Podcast transcript
James Dihardjo
Keith, thank you for staying up what appears to be late looking out that window. To do this with me, I just wanted to hand it straight to you, man, and get you to explain who you are and who is Better World Products.
Keith Hartnett
Yeah. Thanks a lot for having me, James. Great to be here. Yeah, it is, maybe nine o'clock right now here in Montreal. So better World Products is first and foremost, a marketing and advertising agency focused on Amazon. We kind of work with what we call small and sustainable brands on Amazon. You know, brands who have more of a sustainable or impact-oriented approach or small brands, founders. Like a lot of people, we didn't really reject people during the pandemic, so, we kind of focus on that area as well now.
James Dihardjo
Interesting.
Keith Hartnett
We do primarily, creative projects. So the listings, A+, storefronts, and then we do the monthly advertising management PPC.
James Dihardjo
Interesting, interesting. So, you know, I was curious, and I looked at your website obviously before doing this. I noticed the 1% for the Planet and the Conservation Alliance staff. Tell us more about that membership and, and how does that play into the way that you do business?
Keith Hartnett
Yeah, so we've been a member of 1% for the planet, for five years now, I think. So, the way it works is you have business members and nonprofit members, and the business members. We pledge to give 1% of our revenues to environmental causes that are screened by the organization. So, they've kind of got a directory of both businesses and nonprofits there. And so it helps kind of form a culture and a monetary commitment to the purpose that we have which is to increase the market share of sustainable products on Amazon, something that, you know, sorely needed. And so, internally we think a lot about that the same with the Conservation Alliance.
The Conservation Alliance is a member of 1% for the planet. And then kind of how that pours over into cultures. Right now, we're working on something simple but complicated for a fully remote team is how can we all like just plant a tree on the same day of the year all over the world? So, got people in Eastern Europe and the Philippines in India and can we pull this off? And it's just kind of a fun thing we can do.
James Dihardjo
Yeah. Cool. It's actually really cool how you've kind of woven this into your Amazon Agency as you say. It's very cool to see and I'm certainly hoping that you kind of succeed in helping these products gain more market share. They'll be really nice. But kind of appreciate changing gears a bit and going back to your point about being more on the creative project side. Do you want to tell us what's happening in the world of Amazon content at the moment? I know a lot of guys are talking about the A+ premium and stuff like that, but kind of keen to hear your read on the situation.
Keith Hartnett
Oh, I won't hop on the A+ premium too much cause I know you have spoken to it. There's been more information that's kind of come out in terms of how to qualify. It is, you know, 15 unique ASINs and a brand story that you need. And then you get access to like a lot more complex modules and stuff that you have to fit and put together. I think the thing that we talk about most often in that is kind of say since sort of the economic shift this year in the early spring and going into now, PPC costs have risen a lot on the advertising side, and what that means is that the creative side has become a lot more important.
So conversion matters a lot more than it did because advertising has become so expensive and we've kind of seen that cause we play on both sides of this. So even just simple things like working on the title. So we work a lot with experiments, manage experiments at Seller Central and just A/B testing different titles based upon what we're seeing converting in the Ads. The very simple thing that you can do, A/B testing your main image, and stuff like that, whether it's off Amazon with something like Pfu or on Amazon with the experiments. And then of course you can A/B test the A+ content as well. I don't think you can cross A/B test yet. I haven't actually tried that, but it's a great thing to try.
You kind of get the listings to have exposure on an SEO side to different content and you can kind of see what happens. And I've had a good experience with the experiments, some things, especially titles that I think would be poor, somehow do better. And then it's like, okay, well I'll just let the data lead there.
James Dihardjo
Yeah. Cool. All right. Very interesting. Still on the topic of kind of content-ish, Amazon climate pledge badge. Can you tell us a bit about that? I think if a guy asks, it's probably you, right?
Keith Hartnett
Yeah. So we've written a lot about the badge. I've put plenty of content up on LinkedIn as well. It started out with 18 badges. So this is related to Amazon's commitment to the climate pledge, which if I remember correctly, is 100% renewables by 2025 and carbon neutral by 2040. So pretty much like the huge goal. Neither of those things are very easy at all. And then on the marketplace, the climate pledge friendly badge is kind of what's available there. And from what I can tell, I've tried to talk to Amazon and get numbers. They will not give me any numbers on increased clickthrough rates or conversion rates on this. But you actually get a badge in the search results and it's amazing. Like, it's a huge call out that just is like a big advantage.
Normally we would like to add coupons, and try to get strike-throughs to just get a little attention to the listing. But if you've got the badge there, that's huge. They can see what it is. We know of course consumers these days, especially younger ones, appreciate this more and more and they'll look for these types of products. You can also go and you can filter for these types of products now, so you can just filter out everything else. Now we do see like it's very easy in the backend. You just do a support ticket if you don't have it. There's just a little section in the sports section. Say, Hey, we should qualify for this. We can do it. Amazon's got two of their own badges, one for size and weight dimensions, and then one I think for refurbished or renewed products.
And then they started with 18 certifications. They've now got, I think, 35 maybe a little bit more than that constantly onboarding new certifications for carbon neutral certifications, manufacturing certifications around sustainability. There's a humane certification, so like the, I think it's called humane certified. It's like how the supply chain treats the animals. So mostly food related. A lot of textile stuff, blue sign, and a lot of big names there.
James Dihardjo
Interesting. Yeah, I'm learning something new every time I do one of these interviews Keith and I think this is the newest thinking I've got. Final thoughts in the interest of time, Walmart marketplace, is that worth expanding to? Why? Or Why not in your opinion?
Keith Hartnett
Yeah, so, it's an interesting discussion because obviously it's smaller than Amazon, and from what I've seen, the application process is a bit more gated than say Amazon has been over the past 10 years. But I think that is just another further reason to dive into it because the competition is so low, and as the fees go up on Amazon, the fees are not the same on Walmart. They're actually less.
The only thing that you may want to consider is the pricing issues where Amazon and Walmart are constantly shutting down listings if they see the price lower on another one. I don't know if that's legal, but they're doing it. So I mean, I would definitely recommend it. It's like basically a first-mover advantage into Walmart, whereas like you would have to backtrack 10 years on Amazon to get that.
James Dihardjo
Interesting. All right, well we've heard it here first from Keith. Definitely worth exploring Walmart, while the competition is low and the fees are I guess lower. So yeah. Anyway, a good way to round up that, that interview man. And thanks again for staying on, staying up to do this and, yeah, looking forward to seeing you in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks, Keith.
Keith Hartnett
Yeah, definitely looking forward to seeing you there. Thanks a lot again.
