Competing on Prime Day with a Finite Budget

Prime Day 2019 is coming up on July 15th and 16th. For Amazon eCommerce brands, this is a can’t miss holiday. Last year’s event totaled more than 100 million products sold and saw loyalty to Amazon Prime from new members grow at a record rate. With more Prime members than ever awaiting this annual sale, proper planning is crucial for making a lucrative first impression. 

Here are a few tips for maximizing a finite ad budget:

Create competitive, high-performing Sponsored Brand ads.

Do this in advance of Prime Day. Starting July 15th, ad space will be tight and priority will go to the best-performing ads (have you heard how Amazon feels about CRaP products?). If you can finesse your budget to start bidding at least a few days before the annual holiday, you can get a head-start on proving to Amazon’s algorithm that your ad is worth their space.

This is not the right time to test new creative or copy. We strongly recommend using this preparation time to analyze your data to find your best performers. Consider re-running those campaigns or basing your Prime Day creative off that.

Additionally, watch your metrics very closely and pause any ads or products that aren’t performing well. You may also consider adding negative keywords to your campaigns for even better performance.

Choose which inventory is worth the push.

If you’re working with a finite budget, you need to stick with high-performing keywords to stay competitive. This means spreading the budget through your entire catalog won’t do. Similar to creative, investigate your data to see which of your products are hot sellers and can bring in the highest ROAS. 

As you review your inventory, crossmatch your products with the historical trends you find from this Prime Day research. For example, electronics dominated Prime Day 2018, and nearly 40% of consumers between 18-40 years old will take advantage of Prime Day this year. 

Don’t lose consumers at the conversion.

To make the most of your finite budget, spend extra time reviewing your PDPs. Check that each of your pages includes: 

• a clear, flattering photo
• a descriptive title and complementary description
• relevant KEYWORDS to boost organic search

Additionally, we recommend you include A+ content. If you’re unfamiliar, A+ is a free way to add premium content to your PDPs and enhance the buying experience. Think comparison charts, embedded product images,videos, and branded text. This will have a huge impact on your ROAS.

For more help in maximizing your Amazon spend, contact Rise. We work with leading Retail, OEM, and CPG brands who want to take advantage of Amazon’s focused marketing solutions to find scale and efficiency within their programs.