Operationalizing Influencers and Other Lessons from Kelsey Knight of Slumberkins - Episode 412
Release Date: 09/30/2025
A Dozen Experts. Two Questions. Big Predictions on the Future of Retail with Kiri Masters - Episode 427
Ecommerce Braintrust
🎙️Interview with Kiri Masters of The Retail Media Breakfast Club DESCRIPTION Welcome to The Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, brought to you by Julie Spear, Head of Retail Marketplace Services, and Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Account Management. As we return from our holiday break, we’re taking the opportunity to step back and reflect on where the ecommerce industry has been—and where it’s headed next. To guide that conversation, we tapped into the insights of a dozen former podcast guests, including industry analysts, technology providers, and brand leaders. We asked each...
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Best of 2025 | Replay: The Maturation of AMC for Sponsored Ads - Episode 426
Ecommerce Braintrust
Thank you for an incredible 2025! 🎉 We are grateful for such an engaged community of listeners. To celebrate, we’re re-releasing 3 of our most popular episodes of the year. This week, we’re bringing back “The Maturation of AMC for Sponsored Ads“ with Ross Walker and Carlos Sastre. We hope you enjoy it!
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Best of 2025 | Replay: Winning Search, Unlocking Reviews, and the ROI of Content With Profitero’s Mike Black - Episode 425
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Thank you for an incredible 2025! 🎉 We are grateful for such an engaged community of listeners. To celebrate, we’re re-releasing 3 of our most popular episodes of the year. This week, we’re bringing back “Winning Search, Unlocking Reviews, and the ROI of Content“ with Mike Black. We hope you enjoy it!
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Best of 2025 | Replay: Vendor P&L Proliferation - Why It’s Happening and Why It Matters - Episode 424
Ecommerce Braintrust
Thank you for an incredible 2025! 🎉 We are grateful for such an engaged community of listeners. To celebrate, we’re re-releasing 3 of our most popular episodes of the year. This week, we’re bringing back “Vendor P&L Proliferation - Why It’s Happening and Why It Matters“ with Armin Alispahic. We hope you enjoy it!
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The Retail Round-Up - Seller Challenges, Nielsen, and the Path to AI Monetization - Episode 423
Ecommerce Braintrust
🎙️News Review with Armin Alispahic and Ross Walker DESCRIPTION Welcome to another edition of The Retail Round Up: your monthly recap of the biggest headlines and developments in the retail world. Today, we’re joined by Pat Petriello, Director of Retail Marketplace Strategy, who will be co-hosting this week. As always, we have Armin Alispahic here to dive deep into operations and organic industry trends, and Ross Walker to walk us through everything Media. This marks our final Retail Round Up episode of 2026, but we’re not slowing down. There’s no shortage of major industry...
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Open Auction? Deals? How to Buy Media on Amazon’s DSP with Ross Walker & Danilo Alvares - Episode 422
Ecommerce Braintrust
🎙️Interview with Ross Walker & Danilo Alvares of Acadia DESCRIPTION Welcome to The Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, brought to you by Julie Spear, Head of Retail Marketplace Services, and Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Account Management. We’re diving into a big topic this week: programmatic media buying through Amazon DSP, and the many different ways brands can leverage it. If you’ve been wondering how to get started with ADSP or how to access the right inventory to drive real results, this episode has you covered. To help us unpack it all, we’ve invited two of our in-house...
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Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2025 Recap With Team Acadia - Episode 421
Ecommerce Braintrust
🎙️Black Friday & Cyber Monday Data Breakdown With the Acadia Team DESCRIPTION Welcome to The Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, brought to you by Julie Spear, Head of Retail Marketplace Services, and Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Account Management. We’re coming to you late in the day on December 3rd, less than 48 hours after the whirlwind of Cyber Monday has wrapped up. The dust is barely settling, and we’re diving straight into what really went down. To help us make sense of it all, we’ve gathered a powerhouse panel. From the operations and organic side of the action,...
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unBoxed 2025: What You Need to Know With Ross Walker and Pat Petriello - Episode 420
Ecommerce Braintrust
DESCRIPTION Welcome to The Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, brought to you by Julie Spear, Head of Retail Marketplace Services, and Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Account Management. Today, we’re excited to welcome back two familiar voices: Ross Walker, Director of Retail Media, and Pat Petriello, Director of Retail Marketplace Strategy. They’re here to help us unpack the wave of announcements that came out of unBoxed 2025 and break down what they really mean for brands. Let’s dive in. Quote: It’s a trap! Every single one of our brands that has said, ‘Forget about...
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The Democratization of Brand Building on Amazon With Chris Conetta of Amazon | Live at unBoxed - Episode 419
Ecommerce Braintrust
🎙️Live at unBoxed With Chris Conetta of Amazon DESCRIPTION Welcome to The Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, brought to you by Julie Spear, Head of Retail Marketplace Services, and Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Account Management. In this special episode, we’re coming to you live from Amazon unBoxed in Nashville, where we’re sitting down with Chris Conetta, Director of Amazon DSP Supply. Together, we dig into Amazon’s latest investments and breakthrough product updates within its Demand-Side Platform (DSP). From new integrations and measurement innovations to tools...
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Creator Connections Has Changed. Should You? With Adam French of Acadia - Episode 418
Ecommerce Braintrust
🎙️Interview With Adam French of Acadia DESCRIPTION Welcome to The Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, brought to you by Julie Spear, Head of Retail Marketplace Services, and Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Account Management. Today, we’re diving into one of the most quietly powerful and still widely underutilized growth levers on Amazon: Creator Connections. To help us unpack how brands can tap into this channel effectively, we’re joined by first-time guest Adam French from our Account Management team. Adam has been deep in the trenches running the Creator Connections...
info_outline🎙️Interview with Kelsey Knight of Slumberkins
DESCRIPTION
Welcome to The Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, brought to you by Julie Spear, Head of Retail Marketplace Services, and Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Account Management.
Today, we’re excited to be joined by Kelsey Knight, Chief Commercial Officer at Slumberkins, an emotional learning brand dedicated to helping children grow into caring, confident, and resilient individuals.
We first connected with Kelsey at eTail East, where she led an engaging session on the evolution of influencer marketing. Her perspective was both insightful and inspiring, and we’re thrilled to bring that conversation to our listeners today.
Tune in to find out more!
Quote:
“Our top-performing content is coming from our influencer or influencer affiliates. We really can see what's working organically and then lean into that from a paid perspective.”
Kelsey Knight
KEY TAKEAWAYS
In this episode, Julie, Jordan, and Kelsey discuss:
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Kelsey Knight’s career path and her motivation to join Slumberkins
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Slumberkins’ mission & growth: A brand teaching kids emotional skills through plush “creatures,” books, and media. Kelsey Knight’s career in social and DTC led her to join for its mission-driven focus.
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Influencer as a growth engine: The brand began with grassroots social efforts and now uses the Siral platform to scale influencer programs. UGC from parents and teachers drives strong engagement and fuels paid ads more effectively than traditional creative.
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Paid media rebalancing: After reaching efficiency limits on Meta, Slumberkins cut spend to invest in organic channels (influencer, email, SEO). Once healthier, they returned to Meta profitably, keeping first-purchase profitability as a non-negotiable metric.
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Loyalty & community: Their Radium-powered loyalty program goes beyond points, running challenges (reading, seasonal, routines) to foster parent/teacher engagement, generate UGC, and deepen brand loyalty.
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Amazon as a channel: Amazon sales are steady and profitable, but treated as part of a wider ecosystem. Off-Amazon marketing efforts (ads, influencer, organic) consistently lift Amazon sales within days.
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Search everywhere optimization: With AI disrupting discovery, Slumberkins invests in SEO, PR, and organic content to surface in LLMs and new search tools. Early results show AI-driven traffic is small but far more engaged.