Why I'm Writing This Series
Most ecommerce advice is written from the outside. I spend my time on what actually moves numbers on Amazon and TikTok Shop, and this year one idea kept proving itself: the brands that win aren't finding hacks. They're stacking small, correct decisions until those decisions compound.
I also learn a lot from operators who share real numbers. Two of the best are Mansour Norouzi of Incrementum Digital on the Amazon side and Joel Contartese of Bloom Nutrition on TikTok Shop. Where I use their examples and data, I'll say so.
Starting tomorrow, I'll publish one article a day, each on a single lesson and how I'd apply it. This post is the overview.
On Amazon: Diagnose Before You Spend
The habit I'd push on every Amazon seller: before you react to a number, find out what caused it.
A rank drop isn't always a listing problem
Mansour shared a case where a product slipped in rank with no change to bids, listing or competitors. Putting Search Query Performance data next to ad spend per keyword showed the cause: spend on the top keyword had quietly fallen even though the bid hadn't changed. Click share dropped, then purchase share, then rank. Rank trackers tell you that you dropped. SQP plus ad data tells you why.
Not every keyword is worth losing money on
I sort keywords into two groups. On rankable keywords, where your product is what the shopper wants, short-term losses buy organic rank that pays back. On non-rankable keywords, which are too broad or too expensive to own, there's no payback. Never run those at a loss.
Your LTV is smaller than AMC says
More brands now pull lifetime value from Amazon Marketing Cloud and set acquisition targets from it. That number shrinks before it should drive a bid: revenue isn't profit, repeat buyers often come back through your ads, the extra customers you win are rarely average ones, and ad bills arrive long before LTV pays out.
The Prime Day lesson: Mansour reported that after Fall Prime Day 2026, revenue across the brands Incrementum manages was up 14% year over year. But everyday sales were up 15.5%, and the event spike was unchanged at about 1.78x a normal day. The growth came from a bigger normal day, not a bigger event.
On TikTok Shop: Build the Engine, Not the Campaign
My view is simple: TikTok Shop isn't a store. It's a marketing engine, and creators are what power it.
Measure it by what moves everywhere else
Judging TikTok Shop only on its own revenue minus costs misses most of its value. Bloom, for example, watches Amazon branded search, retail sell-through, organic revenue and DTC traffic, and sees all of them rise when TikTok content is flowing.
Keeping creators is harder than finding them
Most brands obsess over recruiting creators. The real leak is retention. What works is community: regular creator calls, short briefs that leave room for creativity, in-person events, and rewards for effort as well as sales.
Content volume is the lever, and paid ads amplify it
Results track daily video count. Joel has shared that around 200 videos a day, winning hooks started to show for Bloom, and past 1,000 a day, six-figure sales days became realistic. When he paused GMV Max for 30 days in the UK, sales fell 58% but video output fell only 19%. Content is the foundation; ads scale it.
Three Rules That Hold on Both Platforms
- Compounding beats one-off moves. Black Friday on TikTok Shop is won in the summer, and on Amazon the brands that grow are the ones with a bigger everyday baseline, not a bigger event budget.
- AI needs your judgment and your context. I use AI every day, and I check it. It will confidently misread Amazon data if it doesn't know that a sale is credited to the day of the ad click. And AI-generated videos have no place spending a creator program's budget.
- Own the lever that decides the outcome. Be skeptical of hands-off campaign types that hide their structure. Automation is fine when you control what feeds it, like a steady supply of strong creator content.
What to Do This Week
- Check actual spend and click share on your 5 most important Amazon keywords, not just the bids.
- Label every keyword you push for rank as rankable or non-rankable, and stop running the second group at a loss.
- Before reacting to a big sales day, check whether it came from new traffic or from shoppers converting carts they filled earlier.
- If you sell on TikTok Shop, track daily video count next to sales, and put a recurring touchpoint with your creators on the calendar.
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