This episode emphasizes two critical areas for ecommerce success: strategically navigating MAP pricing to protect your margins and hyper-targeting your advertising campaigns. Learn how to identify profitable customer segments, optimize ad spend with granular targeting parameters like demographics and geography, and leverage negative keywords to eliminate wasted ad spend. The episode provides actionable advice on maximizing your ROI through smart pricing and advertising strategies.
Key takeaways
For MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) policies, evaluate if the vendor relationship and profitability justify adhering to them; consider workarounds like free shipping or coupons if direct price competition is restricted.
Niche down your advertising campaigns by targeting specific demographics (age, sex, income) and geographies (states) to reach the most profitable customer segments and improve ROI.
Analyze shopping behavior patterns, such as time of day and day of week, to optimize ad scheduling and budget allocation for peak performance.
Implement negative keyword lists in your advertising campaigns to prevent ads from showing for irrelevant searches, thereby reducing wasted ad spend on unqualified leads.
Dynamically adjust your advertising budget based on campaign performance, allocating more spend to profitable sectors and reducing investment in underperforming ones.
Today’s podcast focuses on niching down your audience, but first a listener question. Tyler asks, “If you can share experience with MAP pricing?” If you would like to ask Ecom Crew a question head over to our contact form or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook. Grant says MAP pricing was used on Treadmill.com. MAP pricing is the minimum advertised price, and it is an agreement between vendors and sellers stipulating the lowest price the item can be advertised at. Some even argue whether MAP pricing is legal or not. Our experience was that we abided by it. The decision to use MAP really comes down to the vendor and seller relationship. If you aren’t making any money, you may want to reconsider your strategy. Mike says that MAP pricing can make things really tough if you are selling on MAP, but others aren’t. There are some ways to work around it such as free shipping or coupons, but we prefer not to have to deal with MAP pricing if we don’t have to. Niching down ad campaigns is a topic that came up in Mike’s mastermind group. Ecom Crew has really been ramping up our advertising campaigns. Mike was sharing advertising campaigns with the group, and the advice is to niche down to a smaller audience. Campaigns can be targeted by state, sex, age, and income this really focuses on who the customer is. Likewise, Grant feels that finding a profitable sector in any paid advertising is the way to go. It’s common for people to shop in the mornings between 8 am and 10 am. Monday is a good shopping day as opposed to Friday. People from states with higher incomes often buy higher priced items. It pays to modify the spending budget to focus on profitable sectors and lower the budget on unprofitable sectors. Negative keyword lists are a great way to avoid wasting money and not paying for tire-kickers. <span sty
What does this episode say about paid acquisition?
For MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) policies, evaluate if the vendor relationship and profitability justify adhering to them; consider workarounds like free shipping or coupons if direct price competition is restricted.
What does this episode say about finance & fundraising?
Niche down your advertising campaigns by targeting specific demographics (age, sex, income) and geographies (states) to reach the most profitable customer segments and improve ROI.
What does this episode say about analytics & attribution?
Analyze shopping behavior patterns, such as time of day and day of week, to optimize ad scheduling and budget allocation for peak performance.
What does this episode say about founder & leadership?
Implement negative keyword lists in your advertising campaigns to prevent ads from showing for irrelevant searches, thereby reducing wasted ad spend on unqualified leads.
What does this episode say about paid acquisition?
Dynamically adjust your advertising budget based on campaign performance, allocating more spend to profitable sectors and reducing investment in underperforming ones.
