You're flying blind on ad spend #substack #shorts

20 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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This content was created by Vinny O Brien. This content was uploaded by Vinny O Brien. This is a YouTube short titled "You're flying blind on ad spend #substack #shorts" (posted March 20, 2026). It features a single speaker delivering a short talk about Amazon ad spend and P&L strategy, citing a Stratably survey of 155 brands. Key points: wide variance in how brands treat ad spend, only 7% tie ad spend to annual vendor negotiations, and many brands treat ads as a cost rather than a growth lever—risking wasted spend. The speaker references Martin Hoiberg and addresses brands doing serious Amazon volume (e.g., seven-figure sellers).

Chapters

Concept 1: Most brands are flying high, flying blind on ad spend, and they know it. So that 7% is a key number here. So Stratably have surveyed 155 brands on how they're changing Amazon ad spend as a percentage of sales in 2026. When you look at what comes back, the variance alone is quite striking. Some brands are pulling back, some are increasing, and nobody agrees on how to account for it in their P&L. Now, 20 years on from when I started, This is kind of alarming that we haven't solved these problems yet. Now, if you're a brand doing serious volume on Amazon, say 7 figures, and you're still treating ads as a cost line rather than a growth variable, you're probably leaving money on the table, or worse, you're spending money that you don't know is working. So that's 7%. There's also this piece in there that only 7% of one-party, first-party vendors say that their ad spend is tied directly to their annual vendor negotiations with Amazon. One for you, Martin, Martin Hoiberg, if you're not familiar with who that is. 7%, which means 93% are negotiating on one thing while spending another. That's not really what we call strategy. They're just two separate conversations that are happening that should be one.