Prime Day dates have officially been announced: July 12th and July 13th. If you are thinking, “Now what?” let us help! Here is your Amazon Prime Day guide to help you prepare for the event on and off Amazon.
First, let’s start with the most critical question: What is Prime Day?
Prime Day is an annual shopping event created by Amazon and has historically outperformed Black Friday and Cyber Monday in total sales volume on Amazon. Last year, sales were over $ 11 billion over the two-day event, up 7.7% from last year. Now, if you think that’s likely due to all the large businesses that sell on the platform, think again! Small and midsize companies made an estimated $2 billion last year, which shows that every business, no matter how big or small, should be ready for Prime Day.
Why participate in Prime Day
The benefit of participating in the prime day on your brand extends much further than the two-day event, as it is an excellent opportunity to acquire new customers and get those considering your products to convert. In fact, in 2020, there was a 3.1x median increase in new-to-brand shoppers in the US compared to prior weeks.
What steps should you take to be Prime Day-ready?
To prepare for this event, at Power Digital Marketing, we recommend you take an entire funnel on and off Amazon Prime Day marketing approach. As Amazon has stated, “75% of shoppers are likely to purchase a product during Prime Day that they discovered during the lead-up to the event,” so it is crucial to be anywhere and everywhere leading up to the event.
On Amazon
First, look to your inventory to dictate which products should be promoted. The worst thing that can happen is running out of stock and losing all the momentum and sales velocity you have put time and money into building.
Once you have determined what products you want to focus on, set up a coupon or promotion. For Prime Day you can run a variety of Prime Day deals, but with strict cut-off dates in late May and early June, those are no longer an option. The best action plan is to get a coupon created and submitted, as this can be done on both Vendor Central and Seller Central. The Amazon marketing team here at PDM recommends discounting your products by at least 25% as it separates you from the competition and allows for significant performance bumps above the “normal” Prime Day Buffer.
Establish an advertising strategy using Sponsored Products, Brands, and Display ads. Also, if you are running DSP, prepare to run prime day-specific campaigns before, during, and after the event. Please keep reading to see what we recommend for a strategy on both the search and display side.
Update creatives on your brand store, A+ content, SB ads, and posts. Amazon is allowing brands to establish more of a presence on the platform, so take full advantage of that.
Off Amazon
Preparing for a prime day on Amazon is crucial, but establishing your off-Amazon strategy is equally important to take full advantage of the event. In 2020, advertisers using multi-channel vs. single-channel marketing campaigns saw 250% higher purchase rates. To get started, utilize Amazon Attribution, a tool that allows you to see how the multi-channel traffic you drive to Amazon impacts your total performance on the platform. When using the attribution tool, set it up in advance to correctly measure the effectiveness of your cross-channel to Amazon campaigns.
To promote Prime Day deals on these channels (social media, email, sms messaging, etc.), make them clickable and add a “Shop this product on Amazon” or Amazon Add to Cart button on the ad to the marketplace. As all ads should lead to Amazon so, with the copy, you want to reference both Amazon and Prime Day. With the creative, ideally, you should feature lifestyle images with your product in use or use any video assets and add an Amazon logo to the idea. This makes your ads eye-catching and helps your shoppers understand where they will be directed when clicking on the ad.
Power Digital also recommends matching any deals on Amazon to your website or running a slight discount, as Prime Day has historically had a halo effect on brands’ leading sites. One thing to keep in mind, Amazon will price match across the web, so anything you put on the Amazon site must be matched on your website.
When looking at budgets, if you have finite spending to leverage during the Prime Day lead-up and event, shift incremental dollars to your Amazon ad spend, as traffic will be most concentrated on the site. That said, even just allocating a small portion of spend to external traffic campaigns has the potential to make a noticeable difference over the two-day event.
With Search ads, plan! We recommend launching campaigns 2-3 weeks before Prime Day to allow them to ramp up before the event. Please pay close attention to the few days leading up to Prime Day, as CPCs/CPMs will likely increase while conversions decrease as users start planning for their Prime Day shopping and hold off on any purchases until the event.
Looking specifically at advertising on Amazon, here are our recommendations to properly prepare for Prime Day
Search Advertising – Preparation
Plan! Start launching campaigns 2-3 weeks before Prime Day to allow your ads to ramp up and run with optimizations. It is also essential to pay close attention to the few days leading up to Prime Day, as CPCs/CPMs will likely increase while conversions decrease. This is a result of users planning for their Prime Day shopping, leading to them holding off on any purchases until the event.
Search Advertising – During the Event
Be prepared to raise bids & budgets on campaigns both leading up to Prime Day (to get in front of the increased “planning” traffic) and during the event (when traffic, costs, and sales are likely to skyrocket). Campaign budgets should be closely monitored throughout the two-day event, with an additional budget on standby, as you should never want to run out of funding during Prime Day and lose sales!