Today’s podcast focuses on niching down your audience, but first a listener question. Tyler asks, “If you can share experience with MAP pricing?” If you would like to ask Ecom Crew a question head over to our contact form or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.
Grant says MAP pricing was used on Treadmill.com. MAP pricing is the minimum advertised price, and it is an agreement between vendors and sellers stipulating the lowest price the item can be advertised at. Some even argue whether MAP pricing is legal or not. Our experience was that we abided by it. The decision to use MAP really comes down to the vendor and seller relationship. If you aren’t making any money, you may want to reconsider your strategy. Mike says that MAP pricing can make things really tough if you are selling on MAP, but others aren’t. There are some ways to work around it such as free shipping or coupons, but we prefer not to have to deal with MAP pricing if we don’t have to.
Niching down ad campaigns is a topic that came up in Mike’s mastermind group. Ecom Crew has really been ramping up our advertising campaigns. Mike was sharing advertising campaigns with the group, and the advice is to niche down to a smaller audience. Campaigns can be targeted by state, sex, age, and income this really focuses on who the customer is. Likewise, Grant feels that finding a profitable sector in any paid advertising is the way to go. It’s common for people to shop in the mornings between 8 am and 10 am. Monday is a good shopping day as opposed to Friday. People from states with higher incomes often buy higher priced items. It pays to modify the spending budget to focus on profitable sectors and lower the budget on unprofitable sectors. Negative keyword lists are a great way to avoid wasting money and not paying for tire-kickers.

IOS users seem to perform better than Android users.
IE users may be older and less sophisticated on Internet, may not comparison shop.
Earlier in the day performs better with returns on ad spend.
Geographic sectors and states with more money or most populous states can perform better.
States like Oregon and Washington do better with coloring books.
Campaigns on Facebook are broken down by sex, 10 year age blocks, and $50,000 income blocks.
Niche down to a smaller audience, look at performance, and find small profitable niche.
Niching by job titles can find movers and shakers in certain sectors.

Next week we’ll be talking about how to build your own brand. This should be a multi-part series that can help avoid issues like MAP pricing.
Mentioned on this podcast:
CuttingBoard.com
ChoppingBlocks.com
Treadmill.com
Ecom Crew Facebook Page
Ecom Crew Twitter
If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes.