May 10, 2024 • 22 mins
➜ Listen to Small Business Small Talk powered by Hibu on all your favorite podcast listening platforms: https://smallbusinesssmalltalk.buzzsprout.com/
Craig Plummer, Director of Traffic Product Development at Hibu, joins us on the podcast today to discuss how Amazon Ads can support service based small business.
Starting in mid-2023, Hibu had the opportunity to partner with Amazon Ads to test Sponsored Display with a group of Hibu clients. Sponsored Display leverages Amazon Ads’ rich audience insights built from shopping and streaming signals, advanced AI, and machine learning technology to engage audiences across Amazon, Twitch and thousands of apps and websites.
Sponsored Display has long been used by businesses that sell on Amazon but recently expanded to include businesses not selling in the Amazon store – including many of the types of local businesses that Hibu specializes in helping, such as home services contractors, consumer services, automotive services, and travel and hospitality.
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➜ This episode: https://hibu.com/blog/marketing-solutions/how-hibu-fortified-one-client-s-digital-marketing-by-adding-amazon-ads-sponsored-display
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ian Messinger (00:02):
Hi, I'm Ian Messenger with my co host,
Lauren Schenck.
Lauren Schenck (00:05):
Hey there.
Ian Messinger (00:06):
Thanks for joining us for this episode of
small business small talkpowered by Hibu. Today we're
talking with Craig Plummer. Iwas director of traffic product
management. And we want to talkabout Hibu. His new partnership
with Amazon happens. Thanks forjoining us, Craig.
Craig Plummer (00:21):
Thanks again for having me.
Ian Messinger (00:22):
Yeah. And hey, full disclosure, just to add
some, you know, personal flavor– Craig is actually the guy that
hired me at Hibu.
Lauren Schenck (00:30):
I didn't know that.
Ian Messinger (00:33):
Interviewed and hired.
Craig Plummer (00:34):
Yeah, yeah,
Ian Messinger (00:35):
It was really long. Say how long ago? All
right, well, let's, let's diveright in. So Amazon ads working
with Hibu or Hibu, working withAmazon ads? How? How did that
come about? What is what doesthat look like?
Craig Plummer (00:48):
So it's... just for starting point. You know, we
started conversations withAmazon, a little over a year
ago. And initially, it was justkind of, you know, kicking the
tires type of conversation,right is, you know, is Amazon as
a partner does due to theproducts they have? And in
particular, what they approachedus with was their sponsored
display product. Is that a fitfor us at Hibu? Is it a fit for
(01:11):
Hibu clients, right. And soinitially, I was just trying to
get a sense of that, because youthink of Amazon, you think of
Ecommerce, and you think of theAmazon store.
So, our initial relaxed reactionwas, you know, we're not maybe
sure where this fits. But theevolution that's happening with
Amazon is they have they'vetaken their what they call their
sponsored display product. Andthat's now available to small
(01:33):
businesses, like the clientsthat we service, who don't sell
on the Amazon store, right. Andso as we got through that
conversation, we're like, okay,maybe this is a fit. And so that
kind of led us into let's dosome trialing let's do some
testing. Right. So once we kindof saw, you know, the angle that
Amazon was, was approaching thisfrom, from, from an SMB
perspective. Yeah. And seeingthat, yeah, that fits our
(01:54):
clients, right, this could be afit for our clients.
We then said, Okay, let's do asmall trial, this is a trial of
Lauren, and I didn't worktogether on you know, of a
couple dozen clients, you know,and really, at that point, it's
starting to get a sense ofAlright, does, you know is the
product that Amazon has does itfit can start to get some data,
like, let's start to get some,some information about whether
this is a fit for Hibu with isgoing to be a fit for our
(02:16):
clients. And so we ran, youknow, three dozen-ish campaigns
over the course of the summer.
And we saw some really goodresults, right? So we saw lead
volumes start to tick up, we sawwebsite engagement rates and,
and Website Conversions start totick up. And so that was on a
really small sample size. But wetook that, and we started have
conversations around how do weexpand that? Right?
(02:38):
So we took that small samplesize and said, Okay, let's
expand that. Let's, you know,work towards about 1,000
accounts that was in, in sort ofa, you know, bigger, broader
trial. And that a lot of helpfrom our operations team on
that. But we took that smallsample size and said, Okay, if
we can replicate that, then weprobably have something here,
right, we probably havesomething we want to bring to
market. So as we did that, so wedid that over the course of the
(03:00):
fall. And then in in sort ofparallel of that, we started to
have the technical conversationsas well, right? Because that's a
huge part of our life here atHibu. And what we do on behalf
of our clients is we have lotsof technical connections with
with all of our variouspartners. So we started talking
about starting to talk withAmazon about how will how will
this work?
(03:20):
were doing from a trialperspective, again, saw really
good results. So then as we gotinto the winner and sort of
finished that trial out, andsort of became okay, from an
internal conversation, you know,let's get this to market. How do
we do that and adding on kind offinding the right fit for Amazon
within our product suite. So itfits great, right within our
(03:42):
display product, or Hibu displayproduct? And so we kind of went
through that iterative processof, you know, let's, let's start
it, let's bake it. Let's, let'sadd to it. And let's ultimately,
because we saw success there,right, so we did that whole
vetting process. And we saw itas a good opportunity to, to
bring into Hibu as displayoffering. Got to the point we we
(04:04):
launched it on April 1. So veryexcited about it. It's been
great to partner with Amazon sofar. And we're, we're looking
forward to to moving on with itas we go here.
Ian Messinger (04:13):
Now. That's great. That's great. Now, you
mentioned something early onthat that's interesting to me.
And I'm certainly since YouTubeworked on this the least
informed the three of us. Imean, I'm in that same boat that
I imagine a lot of smallbusiness owners are around like,
I mean, I go to Amazon, I'venever really noticed ads for
anything other than like, 'Hey,here's this new, you know,
(04:33):
garden rake.' So if I'm asked methrough how Amazon's ad network
and ad product works, if I'm aservice provider, which I know a
lot of our clients are.
Craig Plummer (04:44):
Right.
Absolutely. And that's a greatquestion. It leads us right it
was the first question we asked,right? It's like, how does this
work for you know, for alandscaper or for you know, for
home services provider orwhatever. And actually your rake
example is initiative. One I'llcome back to that in a second.
But yeah, so from a networkperspective, one of the things
(05:04):
that drew us to Amazon is, one,our clients will get ads on
Amazon owned and operatedproperties, like amazon.com.
Right. So we'll have ads thatshow there will have ads that
show on IMDb and Twitch.
And then like a lot othernetworks out there, Amazon has a
huge database of publishingpartners, right. So our ads will
(05:28):
show off of Amazon properties aswell. So it's the combination of
those two is where ads will shownow how it works from a kind of
small business perspective is...
you know, Amazon, of course, youknow... think about how many,
you know, the the volume ofpeople that shop on Amazon,
right? The number of people,myself included who are prime
members, right? It's like 67% ofUS households are prime members,
(05:49):
right. So Amazon, obviously hasa ton of ton of data out there.
And so one of the things thatattracted us to their offering
was the ability to use theiraudience data. So basically,
they use their, you know, thedata that they have to create
first party audiences. And thenwe can then leverage those
audiences as targeting optionsfor our clients.
(06:10):
So to come back to your example,again, go on to Amazon, you're
looking to buy a rake, you know,and based on your data and your
history of browsing and buyingand signals that Amazon's
picking up your that might pokeyou into certain types of
different audience buckets. Andthat's what we're going to use
to target our ads, right. Soit'll be a more highly targeted
display ad, using Amazon'saudiences. So for example,
(06:33):
right? We can look at that realexample. And think, Alright, if
you're buying a rake, or you'rebuying garden tools, you're
probably doing some work outsideof house, right? Maybe doing
some gardening, and maybethere's, you know, other work
outside of the house that you'renot going to do, maybe there's a
tree service that you need,right? You're you you have trees
out there that need to be cutdown, right? Or let's say you're
(06:54):
buying, you know, boxes andpacking tape, you're probably
looking to move, right. So ifyou're looking to move, you
might be needing a painter, oryou might be needing a plumber
or, or, you know, roofingexperts. So it's the ability to
use these audiences. And basedon those signals, to basically
create a more highly targeteddisplay campaign. And that's
what we're going to be doing forfor our clients, with the
(07:16):
addition of Amazon into HibuDisplay.
Lauren Schenck (07:18):
Yeah, I love the Amazon audience and the signals
and just talking through withthe folks that Amazon how that
all works. I think it puts us atsuch a great competitive edge
for our clients. Correct me ifI'm wrong, Craig, but we're the
first one that they havepartnered with for their sponsor
display.
Unknown (07:37):
Right. So they've got a couple partners in terms of the
timing of who was your first andsecond, I think it's a little
bit unclear to me, but we areone of the first partners that
are what they call their sponsordisplay for all. So the sponsor
display product is a productthat exists on Amazon for
businesses that sell on Amazon,you know, in terms of our
(07:58):
partnership, and we became anAmazon verified partner, I think
in October or early November,somewhere in that timeframe. So
we've been a partner there. Aswe've gone through this whole
journey in conversation to getthis product to market. We're
one of the first if not thefirst, who for the SMB
community, and for, forbusinesses that don't sell on
Amazon, that is an app that isan Amazon partner.
(08:19):
And I think that really speaksto, you know, the benefits that
Hibu can bring to their clients.
Because while that makes uscompetitive in the marketplace,
it makes our clients morecompetitive, because they now
have access to this Amazonaudience in the signals to serve
up their ads to potentialcustomers, whereas some of their
competitors who are not workingwith Hibu don't have access to
(08:39):
that just yet, or may not haveaccess to it.
Yeah, may not have access to it.
And you know, and again, it's alot of work is, you know, Ian's
first question, you know, tookus into, it's a lot of work to
get through the integrationprocesses. And, you know, it's,
it's, there's a lot to do there.
But yeah, I mean, for us, youknow, as you're right, I mean,
the market for us going out andselling to SMBs. Right, it's
(09:01):
critical to have thosepartnerships. And we obviously
have some great partnerships outthere, Amazon included, right,
but it's just as important,Lauren, to your point around for
the SMBs themselves having theability to have a diversified
marketing program. So it's notjust relying on one network,
right, it's, it's, you know, andthis is one of the great things
for us, right is is eveninternally, you know, with
(09:21):
having diversity and varietywithin our marketing offering,
you know, we can take all ofthat data ourselves and now we
can optimize on behalf of ourclients and figure out what is
the best result we can drive forthem, right? If you put and do
all of that across one network,well then you're left with those
results right there's, there'sless you can do but you know,
it'll give us an ability to tofigure out on behalf of our
(09:42):
clients, where we can optimizetheir budget most effectively,
where we can spend their moneymost effectively and hopefully
where we can drive as many leadsfor them as possible.
Ian Messinger (09:51):
And that Amazon network, you know, reach that
will now have I mean that thatfits in so nicely with our
existing partnerships or in ourpartnerships with meta or
partnerships. With, with Google,so it really gives you kind of a
more diverse portfolio of placesthat you know, you know, your,
your customers, your patients,your clients, whatever business
you're in, you know, they're onthese properties. And when you
(10:14):
ask, well, what's the best wayto reach them? You know, we've
business, just another, anotheritem we can check off, like,
where do you want to reach? Youknow, social media, you know,
where you're shopping, whenthey're searching, you name it.
Unknown (10:26):
Right. And that's, and that's part of, you know, the,
the equation here for the smallbusiness community, right is to
your point, and you have to meetthem where consumers are
spending their time, right. Andthat's all of those places,
right? In some cases, it isGoogle, some places it is meta,
you know, Facebook, orInstagram. And that in a lot of
cases is going to be out though.
And a lot of times consumers aregoing to be on all three
properties right? Multiple timesa day, right. So being able to
(10:49):
layer your messaging in to theto the consumer base that is
local to you, whether you know,whether it's you know, consumers
who know you and are coming backas repeat customers, whether
it's or whether it's discovery,right? It's getting to new
consumers who are out there toyour website for the first time,
and starting that consumerjourney, which is going to,
again, hopefully lead to moreleads for you as a small
(11:11):
business owner, right? Maybethat Facebook, Facebook ad, or,
or the Amazon ad that we producegets them to click through your
website first time and thatconsumer journey begins. Right.
So and maybe it leads to lookingup more information about you on
Facebook or you know, doing aGoogle search for you. Right,
and now all of a sudden, we'regetting that, you know, that
consumer down the marketingfunnel to the point of
(11:33):
conversion. And yeah, I mean,having that diversity of being
able to meet the consumer wherethey are, is, is key and Amazon
ads, you know, a criticalcomponent. You know, for us on
that front.
Announcer (11:48):
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powered by Hibu. Hibu was thecountry's leading provider of
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visit us today@hibu.com H-I-B-U.
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Unknown (12:06):
We're back with our guests. Today, Craig Plummer,
talking about Hibu and Amazonads. I've heard you've mentioned
a couple times some examples ofyou know how the audiences work
and what kind of industry orbusinesses would work for them?
(12:28):
And you've also mentioned, yeah,we can't use it for people who
sell things on Amazon. But talka little bit about the prime,
you know, categories, businesstypes that are good for Amazon
as on display.
Yeah, that's a great question.
Lauren. There's a handful ofthem. And a lot of them are kind
of in the wheelhouse for us atHibu, and who we tend to service
(12:48):
- and I'll start with homeservices. Right, the home
services, business sort ofcommunity, and I'd throw in
that, throw in that in thatgrouping, you know, roofers,
plumbers, electricians, anyoutdoor contractor, you know,
tree services, you know, thosetypes of things. Yeah, masonry
contractors, basically, anyonewho's coming to your home and
providing a service, right? Thatis a great fit for Amazon,
(13:09):
right? And leveraging thoseAmazon audiences, and say this
yet, there's like, 30,000audiences out there, right? That
Amazon has that as well. We haveaccess to target on behalf of
our clients, right. Which is,which is amazing. And it's also
challenging, right? Because howdo you figure that out? Right.
And so that's one of the thingswe've partnered on with Amazon
is figuring out... alright, fora roofer or for a plumber in
(13:32):
what is the right starting pointfrom an audience perspective?
And then how do you optimizethat over time. So Home Services
is a great example. Auto isanother great example, in
particular, like auto autorepair, right, or auto dealers.
So that's, that's another one.
That is that is a great fit,travel and hospitality is a
great fit as well for Amazon. Sothose are all verticals that
(13:55):
make a lot of sense. I mentionedsort of tree services, use of
landscaping, lawn care, lawnmaintenance, all of those types
of things are great examples aswell. So those are kind of, you
know, some of the key ones andwho are kind of the key
demographic for us as well, whoare going to be a great fit for
Amazon moving forward.
Ian Messinger (14:13):
You know, it's one of the things that kind of
stands out to me is I think alot when we talk about AI moves,
value profits, it's that, youknow, we do it for you. And the
analogy we, we tend to lean on alot is well you don't you know,
there's a lot of moving pieces,there's a lot of, you know,
complicated things when it comesto building your website,
because I feel like that'ssomething that there's so many
people out there where you can,you know, build your own
(14:34):
website. But this is this is awhole other level. Right? This
is not just like, yeah, youcould go on and, you know, buy
some ad space on Amazon. I mean,I think a lot of what you've
spoken to is just how muchinfrastructure and really
calibrating things the right waygoes into their boards, like
there's no way you'd want to trythis yourself. This would be,
you know, you'd be exhaustedbefore you even pressed GO.
Unknown (14:57):
Yeah, it's challenging right there. There's a lot to
unpack in terms of everythingfrom audiences that we've talked
about, you know, and how do youhow do you know you've selected
the right audiences? Right? Howdo you optimize that over time?
Do you add to it? Do yousubtract from it? Do you target
one audience? Or do you target20 audiences? Right, and these
are the, you know, the kind ofthe industry, pieces of
(15:18):
expertise that that we'regetting from Amazon as we
continue this partnership,right. So, what's one of the
advantages of working with Hibu?
Is getting that industryknowledge, right, that we get to
learn from Amazon productmanagers directly, we get to
take that knowledge and turnthat back to our sales team, you
know, through, you know, throughLauren's group, right, or turn
that back to operations team andin terms of trainings, and then
(15:39):
it's, you know, so it startsthere, but includes things like
bidding, too, right? How do youset the right bids? And how do
you? How are you what, to whereto start? And what to do when to
change them? When do you comeback and update your ads? It's
all of you out there. Use theword infrastructure. And there's
a there's a lot there. Andthat's just in Amazon, right?
(15:59):
So we talked strategy, just...
yes, now we expand and talkabout Hibu Display, where it's
Amazon plus, potentially Metainventory plus our Hibu Network,
right? And now we're talkingabout, yeah, and the Microsoft
Audience Network as well. So nowwe have this sort of, you know,
a couple of different piecesthat that we bring together, and
it's really mentioned a littlebit before, which is now we can
optimize off of those pieces andoptimize that budget to the best
(16:23):
of its ability. Right. So andthat's just within one product.
So you take that at the Hibulevel. And yes, there's a lot
with you know, from yourwebsite, to your listings, you
know, to your displayadvertising, your search
advertising, there's a lot of ofunder the hood – pieces that
that need to come together andneed to work well in order for
you to maximize your marketingdollars. The great part is
(16:43):
working with us is we can do alot of that and you can leverage
our interest industry expertisethere.
Ian Messinger (16:49):
And our time to because it's not just teeing all
that up, right, it's thenhitting go and watching it and
adjusting. I mean, a lot of thelot of the kind of verticals
that we spoke to the thebusiness types, you know,
there's seasonality involvedthere, you know, especially if
you're in different parts of thecountry where you know, there's
there's radical changes in web.
So it's, you know, it's not justgetting it teed up, it's then
watching it and taking the timeto watch it and adjust and, and
(17:12):
coordinate all of that.
Unknown (17:16):
So Craig, you mentioned some of the lift and lead volume
that you saw during the initialtrials. Is there any other data
that you want to touch upon thatwe're looking at for this Amazon
launch?
Yeah, absolutely. So we'reobviously, you know,
continuously looking at data aswe launch and evolve campaigns
here, Lauren, one of the thingswe did with the launch of Amazon
(17:37):
ads, as part of our Hibu displayproduct is we produced a couple
case studies firm those trials.
Now those are out on hibu.com,if folks want to go take a look,
and it speaks to what you justmentioned, right, as we launched
Amazon, and looking at theresults, and we did a couple
different things to kind ofanalyze results, right, we took
clients where we were running anactive program with them
already. And we compared thatonce we launched Amazon ads on
(17:57):
their behalf, we compared theirresults in kind of the next two
months to two months prior tolaunching Amazon. So we kind of
had, as best we could an applesto apples comparison of what we
did post Amazon and what we didpre Amazon, we also looked at a
control group, right, which is,you know, obviously, there's a
lot of variables that go intodigital marketing, some of which
we've talked about here.
Craig Plummer (18:19):
But you know, we looked at a control group where
budgets were the same verticalswere the same and looked at
their results in comparison tothe accounts where we launched
Amazon. And the tendency we sawwas was a lift in in lead vibe.
So a couple those case studiesare out there, we hope over you
know, as you know, scale, we getscale, you're with Amazon. And
as more and more campaigns getlaunched, we're obviously going
(18:40):
to be continuing to uncover asmuch as that data as we can. And
of course, you know, we'reexpecting success, they're
expecting to continue to liftand lead volume for our clients.
And hopefully, we'll have a lotmore data share in the months
ahead. And I'm sure we'll havemore case studies to come to but
there's two out there right now,go check them out and see what
Amazon has, how Amazon hashelped some of our clients so
(19:01):
far.
Unknown (19:02):
That's awesome. And you know, I just have loved how much
this conversation has pulledback the curtain on the Hibu
process. Even with a partnerlike Amazon, we are testing we
are analyzing, you know, this ishow we do things from soup to
nuts. We don't just say, 'Oh,sure, we'll launch this.
Alright.' Well, yeah. We do alot of testing behind the scenes
(19:23):
and optimizing. And you know,Craig, you and I work together
on a lot of these tests. We'rein the midst of one right now.
And I just love talking aboutthis process that we go through
because we are there to ensurethat our clients get the best
possible product optimized fortheir needs. You know, we're not
just going to throw anything outthere at them.
Craig Plummer (19:41):
Yeah, I mean, that's you're exactly right,
Lauren, and that's the placethat we start from. I mean,
that's the first question weasked when we started talking to
Amazon is how does this fit forour clients? It's the questions
we asked about, you know, and wescale it does it fit for a
roofer and a plumber and an autorepair contractor, or an auto
repair place and Alliancedoesn't fit all of the different
clients that, you know that thatwe service. And, you know, once
(20:04):
we start ticking those boxes, asyou said, we go through that
process, it's a, you know, it'snot easy to get through the door
at Hibu. Right. And even forAmazon, that's a lot of hoops to
jump through. But you know,because to your point, yeah, we
want to care for our clients,first and foremost, of course,
and the IRS a great place wherethough we saw opportunity, and
(20:24):
we saw a chance to, to bringmore value to our clients. So
hopefully we can be in keep thatrolling.
Ian Messinger (20:29):
Yeah. And it's a big deal. I mean, you know,
obviously, we wouldn't betalking about it, if it wasn't,
but you know, given all of thepartnerships we have, this isn't
just another like, you know, oh,and also Amazon. I mean, I think
you alluded to Craig with what,you know, 67%, or somewhere
around that neighborhood,American households are our
Prime members. I mean, that's ahuge, huge market that we can
(20:51):
now say, hey, we know whenthey're looking for, you know,
packing tape, and your movingcompany, we can, we can put you
in front of them.
Unknown (21:00):
It's a great... I think Lauren said it early, it's great
competitive advantage, right, tohave access to that inventory.
And you mentioned thepartnerships in right. I mean,
so we've got, obviously Amazonpartnership is the newest. We've
been partners with Google foryears and years, we've been
partners with Microsoft and Metafor years and years. Right. So
those are four, I believe, thefour biggest advertising
companies out there.
Craig Plummer (21:21):
People don't necessarily think of Amazon as
an advertising company. It is ifyou look at the data. Amazon is
a huge advertising company. It'sjust newer to kind of our space
in relation to that. But yeah, Imean, partnerships across, you
know, four of the biggestcompanies in the world, four of
the biggest ad platforms in theworld is, you know, is a pretty
cool thing. And, you know,beyond it being cool, it's a
(21:42):
great way to help our clients.
Ian Messinger (21:45):
Craig, thanks again for joining us today and
bring us up to date about Hibuand Amazon. And to all of you
listening, please be sure tovisit hibu.com for more
information about how Amazon AdsSponsored Display works with the
rest of your Hibu digitalmarketing solution. If you like
what you've heard in thisepisode, be sure to subscribe.
And please, if you can leave usa comment – It really helps –
(22:06):
and reviews are even better. Andit's going to put us in front of
more small business ownersacross the country. Until next
time, this is Small BusinessSmall Talk... outs!
Announcer (22:20):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Small
Business Small Talk powered byHibu. Hibu is a leading provider
of synchronized digitalmarketing for small businesses
across America. With Hibu youget all the digital marketing
your business needs, all from asingle provider, all working
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Visit us today@hibu.com.
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Hi, I'm Ian Messenger with my co host,
Lauren Schenck.
Lauren Schenck (00:05):
Hey there.
Ian Messinger (00:06):
Thanks for joining us for this episode of
small business small talkpowered by Hibu. Today we're
talking with Craig Plummer. Iwas director of traffic product
management. And we want to talkabout Hibu. His new partnership
with Amazon happens. Thanks forjoining us, Craig.
Craig Plummer (00:21):
Thanks again for having me.
Ian Messinger (00:22):
Yeah. And hey, full disclosure, just to add
some, you know, personal flavor– Craig is actually the guy that
hired me at Hibu.
Lauren Schenck (00:30):
I didn't know that.
Ian Messinger (00:33):
Interviewed and hired.
Craig Plummer (00:34):
Yeah, yeah,
Ian Messinger (00:35):
It was really long. Say how long ago? All
right, well, let's, let's diveright in. So Amazon ads working
with Hibu or Hibu, working withAmazon ads? How? How did that
come about? What is what doesthat look like?
Craig Plummer (00:48):
So it's... just for starting point. You know, we
started conversations withAmazon, a little over a year
ago. And initially, it was justkind of, you know, kicking the
tires type of conversation,right is, you know, is Amazon as
a partner does due to theproducts they have? And in
particular, what they approachedus with was their sponsored
display product. Is that a fitfor us at Hibu? Is it a fit for
(01:11):
Hibu clients, right. And soinitially, I was just trying to
get a sense of that, because youthink of Amazon, you think of
Ecommerce, and you think of theAmazon store.
So, our initial relaxed reactionwas, you know, we're not maybe
sure where this fits. But theevolution that's happening with
Amazon is they have they'vetaken their what they call their
sponsored display product. Andthat's now available to small
(01:33):
businesses, like the clientsthat we service, who don't sell
on the Amazon store, right. Andso as we got through that
conversation, we're like, okay,maybe this is a fit. And so that
kind of led us into let's dosome trialing let's do some
testing. Right. So once we kindof saw, you know, the angle that
Amazon was, was approaching thisfrom, from, from an SMB
perspective. Yeah. And seeingthat, yeah, that fits our
(01:54):
clients, right, this could be afit for our clients.
We then said, Okay, let's do asmall trial, this is a trial of
Lauren, and I didn't worktogether on you know, of a
couple dozen clients, you know,and really, at that point, it's
starting to get a sense ofAlright, does, you know is the
product that Amazon has does itfit can start to get some data,
like, let's start to get some,some information about whether
this is a fit for Hibu with isgoing to be a fit for our
(02:16):
clients. And so we ran, youknow, three dozen-ish campaigns
over the course of the summer.
And we saw some really goodresults, right? So we saw lead
volumes start to tick up, we sawwebsite engagement rates and,
and Website Conversions start totick up. And so that was on a
really small sample size. But wetook that, and we started have
conversations around how do weexpand that? Right?
(02:38):
So we took that small samplesize and said, Okay, let's
expand that. Let's, you know,work towards about 1,000
accounts that was in, in sort ofa, you know, bigger, broader
trial. And that a lot of helpfrom our operations team on
that. But we took that smallsample size and said, Okay, if
we can replicate that, then weprobably have something here,
right, we probably havesomething we want to bring to
market. So as we did that, so wedid that over the course of the
(03:00):
fall. And then in in sort ofparallel of that, we started to
have the technical conversationsas well, right? Because that's a
huge part of our life here atHibu. And what we do on behalf
of our clients is we have lotsof technical connections with
with all of our variouspartners. So we started talking
about starting to talk withAmazon about how will how will
this work?
(03:20):
were doing from a trialperspective, again, saw really
good results. So then as we gotinto the winner and sort of
finished that trial out, andsort of became okay, from an
internal conversation, you know,let's get this to market. How do
we do that and adding on kind offinding the right fit for Amazon
within our product suite. So itfits great, right within our
(03:42):
display product, or Hibu displayproduct? And so we kind of went
through that iterative processof, you know, let's, let's start
it, let's bake it. Let's, let'sadd to it. And let's ultimately,
because we saw success there,right, so we did that whole
vetting process. And we saw itas a good opportunity to, to
bring into Hibu as displayoffering. Got to the point we we
(04:04):
launched it on April 1. So veryexcited about it. It's been
great to partner with Amazon sofar. And we're, we're looking
forward to to moving on with itas we go here.
Ian Messinger (04:13):
Now. That's great. That's great. Now, you
mentioned something early onthat that's interesting to me.
And I'm certainly since YouTubeworked on this the least
informed the three of us. Imean, I'm in that same boat that
I imagine a lot of smallbusiness owners are around like,
I mean, I go to Amazon, I'venever really noticed ads for
anything other than like, 'Hey,here's this new, you know,
(04:33):
garden rake.' So if I'm asked methrough how Amazon's ad network
and ad product works, if I'm aservice provider, which I know a
lot of our clients are.
Craig Plummer (04:44):
Right.
Absolutely. And that's a greatquestion. It leads us right it
was the first question we asked,right? It's like, how does this
work for you know, for alandscaper or for you know, for
home services provider orwhatever. And actually your rake
example is initiative. One I'llcome back to that in a second.
But yeah, so from a networkperspective, one of the things
(05:04):
that drew us to Amazon is, one,our clients will get ads on
Amazon owned and operatedproperties, like amazon.com.
Right. So we'll have ads thatshow there will have ads that
show on IMDb and Twitch.
And then like a lot othernetworks out there, Amazon has a
huge database of publishingpartners, right. So our ads will
(05:28):
show off of Amazon properties aswell. So it's the combination of
those two is where ads will shownow how it works from a kind of
small business perspective is...
you know, Amazon, of course, youknow... think about how many,
you know, the the volume ofpeople that shop on Amazon,
right? The number of people,myself included who are prime
members, right? It's like 67% ofUS households are prime members,
(05:49):
right. So Amazon, obviously hasa ton of ton of data out there.
And so one of the things thatattracted us to their offering
was the ability to use theiraudience data. So basically,
they use their, you know, thedata that they have to create
first party audiences. And thenwe can then leverage those
audiences as targeting optionsfor our clients.
(06:10):
So to come back to your example,again, go on to Amazon, you're
looking to buy a rake, you know,and based on your data and your
history of browsing and buyingand signals that Amazon's
picking up your that might pokeyou into certain types of
different audience buckets. Andthat's what we're going to use
to target our ads, right. Soit'll be a more highly targeted
display ad, using Amazon'saudiences. So for example,
(06:33):
right? We can look at that realexample. And think, Alright, if
you're buying a rake, or you'rebuying garden tools, you're
probably doing some work outsideof house, right? Maybe doing
some gardening, and maybethere's, you know, other work
outside of the house that you'renot going to do, maybe there's a
tree service that you need,right? You're you you have trees
out there that need to be cutdown, right? Or let's say you're
(06:54):
buying, you know, boxes andpacking tape, you're probably
looking to move, right. So ifyou're looking to move, you
might be needing a painter, oryou might be needing a plumber
or, or, you know, roofingexperts. So it's the ability to
use these audiences. And basedon those signals, to basically
create a more highly targeteddisplay campaign. And that's
what we're going to be doing forfor our clients, with the
(07:16):
addition of Amazon into HibuDisplay.
Lauren Schenck (07:18):
Yeah, I love the Amazon audience and the signals
and just talking through withthe folks that Amazon how that
all works. I think it puts us atsuch a great competitive edge
for our clients. Correct me ifI'm wrong, Craig, but we're the
first one that they havepartnered with for their sponsor
display.
Unknown (07:37):
Right. So they've got a couple partners in terms of the
timing of who was your first andsecond, I think it's a little
bit unclear to me, but we areone of the first partners that
are what they call their sponsordisplay for all. So the sponsor
display product is a productthat exists on Amazon for
businesses that sell on Amazon,you know, in terms of our
(07:58):
partnership, and we became anAmazon verified partner, I think
in October or early November,somewhere in that timeframe. So
we've been a partner there. Aswe've gone through this whole
journey in conversation to getthis product to market. We're
one of the first if not thefirst, who for the SMB
community, and for, forbusinesses that don't sell on
Amazon, that is an app that isan Amazon partner.
(08:19):
And I think that really speaksto, you know, the benefits that
Hibu can bring to their clients.
Because while that makes uscompetitive in the marketplace,
it makes our clients morecompetitive, because they now
have access to this Amazonaudience in the signals to serve
up their ads to potentialcustomers, whereas some of their
competitors who are not workingwith Hibu don't have access to
(08:39):
that just yet, or may not haveaccess to it.
Yeah, may not have access to it.
And you know, and again, it's alot of work is, you know, Ian's
first question, you know, tookus into, it's a lot of work to
get through the integrationprocesses. And, you know, it's,
it's, there's a lot to do there.
But yeah, I mean, for us, youknow, as you're right, I mean,
the market for us going out andselling to SMBs. Right, it's
(09:01):
critical to have thosepartnerships. And we obviously
have some great partnerships outthere, Amazon included, right,
but it's just as important,Lauren, to your point around for
the SMBs themselves having theability to have a diversified
marketing program. So it's notjust relying on one network,
right, it's, it's, you know, andthis is one of the great things
for us, right is is eveninternally, you know, with
(09:21):
having diversity and varietywithin our marketing offering,
you know, we can take all ofthat data ourselves and now we
can optimize on behalf of ourclients and figure out what is
the best result we can drive forthem, right? If you put and do
all of that across one network,well then you're left with those
results right there's, there'sless you can do but you know,
it'll give us an ability to tofigure out on behalf of our
(09:42):
clients, where we can optimizetheir budget most effectively,
where we can spend their moneymost effectively and hopefully
where we can drive as many leadsfor them as possible.
Ian Messinger (09:51):
And that Amazon network, you know, reach that
will now have I mean that thatfits in so nicely with our
existing partnerships or in ourpartnerships with meta or
partnerships. With, with Google,so it really gives you kind of a
more diverse portfolio of placesthat you know, you know, your,
your customers, your patients,your clients, whatever business
you're in, you know, they're onthese properties. And when you
(10:14):
ask, well, what's the best wayto reach them? You know, we've
business, just another, anotheritem we can check off, like,
where do you want to reach? Youknow, social media, you know,
where you're shopping, whenthey're searching, you name it.
Unknown (10:26):
Right. And that's, and that's part of, you know, the,
the equation here for the smallbusiness community, right is to
your point, and you have to meetthem where consumers are
spending their time, right. Andthat's all of those places,
right? In some cases, it isGoogle, some places it is meta,
you know, Facebook, orInstagram. And that in a lot of
cases is going to be out though.
And a lot of times consumers aregoing to be on all three
properties right? Multiple timesa day, right. So being able to
(10:49):
layer your messaging in to theto the consumer base that is
local to you, whether you know,whether it's you know, consumers
who know you and are coming backas repeat customers, whether
it's or whether it's discovery,right? It's getting to new
consumers who are out there toyour website for the first time,
and starting that consumerjourney, which is going to,
again, hopefully lead to moreleads for you as a small
(11:11):
business owner, right? Maybethat Facebook, Facebook ad, or,
or the Amazon ad that we producegets them to click through your
website first time and thatconsumer journey begins. Right.
So and maybe it leads to lookingup more information about you on
Facebook or you know, doing aGoogle search for you. Right,
and now all of a sudden, we'regetting that, you know, that
consumer down the marketingfunnel to the point of
(11:33):
conversion. And yeah, I mean,having that diversity of being
able to meet the consumer wherethey are, is, is key and Amazon
ads, you know, a criticalcomponent. You know, for us on
that front.
Announcer (11:48):
You're listening to small business small talk,
powered by Hibu. Hibu was thecountry's leading provider of
synchronized digital marketingfor small distances, delivering
more visibility for visitors,more leads and more customers,
visit us today@hibu.com H-I-B-U.
hibu.com
Unknown (12:06):
We're back with our guests. Today, Craig Plummer,
talking about Hibu and Amazonads. I've heard you've mentioned
a couple times some examples ofyou know how the audiences work
and what kind of industry orbusinesses would work for them?
(12:28):
And you've also mentioned, yeah,we can't use it for people who
sell things on Amazon. But talka little bit about the prime,
you know, categories, businesstypes that are good for Amazon
as on display.
Yeah, that's a great question.
Lauren. There's a handful ofthem. And a lot of them are kind
of in the wheelhouse for us atHibu, and who we tend to service
(12:48):
- and I'll start with homeservices. Right, the home
services, business sort ofcommunity, and I'd throw in
that, throw in that in thatgrouping, you know, roofers,
plumbers, electricians, anyoutdoor contractor, you know,
tree services, you know, thosetypes of things. Yeah, masonry
contractors, basically, anyonewho's coming to your home and
providing a service, right? Thatis a great fit for Amazon,
(13:09):
right? And leveraging thoseAmazon audiences, and say this
yet, there's like, 30,000audiences out there, right? That
Amazon has that as well. We haveaccess to target on behalf of
our clients, right. Which is,which is amazing. And it's also
challenging, right? Because howdo you figure that out? Right.
And so that's one of the thingswe've partnered on with Amazon
is figuring out... alright, fora roofer or for a plumber in
(13:32):
what is the right starting pointfrom an audience perspective?
And then how do you optimizethat over time. So Home Services
is a great example. Auto isanother great example, in
particular, like auto autorepair, right, or auto dealers.
So that's, that's another one.
That is that is a great fit,travel and hospitality is a
great fit as well for Amazon. Sothose are all verticals that
(13:55):
make a lot of sense. I mentionedsort of tree services, use of
landscaping, lawn care, lawnmaintenance, all of those types
of things are great examples aswell. So those are kind of, you
know, some of the key ones andwho are kind of the key
demographic for us as well, whoare going to be a great fit for
Amazon moving forward.
Ian Messinger (14:13):
You know, it's one of the things that kind of
stands out to me is I think alot when we talk about AI moves,
value profits, it's that, youknow, we do it for you. And the
analogy we, we tend to lean on alot is well you don't you know,
there's a lot of moving pieces,there's a lot of, you know,
complicated things when it comesto building your website,
because I feel like that'ssomething that there's so many
people out there where you can,you know, build your own
(14:34):
website. But this is this is awhole other level. Right? This
is not just like, yeah, youcould go on and, you know, buy
some ad space on Amazon. I mean,I think a lot of what you've
spoken to is just how muchinfrastructure and really
calibrating things the right waygoes into their boards, like
there's no way you'd want to trythis yourself. This would be,
you know, you'd be exhaustedbefore you even pressed GO.
Unknown (14:57):
Yeah, it's challenging right there. There's a lot to
unpack in terms of everythingfrom audiences that we've talked
about, you know, and how do youhow do you know you've selected
the right audiences? Right? Howdo you optimize that over time?
Do you add to it? Do yousubtract from it? Do you target
one audience? Or do you target20 audiences? Right, and these
are the, you know, the kind ofthe industry, pieces of
(15:18):
expertise that that we'regetting from Amazon as we
continue this partnership,right. So, what's one of the
advantages of working with Hibu?
Is getting that industryknowledge, right, that we get to
learn from Amazon productmanagers directly, we get to
take that knowledge and turnthat back to our sales team, you
know, through, you know, throughLauren's group, right, or turn
that back to operations team andin terms of trainings, and then
(15:39):
it's, you know, so it startsthere, but includes things like
bidding, too, right? How do youset the right bids? And how do
you? How are you what, to whereto start? And what to do when to
change them? When do you comeback and update your ads? It's
all of you out there. Use theword infrastructure. And there's
a there's a lot there. Andthat's just in Amazon, right?
(15:59):
So we talked strategy, just...
yes, now we expand and talkabout Hibu Display, where it's
Amazon plus, potentially Metainventory plus our Hibu Network,
right? And now we're talkingabout, yeah, and the Microsoft
Audience Network as well. So nowwe have this sort of, you know,
a couple of different piecesthat that we bring together, and
it's really mentioned a littlebit before, which is now we can
optimize off of those pieces andoptimize that budget to the best
(16:23):
of its ability. Right. So andthat's just within one product.
So you take that at the Hibulevel. And yes, there's a lot
with you know, from yourwebsite, to your listings, you
know, to your displayadvertising, your search
advertising, there's a lot of ofunder the hood – pieces that
that need to come together andneed to work well in order for
you to maximize your marketingdollars. The great part is
(16:43):
working with us is we can do alot of that and you can leverage
our interest industry expertisethere.
Ian Messinger (16:49):
And our time to because it's not just teeing all
that up, right, it's thenhitting go and watching it and
adjusting. I mean, a lot of thelot of the kind of verticals
that we spoke to the thebusiness types, you know,
there's seasonality involvedthere, you know, especially if
you're in different parts of thecountry where you know, there's
there's radical changes in web.
So it's, you know, it's not justgetting it teed up, it's then
watching it and taking the timeto watch it and adjust and, and
(17:12):
coordinate all of that.
Unknown (17:16):
So Craig, you mentioned some of the lift and lead volume
that you saw during the initialtrials. Is there any other data
that you want to touch upon thatwe're looking at for this Amazon
launch?
Yeah, absolutely. So we'reobviously, you know,
continuously looking at data aswe launch and evolve campaigns
here, Lauren, one of the thingswe did with the launch of Amazon
(17:37):
ads, as part of our Hibu displayproduct is we produced a couple
case studies firm those trials.
Now those are out on hibu.com,if folks want to go take a look,
and it speaks to what you justmentioned, right, as we launched
Amazon, and looking at theresults, and we did a couple
different things to kind ofanalyze results, right, we took
clients where we were running anactive program with them
already. And we compared thatonce we launched Amazon ads on
(17:57):
their behalf, we compared theirresults in kind of the next two
months to two months prior tolaunching Amazon. So we kind of
had, as best we could an applesto apples comparison of what we
did post Amazon and what we didpre Amazon, we also looked at a
control group, right, which is,you know, obviously, there's a
lot of variables that go intodigital marketing, some of which
we've talked about here.
Craig Plummer (18:19):
But you know, we looked at a control group where
budgets were the same verticalswere the same and looked at
their results in comparison tothe accounts where we launched
Amazon. And the tendency we sawwas was a lift in in lead vibe.
So a couple those case studiesare out there, we hope over you
know, as you know, scale, we getscale, you're with Amazon. And
as more and more campaigns getlaunched, we're obviously going
(18:40):
to be continuing to uncover asmuch as that data as we can. And
of course, you know, we'reexpecting success, they're
expecting to continue to liftand lead volume for our clients.
And hopefully, we'll have a lotmore data share in the months
ahead. And I'm sure we'll havemore case studies to come to but
there's two out there right now,go check them out and see what
Amazon has, how Amazon hashelped some of our clients so
(19:01):
far.
Unknown (19:02):
That's awesome. And you know, I just have loved how much
this conversation has pulledback the curtain on the Hibu
process. Even with a partnerlike Amazon, we are testing we
are analyzing, you know, this ishow we do things from soup to
nuts. We don't just say, 'Oh,sure, we'll launch this.
Alright.' Well, yeah. We do alot of testing behind the scenes
(19:23):
and optimizing. And you know,Craig, you and I work together
on a lot of these tests. We'rein the midst of one right now.
And I just love talking aboutthis process that we go through
because we are there to ensurethat our clients get the best
possible product optimized fortheir needs. You know, we're not
just going to throw anything outthere at them.
Craig Plummer (19:41):
Yeah, I mean, that's you're exactly right,
Lauren, and that's the placethat we start from. I mean,
that's the first question weasked when we started talking to
Amazon is how does this fit forour clients? It's the questions
we asked about, you know, and wescale it does it fit for a
roofer and a plumber and an autorepair contractor, or an auto
repair place and Alliancedoesn't fit all of the different
clients that, you know that thatwe service. And, you know, once
(20:04):
we start ticking those boxes, asyou said, we go through that
process, it's a, you know, it'snot easy to get through the door
at Hibu. Right. And even forAmazon, that's a lot of hoops to
jump through. But you know,because to your point, yeah, we
want to care for our clients,first and foremost, of course,
and the IRS a great place wherethough we saw opportunity, and
(20:24):
we saw a chance to, to bringmore value to our clients. So
hopefully we can be in keep thatrolling.
Ian Messinger (20:29):
Yeah. And it's a big deal. I mean, you know,
obviously, we wouldn't betalking about it, if it wasn't,
but you know, given all of thepartnerships we have, this isn't
just another like, you know, oh,and also Amazon. I mean, I think
you alluded to Craig with what,you know, 67%, or somewhere
around that neighborhood,American households are our
Prime members. I mean, that's ahuge, huge market that we can
(20:51):
now say, hey, we know whenthey're looking for, you know,
packing tape, and your movingcompany, we can, we can put you
in front of them.
Unknown (21:00):
It's a great... I think Lauren said it early, it's great
competitive advantage, right, tohave access to that inventory.
And you mentioned thepartnerships in right. I mean,
so we've got, obviously Amazonpartnership is the newest. We've
been partners with Google foryears and years, we've been
partners with Microsoft and Metafor years and years. Right. So
those are four, I believe, thefour biggest advertising
companies out there.
Craig Plummer (21:21):
People don't necessarily think of Amazon as
an advertising company. It is ifyou look at the data. Amazon is
a huge advertising company. It'sjust newer to kind of our space
in relation to that. But yeah, Imean, partnerships across, you
know, four of the biggestcompanies in the world, four of
the biggest ad platforms in theworld is, you know, is a pretty
cool thing. And, you know,beyond it being cool, it's a
(21:42):
great way to help our clients.
Ian Messinger (21:45):
Craig, thanks again for joining us today and
bring us up to date about Hibuand Amazon. And to all of you
listening, please be sure tovisit hibu.com for more
information about how Amazon AdsSponsored Display works with the
rest of your Hibu digitalmarketing solution. If you like
what you've heard in thisepisode, be sure to subscribe.
And please, if you can leave usa comment – It really helps –
(22:06):
and reviews are even better. Andit's going to put us in front of
more small business ownersacross the country. Until next
time, this is Small BusinessSmall Talk... outs!
Announcer (22:20):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Small
Business Small Talk powered byHibu. Hibu is a leading provider
of synchronized digitalmarketing for small businesses
across America. With Hibu youget all the digital marketing
your business needs, all from asingle provider, all working
together to maximize results.
Visit us today@hibu.com.
H-I-B-U. hibu.com.
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