Dec 27, 2023
In this insightful episode of Seller Sessions, Danny McMillan welcomes Elizabeth Greene, an Amazon advertising expert and co-founder of JUNGLR. They delve into the dynamic world of Amazon advertising, discussing the platform's latest changes and what they mean for sellers looking to scale their businesses. From exploring the nuances of PPC strategies to the evolving role of AI in Amazon's ecosystem, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to stay ahead in the competitive world of Amazon.
Danny McMillan expands on this by discussing the evolution of Amazon's search matching system. He explains that Amazon initially used a lexical matching system where single words were indexed. Over time, this evolved into semantic matching, which considers the context of the words, and further advanced with the introduction of BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers). BERT enhances the understanding of language, allowing for more human-like interpretations of search queries.
Despite these advancements, Danny points out a significant concern: the search results pages on Amazon are increasingly populated with ads. This heavy ad presence pushes down organic search results, potentially conflicting with Amazon's goal of delivering the most relevant search results. Danny questions whether there might be a shift in focus to increase relevance in search results around ads, as Amazon's primary goal is to ensure a great search experience, regardless of whether they come from organic search results or paid ads.
He also speculates about the future of Amazon's approach to handling the balance between ad-driven and organically relevant search results. He acknowledges that while there are certain limitations on what keywords can be targeted in ads, the control largely lies with advertisers who are paying for ad placements. This creates a dynamic where the relevance of search results could be at odds with paid ads in terms of overall relevance. Danny suggests that this might lead to customer frustration if they don't receive the level of relevant search results and ponders how Amazon will address this issue going forward… If indeed they will, as this is a massive profit center for them.
This episode of Seller Sessions with Elizabeth Greene offers valuable insights into the current trends and future directions of Amazon's advertising landscape. Whether you're a new seller or looking to scale your existing business, understanding these dynamics is crucial for success on the platform.