I’m really excited for this month’s Prime Day because it’s a little bit different from the last few, and I want to explain.

BTW, scroll all the way down for a Walmart cheat sheet

What’s different about this Prime Day round?

• Consumers are now fully pr…

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• I noticed a few new faces here with unfamiliar email addresses… if you’re coming from my social media and looking for the Extra Good newsletter (the one with fun shopping info and product explainers), just let me know. I’ll refund you here and transfer your membership <3.

• I’m in New York a few more …

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And the timing is great ahead of Prime Day.

First, let’…

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Finding/pitching relevant Substacks

I covered this a few newsletters back and everyone LOVED the topic but had more questions, so I want to throw some more helping info out:

• Start with the Substack leaderboard in your …

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First, I’ve had a few hundred new signups here over the last few days from Tiktok and Instagam, but my public-facing, weekly newsletter is actually called Extra Good. It’s free and goes out every Friday morning!

Extra Good

This one is strictly for media industry colleagues and work <3

Now, for the work-related stuff

I’ll be heading to NYC and Toronto next month to film a LOT (mostly NYC, just a few days in Canada) plus show my face at publisher offices for a minute.

Though my time in each city is limited, I’d absolutely love your pitches (or just personal ideas of must-sees!) for content surrounding hidden treasures/what’s new and interesting.

Specifically in the realms of: beauty, women’s wellness, shopping and undiscovered gems.

brycegruber@gmail.com

And tbh, the biggest ask of all, even if none of that resonates with you/your client list and we’re just old timey friends, I’d love to give you a hug/have a coffee <3

Picture of a flower in my yard just because I like flowers and I think the color is pretty. K, have the best day :)

Btw, quick note… I’ll be in NYC (for several days) and Toronto (just a couple days) next month an…

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In the last few days, publishers of most sizes got this note from the Impact team:

Hi Partners,

Rakuten Advertising has selected impact.…

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Other systems/services that may help you/your brands

Btw, I do not benefit at all if you sign up for these or us…

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Major agencies have started pushing holiday pitches already. It’s April. And it’s funny, bc that was way more of a thing when humans read print publications… but in a …

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Some ways I would look to discover high-value newsletters to pitch:

Within Substack you can filter by oodles of topics:

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Reminder, what I’m sharing with you here is confidential and not public. Plea…

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Have you seen what GAP is up to?

Gap is partnering with Gemini (Google’s AI platform) to let shoppers browse and check out d…

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Editorial hiring is picking up again, but it’s more targeted

Remember a year-ish ago when it felt like everyone was getting laid off and all the editorial teams got really tiny? Well, that’s about leveled…

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But, before we get to Amazon… there’s a bunch of buzz with editors and publisher-side decision makers right now

There’s a currently embargoed data set that’s going to…

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If you paid for a membership here but meant to gain access to Extra Good, please reply to this email and I’ll help sort it out for you! <3

Anywho… Amazon sales season is once again upon us, and there’s a newish added feature for marketers, publicists and brands that helps raise brand visibility (and sales).

In my opinion, this feature is especially good for products in crowded playing fields where consumers and editors have loads of choices and it’s just… hard to pick.

Creator Connections on steroids

By now, I think everyone’s aware of how Creator Connections works (if not, it’s a brand choosing to offer increased affiliate connections on particular skus of their choosing).

But now you can also incentivize clicks.

In the publisher/affiliate dashboard, it lives right next to the affiliate campaigns center.

Please note that not 100% of American affiliates have access yet, I believe it’s being rolled out to relatively high volume publishers to begin with and then making is away across the platform.

But many publishers and creators have access to it now.

“Wait, are we paying for sales AND clicks now?”

I know that’s what you’re going to ask. The answer is no. If the creator makes a sale, the sale commission wins—no additional click bounty is paid.

Here’s how Amazon explains it to publishers:

“Find campaigns in the ‘Sponsored Products for Creators’ tab. See each campaign's ‘Estimated earnings-per-click’, and accept. Note: If you join campaigns with the same product for Affiliate+ and Sponsored Products for Creators, only Affiliate+ commissions apply.”

Are major brands already doing this? And what are they paying per click?

Yes, and I’ll give you some ideas below:

Now, 12 cents isn’t a lot… but remember I told you ages ago that some titles love click bounties (like New York Post, for example)?

Driving 1,000 clicks covers their art production costs for the story + likely results in at least 100 sales (10% is the average win rate for Amazon clicks at major publishers). For high-margin products, it’s an easy win.

And yes, lots of popular brands and up-and-comers. Look below for examples and rates.

Honestly, the Essence one is great. I’ll probably take advantage of this with my own work because I already talk about the brand a lot.

And I see ML’s client here too! Good job, ML… you/the team are crushing this <3

Btw, this is an example of the OG Creator Connections platform on the publisher side if you need a reminder of what that stuff looks like:

Questions:

“Is it useful for PR reporting?”

It can be—because creators/publishers are encouraged to submit links to their content (however they’re generating sales/clicks, whether via website, social media, newsletter, etc.)

You can see the little “submit content link” at the bottom of the product listing. Not everyone uses it, but a lot do.

“Where can I access this feature to start using it?”

If you’re a brand or marketing agency, it’s pretty easy. The path usually looks like this:

1. Log into Amazon Seller Central

2. Click “Advertising”

3. Open the Ads Console / Campaign Manager

4. Go to Brand Content

5. Select Creator Connections

Once that section is open, you can:

• Create a Creator Connections campaign

• Choose the products they want promoted

• Set a bonus commission % and/or click bounty

• Define start/end dates

• Invite or accept creators into the campaign

But you do have to FUND the campaign, and that’s where things differ from many other platforms.

You can’t just pay as you go… brands are required to fund their Ads console with a minimum of $5k for Amazon to draw on for commissions, clicks, or both. They don’t want to be left holding the bag if your client pops off one day and drives a crapload of commissioned sales.

Couple more things before we skedaddle!

1. Super duper mega reminder to get your sales content ready in case a hypothetical maor Amazon sales event pops up relatively soon, ya feel?

2. Also super excited to share that Sam Breen’s agency, Opportunity PR, is now repping my social media work and I’m all sorts of happy and smiley about working with someone from here… and can’t wait to support more of your clients when/where I can!

K, here for questions, thoughts/ideas, pictures of whatever you think is fun. Talk soon, bubbeleh!

First, mark your calendars for the last week of March

This is going to be a very big sales week ahead of spring & Mother’s Day shopping to look for. If your brand sells on Amazon, plan your pitches and competitive deals accordingly. Get into those listicles ASAP, bc editors are already fleshing out lists and list id…

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Amazon is really pushing the “customers also bought” feature right now.

I was working on a piece about memory foam pillows (btw, if you sell memory foam pillows with super high ratings…

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Anywho, it’s no secret that all the big publishers have very intimate relationships with Amazon (do we need me to explain Oprah’s fave things again for the new friends here…

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Super Bowl data: forget the football

I couldn’t share the stats last year or the year before for NDA-related reasons, but n…

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