AI Agents Are Replacing Marketers – Here’s What You Need to Know...

AI Agents Are Replacing Marketers – Here’s What You Need to Know... Speaker 2: Advertising is changing fast, but not in the way most marketers think. It's not about better prompts or faster output anymore. Agentic AI is here and it doesn't just support your work, it makes decisions for you. In this episode, Kashif Zafar breaks down how autonomous AI agents are running full campaigns and rewriting What it means to be a marketer and wait until you hear what he has to say about what's going on behind the scenes. You won't look at your ad budget the same way again. Our guest is the CEO of, I told him I would not get his name wrong, Exnerda. I hope that's right. An agentic AI powered ads platform trusted by thousands of brands and agencies, including Lenovo, Govee, and Anchor. Prior to Exnerda, Kashif was the EVP of Orca Pacific, an Amazon agency which eventually sold to MediaMonks, where he also served as an EVP. So we're gonna be welcoming Kashif Zafar in just a second. So this episode is brought to you by Levanta eComTent, Sophie Marketing Misfits, StartScale, ExitRepeat and the FlatWorld Network. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy this episode and welcome Kashif. Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Norm. Great to be here. Good to meet you, man. Speaker 2: Now, this is a hot topic. People are talking about AI agents and we talk to a lot of people just about AI in general and then when you start talking to them about agents, all of a sudden They love, like a lot of people love to take notes and love to listen, but you know, they don't take action or they don't hire somebody to take action because they think it's confusing and it's hard. And we got to get around that because if you're not taking this type of action, you're going to be left so far behind just from six months ago. I can't believe the amount of changes that's happening everywhere in the world. Kevin and I were on a podcast yesterday and we were talking with a guy in retail and just in six months, the differences that they've seen in retail and where it's going. So I'm glad you're on today. We got a lot to go over. Speaker 1: It's definitely exciting time, especially in the world of AI, AI innovation, a lot of buzzwords around what is AI agents? How do we really apply that in the space of eCommerce and retail media? I know I've been talking about a lot here at Externa. It's very much we're trying to help with some of that education, but also that adoption. So no, I think let's kind of dive into it. I think it'd be great. Speaker 2: So first of all, and this is a beginner newbie question, but for people who don't know and that don't want to put it into the question box because they think it's a rookie question, what is agentic AI? Speaker 1: It's a great question. So I'll kind of take a step back and just say A lot of us are very familiar with ChatGPT, right? Where you are sitting there and starting to, people are starting to use that more, go in and putting, asking questions or having a conversation with the chatbot. That's really going back and forth and providing you input and answers, right? And so that's, that's been exciting. That's been really great to see some adoption there where we could start having some conversations going back and forth. AI agents is not bad, right? So everyone's kind of used to the model of ChatGP now. What AI agents is, it's really an agent that acts on your behalf. So it's not a conversation that you go back and forth like ChatGPT. It doesn't just respond to you. You can give an AI agent an action to conduct. And so you could prompt an agent to go and run a monthly business review for you or a quarterly business review or a weekly business review. So you can task it with something. And ask it to do something. Then the agent will observe, decide, and then actually execute on that task. So it's very different than what I think traditionally what we've all been kind of accustomed to, used to, which is with the ChatGPT. It's a conversation. An agent is almost like a digital team member. It's actually taking a task that you would do normally, like you and I would do. You know, I've been in the seat of running Amazon media for a brand and instead of me going in and running a monthly report or a weekly report, for example, an agent could go do that for you. You could prompt it and say, hey, I want to run a report where I want to pull all of my sponsored ads data for the last 60 days. I want to be able to really look at ROAS and ACOS and you know, you give it a specific task and it just goes and runs it. It will actually go and it won't ask you many questions back and forth. It will start going and running that task for you and looking through and connecting to the APIs and pulling that for you. So I think that's where I would say Norm, taking a step back, if I had to kind of explain the difference between like ChatGPT versus an agent. An agent is really something that's going to help you take a lot of those mundane tasks. It can actually execute tasks for you that you are asking it to do. That's really more of like a, think of it, I think the best way is as a digital teammate. So instead of you having to do that yourself or a teammate digitally running reports for hours and pulling data, this agent can go in and do that for you. Speaker 2: The other nice thing about this is they don't run independently. Like you can have, you know, a hub with whatever, like for press releases, for example, you can have the researcher, you can have the writer, you can have the editor or senior editor, and then you can have the distribution network. And they all work together to come up with the best product, which is fantastic. Speaker 1: I think that's a great way of looking at it as anything. I think there's also this general fear of, you know, will AI agents replace me? Will AI innovation replace me as a human? And I think Norm, you nailed it on the head that you have, if you think about it as a team, right? You're a digital team or you're at a company, you have all these different roles, right? You have people in different seats and ultimately everyone's got a task. Really what this agent is, it's not going to replace you as a person, but it helps facilitate a lot of those mundane tasks. It helps facilitate a lot of that pulling the data aspects of it. So then as a team member, you can translate that. You can look at what the data is saying. You can put your human touch on it, depending on if you're in the seat of, let's say, an advertising manager versus a brand manager versus a content person, right? I think that's the way that we're seeing it when we're talking to our clients as well. It's like, it's really kind of an extension of your team, this digital teammate, and it's really, you know, another piece of the puzzle for your overall as your team when you think about that. Speaker 2: So why should sellers care? Speaker 1: Great question. Well, I think if you think about it, there's been, if I think of it, if I'm a brand or seller on Amazon or Walmart, We all know how competitive that landscape is. Very competitive, right? Everyone's on there. Dollars are very precious. You're spending media dollars to drive traffic to your brand store, to your product detail page. It's become so competitive and even as a brand and seller, you're not going to have unlimited budget. The kind of the innovation of AI and AI agents really allows you to really do a lot of the like manual tasks and bid optimization and campaign optimization. It really allows you to leverage technology to do that. Perfect example is we're about to go into like Prime Day, right? Four days of an Amazon Prime Day as a seller. You're trying to reach your audience. You're trying to Figure out the times of the days, days of the week, during those four days that you want to really advertise. How do you capture the audience? When are they shopping? What are those bid adjustments, right? Like, think about in the old days, I was in that seat where I was having to work the entire, you know, Turkey 12 now, or like now on Prime Day, where you're sitting there in a war room and you're having to look at these different levers and, oh, do I need to do a bid optimization? The reason why as a brand or seller you want to care about using AI is now you can have AI do that. You can set parameters. You can let the AI agent or AI co-pilot really go in and You do that heavy lifting for you, to do that bid optimization, to do that date parting, time parting, to really do some of those keyword harvesting. And so I think as a brand and seller, you're going to fall really behind if you don't because your competition is doing that. But just from an optimal point of view, Norm, you know, you're thinking about saving 40% of your time, potentially 40, 50% of your time, leveraging AI to do some of that heavy lifting. So that's why that's important. You're in and more and more brands and sellers are adopting it and it's really kind of accelerating. In addition, you see Amazon, for example, and Walmart focusing so much on AI, right? We see that in their quarterly reports where they mentioned the word AI so many times, your generative AI and even with some of their own agents or their own AI tools that they're offering now for sellers to really kind of embrace it. So it's become almost critical. It's not a buzzword anymore that, hey, I need to think about this. It's become very critical to implement this, to stay relevant and stay competitive, to be frank there. Speaker 2: I wanna give an example, and this is gonna end up in a long-winded question, okay? So sit back and grab your coffee. But when I take a look at this, there's been so many times we've mentioned this on the podcast that a lot of Amazon sellers don't understand Amazon. And it's probably better for them to go out and get somebody, get an agency that knows how to navigate all the different areas of Amazon. But here's starts the question. Okay, so sit back, still sit back. There are 3600 Amazon agencies, mostly bad, mostly bad, mostly failed Amazon sellers. You know, so instead of, you know, building their own product or brand, they go and they start an agency. I would say that's the high majority. So, is this the same when you're building out an agent? So, you can try to do it yourself and you'll probably suck at doing it because you're not building it properly or you don't understand the whole concept properly. Then you go to find an agency because there's a million of them, probably just as many, you know, Amazon agent or AI agencies out there right now as there are Amazon agencies. So, is it that important? So, there's the battle of the AI agents. So, I just went with this agency. Now, I've got to compete with this agency and this agency. Aren't the AI agents just going to be battling against themselves or are they defined by the person putting it together? That's the question. Speaker 1: I think that's what we're seeing is like, Norm, I think we're so early in the days of agents, AI agents are being developed. I think we're seeing an acceleration of how those agents can really become a game changer for a brand or seller, for example. It's still very early days, right? So I think what we're going to see is the agents, especially the AI agents at Gentex, where there are really thinking about it from a sense of time saving and execution where it does the logic for you. It actually does. So like, for example, this AI reporting agent that we recently released, it's the goal of that AI agent, reporting agent was You know, take away the responsibility for you as a brand or seller to really do the deep dive in terms of where should I do my keyword optimization? Where should I look at what my, what is the data doing, right? What is the data showing in terms of trends and what is the data showing in terms of campaigns that perform well, right? So this agent's very specific niche to a seller on Amazon. It's very specific where the agent goes itself and connects to the sponsored ads API and all the various APIs that Amazon has. It pulls this information over. And so that, and really it's meant to really save you a lot of time where you don't have to do that for yourself. And then there's agents and AI co-pilots, which will actually, like I mentioned earlier, go out and do the bidding for you, the optimization for you. So I think Norm, when I think about the world of AI, AI agents, co-pilots, all this stuff around innovation, around AI, It's really going to be the ones that are smart, that are going to really help you in terms of the true impact and time savings and efficiency for you, performance on your campaigns, you know, targeting new customers and new to brand customers. And so I think that's where, Norm, like even if you think about the space where I came from, where I came from the space the last 10 years of Amazon agents, agencies, right? Just different agencies working with brands. You have some good agencies, you have some bad agencies. And so really it becomes ultimately which one of these agents are gonna be the ones that really kind of propel to the top that make a difference. Which are the ones that really understand me as a seller, my pain points, which is the ones that can really highlight the data points that really gonna help me make decisions. So that's the way I kind of look at it. It's like really kind of look at the agency world and now when we think of AI agents, it's very similar. There's gonna be a lot of people developing them. But the ones I think are going to win are the ones that are really making a difference in your day-to-day. And I think that's going to be, that's an open field right now. Absolute open field right now in terms of the ones that are out there and the ones that are being developed as we speak. Speaker 2: It would be great if you can give us some simple examples of how AI agents are developed. Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this this is where a lot of my product team nerds out on this right so you're taking You're you're in what's been kind of cool about how even agents works. You take a step back. It's really understanding the workflow So if I'm a brand or seller on Amazon What are all the pieces today that I'm doing when it comes to, you know, campaign optimization, when it comes to really looking to, you know, get the most out of your budget, when you think about launching a new product, and when you think about like all of these different aspects that we have workflows for as a brand or seller. So the idea really is around agents and what we've done here in edX Nerda is really put ourselves in that workflow. Whiteboard it. Whiteboard the workflow. What is that workflow for an advertising manager? What is that workflow in essence for a brand or seller? What are all the pieces they need to do? And in that, when you identify the workflows, there's so many steps that need to happen. There's so many tasks that need to happen. And so it's really then taking out and looking at how we can take advantage of the development and AI innovation and take advantage of machine language learning to now automate that. So what can we do to convert that manual task into really our own agentic workflow? So I think really that's where, when you think about it from a standpoint of how do you actually create these agents, it's as simple as that, Norm. You just look at what is the current workflow process and what are those pieces that you feel like you can automate, that you can make a little bit easier for everyone to do so, and then build around that. And then you have the, you know, the developers are, you know, developing that. They're going deep into the innovation of coding and AI and really then replicating those workflows through that. So, you know, they're using all different kind of tools and platforms for it. But I think what's important, Norman, is when you think about developing these agents to really kind of look at it from that lens of literally look at the workflow today and how you can improve that workflow is really kind of the most important thing to look at. Speaker 2: I love systems so I deal with workflows and a lot of people when they're learning about just building out a straight process or SOP, the workflow, even that visualization has to be there for the team and if it's not there, there's going to be a break. And like you said, it's incredible how many steps, if you want to do a proper workflow, how many steps there are. And if you can't visualize it, how are you going to tell, you know, that agent what's to be done? So if anybody, if you haven't done this, if you haven't done the work, Go out, check out how to build that workflow. Try to do it. Try to visualize it. We talked a few times on the podcast before about training and Michael Gerber's E-Myth Academy. Talking about the entrepreneurial rollercoaster where the entrepreneur is passionate. He tries, he gets overworked. He tries to bring in an assistant. The assistant can never do as good as him because he's not properly trained. He takes it over and he hires another assistant. And this is the exact, exact same thing. You could be passionate about a product, but if you don't have the proper training or workflow, how the hell do you expect it to work at its optimal abilities? The next thing I want to talk about might sound pretty simple. But let's talk about the difference between like general and specialized applications. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's that's really kind of relevant to this topic that we're talking about. So I think the general really kind of what we're talking about here is really kind of what I mentioned earlier, where a lot of what we're talking about in terms of just, you know, ChatGPT, for example, very much built as a general application. You want to you want to really use that to get more high level information. It's really meant for a wide range of uses or use cases. It's really meant for you to kind of get more of a broader scope of things in terms of just information. Like, hey, you know, tell me generally when I'm in a category at Amazon in the toy category, you know, what are those top general things I need to look at? What are the things that, what are those high level keywords, for example? So I think there's that generalization that is kind of nice to get at a broader scope, right? And tools like ChatGPT are really good for that. Specialized applications are very much designed for specific like more what I'll call getting deeper dive into what you're trying to accomplish a specific task or more deep insights in one particular area. It's a more of a powerful tool. So for example, like I was mentioning earlier, Like our AI reporting agent for Amazon ads is very specific. Now, you're able to now connect to the Sponsored Ads and Sponsored Products API with Amazon, ask very specific questions and very specific inputs around retail media, around ROAS, around trends, around what does performance look like. That's very specific. It's going into the weeds. That agent, for example, is catered towards giving you a very niche and very specific inputs for what you're looking for compared to more of the general broader strokes like we do. So that's why oftentimes when I'm kind of explaining this to people, that's why we use the example of ChatGPT versus like an AI agent because that's where the ChatGPT is more general and with specific applications you get more into that. So I think we're seeing that a lot, Norm, in the space of retail media, right? We're getting away from, you know, there's a generalization of like, hey, create me even with generative AI, right? Give me, create some text for me or images with me with this type of product and really just, you know, just general images that can leverage your gen AI. That will allow me to use those, for example, my product detail pages, but then you have other platforms and more specific where you can go really more into the weeds in terms of lifestyle imagery and really what you want to do with that specific in that example image. Or like I said in retail media, the advent of specialized apps will allow you to optimize your ad spend specifically for sponsored products or for DSP. So I think that's where We see the differences between more of the general and specific. But specific is really where you're gonna win, right? That's where these agents are being built. That's where it makes sense for your day-to-day. And that's where I think you're gonna see a lot more acceleration around specialized applications in this industry. Speaker 2: I guess when you're taking a look at Amazon right now, we hear a lot about Cosmo and we hear a lot about Rufus. What are some areas that Amazon is using AI in that a lot of sellers might not understand or we don't know? Like maybe it's serving up individual personalized titles. But what are some other areas that they're using AI in? Speaker 1: That's a good question. I think as we've seen, Amazon has been putting a lot of emphasis on AI and really just even they've developed their own AI enabled features on the platform for brands and sellers to take advantage of. For both, from two ways. Consumer point of view and from a shopping experience, how you can leverage AI to make that customer journey and your search for products and buying products easier, but even from a seller point of view to arm you with more AI features to really kind of optimize how you sell and how you really address that to your consumer base. I think with Amazon, they're really rolling this out kind of on a larger scale, right? I think it's very telling. Even last week, Andy Jassy, to a memo to their entire staff, really kind of talked about that Gen AI is like a once-in-a-lifetime technology. It's really reshaping kind of every corner of Amazon from shopping to supply chain and that there's over a thousand Gen AI services already in development. Including both internal and external in Amazon. That speaks a lot of volumes, right? So we know with Alexa, there's a smarter system that not only answers questions, but it takes complex actions on behalf of the shopper. We know that. We know that there's from a standpoint of even Amazon's marketing cloud, Which is really allowing a user to look at your full brand, to look at all of your data when it comes to when you're spending on Amazon from advertising, that Amazon has developed more AI around that to make it easier to really understand all of those data points and really look at your Performance was sponsored as DSP, not in a silo, but holistically. So I think retailers like Amazon and retailers like Walmart are really embracing AI from both the selling as a brand on the platform, but also then from a consumer point of view, where you can make it easier in terms of leveraging AI and really look at shopper's behavior. What are those trends? What are those you know, even from a standpoint of what you need to buy when you're running out of stock. And so I think they fully embraced it. I know Andy Jassy in that memo to their employees has really kind of highlighted about that, that AI agents is now the next frontier, that he envisions billions of agents that are going to continue to grow. This is going to be really kind of the rise of agents and it's going to be very important for innovation efficiencies going forward. And even like companies like Walmart and Amazon, you're going to see more and more of this being a requirement to implement internally for their teams. Amazon's all in, Walmart's all in. We talk about that with our teams very much and so I think you're gonna see just a really rapid acceleration of the AI adoption within those companies like Amazon and Walmart. Speaker 2: Okay, so we're at the bottom of the hour and we do something differently at the top of the hour and that's called the Wheel of Calcium. We give away a prize. So if you're new to the podcast, how do you enter? It's hashtag wheel of Kelsey, take two people and you'll get a second entry. What do we have today for a giveaway? Well, actually it's for next week, but today. Speaker 1: So I know talking to Kelsey, we're pretty excited right now as a giveaway. We are happy to work with a brand or seller on Amazon and do a full audit of their Amazon campaigns and what's working, what's not working, make recommendations, leveraging AI, helping them understand how you get a foot in the door as an AI. So we are pretty excited to offer that for anyone that is interested to really be able for us to kind of take a look and really do a free audit and also make some recommendations that they could actually implement really quickly. So that's what we are able to kind of offer today. Speaker 2: Oh, that's fantastic. So in case you haven't been watching the last few podcasts, we change it up a little bit. Our giveaway is actually for today will be from last week. And this giveaway will be next week. And the way you enter is hashtag Wheel of Kelsey, tag two people. And if you miss it, you'll see it in our newsletter. So you can enter through the newsletter as well. And then we'll draw for next week. Let's go over to a sponsor and then we'll come right back. Hey, Amazon sellers. If you've listened to the Lunch With Norm podcast over the years, you've probably heard me talk about FlatWorld Network and some of the services that we use to help brands find and maintain serious growth. Well, if your sales have plateaued or you feel like your listings just aren't converting, you're not alone. I've built a proven system over the years to help sellers increase conversion and unlock more sales. I'm going to be giving away a free audit to show you exactly what's wrong with your listing and how you can improve it. In fact, I'm going to be completely transparent and I'm going to let you know the good, the bad, and the ugly. So if you can handle the truth and you want to scale, hit the link in the description or go to flatworldnetwork.com and grab your free audit today. Unknown Speaker: It looks like we lost Norm. Speaker 2: Oh no. Speaker 1: I was worried this whole time it would be me. Unknown Speaker: Well, we'll see what's happening with him. Kashif, where do you think the AI agents are going to be, say, in six months to a year from now? Speaker 1: Yeah, great question, Kelsey. I think this is where it's exciting. I think we're seeing, I think it's going to accelerate quickly, Kelsey. I think what we're going to do is to start seeing really cool applications of AI agents where very much in a world where people, I think there's an appetite to test and learn these agents. So I think six months from now, if I fast forward to it, even when I think about our roadmap, you know, right now it's like looking at the crawl, walk, run, right? Where can I start with the automation of workflows? Maybe, for example, in retail media sponsored ads, but really quickly expand that to DSP and AMC and look at the other eCommerce pieces as a brand and seller. So I think over the next six months, Kelsey, it's going to be, you're going to see more of these agents come. I still think it's very early days. It's going to take, you know, a good six to 18 months to really see some really good agents that are really going to make an impact and difference. But you're going to hear a lot. You're going to hear a lot in the market about AI agents and new agents, and everyone's going to try to come out with their own version of it. So stay tuned. I think you'll see the explosion of the word AI agent. Everyone's going to continue to really, take advantage of that the buzzword and let's see what the real-life applications are. I'm also a fan of it. So I want to see what that means not only in the space of retail media and Amazon and Walmart, but even just generally in our day-to-day life as an online consumer. So I think we're just going to hear a lot more and start hearing a little bit more use cases out there. Unknown Speaker: And being practical, say you're an Amazon seller, you're totally new to AI, you're focused on your Amazon business right now. What are some practical use cases or how should someone get started with agents? Because to a lot of sellers, this is overwhelming. This is just another thing to work in to their strategy and if it's worth their time. Where would you say they could start with to get a feel for what an AI agent can do? Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, what I just think about as this brand and seller, it can be very overwhelming. But Kelsey, this is what excites me. If I'm a brand and seller, and it was like 10 years ago, I used to always worry about competing with lack of resources. I don't have enough team members. I don't have enough budget. I'm not one of those bigger brands that I can do all of these tests and learns like a lot of those can do. What's exciting about this phase and with AI is in many ways it's leveling the playing field. Where you can now really quickly implement AI. You can do it with your sponsored ads. If I was a brand or seller, Kelsey, that's where I would start. I would look at my set of products or ASINs and try out AI on sponsored ads and really look at the lift. Do it over a period of 30 to 60 days. Do it for a subset of ASINs. Do it for a subset of budget. I think the barrier for entry is now very easy when you talk about AI and AI adoption. And so the biggest thing I encourage is just try it. Find a tool, find an agency, right? Whoever it is, but don't be scared to try it because the results will speak for itself. The results will be, you'll see them in the first 30 or 60 days. So do a free trial, do a test, but really look at maybe a set of your products that you want to try and do a test and learn. I think that's the thing. In the past, test and learn has constantly varied. It's scary for people. It took a lot of planning. It took a lot of resources. But that's where the advent of AI, AI innovations in our space has made it so much easier. I can't tell you how many brands and sellers that we help just kind of navigate that. And getting going is literally you could do that with a few clicks of a button in terms of really implementing AI. So that's what I would encourage a lot of the brand sellers that are kind of double-minded. It's like pick a tool, pick an agency, try it. It takes a small use case where you can see the results. Unknown Speaker: I know you have a case study of yourself. I can see that Norm is back in the studio. So we're going to bring him on in a second. I'm just going to transition the question for him so it's nice and easy. We're going to bring on Marcia's comment here. I'm way behind the trend and have not used Amazon yet. How do I start? Do you have any trainings I could watch which would help me get up to speed with the fundamentals of an AI agent? And quickly for Norman, the backstage, we talked about where AI agents are going to be in five years from now or this from a year from now. And we just talked about where someone should start. So, Norman, I'm going to bring you on and do a swap and hopefully we'll keep you. Speaker 2: How did he do? Speaker 1: He did great. Kelsey was a rock star. He just jumped right in. Very seamless. So, thanks for that. Speaker 2: Computer just crashed. Speaker 1: I know. Unknown Speaker: I was worried about that. Speaker 1: Norm, I was worried about the whole time. Is my Wi-Fi going to be the one they put out? So hopefully we'll be good for the rest of the show. Speaker 2: Oh, this is a great question because there's so many people who want to get started. They don't know how to get started and they don't. They just, because You know, there's no place, there's no stepping stone. Speaker 1: Fantastic question. I know Kelsey and I were just kind of teeing that up here, Norm. And I'll just kind of repeat real quickly one thing I said. I think the barrier for entry has become not an obstacle anymore. I think there's so many tools out there now to allow you to really implement AI in your Amazon ad strategy. And so, you know, before it used to be a mountain to be able to figure out, you know, how do I do this to get approvals, the workflows and all that. Here's what I'll say. I think there's absolutely, Marcio, when it comes to how do I get started, there are a lot of good videos out there. You can even go to our website. We could connect you directly, have a conversation with you and just walk you through what that looks like, right? And I think what's really important is, Every seller and brand is at a different point on Amazon, right? You may be a brand or seller that has five products. You may be a brand or seller that has a thousand products. You might have certain things that you're trying to accomplish for Prime Day versus, you know, more long term with the seasonality of the year. So it really just depends on where you are. But I think a great way to get started is just connect with, you know, us. We're happy to walk through people and talk about your specific use case. I think that's where the application will be important is looking through what are you trying to accomplish and then really, you know, start a trial. The trials are very easy. They do the test and learn cycles mentioning. You could test the products and the AI in 30 days and see the results. See the results yourself. I think the products that are very strong will show you that, will show you the results, will be transparent about the AI. Great question. I love having these conversations. I love helping people try to understand how to navigate. So reach out to us. We're happy to connect with you on the phone, walk through what you're trying to do, do a demo, get you set up for a free trial. I think that's what I meant where the barrier to entry has become not an issue or obstacle anymore. Speaker 2: Or win the prize, which would even be better, right? Yeah, there we go. Speaker 1: That's it. Speaker 2: Again, going back to tools, not necessarily for PPC, but just general tools that you would recommend to some of the listeners, what would they be? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think in the space of, so here's what I'll say. When it comes to tooling, especially when you're thinking about Amazon and Walmart and really selling on those platforms, you know, first and foremost, I think everyone should be looking at ChatGPT. Play around with it, run with it, put your queries in there, ask your questions, get comfortable. Get comfortable in asking the things that are high level that you have in terms of your category. It'll give you that general, like that question norm you asked versus general versus specialized applications. I think everyone should start general because there's just a comfort level there. Then I think when it comes to really kind of what tools to look at, I'll just be honest with you, I think Amazon has done a really good job developing a lot of these AI features for brands or sellers right now. You will log into a platform as a seller, you will see a lot of these AI features already there. I would say very, the entry level AI to just get you going, Amazon's done a good job developing some of those features and really allowing you to really take advantage of that there. When you want to kind of get beyond that, then I think that's where do research on the platforms that you think make sense. There are a lot of products out there. Of course, we're one of them that really, I think, do a really good job when it comes to helping brands and sellers adopt AI, whether that's on sponsored ads, DSP, AMC. AMC is very powerful. If you're advertising on Amazon and you are doing Sponsored ads and DSP and looking at your, you want to really look at how your spend is efficient. What are the holistic full funnel metrics? You have to take advantage of Amazon Marketing Cloud, which is free, which is free now from Amazon. So that's how I would answer that. I think leverage the tools within Amazon already that they have around AI and then really kind of look at tools like ours that can really help you get started. I think that's where A year ago, that answer would have been a little bit difficult because, you know, there's just been a lot of advancements in AI in the last 12 months. So I think that's how it guides brands and sellers today. Speaker 2: Okay. A little different rabbit hole going off of PPC, but sticking with AI and just, I guess it could be for PPC campaigns, but just in general, How do you create or how do you generate and stick with your brand guidelines and your voice when you're either generating that listing or putting it together for a PPC campaign? You know, we want to make sure that we don't go outside of that. So how do you ensure that? Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think a lot of that is that's where You can leverage when it comes to PPC and when it comes to really what you're trying to accomplish with your brand voice and really what you're trying to accomplish in connecting with the customer, there's a couple things to do, right? So the AI will help you pull a lot of the data, look at the times of the day, days of the week you want to advertise. You'll really look at consumer behavior. Great for that, right? Awesome for that. It's really going to help you kind of navigate through that. I think when it comes to your brand and your brand voice, that's where I think it's so critical and a lot of people, I don't want people to lose sight of this, is there is the creative side of things. It's optimizing your product detail pages, making sure that you have the right voice to your consumer. The product detail page in the brand store is still very important on Amazon. How you want to represent yourself. Make sure that you have lifestyle images and key features you want to highlight. Make sure your brand store is robust and really kind of speaking to what you want to do. So I think there's best practices for A-plus pages, for brand store, organic SEO with your titles, bullets, short descriptions. That stuff is very important to do in conjunction norm to what we've been talking about a lot today, which is like optimizing your PPC campaigns, leveraging AI. So everything with Amazon, for example, is they look at the Amazon algorithm, right? The algorithm takes account in terms of your product pages. Do you have lifestyle imagery? You know, your titles, bullet short descriptions? Are you winning the buy box? What are your reviews? There's just so much there, right? It's not just simple as just turn on PPC and optimize the AI you're going to win. So I think, Norman, that's what's really important is making sure you're looking at the creative side of things and The front-end piece, which is your product detail pages, your A-plus pages, that's still very important. That's what you bring from a brand perspective, what you're trying to accomplish, how you're trying to connect to your consumers. So I think it's that combination of having a strong front when it comes to your visuals and your messaging and then leveraging AI for your PPC campaigns. Speaker 2: I was really surprised. I have a client that I work with that's a knife company. And so we were going to start playing around. I wanted to see what AI thought of the images. So I ran it through, you know, this image optimizer came back and it said, yeah, I could make some changes. So without me even doing anything, ChatGPT spun up Some images that would improve the listing and I looked at them and like for example, sushi knife, carving knife. And there was this family, happy faces, lifestyle, cutting up like the one was had the salmon sushi laid over the knife with the knife's logo on it. And I didn't even prompt it like I was just asking. And then it gave me a series of four. And I went, holy crap. These look pretty good. I sent them over to Kelsey and I said, what do you think of these? I said this just was spit out and then yesterday I was we had that podcast on retail and We were talking one of the points were was talking about was retail Packaging so I went in and I did the exact same thing and all of a sudden this very boring product Not the knife the very boring product With a very boring package, I wanted it to be more retail and all of a sudden it took about six, seven images, new ways. I wanted to be very unique, but retail ready. I'm going to be out of a job. I'm pretty good with retail packaging, but it was excellent. I could easily, if I was looking for a client, say, hey, check the box that you want me to move forward with and then get the quote. The next thing it's going to do, I wonder if it could. You might know, like if I get those images and I wanted it to go directly over to a multiple group of suppliers to get quotes automatically, could I do that? Could I like through make or something like that? Speaker 1: I think that stuff is being developed. I mean, there's definitely, I think we're heading towards that way. I don't think there's a like one solution to that now today, just like that, make it that easy. But Norm, you nailed it, right? Even in your example right now in terms of images And the advancement of it, it's just, it's incredible to see how much you can get now, right? And, you know, the last question we talked about the importance of PPC in a silo doesn't do it for you. You gotta think about the creatives, but it's cool to see that with AI, generative AI on the creative side, you can now have really nice imagery and really speak to your brand. And going back to our earlier conversation, this is the thing that most excites me is It's no longer about the big brands winning. It's no longer the large ones that have deep pockets winning. You as a small brand, a third party seller even on Amazon and really can win and go toe to toe with the big guys because You can do your content in a good way through generative AI. You can optimize the PPC campaigns. You can look at product detail pages and scrape them and look at your copy. You can look at your buy box and your in stock and really look at, you know, how you're, if you're winning that. And so it's, it's just an exciting time from that sense that you can leverage AI for that full Amazon flywheel, not just a piece in a silo. I think we're going to keep seeing advancements there. I think there's no doubt about it. It's going to become in many ways easier. But again, here's the key. You got to adopt it. You got to be willing to embrace these changes. You got to be willing as a seller to embrace AI, not be scared of tests and learning, not be afraid of the technology, not be afraid that's going to replace you because I think that's where you're going to fall behind and you're going to be obsolete if you don't. So exciting time, but you also Let's all embrace it. Let's play around with it. You did, and you saw the results, right, just on that. It's really incredible how fast the technology is accelerating right now. Speaker 2: You know, we had a guest on a few weeks ago, and we were just chatting about content, making sure, like, content, you get quality content up there, that you definitely check the content. And one of the things he said was about, we want to make sure that the content we're putting up has additional information. What I was talking about was putting up your content and then making sure every quarter that you're refreshing the content. And he said, yes, but one of the things that you should keep in mind is who owns the content. And I went, what? And he goes, that is not, it's a gray area right now about who owns that content. And so that brings me to a question about privacy, security, and who owns that content? Do you have any information about that? Because it is such a gray market right now. Speaker 1: It is. I do know that retailers like Amazon put a lot of emphasis around brand registry, owning that content, who has the right over that content, and I think there's layers of protection to a degree. It's not 100% foolproof, but I think there are steps around that where Amazon also doesn't want to have third-party people trying to hack their way into trying to sell a product on the platform that's not original from the primary manufacturer, right? I think there are some guardrails there, just being in the space of Amazon agency for the last 10 years, where I look at a platform like Amazon, there's a little bit of protection there. You can protect yourself. Not 100% foolproof, but there are levers you can take in terms of being registered to that content that's being produced or being shown on your product detail pages and brand source. Now, people can overwrite it. It happens. There are levers there to try to protect that. And so I think ultimately that's the way as a brand or seller you can try to take advantage or you can try to protect yourself of owning the content that is being shown out there. And I think Amazon is one of the better places that does that. Those are the type of things I think on Amazon and Walmart that you're probably in a better place than you are in maybe other places online. Speaker 2: Okay, very good. Kels, we've got a couple questions. Unknown Speaker: Yeah, we got a couple comments here. This one is from Ramavati. Norm is bringing such amazing people on the podcast consistently. It's tons and tons of knowledge. Being an India-based sourcing agent, I feel mesmerized by the entire AI process. Thanks. Thank you, Ramavati. Speaker 2: Well, thank you. Unknown Speaker: Marsha has been playing around with ChatGPT. She said she's thrilled to have a man from Dubai call and told him he put two words in chat and in part of the answer, Marsha's company and products were listed as a solution and chat knows us. So that's pretty cool. Speaker 2: Okay, now we have one more sponsor. But is there anything else, any contact information that you'd like to share? Speaker 1: Come to us, xnerda.com. You can reach out, submit for any inquiries there. I'm very active on LinkedIn. Please reach out, connect with me on LinkedIn. I love doing so. Message me directly. I would love to answer any specific questions you have as well. But yeah, Norm, I think, love connecting with the audience, love these type of questions, especially the brands and sellers out there trying to navigate through all of this. So definitely come visit us, externa.com and definitely connect with me on LinkedIn. Speaker 2: Fantastic. All right, Kels, let's go over to a sponsor and then we'll come right back. Are you spending more on Amazon ads and getting less return? There's a smarter way to grow, and without increasing your budget. Levanta's Affiliate Shift Calculator shows what you could do if you really allocate just a portion of your ad spend into affiliate marketing. If you're an Amazon seller doing over $5 million a year, This is for you. And guess what? It's free. All you have to do is click on the link in the description to go to your custom forecast today. All right, so let's head over to the Wheel of Kelsey and see who won. Unknown Speaker: So this is for Productpinion's $100 credit on Productpinion. So I'll shuffle these up and give this a spin. So this was last week's episode. To see Kashif's episode or winner, you have to check out next week. Speaker 1: And it is Barry. Unknown Speaker: He's the winner. Congratulations, Barry P. We'll be contacting you and congratulations. Speaker 2: This has been fantastic. I hope we can get you back on. I mean, we just really touched the surface of this topic and I could spend at least another hour with you. So don't forget to stay in the green room or in the waiting room, whatever we want to call it, and I'll get right back to you. Okay, everybody. So thank you so much. I hope you learned a lot today. I know that it can be intimidating. It can be confusing. But like we said at the very beginning, if you are not taking part in this, if you're not learning about it, if you're not outsourcing this, then you're being left behind. So get involved, start to understand it, take a few classes if you have to, you know, search YouTube. Get a little bit of education so you can hire the right person or try to do it yourself. Unknown Speaker: If you haven't yet, make sure you subscribe to our newsletter. It's lwn.news for all the updates and news about what's going on the podcast. Speaker 2: That was a great story last week. Unknown Speaker: Says the writer. Speaker 2: The guy who wrote the story. No, but if you're interested in these personal stories and at the end, it transitions into a business lesson. There's a lot of different stories there that I think that you'll like as well as there's tons of updates and there's anything that's happening in the AI world as well as the Amazon world, online selling, it's all there. So LWN.news. All right, everybody, thanks for being part of the community and we will see you next Wednesday. Unknown Speaker: Lunch With Norm.