Mastering Amazon & E - Commerce Growth with AI with Jaron Seijffers

Andy Splichal:

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Make Each Click Count podcast. I'm your host, Andy Splichal. And today we have a phenomenal guest who's with the cutting edge of e commerce innovation. Joining us is Jeron Cyphers, the visionary product director and in house e commerce guru at Nugata. With over 20 years of experience, Jeron has been helping giants like Walmart, Colgate, Duracell, and Taylormate unlock full potential of their data and outpace their competition using groundbreaking AI strategies. In addition, Jaron is pioneering the next couple of e commerce solutions by fusing artificial intelligence, large language models, and machine learning to drive omni channel success. So whether you're a data scientist knee deep in analytics, a marketing director strategizing your next move, or leading an e commerce team eager for growth, the episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss. So grab your notepads because this episode is going to be good.

Andy Splichal:

All right, welcome to the show. Jerome.

Jeron Cyphers:

Matt, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Andy Splichal:

All right, well, let's start by telling us about your journey in e commerce and how you became the product director in Nugata.

Jeron Cyphers:

Yeah, sure. So that's actually a fun story that started when I was very young, right? So I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, so you could say it's in my blog. I remember I started selling things when I was six, and I remember, like, around 2000, I told my family, you know, in ten years, everybody's gonna buy most of the stuff online. And everybody thought that I'm crazy. But, you know, maybe it didn't take ten years, but it was 15. But we did get there, right? Like, today, I think most of the sales are happening online, especially in the US. Like, a ton of things are happening online, and it's really a space that's interesting. So, over the years, I've worked in a range of industries, from fintech to ad tech, but I always wanted to go back to optimizing the sales process with data.

Jeron Cyphers:

And that was why joining Nogata was just the logical next step. Right. To work in the intersection of e commerce and AI and data. It's just too interesting to pass up.

Andy Splichal:

So that's now AI and machine learning. I mean, that's what's hot. I mean, everybody's talking about it. How can you use it to improve your business, to grow your sales? How is Nugata leveraging these technologies to help businesses grow and gain market share?

Jeron Cyphers:

Yeah. So everybody talks about AI, everybody talks about machine learning, but very few people really understand what happens under the hood. Most of the people shouldn't care. And that's why platforms like Nugata, what we do is we take all of those capabilities from machine learning and AI models to accelerate and scale the growth of your brand. And we do that by highlighting what's most important for you and the team to work on. When you log into Nogada, the first thing you see is an overview of your portfolio that you can customize in any way you want, that highlights you which areas of your portfolio require the most urgent help. And when you drill down, it gives you actionable recommendations on how to mitigate problem or even shows you lucrative opportunities that you can use to jumpstart or grow your current performance.

Andy Splichal:

And for those that don't know, what is Nagada, what services are they offering for the clients?

Jeron Cyphers:

Yeah. So Nogada is an e commerce, I would say an e commerce solution that basically has an AI brain, and the AI brain powers assistance. And that's what Nogata delivers to your listeners, right? It gives you a sales assistant, gives you a research assistant, it gives you a digital shelf overview tool. It helps you with assortment intelligence. All of those things are like the core what we offer to sellers.

Andy Splichal:

Now, you work with Amazon stores. Do you work with people selling on their own website as well?

Jeron Cyphers:

We actually have some customers that sell on their own website, but they also sell on Amazon. And even though right now we're mainly focused on Amazon, doing d, two c and other web platforms is definitely something that we have on our roadmap. But already today, when you look at, you know, content, when you look at assortment, when you look at how consumers search, what consumers are willing to pay. Amazon is the biggest search product search platform in the world, or at least in the US. And when you understand how consumers search and what they're searching for and what they're willing to pay, you can use that in your DTC as well.

Andy Splichal:

So what kind of insights is the AI helping with the customers? I mean, what are they given? Are they helping with the product descriptions, finding the product? I mean, what's all the stuff that the AI is doing?

Jeron Cyphers:

So let me just give you a journey, right? So when you, as a new customer join Ogata, you connect your Amazon store to us. Our AI analyzes your portfolio and it segments it in different spaces. So each space contains different products that belong together. And one of the things most sellers we know hate is needing to build a market. We have all the data on Amazon and we match your products with your most direct competitors automatically. So each space contains all of your products and all of your competitor products. So once we do that, it basically enables you to instantly understand how am I doing versus my competition. And then from an insights perspective, where is my competition winning and I'm not.

Jeron Cyphers:

Which keywords are my competitors pushing on? Right? Like maybe you have several strong keywords that you were always ranking highly on the, and suddenly we can tell you, well, these competitors are now actively bidding on these keywords and it's causing you organic rank. And by understanding all of that data in one big bot, we can really show you not just on which products you need to focus, but also on which keywords you need to focus and on which pricing you need to focus and even what assortment you need to focus on.

Andy Splichal:

What about the product listings? Do you guys work with the product listings for clients?

Jeron Cyphers:

Of course, the way it works, when you build the space, we see all the search terms that drive traffic to that space. And then we take the search terms that are most popular, we take your current title and then we use machine learning models to automatically adjust your listing. So your title, your about your description, your backend keywords to rank for as much of the volume in that space as possible based on the Amazon restrictions.

Andy Splichal:

And what kind of results have clients been seeing using this AI model?

Jeron Cyphers:

So we've seen really big growth in organic ranking, we've seen a huge increase in margins. I mean there's something we didn't touch upon yet, but I'd love to talk about that as well. It's like assortment planning and getting that range. But already with optimizing listings we see an increase in ten to 20% of your organic traffic within several weeks of, you know, optimizing your content.

Andy Splichal:

And what kind of jump do you see on like the paid ads?

Jeron Cyphers:

Well, the paid ads, you're talking about sponsored listings. No, no, for sure. But I'm. Cause it's mainly, it's not about what improvement you see there, it's more about where do you have opportunities. So one of the things we really notice is when you are advertising in search terms, where you're priced too high or price too low, you're not maximizing your potential. So we understand that if you have a $20 product, advertising in $11 search term is going to be very expensive in the long term because you're not getting the organic support that you need to continue running ads on that search term. So what we see when you start using the Nogada platform, it aligns your advertising much better to where you have a right to win. So with the same budget, you'd be able to stretch it better, especially looking at offensive advertising in the right places and long tail keywords that you might have missed.

Andy Splichal:

How important are the different kind of ads? Does the sponsor, product, sponsored brand display? How do they support the organic listings?

Jeron Cyphers:

So what we see is that ultimately what really pushes the organic rankings is sponsored product like display. It's not good to try to build a name, but ultimately what most helps our customers grow is product listings, sponsored product. Even when you look at display right in the SIM, in the Amazon page, in the PDP, it's one of the least efficient placements. And one discussion we often have with people, it's like, well, I had a ten x growth in the impressions but my sales went down like the first thing. Always tell them, well, probably you should look at where you're being displayed and most of them are going to be in PDP's, which is not going to be effective, it's not going to help you. People already decided what they want to buy and you're just going to be like a small nuisance in the middle. So yeah, we really believe in sponsored product and search results.

Andy Splichal:

Now, on your website and on the Nagata website, you cover the concept of digital shelf performance. And I found that fascinating. What is digital shelf performance? And how can companies diagnose issues and make improvement?

Jeron Cyphers:

So the digital shelf is basically the same as the shelf in the supermarket, but then digitally. So when you look, when you walk in the island for your Walmart, you see lots of different products. So the digital shelf online changes way faster than it does in the supermarket. And it's also way more long and way more deep. There's a lot more products and it's really important as a brand to be aware of what's your size of the shelf. Right. And using the digital shelf tools as a company, you can really understand the total market is x. I have this small percentage of x and these are my main competitors.

Jeron Cyphers:

And then how much are they spending on ads? How much brand awareness do each one of these have? What's each brand doing with pricing? How much are they promoting there? Like what's their discounts? So the digital shelf tools give you like a 360 view of you and your competition and highlight where you have the opportunities, you know, either to run promotions, to do discounts, or to create new products.

Andy Splichal:

I guess. What are some of the examples of those opportunities? I mean, you talked about the promotions or that, I mean, is it giving you, you're not showing this keyword, but your competitors are. I mean, how you know, I mean, how much, how clear is it when it comes out? Is it like, do this first, do this second, do this third? I mean, I know that seems like you can really get overwhelmed as a client.

Jeron Cyphers:

No, definitely. I really, really appreciate that question. So that's what we have the research assistant for. So many of our customers are not really using the digital shelf dashboards anymore. They go into the research assistant. So you ask a question, you get an answer, such as, what are the keywords I need to optimize for my campaigns? You click the button, you get a list of keywords, like, where are my competitors winning? And I'm not. You click a question, you get the keyword, where am I losing? Organic rank. You click a question, you get the keywords, and it also gives you all the additional information you need to take action.

Jeron Cyphers:

Right. So if you're losing organic rank and you see your sponsor results went down a lot in that specific week, you can understand you need to increase your ads. But if you see competitors are running more aggressive promotions, you understand it's more of a pricing issue. So, yeah, very simple.

Andy Splichal:

Now, one of the other issues, I mean, if you're making a lot of changes, especially, is how do you keep track of what change might have moved the needle? And so I guess, how at Nugata do you address that on this increase in business, this increase of sales is due to this change.

Jeron Cyphers:

So that's a fantastic question. So, basically touches on two different topics. The first topic is collaboration. Right. Because even if you realize something's wrong, you're not always the person who needs to make the changes. And the other hand, once you make the changes, you also need to keep track of the changes. We have an task management tool inside of Nogata where you simply add tasks that you want the team to do. And these tasks are linked to products.

Jeron Cyphers:

When you create a task, you connect the product with the task and it goes into the task manager board. Once it's done, it stays in the board. And when you click on it, you go back to the view where you initially started from when you made the decision to make a change. So you can see, did that change actually impact the metrics that I wanted to impact? On the other hand, the research assistant allows you to create like a simple, standardized report that updates every week. Once you have it, you give it a name, for example, new campaign. And you see every week what is the impact of the new campaign? Did it increase my ranking for specific keywords? Did it increase my overall share in the market? Yeah, that's about it.

Andy Splichal:

So, yeah, it seems like they do a ton of great stuff that's going to help sellers grow, but there's gotta be a big learning curve with all this. How does that work? When a new client comes in, how do they learn how to best use the nugata system?

Jeron Cyphers:

Yeah, so that's also an excellent question. We actually have a CSM team that helps you onboard on the platform, even though I must say with the last few months, we really doubled down on the research assistant. Really makes it a lot more simple for people to use the tool. But even then we have a lot of interactions with new customers. You get a really good onboarding process for several weeks to make sure you and the team really know how to use the tool. And whenever you have questions, there's always somebody there to give you guidance and direction.

Andy Splichal:

Now, what sort of knowledge do you need to have, especially with ads? I know for our clients here at true online presence, we'll take on some clients, and a lot of times maybe they're just running sponsored product ads that are automated. Everything's automated and they haven't done sponsored brand. They don't really know what it is. What kind of level of knowledge do you need to get the most out of nugato?

Jeron Cyphers:

To run the campaigns on Amazon? You need to know how to run campaigns on Amazon. But what we see that a lot of our customers are actually doing is they have these reports and they work with their agencies to actually guide the agency in the direction that they want to win in. Right. Because ultimately the agency does their best to maximize the Roas or the Akos. But sometimes as a customer, you want to go into a market where you might not have the best Roas or Akos, but you know, it's simply the right thing to do. So, for example, we have assortment intelligence that helps you understand exactly the attributes that consumers are looking to buy. And once you select a specific product with the right attributes, it also shows you all the search terms that you need to focus on to get your product ranked for those attributes. That's something you can then go to your agency, or if you know how to run campaigns yourself, do it on Amazon and it really lowers the time you need to set up things the right way.

Andy Splichal:

Interesting. Now that brings me to my next question. I guess I'd be curious how many of your clients are running the campaigns themselves? They're doing it all in house. And how many use an outside agency like true online presence to run their Amazon campaigns.

Jeron Cyphers:

So, hey, we have a lot of agencies who are our customers. So I don't know from that perspective, they all run their ads, but they do it for many of their customers. On the other hand, most of our big CPG customers are using agencies like, there is only a limited number of people that run their own ads that use Nogata.

Andy Splichal:

And how big should a client, I mean, how does your fee structure work where it makes sense for somebody to use your software? How much should they be spending? How much should they be selling per month? I mean, what's the story?

Jeron Cyphers:

Yeah, so we say to really use the tool in the most efficient way and get the most benefit from it, you would need to sell around $5 million on Amazon a year. Right. Whether it's through you or if you're an agency, whether it's through your customers. So if you sell less than that, our fees might be more on the higher side. We like to be the small thing you barely notice. That gives you big results.

Andy Splichal:

So how does the fee structure? Because most e commerce companies on Amazon are doing $5 million. Let's say they're doing 50, $60,000 a month. Would it be better than to go with an agency who's using Ugada or how. I mean, where would they go?

Jeron Cyphers:

So I would say if you're selling $50,000 a month, you would probably be better suited to go with an agency that uses Nogada, such as true online presence. But if you sell upwards of 2 million, it might be interesting to talk with us. It depends on the number of products that you have. So we have a starter package that starts at $2,000 a month. And as you add more asins and more brands, everything goes up.

Andy Splichal:

Got it. And, I mean, you had mentioned the starter package. Is your fees based on how much you're selling, or is it based on skus or what determines how much you're charging?

Jeron Cyphers:

It's based on skus. Like, we don't take part of your revenue.

Andy Splichal:

Well, this has been great. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up today?

Jeron Cyphers:

No. I mean, the only thing I want to say is, if you're selling on Amazon, you probably noticed that selling became more difficult, ads became more expensive, and being data driven and scaling your business the right way is the way to go. So if you're in our ICP, feel free to reach out to me, either on LinkedIn, maybe Andy can you can link it under the show notes or just go to nugara.com and book a meeting.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, that's great. We'll absolutely put that in the show notes.

Jeron Cyphers:

Fantastic.

Andy Splichal:

Well, thanks for joining us today.

Jeron Cyphers:

Jaron thank you, Andy. That was really lovely.

Andy Splichal:

All right, well, for the listeners, remember, if you like this episode, please go to Apple Podcast and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking to connect with Jeron or Nugata, you'll find the links. I'll put them in the show notes below. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our podcast resource center, available at podcast dot make each clickcount.com. we have compiled all of our different past guests by show topic and included each of the contact information in case you would like any information on previous episodes. Well, that's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing, and I'll talk to you in the next episode.