Amazon recently announced that Amazon Prime Day 2024 will be taking place on July 16th and 17th. Amazon Prime Day is a two-day event that takes place every year in mid-July, where shoppers can take advantage of big deals from their favorite brands on Amazon. For brands, Prime Day is a great opportunity to get in front of new potential customers, increase sales and is one of the biggest shopping events outside of Black Friday. In this blog, we will cover the best practices and strategies that brands should follow before, during, and after Prime Day to maximize your potential sales.
Amazon Ads Strategy Before Prime Day
Amazon typically announces its annual Prime Day event a few weeks before the start of the event. It is important for brands to begin their preparation for Prime Day ahead of time so everything is properly set up for success during the event period. Below, we will discuss some of the promotional and Amazon Ads advertising strategies that we recommend leading up to Prime Day.
Prime Day Promotions
During Prime Day, Amazon customers are looking for the biggest deals and sales. It's important to understand that this event highlights a two-day period where Amazon customers expect significant discounts on their favorite items. As a seller, you have a wide variety of promotional options available that you can utilize during Prime Day.
Lighting Deal - In order to qualify for a Lightning Deal, your product has to meet Amazon's eligibility criteria. Lightning Deals are 12-hour promotions that appear on the promotion pages such as "Today's Deals" and "Prime Day" page and require a minimum 15% discount. Prime deals during event windows typically cost between $300 - $500 but can be very lucrative due to the boost in organic traffic from the deals page placement and other promotional efforts from Amazon.
Amazon Prime Exclusive Discount - Prime Exclusive discounts appear to Prime customers (FBA and SFP) and show a blue badge in the search results. The discounts must be at a minimum of 20% off and a maximum of 80% off for the non-prime member, non-promotional price. There is no fee for running a Prime Exclusive discount.
Coupons - If you aren't eligible for a deal, you can utilize coupons, which have no upfront fee to create, but you are charged a $0.60 redemption fee for each coupon redeemed by the customer. Coupons appear with a smaller green widget in the search results, which can catch the eye of the customer, but they do not push any other external traffic from a deal page like a Lightning Deal. Coupons can be set up as either a percentage off or a dollar amount off of the price.
Sale Price - You can also run a sale price on your items, which is a completely free option that comes with no fees. Make sure to add a list price to your listing in order to have a chance at Amazon displaying the strike through price on your listings for your customers.
Buy one Get One Promotion - To push out more units, you can utilize the "Buy One, Get One" option within the promotions page. This is a good way to utilize some of your old inventory that is moving slower to boost your offering and provide a great deal for the customer.
Pre Prime Day Amazon Ads
As a seller, you should review your historical advertising performance for the previous year's Prime Day. Analyzing historical data can provide valuable insights into what worked and what didn’t. This review will help you identify which Amazon Ad campaigns types should be prioritized and offer insights into cost-per-click and return-on-ad-spend expectations for this year, although these might change. You might find that you achieved your goals by pushing more Sponsored Products or other more brand awareness type of campaigns. By examining historical data, you can set realistic expectations and gain a better understanding of what to expect during the upcoming Prime Day, instead of going in completely blind.
Advertising Budget Allocation
Allocating your budget correctly can be one of the biggest levers you can pull for your brand during Prime Day. In 2023, the first day of the Prime event window was the single largest sales day in Amazon's history. With the huge influx of traffic, it's easy to run out of budget in the first few hours if you aren't keeping a close eye on it. It is likely you’ll need to double or triple your usual budgets to continue serving through the day. We recommend sellers pull their historical campaign history and prioritize budget based on historical performance. You can also set up campaign-level budget rules so it only increases based on certain performance metrics that you set.
Prime Day Amazon Ads Strategy
Now that we have gone through pre-Prime Day strategies, we will cover the best practices for advertising during Prime Day. Advertising strategies will vary for brands depending on the type of promotion you are running and the type of products you are offering.
Prime Day Promotions Audit
Before diving into advertising strategy, the first thing you should do during Prime Day is go through your deals, coupons, sales, etc., and audit the detail page to ensure everything is set up correctly and properly merchandised. Amazon can suppress certain deals if your list price field is empty and also adjust your percent off if the "Was Price" is different from the current price. This is why it's important to check these immediately the day of and make any necessary adjustments.
Prime Day Amazon Ads
The first thing you will want to do with your Amazon Ads is audit your bids and campaigns to ensure everything is active and the bids are at the right cost per click. From there, it's always good to perform a manual audit of the search results page to see where your listing is showing up and what promotions your competitors are running. If you're not achieving your desired placement in the search results and product pages, you can make the necessary bid adjustments quickly and early.
If you are running a Lightning Deal or any event deal with an aggressive discount, you will have a better opportunity to capture sales at the top of the search results and can bid more aggressively. If you are offering a smaller discount compared to your competitors in the category, being more conservative with your bids can be a better strategy since shoppers will be looking for the most lucrative deals and comparing your discount to other sellers.
There is a balance, and that balance typically involves understanding your discount compared to your competitors and how the customer will perceive it. You want to make sure that you don't burn through your campaign budget, especially since the cost per clicks and traffic will be higher during the first day.
Prime Day Budget Tracking
With the large influx of traffic, you will want to keep an eye on your budget throughout the day. The first few hours of Prime Day will have the most traffic, so it's important to monitor your budget closely during those hours. If you are not creating budget rules, it's important to check in every few hours and audit budget utilization for your campaigns. Depending on your advertising performance, you can make the budget decisions that align with your goals.
Post Prime Day Strategy
After Prime Day ends, brands can do various things to capitalize on and capture missed sales. It's important to have a post-Prime Day strategy for your brand to review your results, capitalize on cart abandoners, and retarget those who viewed but didn't purchase your products.
Prime Day Review
It's important to take a step back and review your deals, promotions, and advertising campaigns to understand what worked and what didn't. This data is valuable and can be referenced when planning the next event window.
Target Cart Abandoners
Utilizing Brand Tailored Promotions to target cart abandoners with a 10% or more discount can be a strategy to recapture some of those shoppers who were close to purchasing but ultimately didn't. You can create a campaign within the Brand Tailored Promotions page targeting specific ASINs' cart abandoners that you want Amazon to retarget.
Sponsored Display Retargeting
Utilize Sponsored Display views retargeting campaigns to retarget those who viewed your product but didn't purchase in the last 7 days. This is a great way to add another touchpoint to customers who have already seen your product but might need another reminder before purchasing.
Frequently Asked Questions for Amazon Prime Day 2024 Amazon Ads Strategy
When is Amazon Prime Day 2024?
Amazon Prime Day is on July 16th and 17th for 2024.
What should I do to prepare for Amazon Prime Day 2024 as a seller?
As a seller, from an Amazon Ad perspective to prepare for Amazon Prime Day 2024, you should set up promotions, set up your Amazon Ad campaigns, and have an Amazon Ad budget prepared.
What should I do on Amazon Prime Day 2024 as a seller?
As an Amazon seller on Prime Day 2024, you should audit your promotions, ensure your advertising is running, and track your budget.
What should I do after Amazon Prime Day 2024 as an Amazon seller?
As an Amazon seller following Prime Day 2024, you should review your performance on Prime Day, run Brand Tailored Promotions to target cart abandoners, and run Sponsored Display retargeting ads to capture additional sales.
Conclusion
Amazon Prime Day is a great event for brands to offer promotions and attract new customers to their brand. It is important that brands implement a proper strategy before, during, and after Prime Day in order to take full advantage of the event. In this blog, we covered the advertising and promotional best practices when preparing for Prime Day. If you need help strategizing and preparing for Prime Day and other events, please reach out to Goat Consulting using the contact us form below.
About the Author - Albert Podshivaylov
This post was written by Albert Podshivaylov, an Account Manager at Goat Consulting. Albert helps his clients sell on Amazon by increasing sales, mitigating risk, reducing costs, and solving problems. He has expertise in leading clients through successful Prime Days. If you want assistance with your Amazon account Albert is happy to help. Please reach out through our contact form to start the conversation.