The signals on Amazon are everywhere. But what do we do with them? Advertising on Amazon is all about honing in on customer behavior and then taking advantage of every opportunity you have to increase sales in the short term and profitability in the long run. Neha Bhuchar, CEO & Co-Founder of atom11, a retail aware advertising platform for brands and agencies on Amazon, schools us on how to actually address the real problems of your customer and take action. One of the biggest issues: customers don't always know what they want or what they need. In order to find out you have to ask the right questions and then... Shut up! Listening is your new superpower. Neha shows us how to listen to our customers in order to get to the root cause of problems so you can make impactful change. You don't fix problems on Amazon or in business. You fix root causes. It's time to shut up and listen to this next episode.

Is it possible to do good AND make money? Can you actually have a positive impact while growing a business? My guest on today's episode, Keith Hartnett, CEO of Better World Goods, thinks so. And we tend to agree. Keith's experience in selling on marketplaces and running an agency has shown him that making change requires you to be involved. You can't win in ecommerce or life if you don't play the game. We also dive into the realities and facades of agency life. In a social media world where everything gets divisive really quickly and we focus on the positives only, the reality of agency life is it's difficult. Not everything is a W and you will inevitably come up against problems. Intentionally hiding the difficulties shouldn't be the norm. Being willing to be authentic will go a long way and can actually provide you with credibility. Want to know more about how to run an agency with integrity? Listen to Keith's story.

Amazon hasn't always been "Amazon." Nobody could have fully imagined the way it would take over the ecommerce ecosystem but here we are 20 something years later and Amazon is straight dominating. Many people in the current ecosystem started small, Host included, making people who say Amazon killed small businesses dead wrong. My guest today on The Longer Game, Ryan Burgess, Head of Growth at the ad optimization and analytics platform Intentwise, did just that. Not old enough to get a "real" job, he started buying products wholesale and selling them on ebay. Then came Amazon. 10 years later here he is leading companies to success on Amazon along with other ecommerce platforms, helping them track and take action on customer intent signals. Join us as we geek out on all things Amazon and discover our similarities live on camera.

Brick & mortar retailers are evolving and Tom Burgess, President of the Fintech company Snipp Interactive, came on The Longer Game to dive into the current state of retail evolution. For the longest time, Retailers had data from loyalty programs and didn't know how to leverage it, other than tracking purchase habits. They were actually scared of it. When they figured out how to wield this power, they created a behemoth; enter Retail Media Networks. Leveraging their own ecosystems, Retailers started advertising to their consumers directly and brought brands along with them, somewhat to the brand's dismay. While it helps by actually getting visibility and revenue, they bemoaned because spending feels like a "tax." While RMNs have seen success, they're starting to hit audience caps, requiring more ad inventory. Want to find out where this is going? Take a listen.

Selling products online is easy. Or it used to be. But selling is just the start. You then have to build emotional connection with the consumer to get them to come back and buy your product again. Otherwise, you're caught in what our guest on this episode of The Longer Game Ben Leonard, Founder of Ecom Brokers, calls the Fish Bowl Hamster Wheel cycle. Famsters, a cross between a fish and a hamster, while they may be imaginary, are exactly what business owners become when they don't think brand and are just reaching for their next sale. It's a never ending cycle that lacks sustainability and ultimately leaves the business owner wanting more whenever they go to sell their business, which is exactly what Ben helps ecommerce brands do. Jump off the wheel and listen to us dive into the crazy world of ecommerce where we explore important lessons and share why self-proclaimed gurus are the bane of our existence.

Agencies often get business wrong. Why? Because they focus on growth at all costs and push their employees and team members beyond their limits, which leads to them eventually burning out and clients becoming dissatisfied. George Reid, the Founder of the Amazon Ad's Agency Georges Blog, has decided to go a different route. The world of advertising on Amazon has continued to grow in complexity. While George keeps pace with those new levers being added, he has decided to grow by focusing on developing and caring for a strong team that leads to better client success. When most agencies double down on fast growth, which often isn't sustainable, George is okay to grow slowly and do it well. Meet the most laid back of self-proclaimed coffee snobs who also has a slight taste for pain in running ultramarathons.

Trouble finding good talent? Welcome to the club. The whole freelancer concept is incredibly powerful in it's flexibility and potential but finding the right person who can actually do what they say they can is no easy feat. The amount of markup on those freelancer's fees can also mean that brands end up being misled on the level of knowledge of said freelancer. Needless to say, there is room for improvement. Jai Dolwani, CEO of The Starters, a curated freelancer marketplace with vetted ecommerce talent, knows the pain of this process and is out to right the wrongs he experienced as the CMO at Winc, the well known internet based wine club. Pour some wine, swirl your glass, and open up your pallete to new ways to solve problems in the world of ecommerce.

By now it should be clear that running a brand is not an easy task. And brands sometimes make it harder on themselves. They think short term. What is my RoAS? Can I get away with basic creative? The problem is those short term fixes prevent them from seeing the long term growth they really desire. Agencies can help but when they can't deliver on the promises they make in the sales process, it makes it even harder for those brands to really win. Co-Founder and CMO of Webtopia, Jessie Healy, joins us on this episode of The Longer Game to share her insights from the brand side that led to her moving agency side, creating the "anti-agency." Does this strike your curiosity? Press play and let's begin.

Being an ecommerce business at $5M and $500M are very different. And the path there isn't always possible for every brand. In ecommerce, there are very specifics parts of your businesses DNA that are required to really grow exponentially and not every brand will have the right pieces to grow super large. You should also ask yourself, do you even want to grow that big? Andrew Faris, Founder of AJF Growth, joins me to share his wisdom and insight on all these topics. After working brand side, moving to an aggregator, back to brand, and now living in agency life, Andrew has seen a lot and this episode doesn't even capture it all. Let's get started, so grab a drink and hold on.

Amazon Aggregators have started to fail in a challenging economic climate with changing consumer behavior and people are piling on. Were some of us expecting failure? Sure. But majority of new businesses fail. So how is that different? Well Nathan Sieminski, formerly of Perch, one of the largest aggregators raising just over $900M, shares his experience working there and sheds line on the reality of that environment. Spoiler alert, it's different than you expected. We chat about how Walmart is bringing the heat and how the battle for ecommerce dominance is shaping up. Grab a seat, get a drink, and settle in for a conversation between two humans who want to see people win.