November 27, 2024 • 24 mins
What inspires a PhD graduate from Cambridge with a passion for autonomous vehicles and Formula 1 to revolutionize Amazon advertising? Sit down with Julian Timings, the ingenious mind behind Altron AI, as he shares his journey from racing circuits to crafting cutting-edge SaaS solutions for Amazon sellers. Julian's unique blend of technical prowess and entrepreneurial spirit led him to tackle the very pain points he faced in his eco-friendly homeware business. Discover how his firsthand experiences with the complexities of Amazon advertising propelled him to develop a tool that not only automates ad solutions but also transforms the game for solopreneurs and small businesses.
As we navigate this insightful conversation, Julian sheds light on the dynamic landscape of Amazon advertising in Europe, revealing strategies to leverage Amazon’s ecosystem for higher conversion rates while addressing regional challenges like the GPSR regulations. Hear his thoughts on channeling Shopify traffic to Amazon, a tactic that promises improved conversions yet demands careful consideration. With eyes set on the future, Julian is thrilled about the potential of AI-driven account management systems to maximize ad spend. This episode is a treasure trove of strategies and insights for Amazon sellers eager to stay ahead in a rapidly changing marketplace.
Here's what you'll learn:
🤖 Automation and AI are transforming the advertising landscape on Amazon.
💼 Successful brands on Amazon must have competitive products and manage cash flow effectively.
❗ There are still opportunities in less saturated product categories.
💰 Return on ad spend is generally stronger on Amazon compared to other platforms.
📈 AI can enhance the efficiency of ad management and customer interaction.
📦 Diversification of sales channels is crucial for long-term success.
🚀 Balancing software and service offerings is key to meeting customer needs.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to E-commerce and AI
06:12 The Evolution of Amazon Advertising
17:00 Future Trends and Challenges in E-commerce
Julian Timings
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliantimings/
Autron AI - https://autron.ai/
Brandon Amoroso:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonamoroso/
Web - https://brandonamoroso.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bamoroso11/
X - https://twitter.com/AmorosoBrandon
Scalis.ai - https://scalis.ai/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast
about using the Gen Z mindset togrow your business.
I'm Gen Z entrepreneur BrandonAmoroso, the former founder of
Electric and now the co-founderof Scaless, and today I'm
talking with Julian Timings,who's the co-founder and CEO at
Altron AI e-commerce adautomation made easy with AI.
Thanks for coming on the show.
(00:22):
Thanks, brandon, excited to behere.
Before we dive into all thingsadvertising, can you give
everybody a quick background onyourself and how you came to
founding this business?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Sure.
So yeah, I'm originally fromthe UK.
I have a fairly technicalbackground.
I did a PhD at CambridgeUniversity in autonomous
vehicles a slightly differentarea than what we're discussing
today, but I think that kind oflike is a bit of the fundamental
grounding, I guess, around someof the approaches that we take.
(01:02):
After that I went in, actuallyworked in F1 for a couple of
years, a big motorsport fan, andthen then I realized that, uh,
you know, entrepreneurship, Ithink, was for me.
So that was when I kind offounded my first business, and
again in a bit of a differentspace, it was in the kind of
cloud kitchen space and thenafter couple of years that
(01:25):
business got acquired and then Iwent on to start actually an
Amazon business and I guess thiswas the first time that I
touched the world of Amazon andI was selling products myself on
Amazon and feeling the pain, Iguess, around advertising and
also realizing the significanceof how important it is to run
(01:49):
ads and how much Amazonthemselves index that in terms
of your performance.
So, feeling that pain on Amazonregarding the ads, I kind of
learned on my technicalbackground and actually built a
solution to run Amazon ads formy business and it wasn't really
(02:10):
intended to necessarily be asolution for everyone.
But I shared it with Sean,who's now my co-founder at
Ultron and he was runningseparately.
He was running a business thathe was running in the US and
(02:31):
shared the software with him andit started to work really well
for his business too.
And then we started to realizethat there's a bit more of a
broader pain point here, thatother sellers could benefit from
this.
So that's when we kind of turnthe software into a, into an
actual sas product, which wecould, um, you know, approach a
(02:52):
little bit differently.
I would say like we don't comeat it from a traditional agency
point of view.
We try to provide like aself-service solution where, but
ultron is the thing doing allthe heavy lifting and, um, yeah,
we've been been running it fora couple of years now, going
really well.
Obviously, you know, it'sunderpinned by pretty
(03:12):
complicated optimization and,more recently, you know the move
forward in AI.
We've obviously beenincorporating those tactics and
skills into what Autron does.
And, yeah, that brings us totoday.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
What business was your Amazon business?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So this was a product selling predominantly
eco-friendly homework.
A bit of a random choice, butyou find the niche and saw the
opportunity and, yeah, thatbusiness is still active today
but also is used somewhat as atesting ground for Autorama.
We try out all the new stuffand so forth.
(03:54):
So, yeah, I think it was, youknow, an interesting,
interesting path.
But now we're super focused onthe Amazon store product for the
sellers and bringers.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I've heard time and time again of companies that are
started out of an existingcompany because you're
addressing some sort of painpoint or problem that you have
with the current business.
I think that's a model thatworks really well.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, I think, fundamentally right, you've got
to address the pain point of thecustomer right, and not
necessarily just come up with anidea of, oh, you think this
would work.
It's about, like, what are thecustomer's needs, like, how can
you address them?
And in our case, right, it'sthe main point.
Pain points are around um, youknow, typically you know
(04:51):
solopreneurs or small smes, youknow they don't necessarily have
the in-house expertise to torun ads right and this, um, this
is where autron can handle that.
Um, you know they have limitedtime.
Again, autron is super automated.
That was one of the key things.
It's about setting high-levelgoals and it goes off and does
everything.
(05:11):
It creates all the campaigns,it manages all the campaigns,
does all the optimization.
So it gives you back, as afounder or entrepreneur, a lot
of time, which is obviouslyimportant, and you can put that
into other other areas of yourbusiness.
And then again, like, and alittle bit on the pricing side,
(05:33):
what we do a little bitdifferent is we try to we we're
highly variable, I guess, whichis different to typical agencies
where there's quite a highupfront cost and what we do is
we start on a really modestmonthly fee as you scale up,
then our fees kind of go up withyour success.
So this is a little bitdifferent.
(05:56):
We try to align ourselves asmuch as possible with success
and not necessarily ad spend,which is typically how others in
this space, like charge brandsand sellers, what are some of
the biggest changes that you'veseen in the Amazon ecosystem
(06:17):
since starting the company totoday?
Yeah, well, I would say for sure, there's a very strong move
towards automation and bots,right, I think, like, at the end
of the day, a little quitesimilar to, to some extent, to
Google AdWords and the way thatwhen it did move in a direction
(06:37):
and we're seeing Amazon movingin a similar direction, where
algorithms are the ones that arein the auctions a lot of the
time, right, and these are theyou know obviously.
You know, as an Amazon seller,you can manually run your ads,
but increasingly we're seeingautomation.
That's Autron, that's others aswell that are in this space.
I always like to give theanalogy towards, like, stock
(06:59):
trading, right, I think therewas a point in time where the
algos kind of took over and sawall those opportunities and
could react instantly to theopportunity in the market.
And Amazon Ads is kind of alittle bit similar where
obviously the bots can beinstant.
(07:19):
They have data flow with almostreal feedback of of what's
happening and to adjustaccordingly.
So that's one of the majortrends that we're seeing right
and I think, generally speaking,you know, in the next couple of
years, I think it's going to be, you know, 80 to 90 percent of
the auctions are going to be umcompeting against other software
(07:43):
solutions.
I would say so that's, I wouldsay, one of the key things.
And then amazon themselves justdeveloping the ads platform
right it's.
It started off relativelyrudimentary and they're plowing
now a lot of uh resource intobuilding the, the ad platform,
up, making, um, you know,different video, different
(08:04):
formats such as video, differentplacements, different other
kind of like solutions to helpbrands manage their data.
So a general maturity, I wouldsay, of the advertising platform
is probably pretty significant.
And then, of course, just onthe seller side, what we see is,
of course, increasingcompetition.
(08:25):
Like month cpc is cost perclicks just on one trajectory
and that's going up right.
So you're constantly justfighting and that's that's.
As more people you know,amazon's obviously trying to get
more and more sellers on boardand and they all want to
advertise and that drives upcost per clicks.
So you kind of can't standstill with the way you're
(08:48):
operating your ads as well,because it's getting
increasingly competitive.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Are there certain types of brands that you're
seeing work well now versusothers?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
um, I think, like um, I mean one of the kind of like
key things for being successfulis.
So, I'd say, on the ad side,like there's, there's two really
important components.
Right, there's um, there's theactual advertising, which is
what, what autron does, but thatthat that's very much in
(09:23):
partnership with, like, thelisting.
If you like the actual product,you're selling.
Right, so you know, because theactual product itself is what
determines ultimately theconversion rate for that sale.
Right, the advertiser can putthe right buyer on the page, but
(09:44):
you've got to have competitiveproducts in terms of price,
reviews, ratings.
All the imagery used to betop-notch.
What we see in terms of peoplethat have the most success in
general are those that stillhave a good product.
I think that you can't just relyon ads and expect an average
(10:04):
product to become a bestseller.
So I would say, like that's akey factor for success.
And another one is more youknow, operationally, I guess,
like um, just stay in stock.
Those who can always be instock get rewarded by the amazon
the algorithm, for you knowalways having, you know, a
(10:25):
continuous sales velocity andstocking.
So that's a really, reallyimportant factor, which is
always a struggle, I think.
Right, because Amazon is not agreat business for cash flow,
right?
You lay out a lot of money toget inventory and then it takes
you I don't know a couple ofmonths to get that money back,
(10:46):
etc.
So you know that's always achallenge.
So, managing cash, those whocan manage cash flow better and
therefore like remaining stockand time quality products
generally, are the ones thatthat um are more successful got
it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
yeah, it seems like there's certain categories on
Amazon that are just sounbelievably saturated and
commoditized and not a greatspot for potentially a newcomer
to play, but are there stillsome that are out there where
you would get excited about anew business coming to market
(11:24):
within that particular category?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
yeah, absolutely like um, I think you've there's.
Of course there's always onesthat ride like the, the, the
trends of the time, right, stillbeing able to kind of get in
early on a, on a, on a trend fora product or type of product or
category is going to bemeaningful, at least in the
short term.
(11:46):
But you know, there's somethingI want off the top of my head
in terms of the greatopportunity out there right now.
But there's definitelyopportunities and products and
categories that are lesssaturated and are still wide
open.
In many ways, I would say Ithink it goes back to the kind
(12:10):
of you know how you source theproduct is super important and
who you're competing againstwhen you source it.
And obviously, what we see is ageneral shift towards a lot more
like manufacturers, but basedbased in China and Asia, selling
to consumers.
(12:30):
Right so, like that's oncertain categories and products
that's easier for them to doversus not right.
So most of our business is inthe US and North America, but we
also have size one in Europe.
Europe's an interestingopportunity for Amazon because,
mainly through regulation, it'sa little bit more challenging,
(12:52):
right, and there's some goodopportunities there.
Obviously, there's differentlanguages you have to consider.
There's all these newregulations around which many
European Amazon sellers arestruggling with at the moment,
called GPSR, which is basicallyhighlighting providing
(13:15):
instruction manuals and thosesort of things with products.
So I think, if you can getaround, that's a significant
barrier for others.
And actually if you can getaround, that's a significant
barrier for others and actuallyif you manage to get around that
or have those things in placeon your business, then I guess
(13:36):
you can have good opportunitiesin those marketplaces too.
So always worth thinkingoutside of North America too.
Europe is still a significantopportunity as well.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Got it.
Yeah, I think it is interestingto see sort of the mix between
sellers that are on Shopifyversus Amazon, versus both,
depending on the geographicalregion that they're in, as it
seems there some some areas overindex on one more versus the
(14:09):
other yeah, I think that's,that's.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I mean, it's um, I what we what we see at least is
still like return on ad dollarsis still pretty strong on amazon
versus.
You know, ultimately withshopify, you're, you know you're
going to Google or Meta orTikTok or something for
advertising and certainly someof those marketplaces are pretty
(14:34):
developed in terms of income,positive in terms of the
deployment capital, and Amazon,you still see good return.
That's generally what we see.
We tend to see people that kindof are either all in on Amazon
you still see good returns.
Generally, what we see is wetend to see people that are
either all in on Amazon, I guess, or just don't know on the
platform at all.
I think there's this idea thatwith Shopify, of course, you
(15:01):
don't necessarily pay the salescommission.
You go to Amazon and there's abunch of other benefits, right,
but then you have to drive thetraffic to your site yourself,
which can be challenging.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, the closed ecosystem that Amazon offers
pays off in so many ways whetherit's being able to have that
for the advertising side, butalso just the trust that the
customer has when they'realready on the marketplace,
especially if you have thereviews, if you have the Amazon
Prime badge.
There's a sort of a frameworkthere that people are already
(15:36):
comfortable with using andshopping from, whereas with
Shopify you're landing on arandom website that you may have
never heard of before andthere's a higher barrier to
purchase for that person thatyou've gotten to your site
versus if they're already onAmazon, especially depending on
you know the advertising, youknow keywords that you're
bidding on.
If somebody is at that sort oflast step and the intent is
(16:00):
already really high, versusyou're catching them on Facebook
or Instagram or TikTok and moreof a discovery phase, it makes
sense why the conversion ratesand the advertising would be
more effective on Amazon.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, I mean we're seeing quite interesting people
testing it out, at least drivingtraffic from Amazon, I mean
from Shopify, back to theirstore on Amazon just because of
the conversion rate.
You know increasing conversionrate they're seeing because you
know people are just used tobuying on Amazon and they know
they're going to get it superquick with Prime and so forth.
(16:36):
And Amazon loves externaltraffic by reducing those
listings right from things likeShopify.
But then the downside is youknow you obviously pay the
commission to Amazon, et cetera,et cetera.
You don't necessarily get thecustomer details.
So it's a it's a tricky one,but I think um worth testing out
those, those different paths toto conversion and see what
(16:59):
ultimately makes sense Goinginto 2025, what are some of the
things that you're most excitedabout?
Speaker 1 (17:10):
no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, I mean, I think what we're most excited we can,
you know, provide even betterreturn on investment by, you
know, further developing thistechnology ourselves and
incorporating some of the newtechnologies in so that's.
You know, that's often thenumber one concern for sellers
is how do I maximize my ad spend, and the other area is around
(17:57):
um, which we're trying.
We think there's an, there's anopportunity and we think this
this is where sellers wouldbenefit from a system where,
rather than you're interactingwith a typical kind of account
manager, you're actuallyinteracting with an ai that is
highly informed about youraccount.
You can have conversations withit around if you want you know
(18:24):
specifics on certain data ortrends, you can ask it questions
, you can instruct it to dothings.
So this is kind of like we seethis kind of like personal
assistant account manager beingdigitized and being highly
performant and ultimatelyyielding, you know, better
(18:46):
results for the sellers as wellas keeping them more informed.
So this is an area which we'resuper excited for.
This is what we're buildingtowards.
I think, you know, this is kindof agencies 2.0 in many ways,
and I think, in general, amazonis just always churning out also
(19:07):
like new tooling and new coolthings and new ad placements and
all those types of things whichI think are going to benefit
sellers and we hope to be ableto think are going to benefit
sellers and we hope to be ableto offer those products to
sellers too.
So this is kind of like whatwe're building towards and what
we're excited about in 2025.
In terms of the challenges, Ithink I mean, obviously we're
(19:34):
always just fighting thisconstant increase in CPCs.
I think it's getting morecompetitive, so that's just
something that's part of beingin this business.
I would say diversification isstill quite important.
I think you never want to betoo reliant on a single platform
(19:56):
, both from a seller point ofview and also a solutions point
of view.
So this is where I think it'salways wise to make sure you
have some diversification ofyour sales channels.
Yeah, I would say those are themain considerations.
(20:16):
Yeah, I would say those are thekind of main considerations
Overall.
If you look at the kind of inAmazon in particular, if you
just look at the quarterlyearnings and profits and growth,
they're still on a verypositive year-on-year trajectory
of like 20% growth,month-on-month
quarter-on-quarter right, oryear-on-year trajectory of like
(20:37):
20% growth, quarter-on-quarteror year-on-year quarters.
So that just kind of means thatthere's a wave that everyone
can benefit from, I think, asmore people adopt the platform
and ultimately more sales aregoing through it and there's
great opportunity.
So that's very positive, butalso you need to be so that
that's very that's very positive, but also you know you need to
be mindful that it's liketurning into market dominance,
(21:00):
like it's always a bit riskyyeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Um, I got one last question for you, a little bit
less on the actual, like amazonplatform itself, but more on the
on the business side of things.
How do you think aboutbalancing service versus
software and?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
the offering that you're giving your, your clients
um sure so I think our thinkingon this has changed slightly in
the last um year or two.
I would say, um.
Initially we were like 95%software, and I think this was
this is very good from ourbusiness point of view in terms
(21:42):
of like, you know, generallyspeaking software businesses,
you know, lower fixed costs andbetter margins and the economics
of it make a lot of sense andwe certainly have customers that
love that, that uh model, Iguess, the kind of self-service
model.
But what we have seen is thatthere is a decent chunk of
(22:04):
people that want, you know,closer to a white glove service
right, and they want to interactwith a human like and whether
that's like super robustconversation or whether that's
just knowing that you knowthey're being taken care of.
And so we've naturally kind ofum expanded our offering to be
(22:25):
educated towards both types ofof audience.
It's still biased towardssoftware, but I think there's
all you know.
You know, agencies kind ofexist for a reason and they're
very much like a people'sbusiness, just as they're less
results orientated.
It seems, as you know, I wouldsay, in more kind of like
relational relationship buildingand maintaining type of
(22:47):
business.
So, yeah, we we of course wantto want to cater for the
different requirements, um, butI guess our view still on it is
that now, with ai kind of on theincrease and its ability to act
and speak and behave with thehuman means, that we have to
(23:08):
move back into the softwaredirection.
Um, but kind of mimic thathuman behavior, I guess.
Right, and this is this iswhere we're trying to produce a
cutting-edge product in terms ofan AI agency, if you like.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Got it?
No, that makes sense.
Well, I really appreciate youcoming on and sharing all of
your insights, but before we hophere, can you let everyone know
where they can find you onlineand connect with you if they
want to learn more?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Cool, yeah, so probably LinkedIn is probably
the best place.
So just hit me up JunionTimingson LinkedIn and then check out
what's it, autronai, start achat on there and if you're
asked to speak to me, I'll jumpon there and more than happy to
jump on a call with people andanswer their questions and guide
(23:58):
them through what we do and howwe can be helpful.
That's about it.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Awesome.
Well, again, thanks for comingon For everybody listening.
As always, this is BrandonAmoroso.
You can find me atbrandonamorosocom and scalistai.
Thanks for listening and we'llsee you next time.
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast
about using the Gen Z mindset togrow your business.
I'm Gen Z entrepreneur BrandonAmoroso, the former founder of
Electric and now the co-founderof Scaless, and today I'm
talking with Julian Timings,who's the co-founder and CEO at
Altron AI e-commerce adautomation made easy with AI.
Thanks for coming on the show.
(00:22):
Thanks, brandon, excited to behere.
Before we dive into all thingsadvertising, can you give
everybody a quick background onyourself and how you came to
founding this business?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Sure.
So yeah, I'm originally fromthe UK.
I have a fairly technicalbackground.
I did a PhD at CambridgeUniversity in autonomous
vehicles a slightly differentarea than what we're discussing
today, but I think that kind oflike is a bit of the fundamental
grounding, I guess, around someof the approaches that we take.
(01:02):
After that I went in, actuallyworked in F1 for a couple of
years, a big motorsport fan, andthen then I realized that, uh,
you know, entrepreneurship, Ithink, was for me.
So that was when I kind offounded my first business, and
again in a bit of a differentspace, it was in the kind of
cloud kitchen space and thenafter couple of years that
(01:25):
business got acquired and then Iwent on to start actually an
Amazon business and I guess thiswas the first time that I
touched the world of Amazon andI was selling products myself on
Amazon and feeling the pain, Iguess, around advertising and
also realizing the significanceof how important it is to run
(01:49):
ads and how much Amazonthemselves index that in terms
of your performance.
So, feeling that pain on Amazonregarding the ads, I kind of
learned on my technicalbackground and actually built a
solution to run Amazon ads formy business and it wasn't really
(02:10):
intended to necessarily be asolution for everyone.
But I shared it with Sean,who's now my co-founder at
Ultron and he was runningseparately.
He was running a business thathe was running in the US and
(02:31):
shared the software with him andit started to work really well
for his business too.
And then we started to realizethat there's a bit more of a
broader pain point here, thatother sellers could benefit from
this.
So that's when we kind of turnthe software into a, into an
actual sas product, which wecould, um, you know, approach a
(02:52):
little bit differently.
I would say like we don't comeat it from a traditional agency
point of view.
We try to provide like aself-service solution where, but
ultron is the thing doing allthe heavy lifting and, um, yeah,
we've been been running it fora couple of years now, going
really well.
Obviously, you know, it'sunderpinned by pretty
(03:12):
complicated optimization and,more recently, you know the move
forward in AI.
We've obviously beenincorporating those tactics and
skills into what Autron does.
And, yeah, that brings us totoday.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
What business was your Amazon business?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So this was a product selling predominantly
eco-friendly homework.
A bit of a random choice, butyou find the niche and saw the
opportunity and, yeah, thatbusiness is still active today
but also is used somewhat as atesting ground for Autorama.
We try out all the new stuffand so forth.
(03:54):
So, yeah, I think it was, youknow, an interesting,
interesting path.
But now we're super focused onthe Amazon store product for the
sellers and bringers.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I've heard time and time again of companies that are
started out of an existingcompany because you're
addressing some sort of painpoint or problem that you have
with the current business.
I think that's a model thatworks really well.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, I think, fundamentally right, you've got
to address the pain point of thecustomer right, and not
necessarily just come up with anidea of, oh, you think this
would work.
It's about, like, what are thecustomer's needs, like, how can
you address them?
And in our case, right, it'sthe main point.
Pain points are around um, youknow, typically you know
(04:51):
solopreneurs or small smes, youknow they don't necessarily have
the in-house expertise to torun ads right and this, um, this
is where autron can handle that.
Um, you know they have limitedtime.
Again, autron is super automated.
That was one of the key things.
It's about setting high-levelgoals and it goes off and does
everything.
(05:11):
It creates all the campaigns,it manages all the campaigns,
does all the optimization.
So it gives you back, as afounder or entrepreneur, a lot
of time, which is obviouslyimportant, and you can put that
into other other areas of yourbusiness.
And then again, like, and alittle bit on the pricing side,
(05:33):
what we do a little bitdifferent is we try to we we're
highly variable, I guess, whichis different to typical agencies
where there's quite a highupfront cost and what we do is
we start on a really modestmonthly fee as you scale up,
then our fees kind of go up withyour success.
So this is a little bitdifferent.
(05:56):
We try to align ourselves asmuch as possible with success
and not necessarily ad spend,which is typically how others in
this space, like charge brandsand sellers, what are some of
the biggest changes that you'veseen in the Amazon ecosystem
(06:17):
since starting the company totoday?
Yeah, well, I would say for sure, there's a very strong move
towards automation and bots,right, I think, like, at the end
of the day, a little quitesimilar to, to some extent, to
Google AdWords and the way thatwhen it did move in a direction
(06:37):
and we're seeing Amazon movingin a similar direction, where
algorithms are the ones that arein the auctions a lot of the
time, right, and these are theyou know obviously.
You know, as an Amazon seller,you can manually run your ads,
but increasingly we're seeingautomation.
That's Autron, that's others aswell that are in this space.
I always like to give theanalogy towards, like, stock
(06:59):
trading, right, I think therewas a point in time where the
algos kind of took over and sawall those opportunities and
could react instantly to theopportunity in the market.
And Amazon Ads is kind of alittle bit similar where
obviously the bots can beinstant.
(07:19):
They have data flow with almostreal feedback of of what's
happening and to adjustaccordingly.
So that's one of the majortrends that we're seeing right
and I think, generally speaking,you know, in the next couple of
years, I think it's going to be, you know, 80 to 90 percent of
the auctions are going to be umcompeting against other software
(07:43):
solutions.
I would say so that's, I wouldsay, one of the key things.
And then amazon themselves justdeveloping the ads platform
right it's.
It started off relativelyrudimentary and they're plowing
now a lot of uh resource intobuilding the, the ad platform,
up, making, um, you know,different video, different
(08:04):
formats such as video, differentplacements, different other
kind of like solutions to helpbrands manage their data.
So a general maturity, I wouldsay, of the advertising platform
is probably pretty significant.
And then, of course, just onthe seller side, what we see is,
of course, increasingcompetition.
(08:25):
Like month cpc is cost perclicks just on one trajectory
and that's going up right.
So you're constantly justfighting and that's that's.
As more people you know,amazon's obviously trying to get
more and more sellers on boardand and they all want to
advertise and that drives upcost per clicks.
So you kind of can't standstill with the way you're
(08:48):
operating your ads as well,because it's getting
increasingly competitive.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Are there certain types of brands that you're
seeing work well now versusothers?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
um, I think, like um, I mean one of the kind of like
key things for being successfulis.
So, I'd say, on the ad side,like there's, there's two really
important components.
Right, there's um, there's theactual advertising, which is
what, what autron does, but thatthat that's very much in
(09:23):
partnership with, like, thelisting.
If you like the actual product,you're selling.
Right, so you know, because theactual product itself is what
determines ultimately theconversion rate for that sale.
Right, the advertiser can putthe right buyer on the page, but
(09:44):
you've got to have competitiveproducts in terms of price,
reviews, ratings.
All the imagery used to betop-notch.
What we see in terms of peoplethat have the most success in
general are those that stillhave a good product.
I think that you can't just relyon ads and expect an average
(10:04):
product to become a bestseller.
So I would say, like that's akey factor for success.
And another one is more youknow, operationally, I guess,
like um, just stay in stock.
Those who can always be instock get rewarded by the amazon
the algorithm, for you knowalways having, you know, a
(10:25):
continuous sales velocity andstocking.
So that's a really, reallyimportant factor, which is
always a struggle, I think.
Right, because Amazon is not agreat business for cash flow,
right?
You lay out a lot of money toget inventory and then it takes
you I don't know a couple ofmonths to get that money back,
(10:46):
etc.
So you know that's always achallenge.
So, managing cash, those whocan manage cash flow better and
therefore like remaining stockand time quality products
generally, are the ones thatthat um are more successful got
it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
yeah, it seems like there's certain categories on
Amazon that are just sounbelievably saturated and
commoditized and not a greatspot for potentially a newcomer
to play, but are there stillsome that are out there where
you would get excited about anew business coming to market
(11:24):
within that particular category?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
yeah, absolutely like um, I think you've there's.
Of course there's always onesthat ride like the, the, the
trends of the time, right, stillbeing able to kind of get in
early on a, on a, on a trend fora product or type of product or
category is going to bemeaningful, at least in the
short term.
(11:46):
But you know, there's somethingI want off the top of my head
in terms of the greatopportunity out there right now.
But there's definitelyopportunities and products and
categories that are lesssaturated and are still wide
open.
In many ways, I would say Ithink it goes back to the kind
(12:10):
of you know how you source theproduct is super important and
who you're competing againstwhen you source it.
And obviously, what we see is ageneral shift towards a lot more
like manufacturers, but basedbased in China and Asia, selling
to consumers.
(12:30):
Right so, like that's oncertain categories and products
that's easier for them to doversus not right.
So most of our business is inthe US and North America, but we
also have size one in Europe.
Europe's an interestingopportunity for Amazon because,
mainly through regulation, it'sa little bit more challenging,
(12:52):
right, and there's some goodopportunities there.
Obviously, there's differentlanguages you have to consider.
There's all these newregulations around which many
European Amazon sellers arestruggling with at the moment,
called GPSR, which is basicallyhighlighting providing
(13:15):
instruction manuals and thosesort of things with products.
So I think, if you can getaround, that's a significant
barrier for others.
And actually if you can getaround, that's a significant
barrier for others and actuallyif you manage to get around that
or have those things in placeon your business, then I guess
(13:36):
you can have good opportunitiesin those marketplaces too.
So always worth thinkingoutside of North America too.
Europe is still a significantopportunity as well.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Got it.
Yeah, I think it is interestingto see sort of the mix between
sellers that are on Shopifyversus Amazon, versus both,
depending on the geographicalregion that they're in, as it
seems there some some areas overindex on one more versus the
(14:09):
other yeah, I think that's,that's.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I mean, it's um, I what we what we see at least is
still like return on ad dollarsis still pretty strong on amazon
versus.
You know, ultimately withshopify, you're, you know you're
going to Google or Meta orTikTok or something for
advertising and certainly someof those marketplaces are pretty
(14:34):
developed in terms of income,positive in terms of the
deployment capital, and Amazon,you still see good return.
That's generally what we see.
We tend to see people that kindof are either all in on Amazon
you still see good returns.
Generally, what we see is wetend to see people that are
either all in on Amazon, I guess, or just don't know on the
platform at all.
I think there's this idea thatwith Shopify, of course, you
(15:01):
don't necessarily pay the salescommission.
You go to Amazon and there's abunch of other benefits, right,
but then you have to drive thetraffic to your site yourself,
which can be challenging.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, the closed ecosystem that Amazon offers
pays off in so many ways whetherit's being able to have that
for the advertising side, butalso just the trust that the
customer has when they'realready on the marketplace,
especially if you have thereviews, if you have the Amazon
Prime badge.
There's a sort of a frameworkthere that people are already
(15:36):
comfortable with using andshopping from, whereas with
Shopify you're landing on arandom website that you may have
never heard of before andthere's a higher barrier to
purchase for that person thatyou've gotten to your site
versus if they're already onAmazon, especially depending on
you know the advertising, youknow keywords that you're
bidding on.
If somebody is at that sort oflast step and the intent is
(16:00):
already really high, versusyou're catching them on Facebook
or Instagram or TikTok and moreof a discovery phase, it makes
sense why the conversion ratesand the advertising would be
more effective on Amazon.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, I mean we're seeing quite interesting people
testing it out, at least drivingtraffic from Amazon, I mean
from Shopify, back to theirstore on Amazon just because of
the conversion rate.
You know increasing conversionrate they're seeing because you
know people are just used tobuying on Amazon and they know
they're going to get it superquick with Prime and so forth.
(16:36):
And Amazon loves externaltraffic by reducing those
listings right from things likeShopify.
But then the downside is youknow you obviously pay the
commission to Amazon, et cetera,et cetera.
You don't necessarily get thecustomer details.
So it's a it's a tricky one,but I think um worth testing out
those, those different paths toto conversion and see what
(16:59):
ultimately makes sense Goinginto 2025, what are some of the
things that you're most excitedabout?
Speaker 1 (17:10):
no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, I mean, I think what we're most excited we can,
you know, provide even betterreturn on investment by, you
know, further developing thistechnology ourselves and
incorporating some of the newtechnologies in so that's.
You know, that's often thenumber one concern for sellers
is how do I maximize my ad spend, and the other area is around
(17:57):
um, which we're trying.
We think there's an, there's anopportunity and we think this
this is where sellers wouldbenefit from a system where,
rather than you're interactingwith a typical kind of account
manager, you're actuallyinteracting with an ai that is
highly informed about youraccount.
You can have conversations withit around if you want you know
(18:24):
specifics on certain data ortrends, you can ask it questions
, you can instruct it to dothings.
So this is kind of like we seethis kind of like personal
assistant account manager beingdigitized and being highly
performant and ultimatelyyielding, you know, better
(18:46):
results for the sellers as wellas keeping them more informed.
So this is an area which we'resuper excited for.
This is what we're buildingtowards.
I think, you know, this is kindof agencies 2.0 in many ways,
and I think, in general, amazonis just always churning out also
(19:07):
like new tooling and new coolthings and new ad placements and
all those types of things whichI think are going to benefit
sellers and we hope to be ableto think are going to benefit
sellers and we hope to be ableto offer those products to
sellers too.
So this is kind of like whatwe're building towards and what
we're excited about in 2025.
In terms of the challenges, Ithink I mean, obviously we're
(19:34):
always just fighting thisconstant increase in CPCs.
I think it's getting morecompetitive, so that's just
something that's part of beingin this business.
I would say diversification isstill quite important.
I think you never want to betoo reliant on a single platform
(19:56):
, both from a seller point ofview and also a solutions point
of view.
So this is where I think it'salways wise to make sure you
have some diversification ofyour sales channels.
Yeah, I would say those are themain considerations.
(20:16):
Yeah, I would say those are thekind of main considerations
Overall.
If you look at the kind of inAmazon in particular, if you
just look at the quarterlyearnings and profits and growth,
they're still on a verypositive year-on-year trajectory
of like 20% growth,month-on-month
quarter-on-quarter right, oryear-on-year trajectory of like
(20:37):
20% growth, quarter-on-quarteror year-on-year quarters.
So that just kind of means thatthere's a wave that everyone
can benefit from, I think, asmore people adopt the platform
and ultimately more sales aregoing through it and there's
great opportunity.
So that's very positive, butalso you need to be so that
that's very that's very positive, but also you know you need to
be mindful that it's liketurning into market dominance,
(21:00):
like it's always a bit riskyyeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Um, I got one last question for you, a little bit
less on the actual, like amazonplatform itself, but more on the
on the business side of things.
How do you think aboutbalancing service versus
software and?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
the offering that you're giving your, your clients
um sure so I think our thinkingon this has changed slightly in
the last um year or two.
I would say, um.
Initially we were like 95%software, and I think this was
this is very good from ourbusiness point of view in terms
(21:42):
of like, you know, generallyspeaking software businesses,
you know, lower fixed costs andbetter margins and the economics
of it make a lot of sense andwe certainly have customers that
love that, that uh model, Iguess, the kind of self-service
model.
But what we have seen is thatthere is a decent chunk of
(22:04):
people that want, you know,closer to a white glove service
right, and they want to interactwith a human like and whether
that's like super robustconversation or whether that's
just knowing that you knowthey're being taken care of.
And so we've naturally kind ofum expanded our offering to be
(22:25):
educated towards both types ofof audience.
It's still biased towardssoftware, but I think there's
all you know.
You know, agencies kind ofexist for a reason and they're
very much like a people'sbusiness, just as they're less
results orientated.
It seems, as you know, I wouldsay, in more kind of like
relational relationship buildingand maintaining type of
(22:47):
business.
So, yeah, we we of course wantto want to cater for the
different requirements, um, butI guess our view still on it is
that now, with ai kind of on theincrease and its ability to act
and speak and behave with thehuman means, that we have to
(23:08):
move back into the softwaredirection.
Um, but kind of mimic thathuman behavior, I guess.
Right, and this is this iswhere we're trying to produce a
cutting-edge product in terms ofan AI agency, if you like.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Got it?
No, that makes sense.
Well, I really appreciate youcoming on and sharing all of
your insights, but before we hophere, can you let everyone know
where they can find you onlineand connect with you if they
want to learn more?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Cool, yeah, so probably LinkedIn is probably
the best place.
So just hit me up JunionTimingson LinkedIn and then check out
what's it, autronai, start achat on there and if you're
asked to speak to me, I'll jumpon there and more than happy to
jump on a call with people andanswer their questions and guide
(23:58):
them through what we do and howwe can be helpful.
That's about it.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Awesome.
Well, again, thanks for comingon For everybody listening.
As always, this is BrandonAmoroso.
You can find me atbrandonamorosocom and scalistai.
Thanks for listening and we'llsee you next time.
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