Is it the end for Amazon Hacks?

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Anthony Lee joins to discuss Amazon hacks, what is legitimate and what isn’t and their use.

The Public ask “What is working now” is the regular demand question that people ask.
When there’s nothing ‘new’ they lose interest
Event organisers are always looking for short-cuts or loopholes
Educate people that Marketing Fundamentals haven’t changed much
You CAN always discover new things that Amazon rolls out and how to utilise that individual new feature
BUT everyone is looking for the silver bullet that makes everything work
When Anthony gives feedback that is exact same thing since his 2014 advice

The Amazon Marketing Fundamentals

Optimizing your listing, turning on sponsored product ads and then running promotions on specific keywords to improve keyword ranking – THAT IS HOW PEOPLE DO IT! Simple as!
This hasn’t changed since Anthony’s 2014 advice
Anthony does work with a company that does Amazon ranking so could be biased- but Danny points out that you don’t need to do ONLY Amazon promotion
You don’t need to do all three of those at all
Plenty of big brands prove that you don’t need optimized listings
Plenty of people out there that don’t do sponsored product ads or PPC of any kind
Not a requirement to DO promotions
But those are the three fundamental things that successful sellers do
While some of the rules are tweaked a bit, these fundamentals have not changed
The big players are not doing any NEW things that have turned these rules on their head

Turning on the Lightning Deal is not an Amazon hack
Opening multiple Browser windows and firing off to setup multiple Lightning Deals is a Hack (Liran’s show in Seller Session 017 talks of this)
You can turn on as many as you want IF YOU HAVE VARIATIONS if you don’t then this isn’t true

Once you’ve covered:
- Listing optimization
- Copywriting
- PPC
- AMS
Then it’s changes to protocols and updates that Amazon does to cover
A lot of Internet Marketers wheel out the same info but charge an arm and a leg for – even old info
Make sure they are an expert and trust them and beware of marketing speak if you’re paying for info
If someone tries to give you a magic bullet then don’t trust it – there isn’t one
We’ve had the same Sellers on the same show and they have given consistent information together
Anthony tries to stay away from people that talk about loopholes – they come and they go
Some people try and make their whole business about the loopholes – always be aware of the ToS as no loophole is worth losing your account for

Launch services that are against ToS but are still around years later
Amazon makes their ToS vague so they can do broad sweeping attacks when they make policy changes
Amazon made these ToS to be interpreted on purpose
People who work at Amazon don’t know what Amazon’s intention was in the ToS
Anthony can only share his interpretation of the ToS in operating their service
They correspond with Amazon support and escalate
Anthony was able to confirm through their own research that Amazon were looking to stop certain black hat attacks manipulating BSR through false sales
People were gaming the system by having upto 150 Buyer accounts and buy upto 4 units from Sellers to inflate Rank
Amazon made it pretty clear that this is what they were trying to squash
They didn’t want us to give out too many units to the same buyer
Essentially this is what it appeared they were looking at

Amazon are clear that they don’t want you manipulating rank but they don’t say Keyword Rank or anything about URL – because this is not a problem they are having
The algorithm can deal with URL and Keyword ranking – as we’ve seen with some URL ‘hacks’ not working anymore
A legitimate and good launch service facilitates legitimate sales from real buyers, with real accounts, with real money (not free giveaways) real sales with Amazon getting their fee, pick and packers paid, referrals made
Amazon freely allows this to affect Rank
They sent a clear message when they created the storefront URL and it powerfully affects ranking
They painted the picture that promotions are cool – it brings more customers to the website and spending money and customers are enjoying getting discounted products
And Amazon are getting paid
And customer experience is not being manipulated because if your product doesn’t’ get organic sales then it doesn’t rank and your listing doesn’t stick around
Amazon knows this and it’s a win/win for Sellers to make use of all the tools Amazon puts out to us

Floods of webinars on Amazon Hacks and people getting tired of it
Anthony wants to say fatigue is kicking in but is constantly surprised by how well substanceless webinars are being attended and are doing well

There is no magic bullet – there are hacks/loopholes found through experienced sellers uncovering it or accidentally stumbled upon by non-experts
9 times out of 10 these hacks will help you little by little, just like following the good marketing fundamentals will help little by little
Never going to be a cliff-edge and a massive leap to make you rich – a lot of experts sell it that way but it’s right
Good marketing fundamentals, keep your ear to the ground for the new things that come up so you can use them
Inch your way across the finish line and stop waiting for the finish line to come to you
95% of what we need to do is locked in and are the protocols that we follow for success
5% of new small things come up but they come and go and don’t last, like 5,000 chars in your backend don’t work anymore, or using the full phrase doesn’t work anymore
These are attached to fundamentals so how you take these actions it shifts a little bit – you have to experiment and A/B test to see what works for you