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GFA 484 March 10, 2026 36:08

Amazon PPC & Private Label Secrets to 8 Figures with Basil Zaidi

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Show Notes

Mike Michelini welcomes back Basil Zaidi from Make Brands Big to break down the current state of Amazon PPC and full-service brand management in 2026. Basil shares how his engineering background shaped his data-driven approach to scaling brands, and walks through three critical PPC insights most sellers are missing — SKU-level budget allocation using a BCG matrix framework, placement modifier optimization beyond top-of-search, and Amazon's newer Halo sales data that reveals how campaigns drive purchases across variations and SKUs. They also discuss why emerging Asian brands in Indonesia and Malaysia should sell direct on Western marketplaces before signing exclusive distributors, common creative mistakes like letting AI invent product benefits instead of mining real customer reviews, and why tracking market share — not just revenue — is essential for brands that want to stay competitive. Basil also reflects on mindset shifts and tactical advice he picked up at the Cross Border Summit in Chiang Mai.

Topics Covered in this Episode

From Engineering to Amazon E-Commerce

Basil started doing supply chain freelance work on Upwork during his online engineering semesters, landed an eight-figure Amazon seller as his first client, and never took a formal job after graduating in 2022 — going all-in on Amazon and e-commerce instead.

Helping Asian Brands Sell Direct Before Distributors

Basil explains why Indonesian and Malaysian brands with proven local product-market fit should launch on Western marketplaces themselves first, citing a large Indonesian beauty brand with 32 million Instagram followers that signed an exclusive US distributor buying only $10,000 worth of goods — far too small to build real market presence.

Cultural Differences Working With Asian vs. Western Brands

Western clients tend to be pure e-commerce brands in the eight-to-ten-million revenue range, while Asian clients are often established retail brands with more hierarchy. Basil notes that in Indonesia and Thailand, people rarely say no directly, making local partners essential for building trust and moving deals forward.

SKU-Level Budget Allocation With a BCG Matrix

Basil stresses that every campaign needs a clear objective tied to breakeven ACOS and total ACOS at the SKU level. He recommends applying BCG matrix thinking — identifying star products, question marks, and dogs — to decide where ad budget should be allocated or pulled back across large catalogs.

Placement Modifier Optimization Beyond Top of Search

Many brands blindly push placement modifiers toward top of search, but Basil found in a recent audit that a brand deriving 40–50% of sales from B2B customers was losing money on top-of-search while ignoring strong performance in rest-of-search and Amazon Business placements.

Using Amazon's Halo Sales Data to Make Smarter Campaign Decisions

Amazon now shows which campaigns and keywords drive purchases of other variations and SKUs. Basil explains how to use Halo purchase data from clicks and views to decide whether to keep unprofitable campaigns running, identify hidden winning SKUs worth scaling, and reallocate targeting to the variations customers actually prefer.

Why PPC Data Matters More Than Ever in 2026

Basil compares the simplicity of 2022 PPC — auto campaigns, keyword harvesting, basic match types — to the rich data Amazon provides today. Brands that fail to analyze placement performance, Halo sales, and relative conversion share are effectively handing leverage to competitors who do.

Market Share as a Leading Indicator

Even if revenue stays flat, a declining market share signals that competitors are gaining ground. Basil warns that brands holding 10% of a subcategory need to monitor closely and act aggressively when share dips to 8% or 7.5%, because competitors are investing heavily to take over.

Full-Service Brand Management Beyond PPC

Make Brands Big handles inventory and cash flow planning, catalog health, and creative optimization alongside PPC. Basil shares an example of a brand whose add-to-cart-to-purchase ratio dropped from 70% to 50% — a 25% decline in conversions that no amount of ad spend could fix without addressing the underlying issue.

Mining Reviews Instead of Letting AI Invent Benefits

Basil argues that product creatives should scream about the specific benefits customers praise in five-star reviews and the problems that have been resolved from one-star feedback. He cautions against using AI to generate features and benefits when real customer data already exists on the listing page.

People / Companies / Resources Mentioned in this Episode

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