Deterra Amazon Case Study: A Minnesota Drug Deactivation Brand Reaching Households, Healthcare, and Government on Amazon
This case study is about how Goat Consulting helped Deterra, the maker of the Deterra Drug Deactivation and Disposal System, sell on Amazon. Deterra offers a scientifically proven, at-home medication disposal system that permanently deactivates prescription and over-the-counter drugs, which helps prevent misuse, accidental ingestion, and pharmaceutical pollution in water systems and landfills. Founded in 2011 by Verde Environmental Technologies, Deterra is headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Working with a fellow Minnesota company on a product line that protects families, communities, and the environment is the kind of engagement that makes our work meaningful beyond sales and revenue. Every Deterra pouch sold on Amazon is unused medication that can't end up in the wrong hands or in the water supply.
Building the Foundation with Amazon Brand Registry
The first step in protecting and growing a brand on Amazon is Amazon Brand Registry. We worked with the Deterra team to enroll the brand in Brand Registry and assign the SKUs in the catalog to the Deterra brand. Assigning SKUs to the brand matters more than most sellers realize, because it determines whether you control your own product listings, whether you can publish A+ Content and a storefront, and whether brand protection tools are available when a bad actor tries to piggyback on your listings. With the catalog properly attributed to the brand, Deterra gained access to the full set of brand-building tools we put to work in the rest of this case study.
Keyword Research and Market Analysis
Before changing a single listing, we ran market, product, and keyword research to understand how customers actually search for drug disposal products. A customer who needs Deterra might search for "drug disposal pouch," "medication disposal," or something as simple as "how to get rid of old pills," and each of those searches signals a different level of familiarity with the product category. Drug deactivation is a category where the customer often doesn't know the solution exists, so the keyword work focused on capturing the problem-aware searches, not just the product-aware ones. That research informed every downstream decision on the account, from bullet points to advertising campaign structure.
Merchandising That Communicates the Deterra Difference
Deterra's core differentiator is that it deactivates drugs rather than just storing or disposing of them. The patented, carbon-based system renders pills, patches, liquids, creams, and films permanently inert in three steps: place the medication in the pouch, fill halfway with warm water, then seal, shake, and throw away. Our merchandising work focused on making that difference impossible to miss on the product listing.
Bullet points built around value propositions
We rewrote the bullet points to call out what matters to the customer making this purchase, including the scientifically proven deactivation, the simple three-step process, and the environmental benefit of keeping pharmaceuticals out of landfills and waterways. A customer comparing Deterra to a basic disposal bag should be able to see the difference in the first few seconds on the page.
A+ Content, storefront, and Brand Story
With Brand Registry in place, we built out A+ Content on the product listings, a brand storefront, and the Brand Story module to educate customers on how drug deactivation works and why it's a better option than flushing medications or tossing them in the trash. For a category where customer education drives the purchase decision, this additional real estate on the detail page does a lot of the selling.
Parent/child variations
Deterra's product line comes in multiple sizes and pack counts. We combined like products into parent/child variations so customers see every option on a single product listing. This is a better shopping experience for the customer, and it consolidates reviews and sales history onto one listing, which helps search ranking instead of splitting it across separate pages.
Amazon Advertising to Reach Customers Searching for a Solution
With the merchandising foundation in place, we built out Amazon Advertising campaigns to put Deterra in front of customers searching in the category. The keyword research from earlier in the engagement shaped the campaign architecture, targeting both the customers who know they want a drug disposal product and the customers who only know they have a medicine cabinet full of expired prescriptions. We built a combination of Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display to achieve both awareness and conversion goals. We continue to optimize campaigns against the account's goals so advertising spend works as efficiently as possible.
Reaching Healthcare and Government Buyers Through Amazon Business
Deterra isn't just a consumer product. Hospitals, clinics, hospice programs, pharmacies, law enforcement agencies, and public health departments buy drug deactivation products in volume, and many of those organizations purchase through Amazon Business, Amazon's B2B marketplace. We helped Deterra take advantage of Amazon Business features so healthcare and government buyers can purchase the way their procurement processes require, including business pricing and quantity discounts on bulk orders. B2B buyers on Amazon expect the same convenient shopping experience they get as consumers, and meeting them there opens a sales channel that a consumer-only listing strategy leaves on the table.
Boosting Off-Amazon Marketing with Brand Referral Bonus and Amazon Attribution
Deterra has built an audience well beyond Amazon through community partnerships, public health campaigns, and their own website. We helped connect that off-Amazon marketing to the Amazon channel using two programs that work together. Amazon Attribution provides measurement tags for external traffic, so when Deterra drives a click from their website, email, or social media to an Amazon listing, the account can see what that traffic actually does: clicks, detail page views, add-to-carts, and sales. The Brand Referral Bonus program then pays the brand back a bonus, averaging around 10% of sales generated from that externally driven traffic, which offsets referral fees and effectively rewards Deterra for marketing they were already doing. Together, the two programs turn off-Amazon promotion from a leap of faith into a measurable, partially reimbursed sales channel.
In Their Own Words
"Partnering with Goat Consulting helped us take Amazon to the next level. Their expertise helped us strengthen our presence, better tell the Deterra story, and connect with more consumers, healthcare organizations, and public health partners. We've seen strong growth as a result, but what excites me most is that every Deterra pouch sold helps remove unused medications from homes and communities before they can be misused or harm the environment"
- Ashley Klatte-Olson, Director of Marketing at Deterra
Wrapping Up the Deterra Amazon Case Study
Goat Consulting is proud to work with clients like Deterra, whose products make a real impact. Growing the Deterra brand on Amazon means more unused medications permanently deactivated instead of sitting in medicine cabinets or polluting waterways, and it's a privilege to support a Minnesota neighbor doing that work nationwide. The engagement touched nearly every part of the Amazon channel, from Brand Registry and catalog structure through merchandising, advertising, Amazon Business, and off-Amazon traffic measurement.
If your brand sells to consumers, healthcare organizations, or government agencies and you want help building the same kind of foundation on Amazon, please reach out through our Contact Us form.
About the Author
This post was written by Reed Thompson, the CEO at Goat Consulting. Reed helps lead the Goat Consulting team and their clients sell on Amazon by increasing sales, mitigating risk, reducing costs, and solving problems. Goat Consulting is a Minneapolis-based Amazon consulting agency, and working with Minnesota brands like Deterra is close to home in every sense. If you want help with Brand Registry, Amazon Business, or any other aspect of selling on Amazon, please reach out through our Contact Us form.