we learned something pretty simple running amazon ads as an agency for 8 years
By George Barnett Reid 👀 · October 10, 2025 · Curated by George's Blog
we learned something pretty simple running amazon ads as an agency for 8 years
time in the account usually correlated with performance
more time - performance up
less time - performance down
but here’s the big bit i didn’t say loud enough - not all hours are equal
a senior hour is not the same as a junior hour
1 hour of senior can beat 4 hours of junior
quality-weighted hours matter
on our biggest accounts we’d put ~20h a week across 1 or 2 account managers
and it moved the needle
the problem with the agency model - we were capped
we’d agreed a rate, client didn’t want the fee to increase
so to keep any profit we had to restrict hours
our “product” was time - and we rationed it
that’s not good for the brand
if we wanted to put more time in, we’d have to go back and upsell
but with a 4-5x multiplier on our input cost, that got expensive fast for the client
so they’re trapped between affordable - and what the account actually needs
my view now - 1 dedicated full-time senior ads manager, 40h a week, inside your systems
that usually wins
not a silver bullet - if your usp is weak or ops broken, ads won’t save it
but time x quality is the closest thing to a rule i’ve seen
time in = performance out
and the quality of that time is the multiplier
#itsalwaysdayone
snap of a recent walking trip in Chamonix where I bored my mate and brother to death on how to hire senior amazon ppc managers and why this model was the way forward
at one point the brother just walked out the bar and went home