than a well I'm
just going to sell this productand see if it works kind of
mindset.
So we want to work with realbrands.
(34:47):
That's our ideal customeraudience.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Outstanding, outstanding.
All right, well, this has beena really good interview.
Before we close it out, I wouldlike to go through the fire
round, which is four questions.
We ask everybody at the end ofthe episode Are you ready for
the fire round?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Yes, I am ready.
All right Sounds good.
What is your favorite book?
It is the Goal by EliyahuGoldratt.
That's his name, eliyahuGoldratt, and this is a book I
read in the 90s, so it isfoundational to everything I do,
and it's all about bottlenecksand business process
(35:25):
optimization.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Very nice, very nice.
What are your hobbies outsideof e-commerce?
Speaker 3 (35:33):
I like to hike and I like snowshoeing, like climbing
mountains and things like that.
It frees up my mind and it getsme ready for the week.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Very good, very good.
What is one thing you do notmiss about working for the man?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
My paycheck.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Very nice, very nice.
And final question what do youthink sets apart successful
entrepreneurs from those whogive up, fail or never get
started?
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Oh, that's a good one .
What sets them apart is vision,I would say, because if they
know where they want to be, youknow, then they can just no
matter what, they'll get there.
But if their vision isshort-sighted or if they're just
looking for, like, a quick win,they might get deterred when
(36:36):
things don't go their way.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
So I think vision is the one thing that sets
everybody apart.
Very good, very good, all right.
Well, if people are interestedin getting in touch with you or
working with PPC Ninja Agency,what would be the best way?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah, so I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.
It's my full nameR-I-T-U-J-A-B-A Ritu Java.
Other than that, you can reachout to us at support at
ppcninjacom to work with us atppcninjacom to work with us, and
you can also check out our page, our ppcninjacom website, and
(37:10):
we also have an AI website andan AI newsletter.
That's ppc-ninjacom.
You'll be able to get access toour newsletters.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Outstanding and for all of our listeners that are
driving, that will be posted inthe show notes.
Uh ritu, thank you so much foryour time today and looking
forward to staying in touch yeah, thank you so much, david, for
having me, I appreciate it.
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