A well-executed advertising campaign during Prime Day can significantly boost sales if you take advantage of all that traffic. There’s also the potential to boost the number of customers returning to your products after Prime Day for a new or repeat sales conversion. Whatever goal you’re pursuing, here are key strategies to implement on and two weeks following Prime Day to help you make the most of this annual event.
DURING DAY 1 & 2 OF PRIME DAY
Ideally, you’ll have been optimizing your account content and conducting pre-targeted ad campaigns several weeks before Prime Day to entice your target audiences. Before midnight on Prime Day, you should also complete the following:
- Adjust automation settings to handle the anticipated increase in traffic.
- Make any last-minute changes to the ad budget to optimize ad spend throughout the event. Always plan to have more in the budget for the day so you don’t miss out on bidding on trends.?
- Complete all the dayparting for your ads so that their time periods are effective and you’re free to tackle other account needs during the day or make quick adaptations to your ad campaigns based on the metrics you’re watching.?
On the morning of day 1, begin live performance monitoring. This real-time approach helps you quickly identify trends, monitor inventory, and make necessary daily adjustments.
Making live decisions based on metrics is the key to success in the full Amazon marketing funnel through Prime Day, especially when making swift bid adjustments and budget reallocations to optimize performance on PPC ads. It helps to have a designated team or account managers running live performance monitoring to share real-time insights on the following metrics with their ad teams and ensure advertising operations success:
- New-to-brand (NTB) sales to gauge how many first-time buyers your products or promotions are attracting
- Top-of-search impression share to ensure your ads are appearing in prime positions that make your bids worth it
- Click-through rates (CTR) to measure the effectiveness of your ad creatives and see if you’re using the right calls to action or need to apply A/B testing
- Average cost per click (AVG CPC) to manage your bid strategies and maintain cost-efficiency
- Ad sales to track revenue generated from your ad campaigns
Engage with Previous Audiences
Depending on your pre-Prime Day strategies, you can use DSP ads to engage with audiences who previously interacted with your brand in different ways, including:??
- Basing these strategies on previous return on ad spend (ROAS), past units sold, and other previous data points
- Utilizing Amazon’s 1P audience suite and AMC audience to direct your ads to remarket brand store visitors, detailed page visitors, ATC abandoners, and other AMC non-purchase events (wishlist, reviews, frequent PDP visitors)
- Using different look-back windows to capture and reach the maximum users
- Pushing recommended ads for ASINs that are part of your Prime Day promotions or on sale
- Effectively using Amazon partnered distribution (APD) and 3rd party (3P) inventory to make sure your products are widely available to win on-Amazon inventory and meet the buying and delivery demands of the day
Putting maximum bids on your campaigns for the day to help remove/relax frequency capping and viewability so that your ads are shown more frequently to the most optimal users during the two-day time period
DURING THE LEAD-OUT PERIOD (TWO WEEKS FOLLOWING PRIME DAY)
When Each Day Is Over, Start Evaluating
At the end of each Prime Day event, evaluate the performance data in order to end strong on the second promotional day, and then capitalize on that success or those learnings weeks after Prime Day has concluded. Break down results by key performance indicators (KPIs), priority ASIN sales, and other brand-specific metrics. This type of analysis helps identify gaps and opportunities for future growth and a comprehensive view of performance, including:?
- Measuring against KPI performance targets set before Prime Day
- Identifying ASIN sales of products that performed the best
- Looking for trends and patterns that emerged during the event, including keyword match types, product targeting, audience targeting, abnormally high performance after using certain ad campaigns, traffic spikes, etc.
- Launching new campaigns based on tentpole performance insights gained during the promotional period, primarily sponsored display and sponsored brand campaigns
- Paying attention to bestseller rank (BSR) to determine how much impact the event had on account health and performance and where it was repositioned for BSR post-Prime to help quantify the positive impact increased awareness has on the brand and product rank
Identify the Right Targets for Follow-Up Ads
Perform a targeting audit after the Prime Day tentpole period to see which targets you can strike from your advertising budget and which new targets that have emerged would be worth further investment of advertising dollars for PPC and DSP ads by completing the following:
- Engaging with audiences who visited your stores and detailed pages and did not purchase
- Utilizing Amazon’s 1P audience suite and AMC audience to remarket to Prime Day visitors based on previous or contextual purchases
- Reducing the look-back windows and engaging with users who didn’t consider your brand during the high-traffic event
- Building a Prime Day purchase look-alike audience and improving NTB reach and engagement
- Advertising bestsellers in your portfolio to capitalize on the increased buying period, especially in cases where customers are considering alternative products after any Prime Day returns
- Lowering the spends and bids to remain efficient and waiting for the trends to normalize
- Opening efforts toward the awareness funnel to capture new-to-category/non-Prime shoppers
- Eliminating ineffective keywords and audience segments to avoid wasting ad spend on underperforming targets
The following image summarizes what data metrics to focus on as you evaluate during Prime Day event days and the lead-out period.
Additional Lead-out Strategies
In the two weeks after Prime Day, complete the following to help sustain momentum and capitalize on insights gained during the event, including:?
- Engaging non-purchased audiences with videos and lifestyle images in awareness campaigns to capture attention
- Featuring promotional ASINs that were on sale during Prime Day in continuous campaigns to attract ongoing interest
- Adjusting budgets and bids based on AMC insights and allocating PPC and DSP budgets efficiently to remain competitive
- Reviewing category and subcategory performance for product ASINs post-Prime Day by moving specific products into new categories and subcategories or shifting advertising budgets from less productive category targets to new and possibly more fertile niches?
By implementing a few of these strategies in your Amazon Prime Day and Post–Prime Day ad campaign strategies, you can maximize Prime Day benefits and sustain your sales momentum well into the future.
AMAZON NEWS AND NOTES?
- Amazon Prime Day Reminders?
- Connect with our team this September at Amazon Accelerate!?Buy Box Experts will attend this virtual conference to meet with businesses and learn more about helping them accelerate their growth on Amazon’s platform. If you want to connect with us during the September event, contact our vice president of growth, Brad Saksons, at [email protected]
to see how we can help with your advertising strategy and development!
