Episode Summary
This Prime Talk Podcast Sponsored by GETIDA – Rachel Hasson – Founder & CEO of #Evolve – talks about the importance of marketing when selling on Amazon, also more information about her life’s journey. #RachelHasson
About Rachel Hasson of Evolve Ad Agency helps Amazon sellers scale and reach new audiences with on and off Amazon strategies proven to convert. Founded in 2019, Evolve agency is a marketing agency that utilizes marketing tactics, branding, and CRO knowledge from eCommerce to maximize sales and profits on Amazon and helps sellers shift from selling products to building brands. I moved to the USA from Israel 6 years ago and started my marketing career in the bedding industry. I founded evolve agency after working for Grant Cardone running ads for several months. I run this agency with an emphasis on giving each client the attention they need to see tangible results in their business. We help our clients get the creatives and materials they need, we consult them and we build with them TOGETHER.
Find the Full Episode Below
Yoni Mazor 0:06
everybody welcome to another episode of prime talk. Today I have a special guest. Today I’m having Rachel Hasson. Rachel is the founder and CEO of evolving, which is an A to z Amazon management agency. So Rachel, welcome to the show.
Rachel Hasson 0:19
Hi. Thank you for having me. Pleasure. Pleasure. So today is gonna Today’s episode is gonna be the story of Rachel Hasson again showed us everything. Where are you? Where are you from? Where were you born? Where’d you grow up? Where’d you go to school? How’d you begin your professional career, station to station until we reach where you are today, especially with the world of E-commerce. So without further ado, let’s jump right into it.
Rachel Hasson 0:42
Okay, so my name is Rachel. I am originally from Israel. And I live in Boca Raton, Florida right now. I moved to America about five years, I came to see, you know, what is this American Dream everybody’s talking about. And I started from the bottom. I had, like, you know, waitressing jobs, and all sorts of jobs. And then I started learning marketing for this local office. We that was selling bedding, you know, pillows, mattresses, and stuff. And I managed their marketing for two years, everything was self-taught. And then I got a job at Grant Cardone’s marketing agency was
Yoni Mazor 1:30
give us a little bit of information Grant Cardone is he’s like some sort of inspirational business entrepreneur. the character that goes around the world explains how, you know, people can change your life and get financial freedom, you know, maybe invest or create businesses and stuff like that, or anything else, you want to expand on no record, don’t
Rachel Hasson 1:49
ya. So he is into real estate, and one of his ventures is in real estate. So he helps people invest. And it’s just, I want to model like someone that you know, gives inspiration, it was very awesome to walk there and kind of like see cocoa with America and see how things are happening on a big scale. It was pretty cool. I got to manage a lot of marketing for a lot of big companies, and brush shoulders with some really interesting people. But I also got to see that you know what corporate America is. And I kind of want it to be outside of that. Okay, so
Yoni Mazor 2:31
let’s talk for a moment. So let’s touch on the good things and the things you do not like so much. And I think that it’s bad. And sometimes people don’t like it as much so so what the good things about that experience, you know, you being important corporate America records on seeing a lot of the marketing that says the good stuff, eventually, interesting stuff, and the good experience that you had. And then what was the other side?
Rachel Hasson 2:50
Good things. It’s fun to work with big teams, you have everything you need at your disposal, widow and neato copywriter, and you get to experience and learn how to walk with other people. And you know how to push and this is something that we as people that came from Israel, we have it’s, you know, in our DNA. So, yes, it’s just too kind of like being a part of something bigger than you, which was pretty awesome. And every morning starts with a smile like there’s a meeting and everyone sees and applause and you know, it’s really like the culture side of it was cool. I felt like I’m a part of something big. So that was
Yoni Mazor 3:33
mainly trying to market what the content or you were working with advertisers, what was your role within
Rachel Hasson 3:39
ads manager was running Facebook ads, and all sorts of marketing for you know, little companies, people need leads, literally, like, you know, a media buyer of sorts.
Yoni Mazor 3:55
Yeah, well, I’m trying to understand Who are you doing this for you to try to market Ramadan in the condor? What was the mission for you guys?
Rachel Hasson 4:05
Grant Cardone had a marketing company with his company can we have a lot of different things going on there it was called the 10x advertising and we were doing marketing exactly like an email marketing agency. And I also helped without the email marketing for his real estate investments, stuff, so
Yoni Mazor 4:27
yeah, very good. So you got a good experience with the Grant Cardone marketing team and you’re doing marketing for other companies and making sure that they get the right exposure on social media and other platforms. By the way, how are you able to get that job because you’re worked before with the manufacturing the pillows and stuff like that? It seems like an interesting twist, where from retail, you’re going to digital marketing.
Rachel Hasson 4:48
I was doing this digital marketing all along for that very company. But I just I started there looking and I you know, I posted my resume and they you know, they Let me cancel an interview and they hired me on the spot. Oh,
Yoni Mazor 5:05
God, because seems like you are already kind of doing something like all the right experience that we are looking for and the boom was correct. It was a natural fit for you and them.
Rachel Hasson 5:12
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Yoni Mazor 5:14
Yes. God Okay, let’s watch the other side we will mention the things you do not feel so comfortable on your site with corporate America, what were those things?
Rachel Hasson 5:23
Well, the nine to five you know, gung ho don’t always say that. He always pushes you to do to be an entrepreneur. So to work for him as like that being an entrepreneur and working for someone else was kind of like, that was getting to me because I was sold into everything he was selling, you know, and I was like, okay, so this is not it. You know, it’s not like the final word. And that’s yeah, so that’s why, eventually, you know, I wanted to do my own thing. And I wanted to evolve.
Yoni Mazor 6:00
So just thanks for saying he did such a good job influencing you. Right, I was just content to say, you know, what people need to be entrepreneurs and do their own thing. And then they need to evolve so well. You got a good experience with his house, right? And then you evolve, which is okay, I think boy doing this and that together, it’s good. Because your balance, you know, what’s, what’s here was there, and you’re very, very experienced. Okay, so what was the next move hard you have? What do you do?
Rachel Hasson 6:24
So I started from scratch. And I was on a lot of like, on three platforms with Fiverr, and Upwork. And, you know, a bunch of them. And I was kind of like, running by myself how to build a business and what, what it requires of me, and, you know, there’s a saying it’s called, burn the boats.
Yoni Mazor 6:47
So, I think that is what it means, but helps you understand that even different from yourself.
Rachel Hasson 6:51
Yeah, so basically, when you don’t have anything to Lena and don’t have a way to, let’s say, you know, save yourself, then you need to put yourself out there and do things that, you know, we might be uncomfortable, like, you know, doing freelancing jobs for $20 apiece or something like that, to, you know, build something of your own. And, and it was, you know, it took a couple of months even. But I and I came with the experience, I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know anything, but it’s a completely different thing, you know, having your own business, and working for someone. So I noticed that I was attracting a lot of Amazon clients. So I just figured, you know, it’s the reverse. And I’m good with Amazon, I managed Amazon in the past for the betting company. So I dived into it and started growing that, and it was about two and a half years ago. And I still have those same clients with me from two and a half years ago, when I
Yoni Mazor 7:57
got so when these Amazon sellers reached out to you, what did you initially want, what did they want for management right away, or did they want a few things. And that evolved into more and more handling
Rachel Hasson 8:06
evolved. So it was about, you know, listing optimization, PPC, all everything that has anything to do with images, content, brand registry. So because I come from the marketing world, it’s it was very easy for me to bring all that knowledge into, if it’s copywriting if it’s, you know, what text, we should put on the listing images, how the storytelling should go. So it was a very natural transition for me. And I was able to help people convert the listings better, because of that marketing side of everything I learned and in the past,
Yoni Mazor 8:46
God, so this conversion started, they said, We want to continue the relationship, it wasn’t like, initially, when they reached out, they wanted you to do something, and then they can continue on their own, or the mission for them a few years ago, let’s get somebody in then go with them forward for many years.
Rachel Hasson 9:02
So you know, and this goes up to everybody’s trying to build the business. So in the beginning, you don’t have a portfolio and everybody wants to see your portfolio, they want to see what you did in the past. And that’s what I built a beautiful portfolio with these people by doing their listings and then advancing to PPC and wanting to do more and more things. And by the end of it, yes, I was taking them for full management. But it took time. So what
Yoni Mazor 9:32
a few weeks for you a few months a year. Well, we
Rachel Hasson 9:35
did the visual customers a few months, you would say like they would reach out when they need something small and then they had a good experience. And then they would come back to me with other you know, other tasks of sorts, and then I would sell and it’s funny because I’m not a salesperson, but when you believe in what you do and when you do it. When you’re good at it, then you have the confidence to kind of like stand behind what you’re saying and it’s not going to be, it’s not going to be like a status speech. And I never said like, I’m not good at selling. But I am good at getting the message across. And I can help and I can do this better than what you have currently. So,
Yoni Mazor 10:14
yeah, sounds like you’re saying you’re not good as you think you’re not good at selling, but you’re very good at working. Alright, that’s kind of the thing, you’re very, very good at working. And the work that you do speaks for itself. Now, I want to talk about PPC, PPC, and also your first job with a pillow company, or so. And so over the years, how would you say PPC evolved? What are the complications or the challenges today, as opposed to before let’s talk about the evolution or evolvement of PPC on Amazon?
Rachel Hasson 10:41
What I see is that PPC carries more weight when it comes to ranking. So it’s something that if in the past, you wouldn’t do completely, or you wouldn’t put your efforts in, you know them today, you need to have a really good strategy and a lot of different types of campaigns and to be on top of it because it keeps evolving. And also, like in the past, if doing like a launch and ranking your product to page one was, you know, the main center today, even if you’re the first, you know, rank number one on the first page, you’re still not top position unless you’re top position with PPC. So it’s very important to know how to work. The PPC aspect is one of the organic ranking aspects of things.
Yoni Mazor 11:31
So let me understand you’re saying that even though organically, you’re ranked number one, you’re ranked number one, and the problem is above you, there’s a bunch of all the sponsored ads, so you have to bid high enough to be really at the top. That’s everything. Got it? Okay, so what about the price, or the cost of PPC advertising on Amazon in the past three to five years? What do you see? Is it going up is it going down, and what was the other
Rachel Hasson 11:53
goes up, it depends on the strategy that you want to do. If you’re in the launch phase of the product, then you’re going to have to spend a lot of money and not be profitable, in most cases, right. Um, also, like I have, like this rule of thumb, where one campaign, the coils are meaning like 30 bucks a day. That’s like, that’s my rule of thumb. So naturally, the spelling is big, because I would want to have at least five, six different types of campaigns for the product. And, you know, if you have more relations, and you have different products, then you need to have a lot of buying power, you know like it’s a war. It’s a bidding war. So
Yoni Mazor 12:37
So what’s the strategy for you’re saying, you want for each product have what five to six campaigns, each campaign will have $30 That’s, you know, 234 $100 a day on a single product. So what’s the strategy there? How does that how does it play out? What’s gonna work what’s supposed to happen in this war on this battlefield, if we’re talking strategy.
Rachel Hasson 12:56
So there are different types of campaigns like those campaigns you set up to protect your listings, you can sell target your products to, you know, your product appears, and then all the ads around it for your like your product or your product, it all depends on the nature of the product, then you can target different agents, you can target categories like it’s all about testing. And this is something in Amazon and outside of Amazon, it’s very important to do, it’s a part of marketing, which also became a very big part of being a seller on Amazon is to, you know, test out different marketing strategies like today, Tik Tok is very powerful. And it’s just about being on top of everything. And for example, Tik Tok is a brand new social media network that you need to be on there and kind of like understand how you can use tik tok to scale your Amazon business. So it’s not only PPC, but it is like different strategies, different types of campaigns, automatic product targeting display, targeting zero, and like, you just need to try everything and see what works for your brand.
Yoni Mazor 14:04
And after you kind of see what works, what’s, what’s the strategy, they’re just sub bidding higher, higher, more and more or wanted to find out that’s not the work you’re kind of pushing, pushing the spend to see where we plateau. What’s the strategy there?
Rachel Hasson 14:20
Well, it’s right, you need to remember to look at your account and the A-class and your ROI for the entire account, not just what happens in PPC, you need to always know what part of sales is coming from PPC and what part of yourself is organic. And you need to make sure that month after month, you’re improving your matrix, and you’re on top of your data, not just running PPC blindly. So I don’t know how that answers your question.
Yoni Mazor 14:50
So you’re saying it’s fine. So you’re saying that you know, once you’re successful with advertising, then it starts to plateau. That’s fine. That’s cool. But you also have to internally into the listing itself, make sure it’s also fully optimized and updated. So the conversion rate is okay. We can also discuss the balance between, you know, driving traffic and your listing with PPC, because you can be at a higher and spend a lot. But how does the actual listing, performing convert? What’s the conversion rate 1% 8% from you know, for every 100 sellers, that I mean, consumers are the hit the page, if it’s a percentage of them will make a purchase. So you track your monitor that are that you that we recommend sellers to do.
Rachel Hasson 15:28
Yes, absolutely. Like, you need to look at everything from the accounting standpoint, but you also need to look at it from your listing standpoint. You always need to see, well, you can improve and, and troubleshoot. For example, I am right now doing a complaint about winter clothing.
Rachel Hasson 15:48
And this listing, it has a lot of reviews, it has like 400 reviews, it was selling great last winter, but you know, it’s been summer and this listing was doormen. So right now a year passed, and I didn’t manage this account until last year I came in now. So I’m finding myself troubleshooting means that I will look into the indexing of the keywords, I will look into the titles, the images, everything, everything needs to be re-evaluated.
Rachel Hasson 16:15
And you see it in PPC. Well, we launched a few campaigns, and we got zero sales for it for like, which does not make sense. Because last year, this product was killing it, you know. So it’s a process, you need to know what you’re doing, you need to get in there and look at the data and say, Okay, if the PPC is not converting, then it means that people are seeing the main image and the price and they’re, they’re not clicking, for example. Yes. So there are a bunch of things that you can troubleshoot to find what’s wrong, and how to get this listing to sell again, that’s
Yoni Mazor 16:48
okay. I think one of those components might be competition, you look around to see that maybe the competition may be trying to sell this item for $80. But all the market is at 30 or $40. So you’re more than double the price. Because the market conditions change. Maybe there has Overstock, right, they want to get rid of it, or maybe they’re able to source in a better pricing component. Got it. Very, very cool. Okay, so this is on the advertising within Amazon with all the PPC, you also recommend or focus on advertising outside and bring traffic outside of Amazon into Amazon.
Rachel Hasson 17:20
Yeah, but a lot of them will be at anyone that’s trying to do this, you need to remember that if you send a bunch of traffic to a listing, that does not convert, it will hurt you. So I do recommend always have this landing page in between or many chats, you know, conversation or like another pillar in the middle, then people need to convert from also it will help you collect data, you know, kinda
Yoni Mazor 17:50
work. Explain to me this is I’m not too familiar with this, to be honest. So explain to me how this all works this whole structure if you can?
Rachel Hasson 17:56
Well, it depends like for every company and every product is going to be different. But for example, right now, tick tock is very hard. So to get that type of content nailed. I also like it’s important to have UGC content. UGC, what’s that user-generated content, I recommend a website, it’s called below that app. Below, it’s bi, l dot HPP. We use it constantly all the time, you can get a Vita for your Amazon listing for like 60 bucks. It’s cool.
Rachel Hasson 18:33
You ship your product, and real people review your item. They just create content for you. And that’s the best type of content right now, you also have the option to upgrade and get some text on that without also remembering that anything you do, you need to think about how people you have a few seconds to catch their attention. And then the text needs to be big enough for people to read. Okay. So that’s very important with everything, everything you do with Amazon or in marketing in general.
Yoni Mazor 19:06
Yeah, I call it a touch and go away. When they touch it, they know where to go, and they’re good to go. But hold on. So you’re saying I just try to create the flow here to the incentive for instead of I’m an Amazon seller, so I go to Tik Tok. There’s a video that I can post there, right with my account, right with my tic tock account. And that video, I could go to build below that app and they can create it for me even. So its UGC is user-generated content. And that video goes there and what people will click it and what happens
Rachel Hasson 19:35
So you can have a landing page or if you have your website, but you know if you want people to buy off of Amazon, it needs to be you know, a one-pager that will spit out
Yoni Mazor 19:45
a landing page image or we can make one simple scenario. I know they can go many ways but let’s try to make one of the classic ones right? So you make a landing page and the landing page. What do they see? What’s the experience for them there?
Rachel Hasson 19:56
They’re gonna see an offer like a valuable offer. percentage off or, you know, not the amount of
Yoni Mazor 20:04
A jacket. You mentioned a jacket from last year that you’re working on now, right? So this is a jacket over there to see more images and see more like creative there or no or it’s more like this is your offer or what’s the feeling or experience for them, like,
Rachel Hasson 20:15
I would want to send them into something that looks like a self-service page like it will be it will look like you know, it will be very, very clear to them that the next step will be Amazon. It can look just like you know, okay, we selling this needs to be we’re selling this on Amazon. So
Yoni Mazor 20:34
it’s almost like a product listing if you want it you know, it’s available on Amazon
Rachel Hasson 20:39
even make the page look you know, similar to an Amazon page with color scheme and stuff. So it’s gonna be a smooth transition and the won’t be a lot of friction, you know, I’m not every product fits. Tick tock tick tock is for young people. And you also need to be on top of the trends in tick tock like, you know, there’s for example, right now there’s like a robotic sound going on there. What do robotics sound like what’s that? I don’t know how to explain it.
Yoni Mazor 21:12
But it’s, it’s,
Rachel Hasson 21:13
it’s if you go to Google and you type a sentence to Google translate, translate, and then you click on the audio and there’s like a robotic sound like a woman. Right? So it’s like a trend right now.
Rachel Hasson 21:25
To make a video with robotic sound, so whoever speaking the video sounds like it was Google or Alexa or something robotic.
Rachel Hasson 21:32
And like, the purpose of all of this is to make your content look like completely organic content, like not sales whatsoever. Product focus, but just something that blends into your other Tik Tok. You know,
Yoni Mazor 21:49
videos, videos, and what you call Real Reels is what the Facebook one or no short videos short content is okay. So let’s go back to the landing page. They click it they claim the offer and what do they go, what happens? They go to Amazon URL is ever simple, regular URL of your listing.
Rachel Hasson 22:10
Now you can use an attribution URL from the rentals. And there’s also that new link that gives you I think, like a percentage, bad percent,
Yoni Mazor 22:19
I think it’s yeah, 10% back from Amazon selling for you so far. So let’s say you sell your product, let’s say for 15, an Amazon supposed to charge your 15% Selling fee, you’ll get 10% back, so you only be charged profits now, which is I think it’s amazing. It’s incredible because Amazon recognizes the ability of these brands to bring traffic from outside and invest in content, all they need to do to bring traffic to Amazon, which converts when Amazon loves those that are willing to reward the seller. So that’s a huge benefit. I think sellers should use it too, especially if you’re just bringing traffic outside of Amazon if you’re doing it anyway. Might as well be great. Jerry joined the program that Amazon has dedicated URL with attribution, and enjoy the benefits grant. Sorry. No, you’re
Rachel Hasson 23:01
Right. Absolutely. And also, you know, a lot of times we tried running Facebook ads to Amazon listings, and most of the time it’s not amazing, and it’s very expensive. But for Tik Tok right now, because it’s something new. It’s super cheap compared to Facebook, you know, it’s like cents it’s a penny to get traffic, right. So regardless of Amazon, even if you have like your website, tests, tik tok, it’s very, it’s very good right now, in my opinion,
Yoni Mazor 23:32
So tik tok is organic, posting video reels, or this is paid, you’re
Rachel Hasson 23:38
just paid like I didn’t see any of building it organically until now, because it works well just to run ads on it, you know, but of course, I mean, every like you would want to have some organic content and you need to have a workflow in your operations to keep generating content like below, for example, they have subscriptions, so you can get 356 10 videos a month and keep circulating them you know, put them in your Amazon listings, you can put several videos in your Amazon listing, you don’t need to put the one you know, you can put
Yoni Mazor 24:13
one video tic tok which is a landing page you can have this see another one or two videos in the boom on Amazon to see another one or two videos so you have a collection of we have a library of videos that will kind of try to provide a different experience or an enhanced experience for the consumers or more of shopping for it. So that’s a cool advantage to have the platform like below the app to be to give you that library that you need and has the experience.
Rachel Hasson 24:40
Also, you can have videos on your Amazon storefront you can add videos to your listing video shots you know like on the bottom, and you can answer q&a questions with a video. So today, like everything is going more and more towards videos, you know, like I wouldn’t be surprised if we can just On one main image in a series of videos,
Yoni Mazor 25:03
you know, yeah videos give a lot so much ambiance and mindset and this influences a lot busy all the TV commercials back in the day, I’ve been all been democratized and you can have so many great solutions to give you a library of, of these high-grade level content pieces and keep providing an interesting experience for your target audience. Okay, so we turned to PPC, we thought content through social media many Tik Tok into Amazon is on any other more marketing techniques that you the diffuser advisor at this point, or this is like, that’s fine, but not necessarily the ones that use maybe just that, you know, our recommendation is more like magazines, advertising, magazines, creating blog articles, or editor, stuff like that.
Yoni Mazor 25:55
Because we did have a show of some people who were in those domains, they’re providing solutions or domains. One of them I believe was called sell the rocket and how to sell the rocket. So basically, the seller marketer, if you’re not, maybe you can take this, they can also see the episode that they had. So it’s a subscription, you can subscribe to them. And they will generate a lot of written content for you. Right, like, let’s say you, you’re trying to, you know, have real people are believing then they can create real content for you. Let’s say your product is for mommies, right, it’s for babies, or children and stuff like that.
Yoni Mazor 26:30
So you’re gonna need probably content that will be created and put on all these blog posts of Hamam is how to use this product, or maybe the blog posts will say, five tips on how to get your attention of your children. The first is that it says, Oh, this article was sponsored or generated by this brand. And this brand, if you want to know more, click here, boom. And then we’ll take them over to a landing page. And the landing page, you kind of learn what’s going on, maybe have a nice offer, boom, you convert stuff like that, through content, through experience through value, you kind of provide content that’s valuable for consumers out there. And you can do it on many publishing platforms.
Yoni Mazor 27:09
And then you can also attribute all the traffic to Amazon, when they make the purchase that is as much as I understood from speaking to sell a rocket and you can check out their episode. I just do anybody listening to it. Yeah. So that’s one more technique that I kind of saw that’s out there. It’s old school, but it’s a new school because that’s how the internet when it was kind of first coming, you know, to live and, and websites and SEO people wanted to consumers to buy in the website. So how do you get traffic to your website, of course, you had Google advertising, but you know, links through links and all this traffic. And usually, the thing that is gonna get people the most is good content, like, Oh, this is great, this is helpful.
Yoni Mazor 27:48
This is something I appreciate it was behind this was Oh, there’s more content, I can learn here, go there, oh, actually have some solutions, or they have some products. So that kind of experience brought them, to generate sales. And then Amazon came in and swallowed all the money from the other website. So it’s hard to make money on your website. So you got to calibrate the whole machinery again, to instead of sending it to your website, you send them to Amazon, and hopefully, explode from there because it’s so much money and intent of consumers to buy and trust. You know, the trust system with Amazon is so huge, so, so large. Okay, so no more, you want to know more marketing tips on that.
Rachel Hasson 28:27
I will say one thing in this industry, there’s a lot of like shiny objects, marketing as in gentleman like influencer marketing, and those, like a lot of places that you can put your money to use, you know, I worked with companies very big, really small. Usually, influencer marketing wasn’t that successful. I can say that.
Rachel Hasson 28:52
But what did work for us, in many cases was to use YouTube influencers, not Instagram influencers or any other network, but YouTube influencers, that basically what they do is is affiliation, right, they are looking for products that sell well and to you know, to get their commission out of it. So you can just go to YouTube and search. Like if you say, for example, baby items, then you can say, best baby items, MZ or Amazon or something like that. And it will pull up people like a woman that what they do is review these items and link them to the bottom. I assume most of us know how affiliate links look you can test the links, you can see that they take you to Amazon listings and that’s how you know the person is that’s what they do. So I don’t recommend reaching out to these people. It will take time, you’re probably not going to get responses so fast. So I would get maybe a VA to do it constantly. So again, it’s
Yoni Mazor 29:54
A virtual assistant, the VA is constantly on a focus and mission to keep touching them reaching out to them very nicely of course until you get a breakthrough. And over time, you just build those relationships.
Rachel Hasson 30:03
And I suggest you can throw in an additional offer on top of what they make from Amazon. If you offer to multiply that, which is not a lot of money, right, they get a few percentage, very little perc
