Episode 76 – Put Facebook Data Science to Work in Starting Your eCommerce Business

Bigger is better, right?

In starting an eCommerce business, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to scale up.  It’s become a sort of shorthand for success.  

Who doesn’t love to imagine what would happen if they were able to exponentially expand their business on Amazon?

That being the case, it is somehow ironic that with this episode’s guest we are headed in the opposite direction and speaking with an Amazon seller who started his eCommerce journey by getting a PHD in microbial ecosystems ecology.

Today on the Serious Seller’s Podcast, Helium 10’s Director of Training and Customer Success, Bradley Sutton welcomes Yev Marusenko of Zontracker. Yev is going to help us understand why Amazon is the perfect place for an interdisciplinary scientist whose answer to the question, “What do you want to study?” was “All of the above.”  

Yev came to the US as an eight-year-old and settled with his family in the Phoenix area.  

He loved the natural sciences, all of them.  

Whether the science that he was studying was natural, environmental, or social; he found it almost impossible to imagine pursuing one, without considering its interdisciplinary relationships with the others.  

He was determined to find a way to integrate all of them into a scientific model that would reward expansive lateral thinking.  

His habit of introducing artistic input into his scientific datasets only further confused those who couldn’t understand his scientific path. 

Ultimately, he was left with the feeling that the “The brainwashing of Academia really (led) to a very insular way of thinking.”

I don’t think I’m giving away any state secrets when I say that the internet and YouTube in particular, are frequently a black whole of productivity.  

Yev was sucked in but strangely enough his YouTube role was not as a viewer of videos, but as a producer.  

He had started making cat videos from his home in Huntington Beach. 

Somehow, that was the catalyst he needed because afterwards the pieces started falling into place.  A move to Seattle and an introduction to Amazon rekindled an entrepreneurial spirit that had been dormant.  

Then, drawing on his past as a scientist, he quickly saw that data was going to both fuel and support sellers on the eCommerce landscape.  

Coming from a background where “doing the science” was simply how everyday affairs were carried out, he used his next-level testing insights in order to push the Amazon-specific math beyond the binary, A/B testing that dominates eCommerce. 

It’s Yev’s feeling that a great many Amazon sellers get their ad sequencing out of order. Making sure that initial targeting focused on content, later introducing ad specific marketing. 

To do so he created Zontracker, a company he founded in order to create Facebook-specific ad funnels for Amazon sellers.  Listen in and find out more from Yev and Zontracker. Facebook isn’t going away any time soon; it’s probably a good time to learn how to increase your Facebook ad literacy. 

In episode 76 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Yev discuss:

• 01:06 – An Interdisciplinary Scientist and a Sun Devil
• 02:30 – Amazon at a Granular Level – Microbial Ecology and Ecosystems
• 03:25 – Academia Brain Washing and Followed Passions
• 05:15 – A Move to Orange County in Order to Pursue His Science Career Track
• 06:13 – Cat Videos?
• 07:30 – His Entrepreneurship Finds a Spark with Amazon
• 09:15 – An Amazon Focused Data Scientist is Born  
• 11:20 – Integrating Different Ad Mediums  
• 14:10 – Next Level Testing Insights
• 15:50 – Non-Binary Testing and Facebook’s Algorithm
• 19:50 – Facebook Ads 101 – Where to Start?
• 22:25 – Just Post a Video, Any Video
• 25:26 – Using Facebook Ad Metrics
• 26:07 – How to Monitor Sales with Zontracker   
• 27:30 – Helium 10’s Role
• 28:35 – How to Find Out More from Yev

Enjoy this episode? Be sure to check out our previous episodes for even more content to propel you to Amazon FBA Seller success! And don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you listen to our podcast.

Want to absolutely start crushing it on Amazon? Here are few carefully curated resources to get you started:

• Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.
• Ultimate Resource Guide: Discover the best tools and services to help you dominate on Amazon.
• Helium 10: 20+ software tools to boost your entire sales pipeline from product research to customer communication and Amazon refund automation. Make running a successful Amazon business easier with better data and insights. See what our customers have to say.
• Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Verify your Amazon product idea and validate how lucrative it can be with over a dozen data metrics and profitability estimation. 
• SellerTradmarks.com: Trademarks are vital for protecting your Amazon brand from hijackers, and sellertrademarks.com provides a streamlined process for helping you get one.

Transcript

Bradley Sutton: Usually we talk about scaling up, but today we’re headed in the opposite direction. And speaking with someone who started his eCommerce journey by getting a PhD in Microbial Ecosystems Ecology. Say what?

Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody. Welcome to The Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS, free, unscripted, and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the eCommerce world. And we’ve got a real serious person here with us. Somebody who actually has a PhD I don’t know how more serious than that you can get. Yev, how’s it going, man?

Yev Marusenko: It’s going really well. I’m glad to be here.

Bradley Sutton: So that’s the first thing that I want to talk about because I saw that somewhere on the Facebook group that you actually have a PhD and you’re the first PhD that I’ve talked to here on the podcast. So please let’s, I always like to do is talk about like your origin story. So let’s go back to before the PhD. Like, where did you go to high school? Where’d you grow up?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, I originally am from Ukraine, but I moved to US when I was 8 years old and growing up mostly in Phoenix. So that’s where I did my high school and then did my bachelor’s and then stuck around in my masters there and then, I guess I wanted more research stuck around for the PhD there. So all of my schooling was in, in Phoenix, Tempe area, so, so all of that was there.

Bradley Sutton: Was it Arizona state?

Yev Marusenko: Yup, Arizona State University.

Bradley Sutton: Sun Devil.

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, so I was, I was there in academia studying science. It was in natural sciences, environmental and social sciences. It was quite interdisciplinary and it was what, it was one of those things that while I was doing it, I thought I liked it. I kind of like felt like I was passionate about it. But in hindsight, I see the connections between what I’m doing now. And then when I was studying then where I was trying to integrate all of these different disciplines and asking unique questions that even my academic peers were like, like, what are you doing here? Like, what kinds of questions are this? Like this doesn’t make sense. And assigned to scientific discipline. So, so that was a long journey that I basically quit or shifted, shifted my career, whatever you want to think of it as.

Bradley Sutton: So what was your PhD in?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, so it’s in Microbial Ecology and Effects on Ecosystems. So it basically, if you’re like fertilizing the soil or there’s car traffic that’s actually depositing on the ground, what is that doing to the ecology and then how it’s feeding back to us. But so it’s kind of like from this natural science perspective, and I was always trying to bridge in other disciplines. I was bringing in anthropologists and sociologists, artists trying to add, trying to get help to understand how biology is working. And my, my chemist peers, my biologist peers were like, why do we need an artist here studying biology? So and so it was a very cross-disciplinary.

Bradley Sutton: I imagine when you were, choosing your major and you had certain goals or things in mind that you want us to do. And I really highly doubt that you chose that because you want it to get in the Amazon space. So what were your original goals? Like why did you choose that trajectory? What did you in those days envision yourself doing at this time? How, how many years later it is.

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, great questions. It was one of those things where it was a combination of following passion, but also not being aware enough. And what I mean by that is I was interested in nature. I’m like, I like nature, I like the environment. So I’m like, now I have to choose where, after high school. Like I have to go somewhere and it’s either Computer Science, English, or Biologist. I’m like, well I think. I’m gonna go into Biology. But after a while, so as I finished the bachelor’s degree, the master’s degree I was basically in this momentum. I didn’t take time to like pause and realize what I want. I’m like, now I have to like sign up for that class and I have to do registration. So the momentum continued way too long and it was basically because I felt like I wanted to have some sort of impact but I thought it was from academic standpoint because there’s this, I know brainwashing happening too in academia you kind of like going this route for a real long time and it was great training but it was a little bit behind how the education is where you basically need to stay at a university, be a professor and outside of academia there’s not much training in that, in the last few years, there are bright, kind of have to like go in that route. So it was more of a mid-life or early life crisis where I thought all right, I’m like why I am still here. I can’t get a professors with the position. I need way more experience cause it wasn’t as easy getting professor position and then started having careers shifts after that.

Bradley Sutton: Were you ever employed for money in that field after you had graduated with your degree?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, I moved to Orange County. I was working at UCI. So the university soon after this I realized that I was actually entrepreneur so it wasn’t like my whole life I knew that I wanted it to be in business marketing entrepreneurship it was that the research didn’t feel like it was applied enough. I was trying to ask certain interesting questions like these cross-disciplinary questions, but it was very theoretical and it would go into a textbook and not much would happen to it.

Bradley Sutton: We’re talking about when you, when you’re here in Orange County working in that field and trying to get professorships. Like what year are we talking about?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, 2014 2015 so, so I’ve only been in marketing for 4 years now.

Bradley Sutton: So then you, you mentioned like you started thinking about different or you started doing some like marketing side things. Like what were some of these things like you started doing, like consulting for companies or while you were like moonlighting and doing that or what happened there?

Yev Marusenko: No, nothing like that. It was basically me like trying to get distracted from doing my actual scientific research. So I was playing around with my cats in our, in our apartment in Huntington Beach. I had two cats. I was recording like videos of my cats and then tried to make funny videos of cats and making a Facebook page about cats and like editing and like doing all of this like basic marketing stuff. Like it wasn’t going anywhere, it wasn’t growing, but it was my experience where I’m like, man, I see like people following this like funny stuff. I’m making of my cats. But it was kind of like this distraction and I did that for a few months before. I’m like, all right, I know I don’t want to be making funny cats for the rest of my life. It was just like a funny thing I started doing, but I’m like, but I know I didn’t want to be in academia. And it was around the time when my contract was finishing up, but it was actually half a year before it was over. My wife and I were like, all right, you know, like we, we want to go check out Seattle that that’s where we are right now. And it was this decision where we kind of like quit like sold everything we had and they just like moved up. So it was like a two weeks decision type of thing. And then we were in Seattle. I can’t only, I quit the post doc. And the funny thing, and I don’t know, it’s a little funny is not the right word, but as soon as we moved here to Seattle area, the same week I found out about Ryan Daniel Moran and the Amazon world started watching all of these videos. And like right away I’m like, Oh my gosh, like this is amazing. Like I didn’t even know this was possible. Not really having experienced in it by going down that path where I registered business license and tried to like find out about Amazon products, and this was around 4 years ago where got into, got into the world and like basically started, it started failing through my brand around 4 years ago after this big shift. And like immediately when moving to Seattle.

Bradley Sutton: So when you moved to Seattle, did you have a plan or were you just gonna find yourself or you didn’t decide to do Amazon until you actually got there. So like what, what made you move to Seattle? Like what was the original plan?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, this is not how adults should do it. We moved and like all right, we’ll find jobs once we’re up here. And like we didn’t like have like savings or anything cause I in academia you like don’t get paid a lot until you get to like actual like professorship. But like my wife, she doesn’t like finance accounting. So we knew she’d be able to find a job pretty fast. So she’s like 9 – 5 jobs. It’s like very, very stable. And she found a job within a week when we moved, moved to Seattle. But for me I’m like, all right, we have a couple of months break, like for me to like find a job. And they knew there was a lot of, like environmental companies in Seattle. So I kind of like started searching while doing the Amazon at the same time. So it was not very planned and not very smart. I mean it was like the best decision for us cause you have to break out of your zone to break out of your comfort whatever you’re doing. But it was one of those things where it kind of like forced me to getting into Amazon and started learning it. And that actually only lasted 6 months because –well like 6 – 9 months because as soon as we moved to Seattle, so like me and my wife, we were trying to get pregnant for a while and it wasn’t happening like up until we moved into Seattle. So 6 months into my Amazon failing and learning, my wife is like, all right, you’re not making money, you try to get a job. So I actually started looking for companies again and that’s when I really got into marketing because I positioned myself as a data driven marketer and I think people notice the PhD. I noticed that I have some marketing experience, which is like was not much, but that’s what I was going for and I got hired by a marketing agency and that’s where the Facebook ads route started.

Bradley Sutton: I’m just here thinking about your resume to get that job and the only market experiences I used to make cat videos, I’m assuming that must have worked because you got hired so, so really throughout your Amazon journey, your experience more lies on the marketing side as opposed to you basically never really hit it big as far as selling on Amazon, is that correct?

Yev Marusenko: All on my Amazon, not on myself. Right. Like with a brand, like we were like a hyper growth brand, so I was leading all of their marketing. With the brand not individually as my own brand, when I did a few years ago.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now what, working for the brand, what were your kind of marketing mediums, I guess as a word? I mean, I’m assuming we’re not just at this point, we’re not just talking about, Oh yeah, I controlled their PPC, but actual off Amazon campaigns to drive sales. Is that correct?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah. And so this was exciting. So we had success in different crowd funding campaigns. That’s where the brand started and you can look it up. It’s brand Heroclip. And so it was over a hundred thousand dollars rate on crowdfunding. And then it got momentum there, started getting into retail. So there was retail success and then I was basically brought in to lead all of the digital marketing. So that was Facebook ads, Amazon and anything to compliment, the retail as well. So we were basically spending money on Facebook ads and that was our biggest, everything website related and PR and media related. So it was trying to expand. But the important thing was trying to integrate all of them because it wasn’t one separate piece. And most of the team was related to retail because we were an ACE hardware, REI. So we’re actually like in big stores. And then over time we were getting all of this momentum, getting Good Morning America and all of this momentum and basically through Facebook ads, it brought in this other world where we’re able to at some point start spending thousand dollars per day on Facebook ads and it was profitable. And we were getting all of these emails and all of these people going to Amazon shopping and our website. But I was trying to figure out how to compliment all of that to integrate it and how to amplify one with the other. So this is where Omnichannel started coming in and trying to figure out how can we make our Facebook ads profitable on our website, kind of have our eCommerce down our website, but then knowing the Amazon world, how can we amplify that at need whenever we need to send extra traffic or do some more launching or ranking. So trying to blend all of those strategies together.

Bradley Sutton: Okay. So, I know a lot of people every, every time I talk to people here on the podcast about their origin story and, and the reason is because always it’s something different. Like everybody, nobody was born into an Amazon family or, Amazon selling. I mean, Hey, we’re probably some of our kids, my, my, my be able to say that in the, in the future like, Hey, I come from the a powerful, whenever family who has a history of 3rd generation Amazon sellers, but everybody comes from a different educational background, a different work background and most of the time it can be said that what they used to do has like absolutely nothing to do with Amazon. Like they can’t use, it was all a waste, big waste of their education and, and it’s different. And I would assume that a lot of people might be thinking that about you. Like wow, you totally wasted your time. Like there’s no way that you’re using any of your PhD in Biology and all your training here at Amazon. You might as well just have not done that. However, I have a suspicion that because of your scientific background and your training, you actually are able to use this maybe on the analytical side or something in your marketing strategy. Is that a correct statement?

Yev Marusenko: Absolutely. And some, some of the different presentations I’ve done and people telling me where like part of it is refreshing that they see this very scientific approach. Cause there’s a lot of things about interpreting data and setting up campaigns and you know there’s kind of like the tasks you’re doing, but then what are you doing with that data and what is the order of operation? What do you do when.

Bradley Sutton: Okay, so like one thing I know, I am not a scientist at all. That was actually my worst classes in high school and college was chemistry and stuff. I hated that stuff. But one thing we would do all the time is just testing. And I think that in the marketing world or in the advertising world, in the eCommerce world, not enough testing is done. Like the only testing, maybe only because they hear it on a podcast or somebody like, Hey, let’s do some AB split test on your title. But, but I imagine you are just completely next level. So what are some things that because of your analytical mind that you have tested, what are some insights maybe, I’m not saying give us all your trade secrets, but what are some insights that you could give us on things that you have discovered with extreme testing that you’ve done?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, I’ve done a lot of extreme testing and this is what, has been exciting to try to experiment but also try to simplify. And one thing that I’ve noticed is that you have to go and one of two kind of very broad routes where it’s either super simple or, as advanced and as much testing as possible. So I would say that’s a quick thing that I see. Well, you can implement this into your long term strategy, but it would be one of the quickest thing that I see Amazon brands improving their Facebook ads is add variety into your ad testing and don’t think of it as, Oh my gosh, I’m going to spend so much money because I have all this variety. Actually no, you’re gonna cut the losers so fast. You’re not even gonna worry about the little ad-spend you had. It’s more about showing that variety. So you’re, this is how you’re beating the Facebook algorithm. You know the Amazon algorithm real well, but add variety into Facebook so then Facebook charges you much less money to show it to more people just by having that variety in the ads and then you kind of go into the next stage is worrying about Amazon purchases or other type of engagement.

Bradley Sutton: Interesting. I think the one takeaway I get from that is a lot of people, if they even do any kind of testing, it’s like they think just kind of binary like AB tests, but you’re talking A, B, C, D E F G H I, J K L M N O P test. Because if you don’t have any tests, you’re just like banking day that you’d know what the common customer or your avatar is gonna want, which is prideful and most likely incorrect. But even if you just do an AB test, you’re still saying that, okay, these top two ideas, I had at least one of them is it. But I could definitely see how it increases the odds that you are gonna find that one that really works if you increase the number of things that you’re testing.

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I want to highlight about that, it’s a different example of this, but this is, I’m seeing this overwhelmingly work well in more advanced brands and top brands and beginner brands. Or gonna like more starter brands. They, they aren’t doing this, but the ones that are this is working really well and it’s this part of taking this testing and thinking of it, thinking of it as a customer journey. What I mean by that, and this is common eCommerce overall, when you’re sending Facebook ads to your website and like not even worrying about Amazon, but Amazon sellers, they’re just like totally skipped this like most skip. This is separating out your campaigns based on the customer journey and just think of it as the cold, warm or hot, just those common funnel ideas. That’s one of the things that Amazon brands are not doing because this evidence is overwhelming. I see this so much in so many different accounts is that the Amazon purchases that are coming in are not from some of those top ads. Again, you have to have really great branding and great video or content offer for some sales to come in from those called ads. That’s what we did at Heroclip, but that’s because we had a viral product and I, because I did tons of testing to get the for purchases from the first ad, but in most cases your conversion rates are just like really bad. They’re under 0.1% from cold traffic to Amazon or even if it’s like to your website and directly to Amazon the re-targeting or based on the any type of engagement, whether it’s some sort of engagement on your website, on them showing intent, going to Amazon and then kind of more advanced strategies with, whether you’re combining other tools and try and do pixel events or trying to track purchases in different ways. Then you can kind of do more warmer and hotter re-targeting, but the warmer and the hotter re-targeting is where those ads that are going to be way profitable because it’s the customer journey, right? Like who’s gonna buy from the, from the first ad. Some people will, but this applies to the Amazon world as well. And Amazon Prime aren’t doing, they might see some increase in Amazon sales, but that’s just because Amazon is rewarding you for sending traffic and you’re probably getting add to carts, other engagements happening on Amazon but not necessarily purchases. And then that’s gonna have a ceiling. Just that external traffic that’s not leading to real sales. Amazon is going to reward your organically, but you need to start adding, the customer journey funnel ads in there as well. So it’s not just about that first ad, it’s the later ads as well that those are the ones that are profitable. And then you can start amplifying your, your Amazon even further that way.

Bradley Sutton: That’s all great information. I think it’s important that a lot of people, may overlook. And I, I’ve also had some experts on Facebook here, like Wilfried in the past. But here’s the thing that maybe I have failed to do when I’m asking these interviews is just like take it back a few steps. So let me do that with you. So this is all great and everything, but our typical listener may be sitting there, maybe they’re thinking of starting and I Amazon, they haven’t started yet. Or maybe they’re a newer seller or there may, they have one product they’re selling, $5,000 a month, whatever the case is. But they’re newer on the newer side and they’ve never run Facebook ads for their business. So let’s just go really, really basic. At what point should someone think about running Facebook ads or off Amazon ads to their Amazon business? Like is that something that from day one should happen or there’s a certain point where they should reach a certain level or there is a certain goal? I mean, can you talk to us a little bit about why someone would want to start doing this?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah. Well, let me have two different answers for the starter or beginner. One is the more things that you’re doing, you’re probably getting distracted. And when you’re starting, you probably don’t have a big team or any team at all or as much fun. So as soon as you started doing Facebook ads, it’s taking away from some basic foundational, important things you need to be doing on Amazon. So one thing to keep in mind, and this is the first part of the answer is whatever you’re doing, it probably has a high chance of failure. So it’s more about the experience, knowing how to set up the ads, how to set up everything Amazon related, your product research, your listing, your optimization, start getting some launching and ranking and having Facebook to amplify that. But in that process you’re probably gonna be like distracted and doing all of this in so many different ways. It’s either not gonna be affected or it’s gonna take a real long time to do it. The best bet is to make it content related, educational related. So it’s educational, it’s, it makes you’re the end consumer, the customer, a better person and understands them. It makes them connect with your brand.

Bradley Sutton: We don’t have too much time left here, but I’m just curious about that. Like what, what you would suggest people do, because I think the majority of our listeners, if they’ve even thought about Facebook ads, they’re thinking of it in the context of, like a launch. Like, Hey, let me send people into a funnel or let me send people to ManyChat so I can give them a discount, or I can do a rebate or something like that. But you’re obviously talking about something different. What would be a kind of Facebook campaign that you would suggest, you know, Amazon sellers start with?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, and this applies to launches too. I feel like a lot of the things we see in Amazon community is about launches and ranking. Like it works. There’s a lot of variety you can do. But that’s like, that’s like one of seven different types of angles or strategies that I see across many types of Amazon brands. Cause I’m experiencing a lot of brands away or like they’re just focused on their website and they happened to have an Amazon store. So those strategies vary quite a bit that we actually don’t see a lot of discussions in Amazon groups. Those are morning like eCommerce and Facebook related groups. And I see a lot of those through Zontracker and basically this diversification of traffic. But a very specific example for beginners is first, having a video. If you don’t have a video, take any images and make them into a video, like a slideshow is basically just static images that are playing over time of something about your product or the lifestyle. Something’s very simple and you want to use very creative angles differently. Like we’re depth perception. This is about catching attention and Facebook charging you less money. To this is how you’re navigating the algorithm. So don’t just like put a picture of your product, like put a picture of your product with a very weird angle cause people are still gonna kind of know what it is, but it’s gonna catch their attention. So the next ads, the re-targeting, so someone watches the video or they click the ad from that first video and they’re just going to like you’re a website or a landing page, something very simple like don’t even think about it like a full Shopify store. It’s just like more about a landing page, something that’s present for people to go to so you could keep track of them through your Facebook pixel and there’s that level of engagement and then the re-targeting getting is where what people usually do at the first step, they kind of skip that content stage or that and of building up awareness stage because then in the second ad, the offer or the lunch is where chances are they’re gonna be much higher than people are gonna engage with that added, be familiar with around just because they already saw something or because they’re already coming from the warmer audience and algorithmically more important. Facebook is gonna be charging you less money for that second ad because of those first ads. Then if you totally skipped that, what most Amazon sellers do, they just go straight for the product ad. Meaning it’s like here’s the product or here’s the offer and go buy it. Insert some sort of ad that’s content related or it’s building up the brand or it’s about the product or it’s educating or even like a tutorial or a like a review of your products. Somebody reviewing your product or unboxing, just anything that’s related to your product before the actual offer. That’s kind of more like a teaser because that, that curiosity is what’s driving down the cost and that like the teaser or is that coming up where people are gonna be for shadowing or there’s gonna be some other content coming up. That’s where you can put the offer. It’s gonna make that second ad more effective.

Bradley Sutton: That’s great advice there. So I’m assuming that, as you are, working in, in Facebook ads, you, you, you saw the big kind of hole or black hole as it were of it’s hard to measure how effective what you’re doing, like, Hey, if I’m running a specific promotion, I can track the discount code. I know how many people are doing it. But as you’re talking about Facebook is so much more, Facebook ads are so much more than just trying to send people to an offer. Is that what kind of prompted how you started Zontracker? Like man, there, there is a need for me to be able to understand how my Facebook ads are performing that aren’t just straight sending people coupon codes.

Yev Marusenko: Yeah. You’re right on the spot because, as you can already see with some of the strategies I’ve been testing where I have hundreds of ads at a time for certain campaigns. So it’s not just like one campaign in one coupon code, all right, what to one landing page and using one affiliate link or, all of these strategies to try to track or having some sort of tag in the URL and sending them to a Amazon brand store with what they were doing that you could track. So it’s hundreds of campaigns, ads and ad sets and you have to know exactly which one is leading to the sale to the sale or not. So that was exactly the problem.

Bradley Sutton: So, so real briefly, just, just a little bit about it because honestly, I’ve never used your software and I know a lot of people haven’t. So just in a nutshell kind of what is the purpose of it? What does it do?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah. From the from the beginning, the unique feature was that you can track Amazon sales coming from Facebook ads. There’s been up, been a lot of changes how kind of data has been changing and different data protection policies from Amazon. But basically it’s pulling in Amazon data into Facebook and then it’s matching. There’s a feature that a lot of other software has where you, re-target to get audiences build look alike, but I never focused on that and that feature just because other software has it and that has more privacy concerns. But the main features that tracking the sale and directly in your Facebook you see a column and it says Amazon purchase and you see that at the ad level. So it’s not at the individual person level, it’s more of the aggregated where it’s here’s all of the ads you run and which ones lead to a purchase. And then the, and it was like more like newer feature, which was super unique, is that in Facebook you can then tell the Facebook algorithm to optimize for those purchases. So it’s a conversion event. It’s kind of like the Facebook pixel events you’re telling Facebook optimize for this data that you’re pulling in, which are Amazon purchases. So then I get even more Amazon purchases. So then it kind of kind of like works full circle that way

Bradley Sutton: For the rest of you guys. Quick note, don’t forget that regardless where you’re listening to this podcast, whether it’s on your iPhone, Stitcher, Spotify, hit the subscribe button so you can be notified every time we drop a new episode. One last question for you. In your businesses now in your consulting, even with your software, does Helium 10 play a role at all in it?

Yev Marusenko: Oh yeah, absolutely. So one of the things is that –so we have different case studies that we’re working on. There’s different software users and this is where it’s on the, there’s two parts. One is kind of like the beginning, like product research and everything related to stuff about Amazon. That kind of like my marketing mind, like doesn’t even want to go after, you know, dealing with inventory and then product research. But the marketing angle is aware when you, when you’re complimenting any type of research with marketing, which marketing is gonna be more effective, you have to know about the product quality, which is based on the behavior interests. So it’s complimenting all of the research tools and making the marketing more effective. So that’s one of the things that we’re seeing right now in the case study that we’re –we’ve built on that we’re building is that knowing that Amazon audience, and that’s through different Amazon research tools and we were like exactly using Helium 10 for that. So that’s a very complimentary there.

Bradley Sutton: Awesome. All right, well thank you for your time here. I’m sure there’s people who might have more questions or they might want to find out more about your software. So how can people find you and how can people find Zontracker?

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, the best is Facebook group has Zontracker in the name. You can also add me on Facebook or LinkedIn. Not on LinkedIn much, but it’s still on there. So it was basically through Facebook group and then you can go to Zontracker.io

Bradley Sutton: All right. Well, yeah, thank you very much for, joining us and definitely you’re not the kind of PhD who’s gonna help me the next time I have my cold or something where I need some medical advice, but now I know who to go to for like some really next level analytical stuff and next time you’re back down here in Orange County, please stop by at our office and say hello.

Yev Marusenko: Yeah, I definitely will. Thanks for having me Bradley, it’s fine.

Bradley Sutton: All right, we’ll see you later.