The Swamps Of Amazon And Brand Adventures

Everyone assumes Amazon will eventually swallow all of ecommerce. It has not, and it might never. The trap is not Amazon growing too big, it is brands assuming Amazon is the whole game and building nothing of their own around it.

Michael Maher spoke with Elizabeth Greene, co-founder of the Amazon advertising agency Junglr, about why Amazon's share of ecommerce has plateaued below early predictions, what separates real brands from old-school private labelers, and why chasing a lower ACOS is not always the smart move.

Why Amazon Stalled Short Of Predictions

Years ago, plenty of analysts predicted Amazon would command half of all US ecommerce by now. It has not gotten there. Elizabeth Greene pointed to stocking problems, shoppers being conditioned to look beyond Amazon, and a wave of smaller, more personal brands building their own audiences off-platform.

"I think there's a lot of other brands that are kind of trying to build themselves off the platform. And that may also have factors."

— Elizabeth Greene, Co-Founder at Junglr

Brands are realizing that long-term brand equity is hard to build on a platform that, by design, does not want to dilute its own customer relationship.

Brands Versus Old-School Private Label

Elizabeth Greene draws a sharp line between sellers building an actual brand presence and old-school private labelers who slap a logo on a factory product and call it done. As competition intensifies, that second group is running out of room.

"The competition getting more and more fierce, and there being less and less places where you can really come in and absolutely differentiate yourself from the market. There, those people are just getting squeezed out."

— Elizabeth Greene, Co-Founder at Junglr

Her favorite partners are the ones who already know their product and have a clear direction. An ad agency can only amplify what already exists. It cannot manufacture a brand story out of nothing.

Chasing A Number Instead Of A Goal

Both Michael Maher and Elizabeth Greene pushed back on the industry habit of fixating on ACOS targets or seven-figure revenue thresholds without asking why those numbers matter in the first place.

"You're always trying to push it towards profitability, or some sort of upside be that ranking or profits. There again, I'm a firm believer, and there always is some upside, we don't run ads just to like run ads."

— Elizabeth Greene, Co-Founder at Junglr

Every ad dollar needs a distinct purpose, whether that is ranking, visibility, or straight profitability. Chasing a lower ACOS for its own sake, without connecting it to a growth goal, can actually stall a brand that says it wants to scale.

There Is No Secret Sauce

One of the more refreshing moments in the conversation was Elizabeth Greene admitting plainly that ranking campaigns are not some proprietary formula. It comes down to bidding enough to earn visibility and understanding a client's real risk tolerance before setting expectations.

"It's you need to bid high enough to gain that visibility, probably in a more targeted build, so that, I mean, there's ways to do it better. But there's no like secret sauce."

— Elizabeth Greene, Co-Founder at Junglr

What separates a good agency from a mediocre one is not a hidden trick, it is pattern recognition earned from running many accounts at once and knowing how much risk a brand can actually stomach before recommending a strategy.

What This Means For Brands

• Do not treat Amazon as your only shelf. Build a presence your customers can find off the platform too.
• Invest in becoming a real brand, not just a product listing, before competition prices you out of differentiation.
• Set a clear purpose for every ad dollar spent, whether that is ranking, visibility, or pure profit, and measure against that purpose.
• Know your risk tolerance before you set a rank or growth target. It changes what strategy actually makes sense.
• Watch new data Amazon releases, like brand-level conversion benchmarks, to see how you actually compare to your category average.

Know Your Numbers

Asked for one piece of advice for brands advertising on Amazon, Elizabeth Greene kept it simple: know your numbers, and accept that not every keyword or target deserves equal treatment. That is a quieter message than most marketing advice, but it is the kind of discipline that actually compounds over a longer game.

Watch the full episode of The Longer Game for the complete conversation between Michael Maher and Elizabeth Greene.