Straight Up Growth (SUG) PPC Agency: Big Promises, Mismanagement, Poor Performance, Big Losses
We signed with Straight Up Growth (SUG) on April 20, 2022. We canceled our service on July 11, 2022. For reference, we are a top 1% Amazon seller.
For context, with our previous PPC agency, our Amazon business grew consistently. We grew 51% in 2021, and 28% in Q1 2022.
When we were considering SUG as an option, we gave them access to our account so they could do a detailed analysis. They created a detailed 12-month forecast, ASIN by ASIN. In that forecast, they showed a slight downturn in the first 3 months of management. The succeeding months showed very significant gains.
SUG PROJECTIONS
M1 $564K
M2 $566K
M3 $584K
M4 $615K
M5 $654K
M6 $695K
M7 $740K
M8 $787K
M9 $839K
M10 $895K
M11 $957K
M12 $1.02M
Their forecast also showed that our ad spend would remain unchanged from month 1 thru month 12 (this should have been a red-flag) at $78,000/month, even while they forecasted a nearly 100% volume increase from month 1 to 12.
For context, this was our daily volume Pre-SUG
January '21 $12,622
February '21 $12,231 (-3%)
March '21 $13,801 (+12%)
April '21 $14,199 (+3%)
May '21 $13,261 (-6%)
June '21 $13,349 (+1%)
July '21 $13,839 (+3%)
August '21 $15,007 (+8%)
September '21 $15,240 (+1%)
October '21 $15,959 (+5%)
November '21 $16,224 (+2%)
December '21 $15,838 (-2%)
January '22 $19,149 (+21%)
February '22 $19,127 (0%)
March '22 $20,411 (+7%)
April '22 $20,081 (-1%)
Though we signed with SUG on April 20, they did not implement their new PPC campaigns until May 3. So we will not count April as a month SUG was responsible for.
Daily volume with SUG campaigns.
May $18,801 (-6%)
June $17,966 (-4%)
July $17,177 (-4%)
In June, it became clear that SUG's campaigns were not performing as promised, and their projections were unattainable. Not only that, the downward slide showed no signs of slowing down. Our internal projections showed we would underperform their July projections by at least 12%. The attrition to our volume, market share, and profitability was consistent across the board. AND OUR AD SPEND REMAINED UNCHANGED. Their detailed ASIN by ASIN projections were not even close to the ugly reality. Almost without exception, every ASIN in our top 20 products was down double digits in volume.
WASTED AD SPEND
Another major selling point SUG uses in their call to 'hook' you is WASTED AD SPEND. During their sales calls, they repeatedly made the point that our previous PPC agency was wasting $15,000/month in ad spend.
No.
There was definitely not an extra $15k per month. But there was one promise they made that was accurate. Our daily ad spend did not go down. It remained constant while our volume dropped. Rather than use some of the very successful prior campaigns for our top 20, well-established products, they chose to use all our spend on 'ranking' campaigns with very high click costs. What you need to understand here is that we OWN the Amazon market in our top 20 products. We have over 50% market share. We were already at the top of search in almost every relevant keyword. So why blow budgets on ranking campaigns when you already own the market??
According to every metric that is meaningful to us as business owners, SUG was an abject failure. How can you call decreased market share, plummeting earnings, with unchanging ad-spend a success? While SUG pointed to some 'token' successes in our bi-weekly calls, the reality was that our business was beginning to circle the drain. Even while we repeatedly expressed our concerns about greater than forecasted / expected sales declines in our calls, they told us not to worry, "because in month 12 you'll be doing over a million dollars a month!!" Do you see the disconnect here?? When it was clear to us on our calls with them that they had no meaningful, cohesive strategy to turn the ship around, we canceled service.
Because SUG irresponsibly spent our money on campaigns that didn't yield their promised result, the following happened:
1. Our monthly volume dropped by over $100,000 from May to July.
2. Our profitability dropped by 25% from May to July, resulting in an earnings drop of over $75,000 during that time period.
3. Our market share dropped by 6% from May to July.
4. We will have to spend significant money on PPC to get back to where we were before SUG.
Conclusion:
My advice to anyone considering using SUG for their Amazon business? First, LOOK ELSEWHERE! But if you do consider them, take a very long, hard, realistic look at what they are trying to sell you. Identify their points that sound unrealistic (because they are), and consider how difficult it would be to rebuild your business if they take things in the wrong direction as they did with us. Look at other agencies, and go with someone who has plenty of verifiable online reviews. BSUG strangely doesn't have any verifiable reviews, except on their website.