Process Owner: Joe Selzer
Last Updated: September 18, 2024
SOP Linked: HERE
How it works
The tool uses a group of “seed” or “foundation” keywords (up to 15), then scrapes all the search results for those keywords daily & brings those products into the market to track their estimated sales over time.
The initial setup with these 15 seed keywords is building a “firehose” of data, making sure any product that could potentially compete with our client’s is being tracked. Then, we can layer filters on top of that firehose to weed out the noise and zero in on the relevant products / brands we actually want to stack up against. Multiple filters can be set up to isolate different product categories the client competes in.
It’s important to note (and communicate to the client) that the data is estimated, as actual sales data from other brands on Amazon would never be available. While it won’t be spot on with $ amounts, it will be directionally accurate, meaning you can rely on:
Overall market trends (e.g., was the boxing gloves category down overall last month),
Market standing (e.g., Everlast has more or less market share than Hayabusa)
Market moves (e.g., though MoM sales were down Hayabusa gained market share vs. competitors last month).
Setup
Adding Seed Keywords
Log into Helium10 and navigate to Market Tracker 360 under Tools. Find your client’s market. Click the gear icon to go to market settings.
Scroll down to Market Keywords and add additional seed keywords (up to 15) to tell the tool which searches to look at for tracking products.
It’s important to remember the firehose - You want the highest volume generic keywords for each of your client’s product categories, without too much overlap, to cast the widest net + maximize what you’re able to look at down the line.
Use Helium10 Magnet to find best keywords based on search volume
Example for Hayabusa:
Market Curation page should just be: Seed keywords, have the setting to automatically add new ASINs to market turned ON. Do not start filtering results from this market setup page (remember “fire hose”)
Designating client products
Once the overall market is loaded up, click into it and click the Filter button
Scroll down to filter by Brand, find client’s brand name(s) and enter
Scroll down to All Products at the bottom. You should see only your client’s ASINs. If not, adjust the filter.
Set Rows per Page (bottom right) to 100. Select All products and click “Set as My Product.”
This may take several rounds of Next Page > Select All (again) > Set as My Product if your client has >100 ASINs
Customizing filter presets
There will inevitably be a lot of unrelated products feeding in - to get to useful market views (and make it easy to get to them again), create filters and save them as presets.
This is done through the Filter option on the main page, NOT the Market Curation page. Don’t limit results via Market Curation - keep the “fire hose”, then filter on top of it
Market Curation page should just be: Seed keywords, have the setting to automatically add new ASINs to market turned ON
Click Filter again and Clear All Filter so all data / products are feeding in again.
Use the different filter levers to zero in on comparable products for each product category, checking the All Products section at the bottom to verify as you go. Most useful levers:
Average 30 Day Unit Sales → Minimum 1
Categories and Subcategories
Product Title Contains
Product Title Does Not Contain
Example for Catalina Crunch (cereal):
Once you’re satisfied that the products displaying in the All Products section are direct competitors, go back to Filter > Save as Filter Preset > Name it
Rinse & repeat for client’s major product categories
Pro-Tip: Sky’s the limit here. You can create 1 view with general category competitors, 1 view with only top rival competitors that the client cares about, etc. etc.
E.g., for Catalina Crunch cereal, there’s 1 filter for general cold cereals, and another that zooms in on “healthy” cold cereals
Using the Data
Useful views:
Overall Market > Units > Group By: None
Show the overall trend on Amazon for all sellers / products in the category, for whatever date range you choose
Overall Market > Units > Group By: Brand
how the relative standing in the market for your brand vs. key competitors for the date range shown. Key to toggle to “%” instead of “$” in the graph
Can also add Historical Comparison to show market share growth for your client, even if total sales are down
Example:
Using the Data in Monthly Slide
Filter for product category you want to highlight (see instructions above for best ways to filter market data). If you haven’t already, save & name as filter preset to navigate to quickly later.
Overall Market Trend Screenshot
Set the date range for “Last 12 Months”
Scroll down to Overall Market. See below for settings to use.
Click the 3 lines at the top right of the chart > View Full Screen. Screenshot graph through last full month (exclude current month)
Top Brands Screenshot
Repeat these steps for each product category.
Set the date range: custom select 1st and last day of last month (“Last Month” will just show last 30 days).
Scroll down to Overall Market. Change the settings per below.
In the table of brands (below graph), change from 5 > 10 brands. Export data.
In exported file, delete the Total column and format as a table (make it look presentable). Screenshot the table into slide.
If your brand IS in the top 10, delete the callout below the table & move green box to highlight your brand.
If your brand is not in the top 10, go back to H10 and click next page until you see it. Add % unit share as note under table. Delete the green box from top 10 table.
Bonus Pro-Tip: You can also add in MoM market share change if this data would be relevant.
Change Historical Comparison in the settings to Month over Month
Repeat the steps above, copying & pasting change as additional column in your exported table and adding change to callout below table (if your brand isn’t in the top 10)
Repeat these steps for each product category.