2025 Q1 Update
By Brett Vetter |
Published on Apr 28, 2025
| 5 min read
The last few months have been a wild series of trade shows, business meetings, travel, and SUG team growth!
Each quarter, we take a step back to review a few key milestones as a team, ensuring we're on the right track for sustained year-over-year growth as a business. Amazon consistently changes fees, creates new tools, and looks for every opportunity to make a consumer's life easier. We do the same at SUG. But where do we focus, and why is it important?
Looking Back at This Quarter’s Biggest Takeaways & Wins
The SUG team was extra busy in Q1, attending over five trade shows, including eTail West, Expo West, Prosper Show, Shoptalk, and the Roth Capital Partners Conference. We hosted multiple VIP Dinners and a Vegas Cabana Party, a rare opportunity to connect with clients and friends of SUG. Our co-founder, Daniel Tejada, spoke on the “Will AI Deliver Its Promise in E-Commerce & Advertising” panel with retail partners CreatorIQ and Hollo AI at the Roth Capital Partners Conference. Daniel shared insights on new AI tools coming to Amazon’s DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) platforms. Read more about his thoughts on applying AI to your Amazon ad strategy on our blog.
Daniel speaking at Roth Conference SUG Team (Evan & Jeff) at Expo West
SUG was also recently honored with the #81 spot on Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies in the Pacific List. SUG is excited and honored to be on the list for the second year in a row!
KPI Check-In
When assessing our business growth, we first consider the performance of our clients and partners to identify commonalities across categories. In Q1-25, we saw a sharp increase in CPCs across the board. This means we must examine our bidding strategies and Amazon's tools to ensure we learn faster than our competitors to build brand value. SUG is constantly working to roll out new, proprietary tools in our Technology Toolbox to help our clients stay on top of the constant changes in the Amazon marketplace. For example, we’ve recently launched a Review Request Tool, helping take the manual work out of asking for coveted reviews from a brand’s existing customers.
We encourage our clients not to focus on the past, but to continue checking their progress against our planned goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). You can’t grow what you don’t measure, and reviewing these metrics each quarter is a core part of our continued success on Amazon. This year, we were aiming for total sales growth in our existing portfolio, based on forecasting and customer alignment. We are currently trending 300 basis points ahead of plan, despite multiple curveballs with inventory and pricing adjustments in our Vendor Central accounts.
Making Sure Our KPIs Still Match the Mission
After we take a good, hard look in the mirror, we all come together to discuss if we are assessing and communicating our client’s Amazon growth in the best way possible. Has anything changed in the competitive landscape, core assortments, or brand strategies requiring a shift in KPIs to better execute against our overall goal of topline growth or net contribution growth?
During this exercise, we review each account with our brand strategy team to ensure that nothing has materially changed that we should address from Q1 and that we are in complete swing, priming the traffic for Summer Prime Day. Our team also advises on promotions and planning enough inventory for the increased Summer Prime Day traffic. We also take this time to assess new opportunities, including the recent Big Spring Sale for our home goods brands.
The Team and Our Own Straight Up Growth
Last but certainly not least, we ensure that we celebrate the team’s wins as they happen and highlight them each week. Intending to give positive feedback, we use an internal template for our meetings that starts with key questions, such as, “What are you most excited about, or what is the biggest thing you're proud of this week?” This doesn’t have to be business-related, although it often is! This allows us to anchor our mental state in the positive, knowing that if we focus on the positive things and find solutions for challenging tasks, more positive opportunities and wins will come our way. This is because we are sharing our key learnings, aligning our goals, and measuring the right KPIs for success.
To ensure your brand is set up for success in Q2-Q4, contact Straight Up Growth. We're always happy to chat and help good people grow their businesses.