Our 3-Phase Approach to a Successful Amazon Prime Day 2020

Digital Marketing / July 04, 2019

This article was updated on September 28, 2020.

Amazon vendors around the world are lining up to capture the billions in sales that will happen during one 48-hour period — October 13 and 14 2020, also known as Amazon Prime Day 2020. Make the most of this annual bonanza by following our three-phase approach to a successful Prime Day.

If you’re a retailer who sells on Amazon, you probably already know that Amazon’s Prime Day is a very big deal. Once a year Prime subscribers flock to Amazon to take advantage of discounts from thousands of vendors.

In 2018, this massive shopping holiday generated 4.19 billion U.S. dollars in sales from an estimated 103 million Prime members. Amazon Prime Day 2020 was supposed to take place in July, as it did in 2018 and 2019. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was delayed for a few months. For the first time, Amazon Prime Day will happen a few weeks before Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We can expect consumers to already be on the lookout for gifts and holiday shopping during Amazon Prime Day 2020.

So, what can you do to make the most of this massive shopping holiday? Read on for our three-phase amazon ads approach for beating the competition on Prime Day — if you’re not already relying on Bloom services for advertising on Amazon.

Phase 1: Pre-PrimeDay

Leading up to Amazon Prime Day 2020, start promoting your brand and products to researching audiences by using Amazon Marketing Services — the network’s pay per click advertising system. Learn more on advertising on Amazon through our Guide “Getting Started on Amazon”

Amazon statistics show that deal-hunting and purchasing accelerate before the official Prime Day event. Allocate a generous budget that gradually ramps up as you get closer to Prime Day to make sure you capture the attention of those shoppers who are researching (and also purchasing) in advance. 

We recommend starting with a Sponsored Products campaign — Amazon’s equivalent to paid search advertising on their network. Sponsored Products will feature your products in front of shoppers based on the keyword searches they enter on Amazon. 

Advertise more ASINs. Expand your reach by making sure your Sponsored Products ads point to as many of your products as they can. By casting a wider net you will be able to capture the attention of more high-value Amazon Prime shoppers… and ultimately sell more products.

Create at least four AMS Sponsored Products campaigns per product category.  Build one Manual campaign that uses relevant keywords focused on ASIN, brand and category keywords. And create three Auto campaigns with different settings: one Auto campaign with close match keywords, one with loose match keywords, and a third with substitutes, which will show your product to people who viewed similar products. 

At this phase, we recommend manual bidding, so you can closely monitor your costs per click and adjust based on which products and campaigns are working best for you.

Set your Prime Day pricing strategy. Determine ahead of time which products you are going to feature, and how deep your discounts will be. You’ll most definitely want to launch some pre-Prime-Day deals to generate interest before the big sale. 

Tweak your Amazon product content so it has the best possible chance of getting noticed during the big sale. 

• Update your product titles, descriptions and bullets to make sure they best represent your products and contain relevant keywords.
• Make sure you have the best possible, and as many as possible, images of each product. Enable zoom functionality.

You can also easily set up Amazon Coupons for your products. Their bright orange tags are very visible to busy online shoppers. However — a coupon will only become live two days after you create it! Make sure you set up any Prime Day Amazon Coupons well in advance!

And most critically — use this pre-prime week or so to learn about what’s working so you can hone in on highly-searched keywords and products. This is one of the two reasons why we recommend a healthy advertising budget leading up to prime: 1) to catch the attention of Prime Day researchers; and 2) so you can learn and optimize your campaign before the big day. 

Phase 2: During Prime Day

Once you’ve generated interest in your products and brand leading up to Prime Day, it’s time to switch strategies immediately prior to and during the big sale. This will allow you to more aggressively engage the brand-aware shoppers who are most likely to buy your products. 

Set up Manual targeting Sponsored Products campaigns for every product category, and target a high volume of ASIN, brand and category-focused keywords. Meanwhile, launch two Auto targeting campaigns per product category — one that focuses exclusively on substitute products to attract customers who view similar products, and the other that targets close match keywords, which show your ads to customers who enter keywords closely related to your products. 

This bidding strategy ensures that your products appear on highly targeted and relevant keyword searches, while also making your products discoverable on closely related keyword searches. 

Switch your bidding strategy from manual to dynamic during the main Prime Day 2020 event. This option uses machine learning to determine the optimal cost per click that will result in a conversion. Costs per click and activity will skyrocket during Prime Day; you want to be sure that your ads and products can compete during this intensely competitive 48-hour window. By bidding dynamically, you will be relying on real-time data and artificial intelligence to optimize your bids throughout this intense sales period.

Phase 3: Post-Prime Day 

Think of the period after Amazon Prime Day 2020 as the Amazon Prime echo. The buzz and heightened activity around Prime Day 2020 will continue to generate higher sales for vendors for at least 14 days after the main event. This is a key opportunity to re-engage your audiences at scale — activating past customers and converting the new customers you attracted during Prime Day. And, with the Holidays right around the corner, retailers won’t want to miss that opportunity.

If your budget doesn’t allow you to advertise during Prime Day 2020, you can still get in on the action. During the two weeks after Prime Day you can take advantage of the momentum of this event without paying the inflated Prime Day costs per click. Even if you weren’t advertising during Prime Day, you can fire up your Sponsored Products ads by following the bidding and targeting strategies outlined below.

If you were using dynamic bidding during Prime Day, it’s time to switch back to manual bidding, which will allow better control over your costs per click. 

Meanwhile, create or adjust your Sponsored Products campaigns to attract shoppers who may have discovered your products or products similar to yours during Prime Day 2020. Per product category, you’ll want to set up a Manual campaign focused on ASINs, brands and category keywords. And you’ll want three Auto targeting campaigns — one focused exclusively on substitute products, one targeting close match keywords and the other focused on loose match keywords.

Amazon Prime Day 2020 is a big deal — make sure you’re ready!

With a little planning and preparation before, during and after this year’s Prime Day, you can position your products so they are seen and purchased by a considerably higher number of Prime members. All it takes is an advertising strategy that takes advantage of user behaviour before, during and after the big sale event. Ready? Fire up your Amazon Advertising accounts…