Elizabeth Greene

Junglr

Co-Founder

CORE® Community

Mentor

Co-Founder @ Junglr | Amazon Advertising

“I don’t know what I’m doing…I’m just leaving money on the table.”
“Weeks go by, I don’t look at it, and suddenly I’ve wasted $100 on something stupid.”

That’s what I hear from sellers all the time.

They’re frustrated.
Burned.
Unsure if ads are fueling growth or just bleeding cash.
...And when they do hand it off, it feels like a gamble

“Agencies never seemed to know it better than I did.”

Most agencies make it worse. They either zoom out so far they miss the real problems, or they bury you in data you don’t have time to sift through.

Suddenly you're the one catching mistakes.

That’s where things break.
Spend climbs
profits shrink
growth flatlines
...and nobody knows why.

Clients tell us the reason they trust Junglr is because we know when the details matter.
We’re in the weeds, ASIN by ASIN, but we don’t just drown you in noise.
We surface the things that actually move the needle...when they matter.

“You actually caught something in the audit I’d missed for three weeks.”

That’s the difference. Relief.

It’s more than just ‘keeping an eye on it.’ Anyone can do that.

The difference is surfacing the right things...before they cost you.

With us, you don’t have to micromanage or second-guess.

You get clarity on what matters.
Protection against waste
...and freedom to focus on scaling your brand.

Anyone can run ads.
We make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

Did you catch the new Amazon drop?

It is subtle, but it is a massive shift.

Amazon is rolling out a price history chart, right on the product page under the price.

No digging necessary.

Shoppers get instant context.

Is that promo a real discount, or just a “deal”?

The curtain is officially pulled back.

Great for consumers, absolutely.

But here is why the rest of us should pay attention:

It is an intel gift.

We now get clearer visibility into competitor pricing, how often they run promos, how deep they cut, how they anchor value.

It turns into a free competitive benchmark that can sharpen every client recommendation.

Transparency is not optional anymore, it is table stakes.

the direction is obvious.

If Amazon keeps pushing into this territory, 

all those clever pricing tricks are going to look real obvious real fast.

You cannot hide shaky pricing when the history is sitting right in front of customers.

The real question is, 

are you ready to play the long game on pricing, 

or were you banking on short term tactics?

Curious, do you already see this feature on your account?

Ad strategy that grows your brand, not Amazon’s bottom line | Co-founder @ Junglr

If your product isn’t selling on Amazon,



stop blaming PPC.



Ads do one thing: drive traffic.



If people are clicking but not buying, t



hat’s not a PPC problem..



it’s a product or customer-fit problem.



Here’s the reality: not every product is going to hit.



Amazon is a numbers game.



Some will work, some won’t.



The smart sellers don’t just throw more money at the problem.



They stop and ask why.



A flop isn’t a failure if you use it right.



You gained data.



You learned what your customer doesn’t want.



And that’s just as valuable as a win.



The brands that scale long-term aren’t the ones dumping the most money into ads.



They’re the ones obsessed with their customers,



solving real problems,



and learning from every launch..



good or bad.



PPC can amplify a good product.



But it will never fix a bad one.

Your CPC isn’t rising because your bids are off.

It’s rising because Amazon is multiplying your bids behind the scenes.

Here’s what’s actually happening:

Your bidding strategy adjusts your bid before the auction.

Your budget pacing throttles or accelerates your visibility.

Your placement modifiers multiply your bid again on top of that.

By the time your ad enters the auction,

your “$1.50 bid” might be acting like a $3 or $4 bid
and you’d never know unless you understand the system.

That’s why sellers get blindsided.
They watch keyword bids,
but the real spend drivers live one layer above.

Once you understand the 5 levers controlling CPC,

everything clicks.

Your spend becomes predictable.

Your campaigns stabilize.

Your optimizations finally stick.

If you want the full breakdown,

comment 'BIDS'

and make sure we’re connected

so I can send it over.

Trying to solve TACoS with incomplete data is why so many sellers stay stuck...

We built a TACoS Bot that finally pulls everything into one clear child ASIN view.

Business report 
Sponsored Products
Sponsored Display
all combined so you can actually see what is happening.

The funny part?

It cleaned up those Amazon CSVs like they weren’t the hot mess they always are 😆

But honestly, 

this is the most complete TACoS focused breakdown I’ve seen.

Total ACoS, 
ad % of total sales, 
conversion checks, 
spend imbalance, 
and even buy box flags all in one place.

If you manage more than a few SKUs, 

this gives you the clarity Amazon never does.


Want access?

Comment TACoS BOT and I’ll send it over 👇

(we have to be connected)

Most sellers don’t have a campaign structure problem.
They have a campaign intent problem.

Everyone wants the clean, textbook setup.
Neatly segmented.
Perfect naming.
Single keyword campaigns everywhere.

But that is not real life.

Real life is inheriting an account where branded is mixed with non branded, broad is mixed with phrase, and half the keywords live in a Franken campaign that somehow prints money even though the whole thing makes your eye twitch.

So here is how I actually structure campaigns in a way that works even when an account is a disaster. 👇

The Real Reason Your Campaign Structure Fails

Amazon sellers are seeing two new features pop up in their accounts right now, 

and the DMs have been full of the same question

Do these actually matter, or are they just more noise from Amazon?

Short answer, yes. 

Longer answer, this is exactly why I am writing this.

Prompts and Sponsored Products Video are rolling out slow, 

barely explained, and confusing. 

Which is precisely why they matter. 

Early stages are where the biggest wins show up, long before everyone else piles in.

Here is what most sellers are not seeing yet..

These updates will change how Sponsored Products performs, 

how creative assets work, 

and how you build campaigns going into next year.

Most accounts are seeing zero data. 

Some placements are half live. 

Amazon has not released a guide. 

Everyone is waiting for clarity that may not arrive any time soon.

Meanwhile, the smart operators are already setting themselves up to win Q4 and beyond. 

They do not wait for a manual. 

They move while everyone else hesitates.

Want the full breakdown?

Today’s newsletter is the honest, 

unfiltered look at what is actually happening.

👉 What we are seeing across real accounts
👉 How these features truly behave once they go live
👉 The exact steps smart sellers are taking right now to get ahead


The newsletter goes out today at 12 pm EST, 

so hurry and subscribe if you want it delivered straight to your inbox.

Check the first comment to subscribe.

Stop losing Cyber Monday money

Everyone wants big sales today.

But if you are using the same old plan, it is slow, it is weak, and it is costing you money.

Want a fast Amazon boost?

Try this one smart move.

Focus on the products that already win.

• Find your top products
• Make sure they meet your TACoS goals
• Find the best keywords for those products
• Raise your bids by 15% to 25%
• Add more budget
• Let it run for 24 hours
• Check your sales and ACoS

Why this works:

Your strong keywords already show up high in search.
Raising your bids helps them show up even more.

Higher bids → More people see your product
More people seeing it → More clicks
More clicks → More sales

It is like giving your best products a boost button.
Try it and watch your results grow fast.

And really, who is still worried about saving 0.05 on a bid today?

Black Friday officially starts TODAY on Amazon

Amazon just confirmed that this year’s event is kicking off early on Thursday, November 20, 

a full eight days before the actual date. 

It’s a 12 day sales window, running from November 20 through December 1, 

covering both Black Friday Week and Cyber Monday.

So, the real question is, are you set up to win?

Black Friday success isn’t about spending more, 

it’s about getting the fundamentals right.

And honestly, most sellers lose money because they skip the basics.

Don’t be one of them.

Here’s what usually goes wrong:

❌ Weak keyword targeting
❌ Budgets slipping out of control
❌ No retargeting strategy

These seem small, but they quietly drain your sales.

The good news is, small tweaks can flip your results fast.

Focus on:

✔️ Keywords that actually convert
✔️ Smart budget control
✔️ Retargeting that brings shoppers back
✔️ Confident spend when it matters
✔️ Discounts that push conversions
✔️ Staying in stock so you never miss demand

Get these right and you will:

✅ Increase visibility
✅ Protect your budget
✅ Lift your conversions

Which one are you optimizing first?

BLACK FRIDAY Do's & Don'ts!.pdf

Seriously, are you just blindly raising bids?

You're running Amazon Ads. 
You're trying to get sales.
But you're just getting high spend. 

What is going on?

Everyone thinks they can just buy the click. Wrong.

As an advertiser, you can only force the Impression.

Impression → Click → Order  

This is the Amazon funnel, period. 

You gotta get the impressions to get the clicks to get the orders.

→ Impression: What you get for a higher bid. Start your budget at $15 to $20. Continuously increase bids until you get that impression.

→ Click: This only happens when your main image or title product deserves the click.

Once you get those Impressions, you can finally evaluate your funnels.

Don't wait to get clicks to evaluate. 

You can start evaluating right now.

Here’s your quick evaluation checklist:

Impressions High? → Budget is working. Keep bidding.
Clicks Low? → Fix the image/title. You'll probably see a lower click through rate.
Orders Low? → Look at scaling back specific things.

It’s always one of those three.

Find the targets that are working, and then just work on scaling budgets.

Which step is bottlenecking your growth?

We need to talk about that "strategy" you're running. 


You know the one. 


Low Bid + High Placement Percentage.


It feels so clever. 

"I'm forcing placement! Cheap clicks!" You think you're beating the system.

Reality check: That setup is outdated.

It restricts your impressions. Period.

A stronger base bid is what earns consistent placement. 

The placement % is meant to enhance a solid bid, not rescue a weak one.

The Sponsored Product Trap 

Now, look at what happens when you add audiences to Sponsored Products (SP).

SP depends on an exact match keyword to show.

You stack an audience on top.

Think about it: 

That exact match keyword already only appears in a limited number of spots. 

You are working in tight space.

Then you add the second filter:

Shopper must land on that specific search page.

AND Shopper must match your audience criteria.

➡️ You just created a target so narrow it barely fires.

That powerful audience feature becomes a tiny slice of exposure. 

It limits reach instead of scaling it.

The Takeaway is Simple: 

Low bid + high boost quietly reduces visibility. 

Add an audience on top? Your ad is barely in the game.

If growth is the goal, you remove constraints. 

You don't pile on more.

Amazon ads confuse a lot of people.

Even authors who know their stuff think they’re doing everything wrong.

See this review?
⤷ This is what happens when someone finally understands their ads.

She was not the problem.
The ad setup was.

I talked to so many authors who felt lost in their campaigns.
Not a little lost.
Super lost.

And honestly, I get it.

Amazon shows tons of numbers, charts, and weird terms.
None of it tells you what to do next.

So people guess.
They spend money.
They hope things get better.

But walking through the data in a simple way helps everything start to make sense.

→ Clear steps
→ Clear plan
→ Clear results

That’s what happened for her.
She didn’t need harder work.
She needed someone to make it simple.

If your ads feel confusing, I can check them for you.
Check the first comment to book a free audit call.

Stop looking for “the best” agency. 

Start looking for your agency.

There’s no universal gold standard. 

No magic agency that works for everyone.

What does work? Alignment.

→ Do they get your goals?

→ Have they actually solved problems like yours — not just talked about it?

→ Can you have a real conversation, not just a sales pitch?

The right agency won’t just look good on paper.

They’ll make sense for your business.

They’ll think like a partner, not a vendor.

Bottom line: “Best” is relative. Fit is everything.

Bottom line: “Best” is relative. Fit is everything.

Still tweaking bids like that is the whole game? 

The algorithm is way ahead of you.

Most sellers focus on keyword rank. 

They assume the only thing that matters is a clean search term conversion. 

The problem is that the view is too narrow. 

You make bid changes, wait for a lift, and nothing really moves. 

Sound familiar? 🤷

We ran isolated tests. Here is what the data actually showed.

A sale that does not come from a search term can still help rank.

A purchase that starts on a product page can help rank.

A sale through an influencer link can help rank, depending on the shopper journey.

The back end is not fully transparent, 

but we saw consistent movement. 

The products we targeted rose on the top keywords we were aiming for.

There is a clear correlation. 

The algorithm reads full shopper behavior. 

A shopper lands on a product, moves through the journey, ends up on ours, and purchases. 

Amazon evaluates that flow. 

Every step. 

We cannot say exactly how much influence it carries, but the pattern repeats.

→ The takeaway is simple, and it is your aha moment.

Rank is not only about the search term that closed the sale. 

It connects to how shoppers arrive, move, and 
make a choice.

If you want steady growth, you need to understand the journey, not only the keyword.

Drop a 👇 if you are ready to stop relying on bids alone.

Conversion rate takes a dive?

Your first instinct is usually wrong.

Do not chase the highest search volume terms.

That is a trap. ❌

Low conversions with huge volume equals massive waste. 

You get

• Inflated ad costs
• Higher CPCs
• Less ROI

You are literally paying more for less. 

🔑 The Fix: Search Query Performance Report

Forget vanity metrics, 

look at the numbers that matter.

This report shows your actual CR compared with your category average, exactly what the transcript points to. 

It tells you when a keyword is helping you and when it is burning spend.

The Simple Math That Saves You


Download the report. It is easier to work with offline.

For each query, calculate the conversion rate

Query CR = total purchases divided by total clicks

Now check your brand benchmark

Brand CR = brand purchases divided by brand clicks

Then compare

Far below your brand? 

Cut it, it is draining your budget.

Matches or beats your brand? 

Scale it, this is where you actually win.

Smart targeting means focusing on queries that convert, 

not the ones that just make noise. 

Focus on the winners, always.

The AI gap is not coming, it is already here.

Most Amazon sellers are still living in the past.

They think they have time to “test” AI.

You don’t.

Your competitors aren’t testing. 

They’re cashing checks.

The brands using AI right now are seeing performance jumps that force you to rethink your entire strategy.

Real accounts, real spend, real results.

They are not gaining by 5 or 10.

They are creating margins that reset entire categories.

They are breaking away while everyone else scrambles to keep up.

Meanwhile, where are you

Drowning in tools
Chasing shiny new apps
Collecting “AI hacks” that never actually move the needle

Come on.

You know better.

The difference is not more tools.

It is a simple, proven workflow.

The winners run small, repeatable systems that

→ Boost visibility, stop fighting the algorithm
→ Tighten PPC efficiency, no more burning thousands
→ Save hours of back end chaos, because your time belongs in strategy

That is the exact playbook we teach inside the Amazon AI Masterclass.

Final Call: December 11, 2025 at 1pm ET

Seats are almost 100% gone.

When the door closes, that is it. No replays, no exceptions.

Here is your wake up call from operators who manage serious ad spend

AI workflows that finally make your listings visible

You will understand how the algorithm sees you

Ad prompts that sharpen your PPC

Push ROI higher without lighting money on fire

Simple systems that save hours every week

Get back to leading your brand instead of babysitting data

No hype. No gimmicks.

Just the strategy that is winning across multiple categories right now.

If you are tired of guessing

If you want an AI strategy that actually grows revenue and profit

Get in the room.

Stop waiting for permission to win.

Save your seat before the door slams shut👇

https://lnkd.in/ez2Y7gcj

If Black Friday stressed you out this week, 

read this.

It is not because you are bad at ads.
It is not because your targeting is wrong.
It is not because your competitors are smarter.

The real problem?

Your data is not real time.

You ran out of stock.
Your ads kept spending like everything was fine.
Your profit dipped instantly.

And yes, it happens fast.

Black Friday traffic does not play around.

Your platform cannot update quickly enough.
So you end up paying for clicks that go nowhere.


Happens to almost every brand during Black Friday week.
Even the ones doing 8 figures.

Here is the part most founders never hear:

Black Friday is not about “better ads.”
It is about reacting faster than the chaos.

If your data cannot keep up with your shoppers, you lose money.
Every time.

So make sure to do this:

→ Tight alerts
→ Watch risky SKUs
→ Do not “check later”
Later is too late.

Fix the delay.
Protect your margin.
Breathe again.


Drop a “yep” if this was you. 

I am curious how many founders felt this one. 👇

Happy Thanksgiving, you brilliant marketers 🍂


Hope your day is packed with good food, good people, and at least one moment where you forget Black Friday is already roaring in the background.

I am genuinely grateful for this community, the sharp minds, the curious operators, the folks who show up ready to learn, test, and push past average.

Still not sure how I ended up surrounded by people this driven, 

but I am here for it and I am not taking a second of it for granted.

Here is to the calm, the chaos, and everything we build in between.

Have an amazing Thanksgiving.

Struggling with Seasonal Ads?

Winter jackets, summer tees..

seasonal ads can be tough to nail. 

We deal with it every day, 

so here’s what we’ve learned works best: 👇

🔸 Get hyper-specific: Spotlight one bestseller per ad.

🔸 Track stock like a hawk: Don’t promote what you can’t sell.

🔸 Time it right: Follow consumer behavior, not just the calendar.

🔸 Skip the premature push: Align ads with demand to protect profits.

Here’s How We Do It 👇

We go deep, 

analyzing top products and tracking demand shifts to keep your seasonal ads profitable. 

It’s challenging work, 

but that’s what we’re here for.


Let’s chat about a strategy that keeps your ads working hard all season long.

The Clothing Brand’s Guide to High-Impact Seasonal Adverti

Have you looked at Sponsored Product Video, 
thought “I should test this”, 
then gone right back to everything else on your plate?

That is what most sellers are doing.
Watching. Waiting. Losing the early wins.

Right now this placement is still wide open.
Lower CPCs. Cleaner traffic. Room to test without getting punished.

That will not last.

So we are running a free live session that shows you exactly how to use it before the crowd shows up.


Confidence from day one. 
Zero fluff. 
Pure action.

The Strategy John Aspinall ✱   :
John will show you the intent behind your tests.
He is giving you the signals that actually matter.
Stop chasing. Start leading.

The Creative Rob Wiltsey:
Rob builds videos that convert. Period.
He knows how to hit the hook.
Control the pacing.
Build visuals that earn attention in a zero-slack format.
VideoFresh knows the drill. 

Do you?

The Setup (Me):
I live inside the accounts. 
I see how new placements behave the moment Amazon releases them.
You will learn exactly how to structure the campaign.
No more guessing.

Your Takeaway:

You walk away with a deployable plan.
Not a theory. A blueprint.

How to test with purpose.
How to build creative that drives performance.
How to turn new inventory into a revenue stream..
instead of something you wished you had acted on earlier.

👉 Grab your free spot for the live session on Dec. 11 at 2 PM EST:
https://lnkd.in/eV_f7mR4

So tell me, what is keeping you up at night right now? The creative or the ad setup?

Profit First, Always. Period.

Most people think cutting ad spend kills sales.

Wrong.

This client needed a wake-up call.

Their goals were clear:

20% profit margin.

50/50 ad to organic sales ratio.

TACoS under 20%.

Oh, and we had to hold sales steady. While pulling spend back.

Impossible? Only if your strategy is trash.

The Spend Cut: Don't Panic. Strategize.

We didn't just slash budgets. That's for amateurs.

We got surgical.

- Cleaned up garbage placements.
- Corrected bloated, inefficient bids.
- Trimmed budgets that were bleeding profit.

The biggest play? 

Moving from fixed/up-down bidding → Down Only.

That's the emergency brake.

It instantly gave us control. → Stopped unnecessary overspending.

The Reallocation: Feed The Winners.

We shifted budget only to performers.

- High conversion.
- Low ACoS.
- Predictable revenue drivers.

This is how you sustain sales during a pullback.

You remove the dead weight. You double down on what actually works.

The Organic Bounce: The Real Aha Moment.

Wasted spend dropped. → SKU margins instantly improved.

Organic sales did what? 

Increased.

The ad system finally became efficient. 

It wasn't fighting the profit goal anymore.

The graph shows it all:

Lower Spend. → Stable Sales. → Stronger Margins.

This isn't luck. 

It's optimization.

Profit protected. 
Sales sustained. 
Efficiency restored.

Ready to protect your profit and stop throwing money away?

Book a call. Let’s audit your strategy and rebuild it for profit, not chaos.

Joe Nilsen

Machine Learning Engineer 🤖 Revolutionizing E-Commerce with AI

I operate at the intersection of Business Operations and Technical Execution.15 Years in E-commerce | Brand Exits | Systems ArchitectMost companies solve problems by "throwing bodies" at them. I solve them by building systems that don't require human intervention.THE BACKGROUND:I’ve spent a decade and a half operating in the trenches of Amazon and e-commerce. I’ve built, scaled, and sold two Amazon brands. I also founded and built the technical infrastructure for multiple service businesses (TraceFuse, Selletek, MajestIQ, Seller Strategies), pioneering the FBA reconciliation methodologies used by the industry today.THE GAP:Most founders can describe a problem, and most engineers can write code—but rarely do they understand each other.I exist in that gap. I translate messy, manual operational friction into clean, automated code. I don't just manage the build; I architect and deploy it.THE WORK:Today, my team and I work with enterprise brands to build custom internal tools and AI agents. We focus on:‣ Automating high-friction workflows (Account health, compliance, ops).‣ Replacing manual "grunt work" with intelligent agents.‣ Building systems that allow brands to scale without linear headcount growth.THE CONTENT:I write about the "How"—practical, production-level insights on deploying AI in real businesses. No fluff, no theory. Just what we are building and what we are learning.

Founder

Our vision is to make the world a more connected place through the art of cooking and passion for food. The platform was launched in 2015 and was built upon challenging the status quo. Over the years, Culinary Connect evolved into a movement celebrating cooking, food, and love. These core principles are the cornerstone of what the modern-day brand is built upon.

OpenAI is adding ads to ChatGPT.

Most people are freaking out about privacy. Complaining about the user experience.

I'm looking at something completely different.

This is the first advertising channel in history where the platform knows exactly what problem you're trying to solve. In real-time. In your own words.

Google knows what you searched. Facebook knows what you liked.

ChatGPT knows what you're actually struggling with across an entire conversation.

For e-commerce operators, this changes the math.
 → No more bidding wars on keywords
 → No more paying for clicks from people who weren't ready to buy
 → Placement based on actual problem-solution fit

The code shows "bazaar content" and "search ad carousels." That's sponsored products appearing when someone's already in buying mode.

Sound familiar? It's the Amazon flywheel logic applied to conversational AI.

The brands figuring this out now will have the same advantage early Amazon PPC adopters had in 2015.

Everyone else will be playing catch-up, wondering what happened.

The question isn't whether you like it.

It's whether you'll be ready when it launches.

*Credit to Tibor Blaho for the image and for discovering the code. Out of anybody on any platform he is one of the best if not the best person to follow for the most up to date, relevant, and useful information related to AI

selletek

culinary-connect

seller-suspension

JSESSIONID

LinkedIn

li_at

Talks about #ai, #amazon, #ecommerce, #fakereviews, and #machinelearning

Lead Engineer at AIPRM.com and LinkResearchTools.com

Operator & builder at the intersection of business and technology | Translating AI into operational systems that scale | 15+ years in e-commerce

The most life-changing tech update I've had in months.

Not a new AI model.

Not a new GPU.

Not a new SaaS subscription.

Google Chrome added Split View for tabs.

One window. Two tabs. Side by side.

On the left: whatever I'm referencing.

On the right: whatever I'm building.

No more:
→ Hunting for the "other" window
→ Re-snapping everything after every Zoom call
→ Rebuilding the same layout five times a day

This is what most people miss about productivity.

They chase intelligence and ignore friction.

But the real leverage is almost always here:
→ Fewer context switches
→ Less window hunting
→ Fewer clicks between "see data" and "take action"

Chrome just did what good operators do.

They watched how people actually work and removed drag from the system.

Everyone's obsessed with what the next model can do.

I'm more interested in who's quietly deleting thousands of micro-annoyances from my day.

If you're building tools right now, take a page from Google:

Don't just add features.

Delete friction.

A photograph of a desktop workspace featuring a wide Samsung curved monitor displaying a Google Chrome browser window utilizing the new Split View feature in dark mode. This side-by-side layout demonstrates an optimized developer workflow. The left pane shows the GitHub repository for "amzn/selling-partner-api-samples," serving as reference documentation. The right pane displays the CodeSandbox online development environment, showing active JavaScript code in an "index.mjs" file alongside a live preview of an "Account Health Summary" dashboard indicating a "GOOD" score. The image visually represents reducing friction and minimizing context switching between two different resources and references in order to be more productive. This is relevant to digital marketers, CEOs, founders, and anybody who wants to be more effective at what they do in business.

Amazon is not a retail company.

We think of it as an e-commerce platform. But that’s just the face they show the public.

Amazon is actually a data acquisition company.

They spend 80% of their annual budget on R&D for one reason: To secure their grip on the market ten years from now.

Every time you sell a product, you are giving them data. Every time you buy a product, you are giving them data.

They use this to pinpoint exactly what sells best. And then?

They create their own version of it (AmazonBasics) and beat you at your own game.

Is it ethical? No. Is it brilliant business? Unfortunately, yes.

Don't be fooled by the "Everything Store" facade. You aren't winning the battle against Amazon.

The only way to survive is to play their game better than they do.

I spent two weeks building an automation that a $15/month tool could have handled.

Not my proudest moment.

But it taught me something important about how operators should think about AI and automation.

When you're technical enough to build things yourself, everything starts looking like a build opportunity. You skip the research phase because building is more fun than evaluating.

This is expensive.

Not just in time. In focus. In momentum. In the opportunity cost of what you could have built instead.

Now we have a rule on our team:

Before we write a single line of code, we spend 48 hours trying to solve the problem with existing tools. If we can get 80% of the value with something off-the-shelf, we use it and move on.

Custom builds are reserved for problems where:

- The existing solutions don't fit our specific workflow
- The problem is core enough that owning the solution matters
- The maintenance burden is worth the control

Most problems don't meet that bar.

The best operators I know aren't the ones building the most. They're the ones building only what matters.

Everything else, they ruthlessly outsource to existing tools.

A chaotic, messy wooden desk surface completely covered in the debris of an intense two-week coding marathon, illustrating the visual reality of developer burnout and inefficient resource allocation. The workspace is littered with dozens of crushed Red Bull and Monster energy drink cans, several dirty white coffee mugs with dried residue, and mountains of crumpled white paper, symbolizing wasted ideas and effort. Tangled USB cables and charging cords weave through the mess like spaghetti code, partially obscuring a silver laptop computer buried underneath. Harsh overhead fluorescent lighting casts deep shadows, creating a gritty, stressful atmosphere that screams "technical debt." This image serves as a striking visual metaphor for the 'build vs. buy' dilemma in software operations, representing the high opportunity cost of choosing to build custom automation tools instead of utilizing existing, affordable SaaS solutions. It highlights the importance of strategic decision-making in AI.

Before there was AI, before there was a company, there was just me and a spreadsheet.

Back then, it was me, Amazon's Community Guidelines, and an obsession with figuring out how to legitimately remove negative reviews.

I was obsessed with one thing: figuring out how to legitimately remove negative reviews that violated Amazon's own rules.

Yesterday I was digging through my Google Drive and found a 39-minute video I recorded in 2022.

In it, I walk through a crude Google Sheet I’d built after two years of relentlessly testing:

• Every row = a negative review I analyzed by hand
• Every column = specific guideline violations
• Every outcome = what Amazon actually did

No fancy UI. No AI. Just pattern recognition and pain.

The nine months after recording that video were a blur of Red Bulls, sleepless nights, and manually classifying training data until my eyes bled.

The result? The most powerful AI-powered software this space had seen.

From that ugly template came remarkably robust software that went on to do the heavy lifting:

→ AI systems that processed tens of thousands of reviews a day
→ Logic that pinpointed the exact line that violated policy
→ Documentation so precise that sellers knew precisely what to cite when building their cases

I named it 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐅𝐮𝐬𝐞 - I even copyrighted the source code under that name.

The ironic part? The fundamentals haven’t changed.

Amazon still allows honest feedback.
Amazon still removes clearly documented violations.
And the same principles baked into that 2022 template are still how serious operators separate compliant reviews from violations.

I took my team and my software and walked away from the company I founded for ethical reasons. We’ve been busy pushing the limits of AI-powered solutions in other areas ever since.

I’m not sharing that old video because it’s honestly painful to watch now.

But I did take that original template and rebuild it from the ground up:

• 10x more robust
• Much more innovative formulas and scripts 
• Structured so any seller can audit their own reviews

No software subscription.
No black-hat nonsense.
Just a battle-tested framework that works if you use it.

Want the enhanced template that started all of this? 

Comment “TraceFuse” and I’ll send it your way.

how to remove negative reviews from amazon

If anybody tries telling you that selling on Amazon is easy, they are doing one of two things: 

1. Trying to sell you a course
2. Lying

This post is going to piss off some big Amazon sellers and service providers.

It’s not meant to stir up drama. It’s meant to stop you from getting quietly robbed.

There is an entire industry fleecing 7 and 8-figure brand owners for “Review Removal” services. They’re charging $200–$500 per removal.

But here is the dirty little secret they don’t want you to know: In many cases (sometimes even all), they didn’t remove the review. Amazon did.

Your card is getting drilled by a company taking credit for Amazon’s enforcement.

They are selling you the rain, claiming they did a rain dance.

Here is the reality:

Amazon’s engineering teams have made massive strides in detecting abusive network patterns.

They are proactively cleaning up the marketplace faster and more effectively than ever before.

This is a win for platform integrity.

But it’s a goldmine for scammers.

Because the better Amazon does its job, the easier it is for these agencies to take credit for it.

The Scam Mechanics:
 - Amazon’s sophisticated systems detect and remove a non-compliant review.
 - The agency’s script flags the 404 error (dead link/dog page).
 - They send you an invoice claiming a “win.”

If you are currently paying a vendor for removals, look for these red flags in their pitch deck:

🚩 “100% ToS Compliant” (Great. Prove it.)
🚩 “Lifetime Monitoring Service” (“We commit to taking credit for all reviews we didn’t remove forever”)
🚩 “Pay Per Performance” (The perfect model for this scam)
🚩 “Internal escalation contacts” (They don’t have them. Amazon won’t even let these companies into their Service Provider Network.)

If you have a vendor claiming they are wizards at removal, send them this email today.

Watch how fast they stop responding.

“To verify our invoices, please provide the following for the last five removed reviews:
- The Case ID created BEFORE the review disappeared
- The specific policy violation cited in that case
- The official response from Amazon’s Community Team confirming the removal”

They won’t be able to provide it, because the case never existed.

The only thing they can provide is a screenshot of a case filed AFTER the review was taken down.

We built systems to identify non-compliant reviews years ago. Amazon’s tech has now caught up, and they proactively remove nearly all non-compliant reviews.

If their “proof” is a dead link, you’re not hiring a removal expert. You’re paying thousands for access to a script to capture screenshots of Amazon’s enforcement.

A comprehensive infographic titled "The Amazon Review Removal Scam Exposed" featuring a "Forensic Audit" stamp in the top left corner. The image visualizes how predatory agencies fleece Amazon sellers using the deceptive "Rain Dance" scam. The left panel depicts Amazon’s automated engineering systems and algorithms proactively detecting and deleting non-compliant reviews to ensure platform integrity. The center panel details the scam mechanics: a hooded consultant claims credit for Amazon's internal work by running scripts to identify 404 error dead links, then invoicing the brand owner for a coincidence rather than an actual service. The right panel warns 7 and 8-figure brand owners of specific red flags in vendor pitch decks, including "100% ToS Compliant" guarantees, "Lifetime Monitoring Services," "Pay Per Performance" models, and false claims of "Internal Escalation Contacts."

I was sitting across from the executive team of an $800M aggregator.

The mood wasn't celebratory. It was terrified.

They had just lost a top-performing account to a suspension. Because the brand ownership was tied to that seller account, their $9 million investment had just been toasted.

Fear was running the conversation.

I grabbed something to write with and drew this exact diagram in front of them.

I told them: “You have your structure backwards. You’ve handed Amazon a kill switch.”

Most sellers register their brands under the same entity that sells the product. If that account goes down, the brand goes down with the ship.

If you want to sleep at night, your assets and your operations cannot live in the same house.

Here’s the structure I walked them through:

- An IP Holding Company owns all trademarks and brands
- That entity has NO Amazon seller account
- The IP Holding Company enrolls brands in Brand Registry
- Brand Registry assigns roles to merchant accounts
- Merchant accounts are just replaceable operators

Why this matters:

Amazon controls seller accounts.
The USPTO grants intellectual property rights.

When the IP Holding Company owns the marks and controls Brand Registry:

- Your trademarks stay yours
- Your Brand Registry access stays intact
- Your ability to authorize or remove sellers stays intact

Because the real asset on Amazon isn’t the seller account. 

It’s the branded ASINs and the IP behind them:
Sales history, velocity, content, reviews, relevance.

The merchant account is just the vehicle. Amazon owns that vehicle. They can take the keys whenever they want.

Those executives looked at my sketch like I was crazy.

Two days later, they started restructuring exactly this way.

There’s no guaranteed protection on this platform. But if your brand and your selling account are the same entity, you’ve given Amazon a single point of failure for everything.

Separate them.

A hand-drawn red ink flowchart on paper illustrating the "Untouchable" Amazon brand protection strategy. The diagram highlights the critical separation between assets and operations. At the top left, a circle labeled "IP Holding Company" is marked as "[Untouchable]." Notes indicate this entity "Owns All Trademarks/Brands" and explicitly has "No Amazon Account," insulating it from platform risks. An arrow connects this holding company to "Brand Registry." From Brand Registry, lines labeled "ROLES" extend to multiple independent circles labeled "Merchant Account 1," "Merchant Account 2," "Merchant Account 3," and "Merchant Account 4." These merchant accounts act as operators connecting to the central "AMAZON" platform oval. The diagram emphasizes resilience: at the bottom right, "Merchant Account 5" is crossed out with a large "X," symbolizing a suspended seller account. 

“Your Amazon Seller Privileges Have Been Removed.”

It’s 3:47 a.m. You roll over, open the app, and your stomach drops.

If you've sold on Amazon long enough, you know that notification is always lurking.

No direct line of communication. Listings suppressed. Cash flow frozen while Amazon “reviews your account.”

It feels like a punch in the ribs.

I’ve sat in that mess with sellers for 15+ years. It’s rarely just the sloppy operators who get hit. I’ve seen seven-figure brands with beautiful metrics get blindsided by a bot flagging “used sold as new” just because a carrier damaged the shipping box.

The waiting is the worst part. Refreshed emails. Zero sales. Copy-paste support replies.

Here is the hard truth: You cannot survive on Amazon in reaction mode.
Your best defense is running offense every single morning:

1. Audit before you optimize: Check Account Health and Performance Notifications before you ever look at ad spend.

2. Watch the smoke detectors: One complaint is bad luck. Two is a pattern. Live in your Voice of the Customer (NCX) dashboard. Catch the smoke before it becomes a fire.

3. Have the “Red Folder” ready: Keep a pre-written playbook and legal templates for IP complaints and authenticity claims. When the notice hits, you shouldn’t be drafting—you should be executing.

4. Define the escalation path: Decide now who you call when it’s bigger than you. Internal team or external counsel? That decision should be made while you're calm, not while you're panicking.

Amazon is not a passive income stream. It’s a contact sport.

The sellers who last aren’t the ones who never get hit.

They’re the ones who treat every punch as data, build systems around it, and show up the next day already on offense.

Why does Amazon allow "ratings only" reviews now?

Because the average human being in 2025 has the attention span of a golden retriever.

No one wants to write a long, detailed review anymore.

If you see a long review, it's probably fake, incentivized, or written by the seller's mom.

Amazon knows this.

They know real buyers are busy.

They know real buyers just want to click 5 stars and move on.

So Amazon introduced ratings-only to get real data.

It’s better than nothing.

Sellers hate it because they can't control it.

But if Amazon didn't adapt, the only reviews left would be the fake ones.

It’s all about data.

It always is.

We found something that shouldn't work.

A pattern in Amazon's enforcement system that contradicts what most sellers believe about compliance.

The conventional wisdom:
→ Follow the rules
→ Stay under the radar
→ Don't draw attention

What we're seeing after tracking nearly 50 accounts over three months:

Accounts that "follow the rules" still get hit.
Accounts that manage one specific signal differently don't.

It's not about compliance. It's about what Amazon's systems perceive.

Here's the uncomfortable part:

Amazon doesn't read your intentions. It reads behavioral patterns. And most sellers are triggering the wrong signals without realizing it.

Without giving away the whole methodology:

Velocity changes. Not just in sales. In everything. Listing edits. Inventory adjustments. Accounts that maintain consistent operational rhythms are flagged less often than those with erratic but compliant behavior.

The system isn't asking "did they break a rule?"

It's asking "does this account behave like accounts that break rules?"

If you've ever been suspended and thought "I didn't do anything wrong" - you might have been right.

You just looked wrong.

The speed of this ecosystem is wild.

March: Amazon guts reimbursements on lost and damaged inventory.

A few months later: Someone's already selling insurance for the profit gap.

Not inventory insurance.
Not cargo insurance.
Gap coverage for the specific margin Amazon stopped covering.

Genuinely a genius idea.

If I were still selling on the platform, I'd insure every shipment I sent.

The math just works.

Tight product thesis. Clear problem. Clean solution.

Say what you want about the Amazon space - the operators here move fast.

A satirical photograph depicting a chaotic scene inside a dimly lit Amazon Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) warehouse. Under a large overhead sign that reads "Amazon Inbound Receiving Unit," several warehouse employees wearing safety vests and hard hats are actively unloading cardboard shipping boxes containing seller inventory from the back of a semi-truck trailer. Instead of sorting or scanning the packages, the workers are dramatically throwing the boxes directly into a massive, raging bonfire incinerator burning in the center of the concrete warehouse floor. Flames consume numerous boxes while smoke billows towards the ceiling. The image is a hyperbolic visual metaphor representing the frustrations many Amazon sellers experience regarding lost inventory, goods damaged during the inbound receiving process at fulfillment centers, stranded inventory, and the often difficult Amazon reimbursement claims process for missing shipments.

We actively avoided AI image generation for two years.

Not because we didn't want to use it. But because it simply wasn't good enough.

As operators building software for enterprise brands, we couldn't risk integrating tools that were "fun" but fundamentally broken. We tested everything. But every time, the text came out garbled or the product looked slightly "off."

It was usually faster to just hire a designer than to spend hours fixing the AI's mess. So we kept that work manual. We refused to automate mediocrity.

That changed this week.

When Google released Nano Banana Pro, we didn't just "try it out." We hammered it.

For the past week, we’ve been stress-testing it with real products from some of the largest brands on Amazon. It is the first model to finally cross the line into production use.

Here is what we found:

• It reads: You can tell it to add a "48-Hour Battery" callout, and it spells it correctly.

• It listens: You upload your reference photos, and it respects them. It doesn't invent a weird version of your product.

• It understands: It knows what a comparison chart looks like. It knows what converts on Amazon.

Last week, we built a complete 7-image listing set for a partner.

Total time: 24 minutes. The old way: 3 days and $2,000.

That isn't a slight improvement. That is a paradigm shift.

An Amazon Seller's Guide to Google's AI Image Model Nano

My biggest weakness has never been what I build.

It's who I trust to sell it.

I've spent years making this mistake. Building something that works, then handing it to the wrong person because I convinced myself I needed them.

I build. I'm good at it.

 - Systems from scratch
 - Bridging tech, marketing, ops, etc.
 - Turning chaos into something that actually runs.

What I've never been good at: sales.

I'm not the guy who charms a room of executives into a six-figure deal. So my answer was always the same - find a partner who can.

One of my last attempts was the worst.

On paper, this guy was a unicorn.

"Former professor" at a prestigious university. Featured all over the internet as a top expert. Flawless story. Perfect polish.

So I handed him the keys.

Six months in, the charm cracked.

Erratic behavior. Excuses. Stories that didn't line up. It got bad enough that I finally started digging.

What I found wasn't a red flag.
It was a smoking gun.

→ The professor thing: Made up. Never taught a single day at the university he claimed.
→ His previous "successful" business: Shut down by authorities for running a large-scale fraud scheme.
→ The publications: Ghostwritten

You can't make this stuff up.

By the time I uncovered all of this, the damage was already done.

Here's what I took from it: Self-awareness isn't just "know your strengths and outsource your weaknesses."

Sometimes the weakness is too critical to pass on.

Sales isn't just closing deals.

It's who represents your name. Who stands between your work and the market. Who has the power to burn what you've built.

No one will protect it the way you will.

If I have the skill to build the engine, I have the obligation to learn how to drive it.

I'm done handing over the keys.

Here’s a question I ask every established seller: 

“If Amazon shut you down tomorrow, what would still be alive 90 days later?”

Most don’t like their answer.

Run this quick stress test on your own business:

Revenue:  
- What % of your total $ comes from Amazon?  
- Would your other channels cover payroll without it?

Operations:  
- Does anyone outside of “the Amazon person” understand how the account actually works?  
- Could someone else step in and respond to an emergency in 2 hours, not 2 weeks?

Documentation:  
- If Amazon asked for invoices, supplier info, and SOPs today, could you send them within 24 hours?

Brand:  
- Do customers know you, or do they just know “I bought it on Amazon”?

If this exercise makes you uncomfortable, good.

The time to build resilience is before a performance notification hits your inbox at 3 am.

If you haven't already started, the next best time is now.

There are three kinds of Amazon sellers.

The Gambler
 • Lists anything that looks profitable
 • Hopes no one notices the gray areas
 • Has no records of where half of their inventory originated from
 • Thinks suspensions happen to “other people”

The Operator
 • Has some SOPs... somewhere
 • Reactively addresses issues
 • Survives, but constantly feels one email away from disaster

The Strategist
 • Chooses products based on risk/reward, not just margin
 • Designs listings, logistics, and documentation around policy, not convenience
 • Treats every appeal, complaint, and flag as data about how Amazon thinks
 • Builds systems so one person’s mistake doesn’t tank the entire company

Here’s the harsh part:

The Gambler is already on borrowed time.

The Operator will get exhausted.

The Strategist will still be thriving 5–10 years down the road.

Get real honest about where you stand today.

If you want to be part of the minority that withstands the test of time, upgrade your systems, not just your catalog.

"AI-free" might soon become the most valuable label on your website.

In a world obsessed with "AI-powered," that's a strange new flex.

Here’s what’s actually happening. As automation eats everything, the absence of AI is turning into a luxury signal.

We've seen this before with trust labels.

Organic. Fair Trade. Handmade. Small Batch.

Now we're seeing the AI-era versions:
→ "Human-Verified Resolution"
→ "No bots between you and your money"
→ "Real person. Every time."

This isn't clever marketing. Some companies are issuing promises that when money, risk, or emotion is on the line, there's a real brain on the other side.

AI still runs backstage. Routing tickets. Summarizing history. Flagging risk before a human steps in.

The part customers actually touch is moving in the opposite direction. AI fatigue is real.

Everyone has been scrambling to figure out how to innovate and automate.

Some of the most critical decisions in 2026 won’t be about where to add more AI.

It will be where to deliberately withhold it.

A dark, glossy, circular digital badge or button with a prominent silver rim. In the center, large, bold white text reads "AI-FREE", and directly below it, in smaller white text, it says "Real human support". This graphic highlights a commitment to authentic, human-centric customer service in a technology and SaaS environment. The background is a dark, blurred software interface that emphasizes a premium, trustworthy user experience (CX) over automation. It represents a business focus on genuine connection and quality support in the digital age.

A founder told me last week they wanted to “automate the entire listing optimization process.”

Sounds simple enough. So I asked: “Which part?”

• The keyword research?
• The copy updates?
• The compliance checks?
• The competitive monitoring?
• The seasonal adjustments?

Turned out they meant all of it.
Plus a bunch of intuition they couldn’t even articulate yet.

This is exactly where most AI and automation projects go to die.

Not because the tech is impossible.
Because “automate it” is not a requirement. It’s a fantasy.

Here’s what actually works for us before anyone writes a single line of code:

1. Shadow the human: watch what they actually do, not what the SOP says they do.

2. Map the friction: capture every click, hesitation, and “exception” they handle manually.

3. Find the hidden 47: once it’s on a whiteboard, the “simple” flow turns into a mess of edge cases nobody mentioned in the kickoff.

When you can finally see the real process, you don’t try to automate the whole thing.

You automate the boring, repeatable decisions that actually move the needle. The weird edge cases stay manual until they hurt enough to warrant automation.

If you’re trying to turn a business vision into a technical solution, slow down.

Map reality first.

Automation and AI won't fix the messy process.

They will just create high-speed chaos.

AI isn't your edge. Implementation is.

Every Amazon seller I talk to says the same thing:

"We're already using AI."

Then I look under the hood and see:
- ChatGPT open in one tab
- A few “AI-powered” tools
- VAs still copying ASINs into spreadsheets by hand

That's not an AI strategy. That's duct tape.

When we go into an account, we start with three brutal questions:

1) Where are humans doing copy/paste work?
Performance notifications into Slack.
ASINs into Google Sheets.
Returns to random trackers.

2) Where does context actually matter?
Appeals.
Escalations.
High-value catalog changes.

3) What breaks when one person gets sick?
If the answer is “everything,” you don’t have systems. You have heroes.

Here’s the simple model we’re rolling out with brands right now:

- Machines do the boring work:
Parsing notifications, clustering issues, drafting first-pass responses, flagging patterns

- Operators do the thinking:
Deciding risk, rewriting arguments, pulling evidence, pushing the right escalation paths.

- Systems keep score:
Dashboards that show issues per ASIN, win rates, response SLAs, and where tickets die

The “AI-enabled” sellers who win won’t be the ones with the most tools.

It’ll be the ones who are ruthless about workflows.

If you turned off every AI tool tomorrow, what would still work in your business?

A dramatic, high-resolution vertical close-up of a single, ornate wooden chess King standing alone on a vast, polished wooden chessboard. The King is tilted slightly to the side, capturing a moment of exhaustion or impending collapse, symbolizing the fragility of leadership and traditional business models in the face of rapid AI disruption. A single source of warm, golden-hour spotlighting hits the piece from behind, casting a long, sharp shadow that stretches forward across the rich honey-toned wood grain, evoking the high-stakes pressure of Amazon marketplace dynamics and the "Settlers" concept of territory control. The surrounding board is completely empty, suggesting a cleared competitive landscape or a "winner-takes-all" scenario. The image uses a shallow depth of field, keeping the weathered texture of the King in sharp focus while the edges fade into a soft, amber-brown blur.

Claude just dropped Opus 4.5 alongside something I've been waiting for: Claude Chrome.

I just got done testing it.

One prompt: "Find the best reasonably priced keto supplements with good reviews and Prime, then add your top picks to my cart."

It didn't hand me suggestions. It opened Amazon, did the research, applied filters, compared options, and filled the cart.

All from a single instruction. No scripts. No code.

Powered by Opus 4.5, this is browser agency hitting the mainstream: AI that doesn't just talk about the work, but actually clicks through it for you.

For founders and operators, here's the shift worth paying attention to. If a task can be written as an SOP, AI can start executing it instead of a human acting as the glue between tools.

The future of work isn't faster clicking. It's your tools quietly handling the grunt work while you stay focused on judgment and leverage.

Video below. 👇

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The Battle

Elizabeth Greene

Joe Nilsen

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taplio

The Battle

Elizabeth Greene

Joe Nilsen

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Elizabeth Greene's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreElizabeth Greene's LinkedIn Performance