Partnership series: Amazon Prime Day advertising checklist

Amazon Prime Day is the online shopping event of the summer, and every year it picks up steam. Last year alone drove an impressive list of retail media stats:

U.S. Prime members saved over $2.5 billion in 2023, more than any previous Prime Day event, and $0.8 billion more than 2022.
Worldwide Prime members purchased over 375MM items during the two day event.
Prime Day 2023 was the largest ever for independent sellers with more Prime Day deals on small business products than ever before.
Fashion and Beauty products joined the highest selling categories alongside Home and Consumer Electronics.

The first day of Prime Day [2023] was the largest sales day in Amazon’s history, and Prime members saved more this year than any other Prime Day event.

This year’s event will be July 16 and 17. If you have an e-commerce business and are looking to take full advantage of consumer seasonal spending, especially on retail media, you need to be ready before the big day(s). This includes preparing everything from inventory, pricing, and listings to your marketing strategy. Luckily, we are making it easy for you— from start to finish.

Check out how Rise can help optimize your Amazon advertising approach with these Prime Day marketing tips:

Before Prime Day

Optimize your PDPs as soon as possible. As Prime Day nears, you’ll want to keep your product listings relatively consistent to avoid jeopardizing your ranking. Therefore, plan to test and determine what works best in the months prior in order to use the best content for the big event.
Use DSP and Amazon Sponsored ads to fill and close the funnel. Run awareness and consideration campaigns with both ad types two weeks beforehand to grow your audience. Note: Sales tend to drop the weekend prior to Prime Day as consumers wait for the upcoming deals.
Unleash the power of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). AMC provides a holistic view of audiences for data-driven decision-making. With AMC, advertisers have can build more relevant audiences based off richer inputs within and outside of Amazon.

During Prime Day

Allocate your budget wisely through strategy and automation. What we know is that there is no way to predict exactly how consumers will behave every minute of Prime Day. We recommend using a combination of pre-determined strategic thinking and automation for the most effective Prime Day bid strategy. Rise’s experts leverage the right marketplace advertising technology to incorporate tactics like dayparting and automated bidding to most effectively manage your budget.
Learn from the past. The second day of Prime Day tends to have a higher conversion rate than the first day last year. We’ve observed that consumers spend time browsing on day one then are ready to convert on day two! This behavioral trend happens around the holiday season, as well. Based on this precedent, consider heavier budget allocation on mid-funnel tactics for the first day then push heavy with bottom-funnel on day two.
Be cautious of competitor conquesting campaigns. The temptation is real here. However, to ensure the most efficient spend, only opt into spending on competitor PDPs if you absolutely know your deal is the best.

After Prime Day

Analyze, learn, and plan. Prime Day is here to stay, but that doesn’t mean trends, behaviors, and results will always remain the same. Every year we learn something new and find a way to better prepare for what’s ahead. Dig into your results and data to find not only what worked, but also what didn’t. Create a testing roadmap to discover learnings throughout the year and incorporate new strategies in advance.
Be ready. Just when you think Amazon has outdone itself with the biggest Prime Day yet, they surprise us with a formidable sequel — Amazon Prime Big Deal Days. Based on its successful performance, odds are a follow up event continues to be part of the Amazon playbook so stay on the lookout in the coming months.

Have more questions on preparing for Prime Day, optimal retail media strategies, and more? Contact us, we are here to help. Happy Prime Day prepping, everyone!