Prime Day 2022 is set to take place in July this year, presenting Amazon sellers with a huge opportunity to boost sales and build their customer base. Prime Day is, perhaps, the biggest shopping event outside of the main holiday season, offering brands a chance to move more products and significantly increase their revenue.
According to Amazon, more than 150 million people worldwide have invested in a Prime membership, which means Prime Day is an opportunity to engage with millions upon millions of shoppers both locally and internationally.
However, to make the most of such an opportunity, you’ll need to ensure you have a strong and robust marketing strategy in place to promote your inventory.
What is Amazon Prime Day?
Prime Day was launched in 2015 to mark Amazon’s 20th year in business. The first Prime Day was a short – and, by today’s standards, somewhat unremarkable – one-day event offering discounted rates on a selection of products for Prime members. Today, it’s become one of the most significant online shopping events in history.
Prime Day is now held annually in more than 20 countries across Europe, Asia, North America, South America, and Australasia. And despite the name, it’s no longer just a ‘day’, having been extended to a major two-day event. Over these 48 hours, Prime members can access exclusive deals and discounts on a wide range of products across a huge number of categories. Some products may be discounted for the entire two-day event, while others are reduced only for a very limited time.
Just like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Prime Day offers buyers a chance to purchase items they want and need at a reduced rate. With the cost of living rising rapidly and shoppers increasingly demonstrating that they are smarter and savvier with their money, sales events like Prime Day are only expected to get bigger.
If you haven’t yet participated in a Prime Day event, this year is the time to dive in.
Tips & Strategies for a Successful Prime Day
Prime Day can be hugely lucrative for Amazon sellers when approached in the right way. What’s more, its potential only seems to be growing. In 2019, Amazon sellers generated a combined $2 billion in Prime Day sales.
Just one year later, that figure rose to a whopping $3.5 billion, surpassing the Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday sales. The sellers who saw the most significant returns on their Prime Day efforts were, undoubtedly, those that had worked to develop a strong Prime Day strategy.
So, what methods are successful Prime Day sellers adopting? The most successful sellers know that they need to:
Raise bids at the right time
When competition is fierce, it’s often smart to temporarily increase your Amazon paid search campaign bids. This ensures your products remain visible amongst your target audience. However, while you may be considering raising bids before Prime Day to generate interest, this may not be the best move.
When buyers know that Prime Day is close, many will choose to delay their purchase until the event itself to ensure they’re getting the best deals. This means that raising bids before Prime Day can result in traffic being worth less per click, as these visitors are less likely to proceed through checkout. Therefore, it can sometimes be best to raise bids when shoppers are ready to buy.
How much should you raise your bids on Prime Day? There’s no definitive answer. However, it’s never worth going over budget. Remember that as well as increased search-based browsing during Prime Day; there is also increased non-search activity. So, while paid search is essential, it’s not everything.
Offer a combination of deals & discounts
Prime Day is highly competitive, so the types of deals and discounts you offer can make a big difference in the number of shoppers you can attract and convert. Several deals and discount types typically perform best during Prime Day. These include Prime Exclusive Discounts, Lightning Deals, and coupons.
The Prime Exclusive Discount is a reduced rate available only to Prime members, making it a natural choice for Prime Day. To be eligible, you must have a Seller Feedback Rating of 4 or above (if any feedback has been received), and the product must have a 3.5+ star rating (again, if any rating has been received). The minimum discount you can offer is 20% off the standard non-member price.
Lightning Deals are limited-time discounts that are scheduled to go live at a specified time. They are displayed as usual in the search results and in Amazon categories but also feature on Amazon’s dedicated Lightning Deals page. A limited number of these deals can be claimed, but shoppers can join a waitlist if they miss out. If your product comes in different variants (e.g., colours or sizes), you’ll need to offer a discount on at least 80% of those variants.
Coupons are exactly what they sound like: vouchers that can be applied at checkout to reduce the price of an item. Amazon enables sellers to attach coupons to single items or item bundles. To be eligible, you’ll need a 3.5+ Seller Feedback Rating (if you have a rating). Products with four or fewer reviews will require a 2.5 minimum star rating, while those with 5+ reviews will need a three star+ rating.
Run display campaigns
Amazon recommends running display campaigns for Prime Day, such as Sponsored Display. Sponsored Display Ads are shown both on Amazon and off Amazon on third party sites, helping extend your brand’s reach beyond the platform. This is ideal for events such as Prime Day, where you want to attract as many as possible.
Sponsored Display Ads offer a wide range of targeting options, but product targeting is one of the best options for Prime Day. Product targeting enables you to serve ads to those customers who have shown interest in a product similar to yours. This tactic allows you to ‘piggyback’ off the visibility of your competitors’ products.
Omnichannel Amazon Marketing
While on-Amazon advertising is important for a successful Prime Day, it’s also important not to overlook the power of off-Amazon marketing. While someone may be a Prime member, they may be unaware of the shopping event or not actively seeking to buy. Therefore, it’s often necessary to reach out to potential customers and meet them where they are, helping raise awareness of your deals.
But how do you know which channels are worth your time and effort?
Amazon attribution can help.
Amazon Attribution is an Amazon tool that makes it easier to track the channels that have the most significant impact on your Amazon sales. By collecting data from various activities, sellers can better understand their most valuable channels and focus on these specific platforms to attract more leads during the Prime Day event.
Some channels and activities that may prove valuable around Prime Day include:
Email campaigns
Email campaigns can be used both before Prime Day to drum up interest and excitement and during Prime Day as a motivator for your leads to take action. Despite what some might say, email marketing is far from dead. It is proven to be a very low cost, highly efficient way to build and nurture relationships.
Research suggests that on average, email open rates during Prime Day are 47% higher than other holiday-related communications. It’s also been found that the number of sales attributed to email increases by as much as 11% during Prime Day.
Organic & paid social media
If your brand has a presence on social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, Prime Day is the perfect time to leverage the power of these channels to drive traffic towards your exclusive deals.
Organic traffic is important, but it can be worth investing in paid social media efforts around Prime Day to squeeze the most value out of this opportunity. Be sure to highlight your Prime deals in your posts and ads to encourage users to take advantage of the discounts you’re offering.
PR & affiliate marketing
The problem with extending your Prime Day efforts to other channels such as social media and email is that you’re still only reaching those already within your brand’s ‘circle’. To see the best returns from Prime Day, try to extend your reach further into previously untapped demographics. It’s the ideal time to attract new customers and build a larger, more robust, more loyal audience.
Partnering with a PR agency or affiliate marketer can make this much easier. This gives you access to a ready-made audience pool and marketing experts experienced in delivering positive brand messages.
Optimised content & SEO
As briefly discussed, some shoppers will opt to delay their purchases until Prime Day to obtain products for the lowest possible price. This means that many Prime Day shoppers already have a good idea of what they’re looking for during the big event. For Amazon sellers, this means it’s more important than ever to ensure that product titles and listings are optimised for SEO.
By ensuring that all listings are optimised with the right keywords, Amazon’s A9 ranking algorithm will help match the right products with the right shoppers. However, optimisation isn’t just about SEO; it’s also about satisfying customer needs to a point where they feel happy to commit to the purchase. So be sure to work on building your review profile, answering customer queries, and sharing your brand message through your content to give customers the best possible experience.
Cross-Channel Best Practices
Even though Prime Day offers shoppers exclusive discounts, it’s important to remember that not every visitor will be ready to buy during the event. Some will require further nurturing. That’s why it’s always best practice to continue your cross-channel marketing efforts, even after Prime Day has ended.
By continuing to nurture relationships with those showing an interest in your products, you can keep your items – and your brands – front of mind. Then, when customers do feel ready to take that next step, you’ve positioned your brand in the best place to be a natural, go-to choice, even without a Prime Day discount.
Remember: Prime Day may only last two days, but its impact can last much longer.
Need help defining and honing your Amazon marketing strategy ready for Prime Day? At ClearAds, we work with Amazon sellers to develop robust strategies that derive the most value from sales opportunities. Get in touch with our team to learn more.
