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  • Rankster Newsletter #29: Rebates, rebates and more rebates

Rankster Newsletter #29: Rebates, rebates and more rebates

The weekly TikTok newsletter that makes you smarter than all the other sellers 👊

This week is about rebates, rebates, rebates....'cos everyone wants to know

My best email open rates are those with word 'rebate' in the subject line.

'Cos every week someone asks me: "Can you run rebates on TikTok"

No! It is against TOS..... but I have been toying with it....

In this edition:

  • REBATES ON TIKTOK.... Is this against TOS? I need your opinion... voting time 🗳️

  • CREATED A REBATE CAMPAIGN ON TIKTOK..... Then my TikTok Ad Account was banned 🛑

  • CHAT GPT REBATES.... RebateGPT? How sellers will use it...

Please remember REBATES are against TOS and in no way am I recommending them.

But I want to know what my competitors are doing... and I want to stay a step ahead.

REBATES ON TIKTOK

Is this against TOS? I need your opinion... voting time 🗳️

When it comes to Amazon TOS..... it is pretty vague.... incredibly vague....

I tried being that vague.......** WIFE: "Did you pick up the kids?" ME: "Kids?" ** It was funny until Child Services called....

So let's assume you are Amazon and you come across this seller's marketing flow:

  1. You see a video on TikTok about a skin product on Amazon

    1. She tells you how the product changed her life and how it helped her find the man of her dreams....

  2. At the end of the video the creator tells you she is in the brand's TikTok Ambassador program:

    1. "Anyone can participate! Buy the product, create a video with the product, post it to TikTok and get a guaranteed $50"

Why this is against TOS - You are paying for a purchase, that's against the rules 😞

Why it's not against TOS - The creator is a contractor and purchased the product to complete the task... she is a one-time employee

I think this would be fine if it was not abused.... but if it works, it will be abused by the masses 🤬

What do you think? Let's take a poll and will publish the results next week:

Is this strategy against Amazon TOS?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

I CREATED A REBATE CAMPAIGN ON TIKTOK

Then my TikTok Ad Account was banned

The GOOD news:

There is a high barrier to entry... just setting it up flagged my TikTok account.

So don't expect many, if any, to be using TikTok for rebates

The BAD news:

I spent 30 min setting this up.... only 30 min... if a fool like me could figure this out, then anyone can (my teacher's always told the class: "If Paul can do it, anyone can"....should I be offended?)

The rebate ad did the following:

  1. TikTok video of a creator saying sign up to get free products

  2. The ad then gets their email address and adds them to the CRM

  3. They are then guided through the purchase over email (buy the product with SFB, create a video when it arrives, Paypal them $X to cover the cost of the product and video).

I blatantly broke TOS with Amazon and TikTok (look how gangsta' I am 😡) to see what I could get away with....

I lost the TikTok Ad account....but I have tons of TikTok 'burner' accounts for this reason (now I sound like a drug dealer).

So It's possible to run rebates..... but you have to be careful and set everything up right.

Or you could just do this (send this link to creators on TikTok - click it on your mobile).... but I am keeping this quiet 👊

CHAT GPT REBATES

RebateGPT? How sellers will use it...

Back in the day, 2021 (ages ago in Amazon's standards), Rankster used to be a rebate service.

And we were pretty good... Over 500 launches with 85% success rate.

It was managed by myself and my team.... a 5 person job.... it was a ton of work.

But there was one problem with rebates:

It required a lot of back and forth with the buyer to confirm the purchase, check the order and pay them.... it couldn't be automated... unit now.

In fact, we don't even need rebates.... just a well trained AI model.

This is what I would do:

  1. Train Chat GPT

    1. Explain to it how to communicate with prospective buyers

    2. Upload all the customer service tickets and your replies

    3. Train it to respond to every issue

    4. Train it to check the order ID (useful for rebates 😉)

  2. Create a TikTok Ad

    1. Create an engaging ad

    2. Tell the audience to sign up below for insane discounts

  3. Chat GPT will 'groom' the buyer (couldn't think of a better example 😞)

    1. The buyer won't know what the discount or sale is..... Chat GPT's goal is to get the sale at the lowest possible discount (bonus points for SFB and getting a review)

Why this will work:

  • The more you 'train' Chat GPT the better it gets..... essentially, you are building your own Chat GPT model

  • It's primary goal is to get the sale.... a full rebate is the ceiling in terms of price and it will optimise its flows to get the sale as quickly as possible

  • It's secondary objective is to get a review. Blow your customers away with the best customer service

  • TOS compliant....... on all platforms 👊

How do we build this?

  • I tried and it required a ton of programming and dev stuff.... I am not a programmer, so it was jargon to me

  • I am not sure if Chat GPT is 'up to scratch' but expect this to get even better in a few months and creating this setup would be far easier.

AI is here to stay 👊 Jump on that bandwagon

That's it for this week 👊

Thanks for reading.

- Paul

PS... If you have more questions and thoughts about this, please reply to this and let me know 👊

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