Amazon Prime Day is just around the corner, and brands selling on Amazon are eagerly anticipating the results of their months of meticulous planning. This annual event presents a golden opportunity for brands to significantly boost their visibility and sales performance.
In 2023, Amazon saw:
- Over 375 million items were purchased globally by Prime members, who collectively saved more than $2.5 billion, marking it as one of the most successful Prime Day events ever.
- The average order size was $58.67, slightly down from $60.73 in 2022, but overall household spending averaged around $182 due to multiple orders per household.
- Amazon Live Prime Day streams garnered over 100 million views in the U.S. and India, with numerous content creators participating to showcase deals.
To build a successful Prime Day strategy, it is crucial to understand the key factors that drive conversions and long-term growth so your brand can impact critical metrics like Best Seller Rank (BSR) and organic search relevance.
To provide insights on crafting an effective Prime Day strategy, we spoke with Chad Zottoli, Senior Director of Amazon Marketplace, and Keeleigh Marr, Amazon Channel Manager. Their expertise offers valuable takeaways that brands can use to inform their next Prime Day strategy, striking the right balance between optimizing for discoverability and driving conversions.
Get Aggressive
With economic pressures driving consumer behavior towards even more cost-conscious spending, offering compelling deals and price discounts is crucial. Brands should be as aggressive as possible on pricing if conversion is the central Prime Day goal.
“If brands want to really drive Prime Day sales, they need to think about the best offers they can provide to customers. Prime Day is the day to double down on a “deal heavy” strategy. The bottom line is customers are looking at deal days as the opportunity to make their dollar go a little bit further, so your conversion factor during Prime Day is often directly correlated with how aggressive your discounts are.” - Keeleigh Marr, Amazon Channel Manager
Invest in Prime Day to See a Return the Rest of the Year
While the short-term goal of Prime Day is to generate sales and revenue, our channel experts emphasize that it should also be viewed as an investment in your brand. The two-day sales lift is just the beginning. By participating in Prime Day, you can positively impact metrics like Best Seller Rank (BSR) and organic search relevance. Staying competitive during this high-traffic event can have long-lasting effects, elevating your brand's visibility and sales performance throughout the year.
“We saw a great example of the power of investing in Prime Day with a brand that offered a 50% discount. Despite the initial discomfort, this brand saw a significant jump in their category ranking on Amazon, going from #337 to #1 within 48 hours. The long-term payoff from their investment on Prime Day far exceeded their expectations.
It's an opportunity to almost jump the line and then continue that momentum. It's your chance to reset the level of where you stand on organic search rank and BSR.” - Keeleigh Marr, Amazon Channel Manager
Smart brands use Prime Day as a catalyst for better rankings from elevated traffic, then continue the work on average traffic days to maintain momentum.
“Amazon search is based on relevance. It's based on traffic and number of clicks, just like Google. So, the more relevant you are, the higher you're going to rank in search for X-period of time. If brands invest in [Prime Days], and they shoot up rankings, as long as they continue fueling that fire, they're going to see their rate continue to remain high." - Chad Zottoli, Senior Director of Amazon Marketplace
Leverage Amazon's Search Dominance to Build Your Brand Awareness
Amazon's Search has surpassed Google as the number one search platform for products.
Understanding this, brands should think of Prime Day as an awareness opportunity just as much as a revenue opportunity. By participating in Prime Day programing, you have the chance to get in front of customers who spend the day browsing.
It is easy to get into an “all-or-nothing” mindset during sales days. It can be discouraging if your brand is not in competition for the number one spot via price reduction or ad spend. Even if your brand won’t be the all-star, just playing the game is worth it for the exposure.
“If a customer is searching for a particular product, statistically they're going on Amazon first and then the rest of the internet. And that is on a normal day. On Prime Day, this dynamic gets turned up. So having a strong presence on the number one product search engine (Amazon) on the days people are doing the highest amount of product searching (Prime Days), it's easy to see the value there for product discoverability.” - Chad Zottoli, Senior Director of Amazon Marketplace
Build Your Strategy Based on Desired Outcomes
Building a winning strategy requires a case-by-case approach. It's not simply a matter of cranking up advertising spend to the ceiling or lowering product prices to the absolute basement. Brands must carefully evaluate their specific goals and circumstances. Investing in advertising can improve discoverability, while pricing strategies may influence conversion rates. The key lies in identifying specific goals for brands or individual products, and then working backward from those goals to strike a good balance between optimizing for discoverability vs conversion.
“Brands looking to track the metric with the largest long-term impact, Best Seller Rank (and its improvement) will tell you just where you stack up to the competition.
If a brand is looking to increase sales dramatically during the event, metrics such as redemption rate, conversion, and GMV will be the most telling of performance. Based on our historical performance, if you choose to run a promotion during Prime Days, 20-25% off is a large, sweet spot.” - Keeleigh Marr, Amazon Channel Manager
Prime Day at Spreetail
Successful Prime Day strategies require a tailored approach. Brands must identify their specific goals, whether it's boosting discoverability, launching new products, or improving long-term sales metrics. By working closely with experts, such as Spreetail’s Amazon Marketplace Team, brands can navigate the complexities of Prime Day and achieve their desired outcomes.
"If your goal is to simply have an exciting two days, we can guide you on how to get there. If you're more focused on the discoverability of a new product launch or long-term improvement of your Best Seller Rank (BSR), we can help with that too.” - Keeleigh Marr, Amazon Channel Manager.
If you are interested in partnering with Spreetail to build your Prime Day strategy, start by reaching out to our buyers.
B2B Creative Marketing Manager
