Selling on Walmart, Instacart & Target ⎜ Pacvue ⎜ EP 92

Ryan Cramer: Everyone welcome to my corner of the internet. I'm your host, Ryan Cramer and this is Crossover Commerce presented by PingPong payments. The leading global payments' provider, helping sellers keep more of their hard earned money. What is up everyone happy Wednesday. I'm Ryan Cramer, your host of this show Crossover Commerce. Welcome to episode 92 of Crossover Commerce presented by PingPong payments. In today's episode, we have titled it selling on Walmart, Instacart and Target and the different kind of tactics you need to do to stand on this platform. Super exciting. We were taking a little bit of departure from Amazon, just focused on Amazon because there's so many other marketplaces out there that you need to be successful, or you can be successful. I should say, not need, can be successful in the world of e- business. So that's where I brought my guests in today. But before we get going, I wanted to go ahead and say, welcome to everyone who is watching us on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Can't forget about the Twitter peeps but also if you're listening to this via download on audio file you can find us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple, Google Podcasts or anywhere where there is a podcast that exists. That's my goal is to make sure that this information gets out to all the people in the world to help them level up their business and help them grow their business and get at least 1% better. That's kind of always my mantra, is if I can get 1% better every single day, I think I've had a successful day and that starts to build on itself. That makes me better. That makes you better. So go ahead and, thanks for joining us on that journey to get there, but episode 92 because this is a live episode on social media, this is an interactive way that you can ask your questions. So if you have a question about ads on Walmart or Instacart, or what is Instacart or Target, we'll kind of touch on all the high level information over the course of this next hour or so in order to give you the best insights and tips and tricks to get going and building a brand on those platforms. So, because this is live, you can comment on the section below on either Facebook or YouTube and LinkedIn. We will see all those and make sure that we answer those questions here, live. If you're watching this later and he didn't catch us live, you could still put in the questions and I'll make sure that our guests gets tagged in it. And we'll be able to answer those questions later on down the road as well. Feel free to submit your questions or even just to say hi, we always like to see where people are listening from, or just what their thoughts are on the topic at hand but our guest today she has been working in the shopper marketing programmic digital landscape for over 10 years and started her digital career at AOL. Prior to that, she sold TV advertising as a national and local sales rep and how she says, it's funny how TV and now digital OTT and CTV everything comes full circle. So I agree with that sentiment as well. She is currently the sales director at a company called Pacvue the number one ranked PPC bid management tool for Amazon and they brought those same capabilities and features to make them also a number one bid management tool on Walmart, Instacart and Target. Which is why I brought her on today, because I think she's has such valuable insight in helping people, especially in the ad world. We talked about even yesterday, DSP and how that's super exciting in terms of off Amazon, on Amazon and directing traffic to wherever you want to make this point of purchase but that being said, we want to make sure that we get all those other marketplaces in our fold to make sure that we are getting the best insights into as possible. So we're going to be talking about that today as well and they also do Amazon DSP and self- serve capability, but welcome to the show, Debbie Levin of Pacvue. Debbie, welcome to Crossover Commerce. How are you?

Debbie Levin: Thanks Ryan, So excited to be here today?

Ryan Cramer: crosstalk Of course. I kind of reached out to you on a whim, because I have been following you and we reached out, initially like, Hey, that's good stuff, your new to Pacvue, but you have such a cool background and a different unique background than you know, that your journey to most people getting on e- commerce. So can you go more in depth of like how you got to like what your specialty is as a professional, but then how you got to Pacvue. Is that something you could share for us?

Debbie Levin: Yeah, I mean, it's been a really fun journey. Starting in broadcast before digital was even a thing. And getting through AOL when they had the discs so that was fun, but I keep trying to move along with digital as it grows and that became RTB, Real Time Bidding and Programmatic. And then I was in the shopper marketing, and then COVID happened. And I was like, okay, I need to kind of get into the econ space because everybody's shopping online and I had a really good friend who was aware of Pacvue and got me connected with them. And it was just a great, way to be in the digital space and be in the lower part of the funnel because it's all PPC and search and great audience data they're collecting obviously is Amazon. So kind of made my way in here and I've just been learning all about bid management and search and econ and all the whole ball.

Ryan Cramer: But you're also bringing a cool, unique perspective to the space as well, to how that all ties together, which is really cool and unique. And that's why I thought it was fascinating to bring you on, crosstalk because we're all learning. It's all it's always changing. So, since you're a little bit newer to the e- comm space, I always tell people it's always changing, nothing stays stagnant for too long, so we're all learning together constantly. So just shouting out to people listening all the way from Nigeria, that's awesome. So thank for... So we're reaching globally here at Crossover Commerce. That's awesome. So, a little bit about what I wanted to talk about today, and you guys kind of touched on a little bit of everything in terms of bid management over at Pacvue, but specifically today, I think it's fascinating to kind of go into each market of, Walmart specifically because as an Amazon seller, everyone knows, Hey, that's an opportunity that could be really big for you to sell online as well as in retail, but then also selling with Instacart, which not a lot of people talk about and then a Target as well. So can we break down maybe just an overview of what each one is and how that's super specific and different in each light?

Debbie Levin: Yeah, I mean, for sure, and the Amazon DSP piece is also interesting if we all want to get to that, we now have our self- serve platform and, Amazon of course can do endemic and non- endemic. So for non- endemic, it's a great way to uncover audiences based on what they're buying and shopping for on Amazon. But yeah, so Walmart, now used to be walmart. com and Walmart Pickup and Delivery, and now they've merged the platforms. So it's provided a great way for clients to really reach that Walmart audience fully. So Walmart's a great place to be. They are doing phenomenal during COVID and I think a lot of those habits are going to continue. So if you have products that people can buy a walmart.com or Pick up and Delivery, it's a great place and environment to be, they have a great API and we can bring in a lot of really unique data that they share. For Instacart what's really interesting is now they've included Best Buy and you've got Vitamin Shoppe and you've got Total Wine, so Instacart's not just grocery anymore. So now you have to think about people who want to have stuff bought from Best Buy and delivered to their home. That's a great way to have a 65 inch TV delivered. So Instacart continues to grow in their retail partnerships. So that allows, advertisers now of all different types to be a part of that platform and they're continuing to grow their context, I think maybe even Office Depot's coming on. So it just continues to grow and then Target is part of Criteo and Criteo has been working with a lot of different retailers, so they just brought on Target and Shipt and Macy's is now live. So like that's a whole different, retailers genre and they're looking at, we know on the roadmap is Lowe's and just other great retail partners. At this point, anybody in any place that wants to use digital can really now access, consumers in a great way.

Ryan Cramer: And each of those platforms serve such a different audience and we can even get a little bit more ingrained. I think it's a little bit easier even most recently we can talk about Walmart, if we start there, Walmart just opened up their seller access so that you didn't have to just be United States based, so you can be international based. So that's a great opportunity for China or Chinese sellers or sellers from around the world to sell on their platform. So that being said, and people are... you might see this big initial with, I'm not sure if you are already, if you see this initial with the people trying to sell on Walmart, is that something you guys are seeing the data from and more people are trying to now hop in and sell on, on walmart. com in that regard?

Debbie Levin: Yeah. I mean, they're just opening it up to sellers everywhere and it's opened up a lot of inventory having both platforms combined now and a lot more placements and so Walmart's coming out with more placements, which allow brands to really engage with consumers in different ways across the platforms. For sure.

Ryan Cramer: Amazing. So when you talk about Walmart placement, how is that different? Because we go into depth a lot about Amazon ad placements. What's different about Walmart versus like in Amazon, because there's a distinct bidding difference. How can you educate or what tips can you tell us and what's different from Walmart versus Amazon?

Debbie Levin: Yeah, so there's a big difference. Walmart has featured product just like Amazon and they are going to be opening up a brand unit, kind of like sponsored brands on Amazon so that's coming. But the biggest difference between Walmart and Amazon is it's a first price auction. So what you bid is what you pay. It's not defaulting to the next highest bid with 1 cent. So that's the biggest difference on Walmart and Walmart has some other interesting qualifications to garner your placements. You have to have a certain organic ranking or in page views in order for them to promote your product. So there is a process that if you're brand new to Walmart, you're going to need to go through, to start to gain views on your products so that you can get your featured products ad to be more promoted on the website.

Ryan Cramer: So what's an example, if I'm bidding... If I have a competitor selling on Walmart and I'm bidding$1 and they're bidding$1.10 or something like that, or they're bidding $10, let's say it's something crazy. I'm bidding$1, they're paying$ 10 for that ad. Well, they get charged$ 10 or-

Debbie Levin: They're going to get $10.

Ryan Cramer: They're going to get charged$ 10, which is different from Amazon. Correct.

Debbie Levin: Yeah, It would be a $1.10 on Amazon.

Ryan Cramer: This to me is very specific. So let's make sure we look into the camera and tell everyone this, or speak into our microphones, everyone, if you're on Amazon or if you're on Walmart and you're bidding on ads, you yourself, or if you're with a company, you have to be careful of your bid strategy. crosstalk Right? Exactly. Because and I was going to say, if you could tell us maybe a little more example, maybe just confusion of why people think that if they don't monitor their ad spend, they're going to get hit hard, quick, and they're going to spend when they don't need to, that's-

Debbie Levin: That going to affect their raw ads in there, because they're not going to... It affects everything. So you need to just be really careful 0. 50, 5. 0 makes a big difference.

Ryan Cramer: So if you're bidding a$1 and $7. 10 and that$1. 01 is going to win and some people like to just throw a big numbers, like in the supplement space or anything like that, just spend really high money just to win the bid for the ad it's, it's whoever it's, whoever has the highest amount, that's what they're taking and then as many clicks as happens, it's all based on clicks. It's not per impressions

Debbie Levin: Right, their PPC based to correct.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. So yeah, if you're bidding$ 10 accidentally, instead of a dollar, you're going to get that placement, but for$ 10, but that's super... Is that the right way to do it? Is that something that you think will change in the future? I think that's really confusing if you're new to the platform and you really don't know what's working, what's bidding correctly or what's optimal. Is there a way to know that?

Debbie Levin: I mean, we don't know if they're going to change it but that's why, they do have like bid modifiers, so you can increase your bids in percentages as opposed to like wholesale big, 10, 25, 50 cent increments. So, you just really want to be careful on Walmart.

Ryan Cramer: Awesome, for people who are just joining the show as well it came in actually from LinkedIn. Yes. It is possible to ask a question and we will see that Abey. So Abey, sorry. Excuse me. If that's not correct, go ahead and ask your question. We'll be able to see it and we'll throw it up in here and make sure it will be kind of bringing in any sort of clarification. That's the beauty of the show. It's a live interactive show if there's something specific about each of these platforms, but my job is to kind of facilitate and walk you through that as well. So Walmart, whatever your-

Debbie Levin: When they also changed their attribution window, which is great. They're now-

Ryan Cramer: So what does that does that mean for people? Can you clarify that?

Debbie Levin: Yeah, so that means when a user clicks on an ad, they'll track it for up to 14 days. So if it's been purchased, so you will get click through attribution, they used to do view through attribution. So if an ad was even viewed and like they bought, so now it's all click through and view through attribution but you don't get credit for a view that that's... It was kind of confusing, but now they're all aligned with Amazon on a 14 day attribution window, which is great.

Ryan Cramer: And similar to Amazon, just to align it with people if their crosstalk Okay. So similar in that context. Do you think it's easier to run your bid management through Walmart or is it still clunky? Is it new and fresh and still changing what what's kind of the comparisons between the two, is it easier to see the data or not as easy? What's your thoughts on that?

Debbie Levin: No, I mean, you can see it. I'm not as familiar to be honest with their platform because we work through Pacvue's platform, but I mean all the data comes through and crosstalk I don't know.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. Yeah. That's fair enough. You're looking at it from a one perspective instead of in the weeds of it all. Very cool. So as an agency, How are you helping people navigate the Walmart waters, if you will, what's kind of the value on there.

Debbie Levin: What you really want to be able to do. I mean, what Pacvue can help do or, other softwares obviously is help set up bidding rules so that you give the software permission to bid more. If the a cost is in a range that you're okay with, decrease the bid. If we start seeing a cost get too high, you can set up rules to harvest new keywords and then if a keyword is in the auto campaign, it can be moved to a manual campaign. Walmart auto campaigns do much better than on Amazon, as a compared and we tell everybody to run auto campaigns and then you kind of can take those learnings and build out manual. But on Walmart auto campaigns also get a lot more placement on the website in different places than a manual campaign. So we definitely recommend auto for Walmart, but there're just lots of tools you can use to really set up, guard rails and requirements around the bidding to help really make sure you're staying within your objectives and your KPI goals and metrics. So using the data that we have coming in to try to really understand what's happening visibility into, how keywords are performing and, really try to manage them and drive more traffic and sales at the end of the day.

Ryan Cramer: Comparatively how is Walmart doing for your clients, if they're selling on both Walmart and Amazon, is there data you can compare, you can share with us?

Debbie Levin: I mean, I would just say from a spend perspective, Amazon still way more, there's just still crosstalk more traffic-

Ryan Cramer: You're talking about me as a seller that is I'm going to spend more money to get more sales?

Debbie Levin: Yeah. I think people still go into Amazon like a search engine and you end up in Amazon way more just by default. I think Walmart, it's definitely a different mindset. You're going into walmart. com to shop versus Amazon. So we see a lot more scale on Amazon. I think that there's just a lot more people on it. So I do think that at the end of the day, people are still spending a lot more on Amazon than they are in Walmart.

Ryan Cramer: Is there a demographic that you see that's shopping more on Walmart versus on Amazon with your clients? Comparative, more successes? For example, like if I have a different category that's on both platforms, one is shopping and is moms in the age range of 35 to 55 on Amazon, but on Walmart, it's a different metric or are you seeing it's pretty consistent across the board on one platform as the other? Do you hit different demographics depending on the platform?

Debbie Levin: I would say that for Walmart, if I'm working with clients that have a really higher price point item, I would just say, I don't know that Walmart's really their customer. So I mean, we do know people that shop on Walmart are much more price conscious. So people run on both. I don't know that it's really limited to like a category or an age group, but I would say it's more on the product itself. And if it lends itself to the Walmart audience, more than anything.

Ryan Cramer: So if I'm a seller, What's the sweet spot I'm looking for? Is it$ 35 an item or what's that natural, sweet spot do you think that you as a company are seeing?

Debbie Levin: I don't know if it's a sweet spot in price, but compared to your competitors? crosstalk If you're coming in with a leather purse and yours is like$ 80, but they can get it for$ 25. Even if you probably price it$ 50, an Amazon shopper is going to buy the$ 25 purse.

Ryan Cramer: You're talking about almost the race to the bottom. People are naturally more inclined in Walmart to what's the cheapest option instead of maybe your reviews, rankings, things like that. Is that kind of where you're coming from? Interesting.

Debbie Levin: Yeah and I think bulk, you know what I mean? I think people think of Amazon for bulk. So if you might be a pest control and you sell, bulk, size, I think like you would add a club. Right. So I think that's great for Walmart too. When people are shopping for quantity.

Ryan Cramer: Yeah. Like 50 rolls of the toilet... Like a year ago, probably 50 to a hundred rolls of toilet paper. And when you do the math, you're like Do I need so much toilet paper? That was funny. I happen. So I bring that up because it was like a year ago today, the big toilet paper shortage of like 2020 happened or something crazy like that. And I just laughed to myself. They asked, were you a part of that like era? And I was like, oh my gosh, that makes me laugh but interesting. But yeah, so Walmart as a property, does it just extend to just Walmart or is it also Sam's club or like, does it bring in inventory from there? Or is it just on Walmart?

Debbie Levin: It's just Walmart. Yeah. If you want Sam's club or Costco that's Instacart. I believe they're on Instacart.

Ryan Cramer: Interesting. Yeah. Okay. So well, before we hop on to... We actually did have that question from Abey. I'm going to say a Abey. Thank you. No problem. So his question is actually how can I learn the sales and marketing aspect in actuality I've known PingPong for, over last two years. This is more of a PingPong. So I'll make sure I get to that Abey. If you have a question about like Instacart, Walmart, Target, I'm more than happy to kind of wrap that up, but in terms of that we'll stick to this category. That's my fault for not reading the question before hand, so sorry about that, Debbie. crosstalk It was a long one, so I was like, this looks good. Anyway, so yeah, if you have a question about PingPong in general, I'm more than happy. We'll make sure we got all of our contact information. You can reach us out directly would be more than happy to answer those questions if we don't get them to today but if you have one about Walmart, Instacart or Target, let's keep it to there for sure as well. So that natural progression you talked about is Instacart. Instacart is maybe something that not a lot of people talk about and to be honest, I actually saw a couple of times on LinkedIn that Instacart might be the biggest disruptor in the e- business space in general. And I say e- business because anyone can fulfill online through Instacart or something of the sorts instead of, and this is the example they give, I'm a consumer and of course I can shop on Amazon and get a good price point, but get it in two days, Amazon's prime shipping would be a two day shipping generally. And I'll say generally, because there's outlying factors. If I'm in Instacart, I need something for a birthday party today or an event today and Instacart can maybe give it to me, by end of day, or even in a matter of hours, and that's the biggest disruptor of everything in this regard that they are facilitating our long transactions and deliveries instead of a few days, which is neither is not bad, but that's why they said the Instacart can be the biggest disruptor in that regards. So the concept of Instacart, who's that going to help out and why is it going to help them be successful in e- business?

Debbie Levin: Well, it's really helpful for people that have product in stores on the shelves, and they're really trying to drive out a brick and mortar type sale, because it's not being shipped from anywhere to your point, a shoppers walking into the store, shopping it and putting it in their car and bringing it to you. So, it's a great place to be if you are really trying to demonstrate, retail brick and mortar sales, because, brands are always trying to show that power of their brand. So it's a great place to be for sure. And I mean, I use Instacart all during COVID and I had never used it before. I think I was really nervous about picking out my produce and my eat. I just, I wasn't sure. I didn't, I didn't trust it and I loved it and it saved me what an hour and half of my day. So, I'm going to stay with it. I definitely will continue to use it.

Ryan Cramer: Yeah. And Instacart, if I remember correctly, I always confused a couple of the different platforms. Instacart sends you text pictures and will update you as you continue on. As the shopping continues, they will say like, Hey, this is the product that we have. Is this the one you're looking for? I have these options available if they need to. And it's almost like a dialogue that you're having, or like a virtual stand, basically a virtual stand in. If you will-

Debbie Levin: You watch them, you can see like how many items they've shopped and then they'll put on there, is this okay as a substitute? And if you asked for grapes, you said like four pounds, it'll adjust the price. It's pretty amazing. And they, they handle all of it and yeah.

Ryan Cramer: So as someone who wants to get integrated with Instacart, if that's more like retail stores, retail focused, if I'm a business and I'm really trying to, trying to grow my business online, how do you get, how do you get notified? Or how do you tell people like, Hey, you can buy our products online now, through Instacart. What is that process like? If I'm just crosstalk like a mom and pop store, or like you say, retail store, is that like as small business owner have my goods in store, but I can now deliver through Instacart?

Debbie Levin: So I think that's more of a Shipt piece, because Shipt is separate, but Instacart, I think has contracts with big brands. I don't know about a single retailer but I mean, I was talking about it recently with a client about, they wanted to be able to take their digital ad and land at people at Instacart and put the item in their cart. Well, you can't really do that with Instacart, because the experience is so different. When you open up your Instacart app, you put in your current zip code and it'll tell you what stores you can order from and then you go into that store. So the experience for a consumers is not great if you're trying to digitally bring them to Instacart to put it in their cart. So that'll be interesting to see how they ultimately solve that because all advertisers want to be able to get that item right from the ad exposure, click to cart. But yeah, that's a different and interesting thing for a local person. I don't know, to be honest, I think it's more Shipt, but I don't know.

Ryan Cramer: That's fine. So Instacart would be more of... Who's benefiting from this the most, what category? If you-

Debbie Levin: Grocery and retail, for sure.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. So if I'm in the grocery sector or if I'm making Ray's baby barbecue sauce or something like that would be Ray's Baby barbecue sauce. And I really want to feature that I'm trying to drive people get into your home if for barbecues or anything like that, you can get, as a brand, you can start pointing people to say like, Hey, get it from your local store. They're advertising on Instacart. Is that how that process works? It's more inaudible to advertise on Instacart.

Debbie Levin: So it's more about... For us it's more search. So when you go into Instacart and you type in barbecue sauce, then all the different barbecue sauces you can buy, start to come up and so Ray's would want to pay to have Ray's come up to the top and then you would be able to select which one you want and you just click on it quantity and it goes into your cart.

Ryan Cramer: So what's ad look like? For someone who's not experienced in this, is it a big driver of conversion? Is it really helping bring awareness to smaller brands?

Debbie Levin: Yeah, it's huge. I mean, you need that consideration at the top of the page. So if you have a paid ad, if someone puts in barbecue sauce, you definitely want your product to come up to the top because then you have the most likelihood of it being purchased in consideration. Otherwise it could be like, you could scroll all the way down to see that item come up. So yeah being paid search on Instacart is a huge thing to get your-

Ryan Cramer: So, in Instacart, you have to go into these retail stores. It has to actually... First segment has to be in retail stores. So if I'm a third party seller, and I know for example, I have inventory in not just Walmart, but in other brick and mortar stores, like home Depot, Lowe's like you said, whoever's onboarding through there. I can start advertising on those platforms directly or through Pacvue of course and it starts a feature when they're doing actual search function in their search bar. So, with Instacart, are you getting the same insights that you would with like a Walmart, Amazon of because of how many search for this term, you can target specific terms so that your ad appears at the top. What's kind of like the breakdown of the ad platform on Instacart?

Debbie Levin: Yeah. I mean, you set up to be targeting by category, you can set up your keywords for your product. Even align it with other things. If you sell Graham Crackers and people buy marshmallows, you could target marshmallows, Maybe someone's buying s'mores-

Ryan Cramer: So frequently inaudible

Debbie Levin: Yeah. It's totally, search- driven.

Ryan Cramer: What's a successful maybe example that you've seen drive great results on Instacart, whether it's your client or have you seen other people do it on the platform?

Debbie Levin: I mean, we just see great conversion rates on Instacart, from a click to a cart perspective. It's fabulous because those people are in the funnel. They are, not as the bottom, If I'm searching barbecue sauce, I'm buying barbecue sauce. It's just a question of which one. So we see great conversion rates for Instacart. They are great-

Ryan Cramer: So not brand loyalty. It's just exposure.

Debbie Levin: Yeah

Ryan Cramer: So it's not even price point. You would say either. Correct?

Debbie Levin: Correct.

Ryan Cramer: So I'm going to paint a picture for our listeners. So if I'm on Walmart customer profile, race to the bottom and get the cheapest products and may be more, in bulk, things like that. So customer, customer mindset of, if I want to be in Walmart, that's probably the audience I'm going for in theory, most generally, on Instacart, it's more brand awareness and exposure, price point doesn't matter and conversions are significantly higher. Are we talking like 10% more or 20%. What's kind of a conversion rate that you guys are generally working with?

Debbie Levin: It's high? I don't know. I have to think about it. I mean, it's high because, I feel like it's more targeted, if I'm buying barbecue sauce. I'm definitely... There's not as many things, but you could be looking for a sugar content or whatever. So you'll scroll through some of them look at the nutritional, but you're buying. On Walmart, it's just a little different. It's probably more price point, but I think at Instacart, it's probably more about the product.

Ryan Cramer: Fantastic. I mean, those are good distinguishing factors that if you're a business company, you need to know who you're going to talk with. Because most often than not, I'm assuming it'll be ideal to be everywhere if you're big enough but if we're starting on either of these three platforms, maybe it's really important to understand, these are the best conversions. These are the best products that are happening and being sold on these platforms and being successful. So more grocery, I would say Instacart, it sounds like, is there other categories that you think are necessities that should start on Instacart? Would you say?

Debbie Levin: I mean, Best Buy's kind of new. I don't know how many people are using crosstalk it.

Debbie Levin: I know. Total Wine is big, we have that grocer in the Southeast, so it's a great way to get alcohol delivered.

Ryan Cramer: You need to get your booze and you need... Food and booze instantly.

Debbie Levin: Yeah

Ryan Cramer: Okay. So, When we have clients or if there's clients that are out there in the food grocery sector, most often than not, like you said, it's either running to the store or, Hey, I'm just so busy. I need to throw this in the cart, get it on over and delivered by an Instacart professional. Correct? Like that's-

Debbie Levin: That was in two hours. So it's big. It's instant.

Ryan Cramer: So just be clear because we're an international business. We saw people listening in from Nigeria. Instacart, where are they operating from? Just United States markets. Is it expanding?

Debbie Levin: Right now crosstalk U. S.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. but this is the fact of... This is for sellers who could be international selling in the United States, correct?

Debbie Levin: Correct. They can have products here in the U.S yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Is there any limitations or restrictions that you think getting, doing ads on Instacart? Is there any like specific requirements, spend level the spend amount or anything like that?

Debbie Levin: I think they're pretty similar to Walmart, $ 50 a day minimum. I think it looks pretty similar and Instacart does, it's kind of natural geo- targeting because if a store doesn't have your product, they can't advertise it.

Ryan Cramer: Yeah, absolutely. And if you're only serving 18 locations locally, like you only want to make sure that you're serving that ad in. You're only serving in like Montana, but you're in Wyoming or something like that. Completely different spaces. I don't know why this two states popped in my head, but they did here we are. Cool, fascinating. So Instacart, I've used it before. I just wanted to paint a picture for people who, if this is something where you grow internationally, and this is why I've always taught this on all these webinars and talks, I go on Debbie is you don't want to be the one legged stool. Correct? and I think a lot of my friends and colleagues in the spaces, you don't want to be the one legged stool. You want to be diversified and make sure that you're not relying solely heavily on just Amazon or just Walmart or just on these platforms. Because if something happens, you get hijacked or you have run out of stock, or for some reason your listing just gets shut down. You want to still have that source of income from all the multiple other places. We've seen that from PingPong, we've seen it from just people talking in the space of, I got shut down for one reason or another, whether you're a PPC had... Your bulk file gets uploaded and it's incorrect terms that are being bid on, or your SEO is incorrect in your terms are... just whether it hits like the porn, I've seen people say like it was five for pornography or something like that, or for a fertilizer or something crazy and nailing it down for days on top of weeks. And that's a scary problem to have and think about it if you're just selling on one platform. So we touched on Walmart, we touched on Instacart, fantastic for their own audiences and we go over to Target and Target's kind of this weird, nuance. I would walk into Target and then I walk out and I've spent$ 150. I don't know how crosstalk. I'll always like, it's almost a guarantee like in the retail aspect of whether it's the lighting, the product selection, or just like the nature of being in Target. It never used to be this way, but all of a sudden it became this spend palace and no one knew why. So maybe what's your perception of Target because for people that don't know Target technically is an online marketplace. It's not open to everyone though. Can you maybe provide some background around and clarity on that?

Debbie Levin: Yeah. I mean, I think, we know with any of the platforms, you have to go through the process of getting your items, your skews up, aligned. So like target. com can carry it. I don't even necessarily think it has to be in store but it has to be... you have to deal with Target and get them to have your products available so that they can advertise them on the website.

Ryan Cramer: This is the interesting data point that I heard is, only 250, maybe even 300 sellers. Third party sellers are selling on. com. So with that being said, how do you as a company work with such a small piece of the pie? Is it just you're not working with a lot of people on Target or What's that component like for you as a company?

Debbie Levin: Yeah. I mean, we've just started because our partnership with Criteo has just been kind of established. So it's a lot of the bigger brands, no question about it that fit that bill of the larger ones. I've talked to a couple of clients actually, who want to get on Target and I've had to turn them over to like, okay, well, you got to work with them to get your skews uploaded and set up a business arrangement because, Target's still going to set up credit with the client and needs to make sure they can build them for the media. So that all has to be taken care of before you can really start spending money on Target.

Ryan Cramer: So not as a third party seller, but they're talking about selling actual goods in retail or online under Target's- Almost a one P perspective, correct.

Debbie Levin: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: A sold goods to, and then sold by Target. Correct. They would just be invoiced, like Target would invoice them for the goods. They would resell them then on their platform.

Debbie Levin: Yeah. Because target. com is probably a lot easier to get on board than an actual in the actual store.

Ryan Cramer: Right. For the sake of this talk big, you're working with brands of... Are you allowed to say which brands and how they're selling and getting going on Target? Because I know on the retail aspect, they're fantastic in terms of what they're doing, continuously growing in their E- commerce in the e- business sector is really booming as well and it really stood the test of COVID and a couple other things I think I saw recently in statistics, what's the draw for target. com and like standing out in those platforms?

Debbie Levin: I think it goes back to like different customers too, that would shop at Walmart and the shop at Target and probably you pickup, what's closer, what's more convenient, that you can also order from the store and then go get it. So it's just a combination, but I do think Target is newer obviously and they're, coming on strong, everybody loves Target. So everybody's getting more... I guess the adoption rate in general is getting so much better to e- com online shopping that now people are going to Target to buy, Whereas before that wasn't really a thing. So they're having, like you said, they're having to really build it out and get it going and get their API all set up so that, the data can come back and forth and people can use that platform obviously to their advantage but they're pretty new to this space, but they're going to, I'm sure, accelerate pretty quickly.

Ryan Cramer: Well, and this is the thing too, is Target as a marketplace has been around for a couple of years now. I think once inaudible too, that's a decent amount of time to be around, but being as gated unlike Walmart where they're now... Walmart's accepting everyone now, which is a choice to be, had to have significant repercussions. It's no longer vetted by them as an entity. I mean, it would still be, but anyone can comply and be accepted. Target is doing the opposite approach. It's almost a more protective, like brand identity. We want to make sure it comes across as feels like you're shopping on or in Target. With that being said, Are you seeing customers have actually great revenue success in Target versus other channels? What's kind of that scalability of Target numbers, if that make sense? Like conversion?

Debbie Levin: I don't really have that. Everybody's really new for us. I mean, before it was like direct and now that they're letting us have access to it and, and be able to have people, execute PPC it's pretty new. So I don't really have a whole bunch of background to speak from on it yet, but everybody's super excited to get up on it. We know that.

Ryan Cramer: So what's the advertisement look like on a target. com for example, for a client of yours? Is it a display, is it video. What are the looks and feels of a target. com ad if you will.

Debbie Levin: Yeah. It's very similar to what you see on Amazon, Walmart. It's all that, featured product ad and it's PPC. So you go into Target and you type in, summer float raft or whatever, and you're going to get all those ads to come up and, you want your brand to show up.

Ryan Cramer: So top of page, buy box on the side, future products things like that. All ads direct on. com, correct? It's not off of Target or anything?

Debbie Levin: Right. So far, that's just Amazon DSP.

Ryan Cramer: Exactly. That's the fascinating topic we can always chime in on. So you guys are new to DSP and we can obviously jump in a little bit and get your take on everything. This is the new bell of the ball, if you will and yesterday I talked with Ad Advance. Joe over at Ad Advance and, he is the co- founder and he talks to DSP in terms of the functionality of it's just so fascinating, the data sets and the narrowed down nature of how a specific yeah. crosstalk It's incredible in terms. As a company's perspective, where are you thinking is where you're going to see more people put more of their money, effort, inventory. Where are they going to put most of their eggs in the basket? If you will, are you guys going to flow more DSP? Do you think it's just going to be everyone equally across the board? What that strategic nature you think you're going to be focused or starting to see clients who want to dive into more.

Debbie Levin: I mean, we see clients doing both because we do know that DSP helps drive search, bringing awareness to your product and driving people to your product. And then you can always re target them with APPC on once we know they've been there. But like, to your point, I mean, Amazon has such rich audience data, like what you've browsed, what you've bought, where you've shipped, they know everything. So your audiences that you can build are phenomenal and then to be able to use that and target people, not only just on websites, but they have the whole OTT piece now, and they're aligned with Twitch and with cookies crumbling, like their first party data is-

Ryan Cramer: You just did a nice little pun there, cookies crumbling. I like that. Is that how you guys are selling now? Cookies are crumbling so the DSP is the way to go.

Debbie Levin: I mean crosstalk First party data-

Ryan Cramer: That's a good sales line.

Debbie Levin: I guess, I mean first party data is just, that's key. Their data's key. I mean, it's amazing.

Ryan Cramer: So this was the point that we were talking about. Yesterday, Amazon now went away from allowing in your search term reports or in your seller central reports. You no longer get access to address locations or any sort of that information anymore. That just went away like a week or two ago. So now creating even lookalike audiences on Amazon doesn't happen with new buyers of your inventory on Amazon because that data no longer exists. You used to be able to just like extract that from their report crosstalk You used to be able to pull that information away from those reports and build, look audiences on Facebook and serve ads towards, those marketplaces but in this regards, you're able to target just based upon Amazon's profile data that they're building through video building through all their third party brands and even on search history on amazon.com, which is really fantastic. And the point of purchase does have to be made on Amazon it can made on, different websites as well, which is really cool and unique and intriguing. So how are you trying to educate people on that regards? Is it just those similar concepts in bullet points? Or what other value are you telling your clients, Hey, you need an early adopt in this, because this is the most narrowed down focus. You can target a customer potentially that exists out there.

Debbie Levin: Yeah. I mean, I think for any client that's going to be doing any type of programmatic display, that's their goal then using Amazon DSP is phenomenal. I mean, you can load up, if you have a CRM database, if you have your own, or you want to import data from an Oracle or any kind of a third- party, you could also do that into the Amazon DSP to help align with, if you brought some audiences from somewhere else you can partner with companies that can help you with offline attribution and offline sales, like an IRI. So there's just so much you can do with that DSP and I've also worked at a company that did an identity graph thing and Amazon, they call it either probabilistic or deterministic data. And Amazon is definitely deterministic because you are logging into your devices, multiple devices with your email. So it's not just guessing where you live, like they know where you live and what devices belong to you because you're always logging in on them. So then they get all your behavior from everything you're doing on your device.

Ryan Cramer: Right. You're logging in as either an account or not many people are shopping as guests anymore. To be honest with you, they either have a front profile or which we're all opting into anyways, by paying for it. Similar concept to a Walmart now, because you're actually... certain people are opting into Walmart Plus, and things like that. Is that something that you think that's why our Walmart will get with their data? If people are opting into, more profiles, more shopping online, we talked about a customer profile, what that looks like, but, I go to Walmart because of me specifically, my shopping experience at walmart. com is grocery, which is king of lots of things. For convenience wise, it was during the pandemic. It was like, oh, who can get me groceries like today or tomorrow or anything like that? So sort of grocery, but then also like on special deals, with goods that are one piece specific. And I say that like a Nintendo Switch or anything like that, it was broadcasted on all their media platforms saying, Hey, get the best deal on the Switch can get it on, Amazon can get blah, blah, blah. It's all on Walmart and I swear to God, I spent maybe and this the part inaudible profile I spent on black Friday or that Thursday before a solid three hours refreshing my browser, just to see if I can add to cart. And I did it in less than a minute and it always be like, we're out of inventory and that was frustrating as an experience, but I knew for a fact this price point, and that's what we talked about is lowest price point and value. T hat's where you can get it and hit arrived on my doorstep, not packaged, but it was like straight up just in the box. And I thought that was very interesting, unique how they sent it to you almost like with Instacart, it's not packaged, you're branded with Instacart, it's all like in a bag or anything like that. It's fascinating. So, so now that you've been in it for a little bit, what's kind of your takeaway as an expert, almost in these fields of where does the industry continue to grow and innovate?

Debbie Levin: Yeah, I mean, it's just going to continue to grow. Yeah, I mean, Amazon DSP, that to me is more like mid funnel and upper funnel when you're looking for branding and awareness and you are driving traffic, but the end of the day, it's more of a branding. Middle, upper funnel strategy. PPC is always going to be a driver for the lower funnel and it's great and it's so accountable. I mean, digital media is just so accountable that it's just going to continue to grow. And I think, the more that we can learn about, I feel like where it's going is being able to connect it with in- store purchase. Now, like if you look at something on Walmart and then you don't buy it, but you go to Walmart and you buy it being able to make that connection, that the ad you were served, had something to influence your purchase in store. Now that COVID is finally getting to be a thing of the past and people are going to start probably shopping. So it will be really interesting to see now how that is put together. I think, I mean more and more clients need that information there. They want that information. Yeah. I just think it's going to continue to grow. And the adoption rate, just accelerated probably four or five years ahead of what it normally would have been, I think, due to COVID.

Ryan Cramer: And I'm pro e- business. I think everyone finding different ways to either target different audiences or even grow their brand on an international level or national level, specifically appropriate to targeting different audiences to make sure that their product brings awareness to those specific audiences using data basically for good like, for example, if I'm searching for based on price point, or if I'm specifically looking for, holiday or anything like that, I'm looking for something specific. I want to see relevant things instead of using my data against me. So I think as business grows and people learn to localize better, they learn to translate that to get online and make shopping experience easier for people. Again, I'm the person that should be my tagline. We now pass the threshold of online. It used to be a online shopping, used to be a luxury. Now it's a necessity. So if that threshold now, so that's fantastic. What you guys during help them get that awareness out. I've, I've definitely took away a bunch of nuggets away today to apply it to my thoughts and knowledge on this podcast. pockets both for Pacvue, for you guys specifically, they want to learn more information or talk with you. We, I know we put the email, your email in the comment section, how can they get in touch with you besides that? Or how can they learn?

Debbie Levin: Yeah, no, great. I mean, you could send me a link and I'm LinkedIn, or send me a note on LinkedIn. I'm happy to send more information. If you want to look at what we're doing in the e- comm space. Yeah, for sure.

Ryan Cramer: Awesome. So everyone again, in the show notes below, if you're listening to this, go ahead and check out. We'll make sure we have the link to Debbie's LinkedIn profile as well and then her email address will also be on their social media profiles as well. So make sure you check those out again below to get in touch with Debbie again, thank you so much for sharing your insights and expertise on these platforms. I think we really took away a lot of unique information today.

Debbie Levin: Yeah, no, thanks for having me, Ryan. This has been great any time we'd love to chat.

Ryan Cramer: Of course. This is great. Thank you so much. Again, thank you, Debbie, from Pacvue again, if this is your first time or your 92nd time for joining us on Crossover Commerce, this is my show where I bring in lots of friends in the e- commerce in the e- business space, both on Amazon and off Amazon in order to educate you the online side or the online business to help you grow and take your business to the next level. We talked about a lot about Walmart, Instacart and even Target today and we also went back into Amazon DSP. It's always something that pulls me back in and I love getting people's perspective on that regard. So again, thank you for tuning in for everyone who has watched us live, or if you're watching this later on, make sure you hit the notification bell in the bottom right- hand corner. I'm going to say it's right over here. If you're watching this to be notified of future episodes of Crossover Commerce, because guys, guess what? I go live four to five times per week in order to give you different insights and talks on the Amazon e- commerce space. So you don't want to miss an episode if you do, make sure you watch it later on or let us know what you think. Or if you have a specific person in mind, you want to know more about go ahead and just reach out to us, either follow me on social media. I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, all those different platforms, even clubhouse. You can follow me. We more than we want people to be understanding and aware of education in the right way, so that let's go with the show and all the options that are available to them. So you can get better as a business moving forward. If you don't know more information about, again, this is presented by PingPong payments. If you want more information about them, go ahead and click the link below it. We help international sellers save when they send or receive international payments on multiple marketplace platforms. So if you're selling online in multiple different platforms, you want to check us out and make sure that you're saving money and put that towards your bottom line as well for, except for free in that link below. Go and check that out in the show notes as well, but for Crossover Commerce and for Debbie Levin of Pacvue I'm Ryan Cramer with the host of this show. Thanks for tuning into another episode of cross over commerce. Take everyone.