Preferred Placement 101

Howdy manufacturers, Jon Hoch, founder of Power Equipment Direct continuing our series on our new Preferred Placement program. So we talked in our last videos about the importance of getting higher listings on the page, and comparing how our listings page is very similar to what a Google search results page is going to be like.

So what we're going to talk about now is what happens if you didn't get a Hot Item tag, what happens if you don't have any new products, and what happens if you aren't among the Top 5 sellers. So how do you compete? How do you get your products some exposure and some visibility?

I'm going to show you what to do. You do exactly what Ariens is doing by participating in our Preferred Placement program. And what happens is, because they're participating, they get the "Featured" badge. And this listing could have been on page 2, 3, 4. What they did is they ended up leap frogging everybody else, and appearing right underneath the number 5 seller.



In addition to that, on our reviews listing page, they actually have another listing here. So some products are an A+, and if you got an A+, you deserve to be at the top, and you earned that position. But we have A's and A's and A's and A's and A's.

But Ariens now is actually a "Featured" A product, so if your product is an A, and your product is participating in Preferred Placement, you are the number 1 listing right here.

So, fantastic to Ariens, so it's up and running and going. So how do you do this, how do you participate in this? Let me show you how.

So you go into your account in the Manufacturers' Portal, okay, and you go under Preferred Placement under Manage Your Bids.



And we're going to do an example for a Makita chainsaw, right? So you'll see some reporting of how your program is doing, but you'll see the listings of your products.

So all you really need to do is change the bid here to $0.20. Twenty cents, because it's the minimum bid to participate in the program, "poof" - you update it. It's checked, it's good, it's ready to go. So what happens on the live site?



Here is the listing, and you'll notice that Makita is not there, "Boom" there it is, right?

So by bidding in Preferred Placement and just starting at a twenty cent bid, you end up being right underneath the number five seller.

Let me talk real quickly about the bidding strategy and how this all works out. So I mentioned earlier that the opening bid is for twenty cents, okay? And I want to give you three quick scenarios here to make sure you fully understand it, okay?

So you can start your bids at twenty cents, so we have manufacturer A at twenty cents, manufacturer B at twenty cents, so what's going to happen is, both of them will end up rotating in that position because it's a tie. And what are they going to pay? They are going to pay twenty cents a click.

But what if you don't want to share a spot with somebody else? What if you want that spot for yourself? Well if you bid twenty-five cents, and the manufacturer's bidding twenty cents, you're going to get those spots all to yourself.

So how much do you pay? It's actually pretty simple if you just remember this - you always pay a penny more than the second highest bidder. So a penny more than the second highest bidder, so in this case, even though you are bidding twenty-five cents, you are only going to pay twenty-one cents for that click. Got it?

Let me give you another example, because it could be a little bit tricky, okay?

So example number three here: We recommend that you don't bid just the twenty cents, you bid what you're comfortable paying for that position, because it is based on competition. So you could bid fifty cents on this case, but the second highest bidder is bidding twenty-five cents.

So remember what I said earlier. You always pay a penny more than the second highest bidder. So in this case, you would pay twenty-six cents for that spot.

I hope that makes sense. In our next three videos, we're going to talk about different strategies on how to actually manage your bidding, and how to look at the reporting to make smart decisions on how your program is doing, and where to invest your marketing dollars to make this stuff happen for you.

So thanks for listening, I really appreciate it. Let's get those listings up higher on the page. Thanks for watching, and see you again!

NEXT: Defend Your Turf - How to Fortify Your Best Seller Status