Launching in New Marketplaces: Why Your Amazon Playbook Won't Work (According to 3 Industry Leaders)

New marketplace, new rules. It's tempting to copy-paste your Amazon playbook when you're launching on a fresh retailer, but that's exactly how you burn through budget without results. I asked three brand-side leaders about their go-to strategies when launching existing products on new marketplaces.

You'll discover why bidding on the same keywords that worked on Amazon can backfire spectacularly on other retailers like Instacart, the smart way to graduate from branded to non-branded search once you've built some relevance, and why one leader starts every new marketplace launch with business objectives, not tactics.

Don't Copy-Paste Your Way to Failure

Justin Bomberowitz, Director of E-Commerce at WILDE Brands, cuts straight to the chase with his advice: "Don't copy what you've just done in your last one. It's not necessarily gonna work."

Justin points out that when WILDE approaches a new marketplace, they consider multiple factors before diving in. "We look at what that audience is, what their technical capabilities are, what our product set is in market," he says. For WILDE, this means accounting for their four different product sizes, each with different price points and margin structures.

His most striking example involves a common Instacart mistake: "One of the most common things I see on Instacart is people bidding for key terms that do really well on Amazon, that get minimal traffic on Instacart, but they just import it and put it in."

The message is clear: be careful with adopting a strategy universally across platforms.

Start Broad, Then Get Granular

Nem Lazic, E-commerce Channel Manager at Zevia, takes a methodical approach to new marketplace launches, always starting with search. "I think sponsored search is always kind of where the bulk of the money gets spent, as far as where your first dollar should go," Nem says.

His strategy follows a specific progression. He begins with auto campaigns—despite their reputation—to build relevancy. "Really starting broad and kind of easing into it with a new retailer just to see where your products are actually landing and what those conversions are," he says.

Once that foundation is built, Nem shifts budget away from auto campaigns into more granular targeting: "Branded versus non-branded, category, competitor, you know, exact and phrase type matching."

But Nem's approach goes beyond just ad tactics. He emphasizes the importance of understanding each retailer's unique ecosystem: "It's always helpful to get information from the actual retailer themselves to see, hey, how are your customers actually shopping? How are they using this platform? Have you trained them to be lookout for deals? Are they habitually weekly shoppers? Do they use a lot of subscriptions?"

Business Objectives Before Media Plans

Simon Swan, Director of Digital Marketing and Media at Karo Healthcare, brings a more strategic lens to marketplace launches. What made his launches successful wasn't the product or retailer—it was the discipline of the process.

"In CPG it's very easy to get swept up in the execution and the media plan," Simon says. "But what really made our launches successful over time was that we started firstly with the business objective, not the tactic."

Simon's team takes a comprehensive approach:

• They start by asking: "What's the role of marketing, or what's the role of retail media as part of this launch?"
• They relate everything back to the path to purchase through quantitative and qualitative insights
• They align strategy across different teams—insights, brand marketing—before any media goes live

Communication is another key factor in Simon's approach. "We make a conscious effort to speak in business language, so talking about market share, incrementality, category impact. So everyone from sales and the supply chain can see how it links back to the bigger picture."

His team also agrees upfront on measurement: what KPIs matter most holistically across channels. And crucially, they don't treat campaigns as one-offs. "It's a marathon, not a sprint," Simon says.

Finally, Simon emphasizes the importance of internal alignment: "We work closely with internal change agents. We identify people who work within the organization that can connect those dots across departments, so we can drive that real alignment."

The Bottom Line

These insights reveal that successful marketplace expansion requires much more than recycling what worked elsewhere. Whether it's Justin's warning about keyword strategies, Nem's graduated approach to search campaigns, or Simon's focus on business objectives and organizational alignment, each leader emphasizes the importance of treating each marketplace as unique.

The next time you're tempted to export your Amazon campaigns to a new retailer, remember: what got you success on one platform might be exactly what fails you on another.