Preparing for Amazon Prime Day: Driving Conversions & Boosting Sales

With Amazon Prime Day 2024 right around the corner, eCommerce brands selling on the Amazon platform should prepare for the big two-day event. Read on to discover how to prep on time for the highly anticipated Prime Day and stay ahead of the competition.

What Is Amazon Prime Day? 

Amazon Prime Day is an annual shopping event exclusive to Prime members, offering significant discounts and special deals on numerous products. Typically lasting 48 hours, Prime Day features lightning deals, limited-time offers, and discounts across categories like electronics, home goods, fashion, toys, and more.

The first Prime Day was held in July 2015, to celebrate Amazon's 20th anniversary. Last year, Amazon Prime Day began on July 11, and its first day was the single largest sales day in Amazon’s history with over 375 million items purchased worldwide. In addition, Prime members saved over $2.5 billion on millions of deals across the Amazon platform on day one of the big eCommerce shopping event. Prime Day is a global event held simultaneously across multiple countries where Amazon operates.

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When Is Amazon Prime Day 2024? 

Although we are still waiting on the official confirmation for this year’s Prime Day dates, we can expect it to occur in mid-July. This is based on previous years and considering that Prime Day 2023 was held from July 11-12, some sources suggest it might take place from July 9-10 this year.  

What to Expect from Amazon Prime Day?

Amazon Prime Day brings great opportunities for eCommerce brands present on the platform, and it’s a significant shopping event for driving sales and brand visibility. Brands in relevant product categories who partake in Prime Day can expect increased sales during the two-day event. Prime Day is known for generating massive sales volumes, often surpassing other major shopping events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And with a large influx of shoppers, brands should offer compelling deals to reach new customers. 

Amazon Prime Day attracts substantial media and consumer attention, even months in advance. Participating eCommerce brands can benefit from increased exposure and marketing opportunities through Amazon's promotional efforts. It’s an ideal time for brands to clear out older inventory, making room for new products. Offering discounts and deals can help move stock that hasn’t been selling well throughout the year​.

How to Prepare for Amazon Prime Day

Well-planned and timely Amazon Prime Day preparation is crucial for driving conversions and maximizing sales. Here are the key steps eCommerce brands should take to prepare on time and outperform competitors on Amazon. 

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Create Demand

Start preparing for Amazon Prime Day 2024 by creating demand for your products. You want to ensure your brand shows up where customers are searching online. 

Amazon Marketing Services (AMS)

Use Sponsored Display ads to reach and engage the right audience across their shopping journeys on the Amazon homepage, product detail pages, and third-party destinations. 

You want to get in front of potential customers searching for products using keywords that may not be included in your current advertising campaign. For instance, if you are selling anti-dandruff shampoo and using 'anti-dandruff' as your long-tail keyword, you want to attract new customers to your brand.

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In the weeks leading up to Prime Day, you should focus on increasing brand awareness and generating product demand. Rethink your keywords strategy; instead of only targeting 'anti-dandruff shampoo,' consider targeting keywords like 'shampoo for dry scalp,' 'shampoo for itchy scalp,' or 'hair products for dandruff' to expand your reach.

Some customers may hold off on purchasing now as they await Prime Day deals, but they might still be thinking about your anti-dandruff shampoo. For instance, if they run out of shampoo and recall seeing your attractive ad, they could return to Amazon and buy your product. 

As an eCommerce brand operating in a competitive market, it's important to focus on generating demand. You can achieve this by utilizing Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), including New-to-brand, Non-brand, Sponsored Display, Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Brands Videos, or by leveraging Amazon DSP.

Amazon Demand-Side Platform (Amazon DSP)

By implementing the Amazon Demand-Side platform into your strategy, you can focus on New-to-brand, while including different behavioral and interest targeting. You can also use retargeting in the lead-up to Prime Day. For instance, if someone viewed your ASIN three months ago but didn't make a purchase, they're not a lost cause. With Prime Day approaching, you can retarget them by using creative ad visuals to remind them about the event and stay top of mind, whether they are on IMDb or simply scrolling through Amazon.

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Launch Advertising Campaigns Early

Remember to launch your Amazon advertising campaigns a week or two before Prime Day to gather valuable data and insights for efficiency. You don't need a large budget for these campaigns, but it's important to start them on time. Utilize Sponsored Display, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Brands Video, and Amazon DSP to make your eCommerce brand stand out with visually enticing ads. This will help you reach customers who are already browsing for products ahead of Amazon Prime Day 2024.

Focus on Increasing Brand Awareness

A few years ago, it was easier for a brand to succeed during Amazon Prime Day with fewer sellers on the platform and less competition in various categories. However, now it's not just a matter of 'build it and they will come.' You must establish and promote your brand to reach potential customers who may visit your product pages. We recommend leveraging AMS and Amazon DSP to boost brand awareness before Prime Day.

Let’s consider pizza cutters as an example. If you are a brand selling unique pizza cutters, you want to reach more customers and increase brand awareness. This includes shoppers looking for unique pizza cutters, pizza ovens, pizza stones, etc. By doing so, when Prime Day arrives, you will have a new pool of potential consumers. 

Focus on reaching new customers and don’t set strict TACoS, ACoS, or ROAS goals as you normally would, because your primary aim is to reach potential customers. This is a crucial step many brands overlook. You can target customers using Sponsored Display ads and other available Amazon tactics. On the non-branded side, using our unique pizza cutter example, you can bid on competitor keywords.

Start using keywords such as ‘unique pizza cutters’, ‘handheld pizza cutter’, ‘kitchen gadgets’, ‘small kitchen gadgets’, ‘pizza accessories’, and so on. To expand on this, you might even want to start appearing for ‘Father's Day gifts’ or ‘gifts for dad’ or ‘husband gifts’.

On the Amazon DSP side, focus on regular high-value customers who might shop from you, or target people who are new to your brand. Amazon DSP allows you to select when someone shopped so you can create and target audiences in Amazon DSP for the last Prime Day. This includes anyone who purchased on Prime Day but also new-to-brand Prime Day shoppers. 

Prepare a Sufficient Advertising Budget 

Make sure you have a sufficient advertising budget for Amazon Prime Day. Be ready to increase your spending during the two-day event and be open to reallocating funds from other parts of your annual budget to stay competitive. Keep in mind that the cost-per-click (CPC) will keep rising, and budgets will be used up earlier in the day due to the high demand on Prime Day.

It's important to remember to take into account the various US time zones when creating your budget. Many brands tend to set their Amazon Prime Day budgets using a 'set-it-and-forget-it' approach. However, by managing it this way, brands often end up using up their ad budget by 2 PM ET. This means they miss out on potential opportunities for the remaining half of the day due to insufficient budget.

We always allocate a higher budget in July and November for our clients, as these are typically our busiest months. It's important to plan your budget ahead of Prime Day to avoid running out of funds and not being able to continue campaigns. Detailed budget preparation is crucial for success during the upcoming online shopping event. Make sure you have enough budget for your AMS and Amazon DSP campaigns.

Conclusion

By preparing effectively and leveraging the opportunities presented by Amazon Prime Day, eCommerce brands can boost their sales, acquire new customers, and enhance their market presence. Plan strategically and use the remaining time before this year’s Prime Day event to create product demand, increase brand awareness, and prepare sufficient advertising funds. 

To learn more about preparing for Amazon Prime Day, we invite you to watch our latest webinar, Amazon Prime Day Strategies for Success. Find out how to optimize your ad spend for Prime Day, get practical tips for driving Prime Day sales, understand how Amazon DSP can be integrated into your Prime Day marketing mix, and discover the benefits of using social media and influencer marketing to promote your products.