Two halves. First, how we build a list of brands spending on Amazon ads right now. Second, the plays we'd run against that list so they reply. Nothing here is priced. This is the map, not the deal.
Read straight off altgroup.com. Correct me where it is off.
Amazon is unusually scrapeable. Every brand that advertises leaves public footprints: sponsored slots, storefronts, seller profiles, A+ pages. We harvest the footprints, then resolve brand to company to person to verified email.
Scrape Amazon search results for thousands of category keywords and log every brand holding a Sponsored slot. A brand that shows up sponsored is spending by definition. Frequency across keywords is a spend proxy.
Walk every sub-category's Best Sellers, Movers & Shakers (rank climbers in the last 24h) and New Releases lists. Each gives brand names with a built-in signal: established, momentum, or just launched.
Every 3P listing links to a seller profile that, under the INFORM Act, shows the legal business name and address. That turns "brand on Amazon" into "company we can find a domain and a decision maker for".
Crawl brand storefronts (amazon.com/stores/...). A Brand Store means Brand Registry, which means they can buy everything you sell. Missing or thin A+, no video, no comparison chart: each is a line in the cold email.
scraperqualifier + hookSmartScout, Helium 10, Jungle Scout, Keepa. SmartScout is the one built for this: brand-level estimated monthly revenue, ASIN count, category, whether they advertise, exportable in bulk. Filter by revenue band and category and get thousands of brands in an afternoon.
DTC sites that link out to amazon.com/dp, /stores or amzn.to are brands running both channels. We find them with tech-stack and phrase filters across the web index (Shopify or WooCommerce plus an Amazon outbound link).
Brands posting "Amazon PPC Specialist", "Marketplace Manager", "Amazon Advertising Manager", "Head of Amazon" on LinkedIn, Indeed and their own careers pages. They have spend, they have pain, and they have not solved it yet.
Pull people by title across consumer-goods companies: Director of Amazon, Marketplace Lead, Head of Ecommerce, VP Digital. Their existence means the brand takes Amazon seriously enough to staff it.
B2B datamid-marketScrape the case-study and client-logo pages of every Amazon agency on Clutch, DesignRush and the Amazon Ads partner directory. Those brands already pay an agency. Switching is an easier sell than convincing someone to start.
Expo West, Expo East, Sweets & Snacks, Global Pet Expo, NY NOW exhibitor lists. Brands on Target, Walmart and Whole Foods shelves that also sell on Amazon. 1P vendor territory, bigger budgets, longer cycle.
lists1P vendorsCPG and consumer brands that just raised (Crunchbase, press), brands launching new SKUs (New Releases feed), and brands prepping to sell to an aggregator. Ad efficiency moves the multiple, which is the Web Deals Direct story.
signalbudget just arrivedPublic gig posts for Amazon PPC help are brands raising their hand with a tiny budget today and a real one next year. r/FulfillmentByAmazon, r/AmazonSeller and the seller Facebook groups give the same signal plus the exact words they use for the pain.
signalvoice of customerBrand Registry needs a trademark. USPTO filings in classes 3, 5, 21, 25, 29, 30, 31 with a live product are brands about to get Brand Registry. Early, but it is a stream nobody else is watching.
registryearlyPast audits that did not close, old Upwork clients, Amazon ex-colleagues now at brands, newsletter subscribers. Cheapest list there is and usually ignored.
ownedwarmEverything persists with the signal and the date it was found, so the list keeps getting smarter instead of being rebuilt every quarter.
Your front door is the free audit. Cold prospects do not ask for an audit. So we bring a slice of the audit to them, uninvited, built from public data, and let the audit be the natural next step. Each play below is an experiment. We run two or three per segment and double down on whatever gets replies.
Three specific things leaking on their listing or ads, pulled from what we scraped: a keyword they are sponsoring that does not match the product, a missing A+ module, a stock main image. One short email, their own ASIN named.
For their top five keywords, who holds the sponsored slots. "You are absent on three of your five biggest terms, [competitor] has all five." A tiny table, sent as an image or a one-line link.
You have in-house creative. Offer one hero image variant, free, built for their top ASIN. They run it in Manage Your Experiments, keep it if it wins. Lead with the 8.7% page conversion lift number.
Same shape as C for brands with ugly or outdated product shots. One photoreal render of their hero SKU, no strings. The Medify and Wallaby renders are the proof.
Timed campaigns six to eight weeks before each event. "Here is what your account looks like going into Prime Day versus what the #1 Best Seller on Prime Day looked like." Medify is the case.
Runs against source 7 only. "Saw you are hiring an Amazon PPC manager. Before the hire lands, here is what we would fix in week one." Position as the senior team they would otherwise never afford, month to month.
Runs against source 9. Brands on a big agency's logo wall. "Who actually runs your account day to day?" Then the ex-Amazon, senior-only positioning and zero lock-in.
A short piece, video or one-pager, on what Amazon's auction actually rewards, from someone who was in the LA and Boston ad teams. Sent as the reason to reply, not a pitch. Works on LinkedIn and email.
Aggregate what you see across accounts and public data into a per-category benchmark. "Median ACoS in home comfort is X. Want to know where you sit?" A lead magnet that makes them hand over their numbers.
For brands with aggregator or acquisition intent (source 11). Ad efficiency raises the multiple. "Web Deals Direct went to Perch at $100M+; here is what the ad account looked like on the way there."
One campaign per category, each led by the matching case: Medify for home and air, Newman's Own for CPG and pet, the apparel launch for clothing, Better Booch for drinks. Never a generic "we grow Amazon brands".
For the best 100 accounts on the list, a two-minute screen recording walking their actual search results and listing. Sent cold. Higher cost per touch, much higher reply rate, and it is exactly what you do on the call anyway.
| Segment (from Part 1) | Lead play | Backup | Channel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored-slot brands (1) | A, B | K | Cold email to founder / Head of Ecom |
| New Releases and Movers (2) | E, C | A | Cold email |
| Hiring for Amazon (7) | F | H | Email + LinkedIn |
| On another agency (9) | G | B | Cold email |
| Shopify + Amazon brands (6) | A, C | D | Cold email |
| Funded / exit-bound (11) | J | I | Email + LinkedIn |
| 1P vendors, trade show (10) | D, H | K | LinkedIn + email, longer cycle |
| Top 100 dream accounts | L | A | Loom + email + LinkedIn |
Minimum ad spend or revenue where an account is worth your senior team's time.
Which two or three categories you want more of, and which you would rather not take.
Which case studies you can name publicly in an email, and any you cannot.
Prepared by Maxionlabs for Dakota Morse, ALT Group. Discovery material, nothing here is a quote or an offer. Public data only; no client accounts were accessed.