The best digital marketing campaigns start with a great product.

Time and time again I have seen a great product overcome small budgets, little brand awareness, and competitive markets. On the other hand, a crummy product (or one that does not have the messaging around it clear), even with gobs of cash to promote it, will struggle to scale. Eventually the money runs out.

Selling to people who have not raised their hand to say ‘hey, I might want to buy your stuff’ allows you to scale a business, and your advertising, far beyond what you could if you only rely on retargeting and cookies.

Impulse = a sudden strong desire to act. A car. A house. A stick of gum. Every purchase comes down to a moment where someone decides to act. The sales cycle of how long it might take someone to act depends on the product, but it also depends on the person.

I once sold a digital advertising program to an auto dealer for $25,000 in about ten minutes. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I have retargeted a group of readers to purchase a book over 15 times to get 11% of them to eventually purchase. A $15 book…

Treating every purchase as an impulse buy clarifies what digital advertising is all about: nearly unlimited chances to persuade, to meet consumers at the right time, with the right message, creating an impulse. A desire to act.

Most A/B tests are a waste of time because the incremental, small changes are not enough to have a noticable difference in results. Plus, I don’t trust the results from one test. Don’t believe me? Run an A/B test in META or with an email subject line sent to your list BUT don’t change a thing between the ads or subject lines. Use the exact same copy. I am willing to bet you will have a “winning” ad or subject line, even though you didn’t change a thing.

The purchase funnel, if you want to call it that, is more complicated than a person seeing a subject line for the first time and making a decision.

Did you know that over 50% of product research now starts on Amazon. What about TikTok and GenZ? Most kids today start a product search (or do research on a product) on TikTok, not Google.

Don’t get me wrong, Google Shopping Ads (at least until Google rolls those up into Performance Max, too) can be incredible effective and profitable. In fact, some of the best ROI campaigns I have ever run on Google have been Shopping Ads. As profitable as they can be, Amazon Ads are still more efficient. Here’s my theory:

Intent. Google is a place to, primarily, learn something. That’s why top searches always start with ‘who, what, how, why, etc.). It’s search that allows you to shop. Amazon is shopping that allows you to search. Big distinction. Amazon also makes it incredibly easy, by design, to buy stuff. One click ordering. Prime delivery. Price discounts.

Amazon ads are more efficient that Google Shopping because they make it easier to buy. Yes, adding payment method into your Shopify site is hurting conversions (as compared to selling on Amazon). Tons of benefits of owning that data and sales channel (no doubt) but, still, Amazon is more efficient.

Through running thousands of Amazon ad campaigns, I can confidently say that until you have at least the above metrics tied to the product page, do not waste your time advertising your product (if you are using Amazon ads to drive sales with a profitable ACOS and high ROAS).

Social proof, aside from maybe price, is the single most important element of a product listing on Amazon. The best product doesn’t sell the most units on Amazon, it’s the products with the most reviews.

All of the KPIs you are likely to use to track your campaigns will improve when you have tons of positive social proof. Especially when you are selling something that is experiential. Say a book. A vacation. A spa treatment. If I go to Amazon to buy duct tape, aside from it being a pretty low involvement purchase, there is really only so much variation I can expect with tape. Does it stick? Does it work? Reviews will answer that for me. A product that is more experiential comes with TONS of questions because your expectations of what it is is not quantifiable in physical form. Social proof helps answer your questions and, most importantly, overcomes your objections.

Make sure you have social proof tied to your products before you advertise them.

I’ve written thousands of bullet points across hundreds of products ranging from self-help books to outdoor campaign equipment. Instead of listing product features (and maybe even benefits if you really want to optimize), translates features, benefits, and what those things mean to the person considering the purchase.

The “which means” portion of this formula is the most important. Paint a picture. Explicitly tell the customer what this means for them (ideally in the sense of wealth, health, love, or personal fullfillment).

With the tremendous amount of message dissemination, it is nearly impossible to know what tweak made the biggest difference.

We do not live in a world where everyone sees the same message, at the same time. We all encounter brands and products multiple times, on different platforms, at different places along a purchase journey. Attributing one copy or headline change does not work in absolutes. Surely it gives direction but not to the degree it once did.

See for yourself. Try split testing (A/B testing if you prefer) an email subject line. Randomly split the email list in equal parts but keep the same subject line. You’ll likely find one subject line “outperformed” the other, even though they are exactly the same. Regardless, the sender field is far more important to open rates.