Host (Tom): Welcome to the Clear Ads Podcast: Highway to Sell. I’m joined today by a very special guest, Mina Elias, the founder of Trivium Group. Mina, for listeners who might not know you yet, could you introduce yourself and let people know where to find you online?
Mina Elias: Thanks, Tom. My name is Mina Elias. I’m the founder of Trivium Group, an Amazon marketing agency. We help brands from start to finish on Amazon. The website is triviumco.com. You can find me on YouTube and LinkedIn under my name, Mina Elias, and on Instagram where I post a ton of valuable content daily. Definitely follow me there. I’m excited about today’s chat—I saw the questions and I can’t wait to dive in.
Tom: Same here. We’ve touched on organic cannibalization before, but only at the surface level. Today, we’re going deeper—how PPC advertising can damage organic sales, and how to strike the right balance. Let’s start with a definition. What does it mean when PPC cannibalizes organic sales, and why should businesses care?
Mina: First, here’s the hard truth: what you see in Campaign Manager isn’t accurate. PPC sales are often misattributed. That shocks a lot of people because they live by ACoS and PPC sales numbers—but those numbers aren’t reliable.
Test it yourself: take a campaign spending $100/day and generating $300/day in reported PPC sales. Pause the campaign. Hypothetically, you should only lose $300. But when you look at your total sales, you’ll usually lose more. That’s because the attribution isn’t accurate.
The only way to get clarity is to focus on total sales and profits and run controlled experiments—change one thing at a time, then measure the overall impact. Looking only at PPC vs. organic numbers is misleading. What really matters is revenue and profit, not the PPC/organic split.
Tom: Let’s unpack how this plays out on the search results page.
Mina: Right. A results page has: headline ads, sponsored slots, organic listings, video ads, then more sponsored positions. Amazon keeps experimenting with how many ads they can show without harming the customer experience.
The goal of PPC is visibility—to drive people into your listing. Conversion depends on your listing itself. But here’s the catch: if you’re ranked organically in position five and also running a sponsored product ad in position two, you may not be attracting many new shoppers. You might just be paying for people who would have clicked anyway.
That’s cannibalization—paying for traffic you could have had for free. PPC should be used where you don’t already have visibility. That’s when it adds real value.
Tom: But what about situations where organic rankings are below the fold?
Mina: Good point. If you’re ranked high organically but not visible above the fold, PPC might make sense. But you need to test. For example, you might spend $100 on ads, generate $100 in extra sales, and break even. Is that worth it? Sometimes yes, especially for branded defense or long-tail keywords. But often, ads look great in Campaign Manager—say a 7x ROAS—while total sales barely move. That’s the danger.
Tom: So the real metric to track is profit, not just ROAS. Too many brands get trapped in what we call “ROAS jail”—focusing on pretty numbers instead of bottom-line results.
Mina: Exactly. Profits are what go to the bank. Revenue and ROAS don’t matter if profits don’t grow. It’s about testing, iteration, and patience. Don’t make sweeping changes at once—change bids gradually, track total sales and profit, and isolate variables.
Tom: What about branded keywords? Isn’t that an area where cannibalization can be risky?
Mina: Yes, branded terms are high intent—people are already looking for you. If you don’t advertise, competitors can take that slot. Unless you’re the absolute market leader, I recommend always protecting your brand terms. It’s better to overspend slightly than to lose customers to a competitor with stronger reviews or visibility.
Tom: Makes sense. Are there tools to track organic vs. PPC performance more accurately?
Mina: Honestly, no. Anyone claiming they can split organic vs. PPC perfectly is overselling it. Attribution data is unreliable. What you can do is use analytics tools to track daily spend, sales, conversion rates, and profits at the ASIN or parent level. That gives you a clear view when you run controlled experiments. But there’s no magic tool that separates PPC and organic precisely.
Tom: Let’s talk campaign types. Sponsored brands, display, even vCPM—do these add to the cannibalization issue?
Mina: vCPM in particular has been useless in my experience. Paying for “views” doesn’t align with Amazon’s intent-driven platform. DSP and Sponsored Display can also cannibalize, especially remarketing campaigns. They often just rack up costs without lifting total revenue. I prefer using Sponsored Display for defensive placements—keeping competitors off your listings—or strategic offensive plays, like placing a better-reviewed product on a rival’s page.
Tom: That’s how we use it too. And with DSP, while attribution can be messy, it’s still powerful when combined with PPC data in a single dashboard.
Mina: Absolutely. The key is blending PPC, DSP, and profit tracking. Look at cost per acquisition, not just ROAS. If DSP lowers your overall acquisition cost, even with a weaker ROAS, it can still be worthwhile.
Tom: Before we wrap up, can you give our listeners three key takeaways to avoid cannibalization?
Mina: Sure.
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Track profits daily. Don’t live in Campaign Manager—focus on profit, conversion rate, and clickthrough rate.
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Use keyword tracking. Monitor organic and sponsored rank side by side for your main terms.
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Test systematically. Adjust spend on specific keywords or campaigns, then measure the impact on total profit. Never change too many variables at once.
Scaling and testing are fine, but always come back to profitability.
Tom: Brilliant advice. Mina, it’s been great having you on. For anyone interested in your work, where should they go?
Mina: Visit triviumco.com. We offer free audits and full strategies—not just pointing out what’s wrong, but giving you a plan to grow. Just click the Get a Free Audit button.
Tom: Perfect. Thanks again, Mina. And to our listeners, please share this episode with friends and colleagues. If you’d like us—or Mina—to help with your Amazon advertising, reach out via clearadsagency.com or triviumco.com. Until next time, it’s goodbye from me and goodbye from Mina.
Mina: Bye, everyone.
