ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

• Retail Readiness: Optimizing your products’ copy and creative is necessary for an overall successful promotional strategy. The product title and main image are the first interaction customers have with your product! By implementing strategic optimizations in advance, you can increase a product’s overall conversion as well as raise visibility within Amazon’s organic search algorithm.
  • Optimize product titles, product bullet points, and backend keywords
  • Feature enhanced creative including at least five product images, video, a Brand Story, A+ Content, and refreshed Store assets
    • Stat: According to Amazon, uploading videos to your product detail pages (PDPs) can help drive 5x conversion
  • Leverage Amazon Vine to work toward 15 reviews above a 3.5-Star rating
  • Explore Amazon badging opportunities including the Small Business Badge, the Black-Owned Business Badge, and the Climate Pledge Friendly Badge
  • Ensure all content is optimized for both the mobile and desktop shopping experience

• Promotional Preparation: As you review all promotional opportunities available to your brand, the first step is to align on the overall goal you hope to achieve during the event. Optimal goals can range from increasing revenue to driving new customer acquisition to highlighting new product innovation from the brand, or even moving through excess or discontinued inventory
  • Amazon deal types include Best Deals, Lightning Deals, Coupons, Prime Exclusive Discounts, and more depending on your brand’s eligibility
  • Our recommended promotion type is a Prime Exclusive Discount (PED), which has no associated fee and key placement during promotional events!
  • If limited by budget, Coupons are an excellent option as they allow brands to set clear budget thresholds and now offer a variety of audiences to target

• Inventory Preparation: Inventory forecasting and seamless shipments to Amazon are crucial factors in promotional success. Brands often experience delays in shipment processing at Amazon fulfillment centers during high-traffic promotional timeframes—accordingly, it is imperative to plan and ensure ASINs remain in stock and have sufficient inventory before, throughout, and after the event.
  • Stella Tip: We recommend maintaining 8-10 weeks of inventory coverage at all times to ensure that products remain in-stock and Prime eligible

ADVERTISING

Once your account is in good standing and ready for the promotional period, it’s time to focus on advertising strategy. During promotional periods, brands want to ensure consumers can find their product—advertising is the easiest way to make that happen. Through these next sections we’ll cover what to do and when to do it. These high-level strategies can be applicable to both Amazon Search or DSP channels. If you are running both already—great! If you are unsure where to start, search is our recommendation to set your foundation.

For any promotional period or tentpole event we advertise for, we break the strategies into three different periods: Lead-Up, Event, and Lead-Out. Your budget will determine how much you can invest into each period. If you have a large or incremental budget to support the event, it may make sense to launch supplemental campaigns to make sure you spend fully. If your budget is limited, then leaning into existing campaigns will be the approach.  

• Lead-Up Period: The Lead-Up Period is typically 2-3 weeks before the event, and this is when you need to establish advertising campaigns and begin filling the funnel. Ideally, these campaigns have been running for an extended period so that they already have relevancy.
  • Begin increasing bids to maintain competitiveness
  • Launch new keyword and category targets
  • Direct sponsored brand campaigns to promotion brand store page

• Event Period: The Event period runs the length of your promotion, and this is when consumers are most likely to convert. Whether it’s Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or your brand’s own special event, the Event period is where the bulk of your investment should be to drive consumers to product detail pages when purchase intent is high. With big events, you can anticipate daily spend to increase 2-3x.
  • Increase daily budgets to allow room to spend
  • Monitor SERP and increase bids to maintain placements
  • Activate retargeting or remarketing campaigns via Sponsored Display

• Lead-Out Period: The Lead-Out Period is the 2-3 weeks following your promotion. Re-engaging audiences drives the best success during Lead-Out.
• Dedicate budget to your remarketing tactics to target consumers who looked at your products during the event but did not purchase.
  • Maintain spend on retargeting or remarketing campaigns
  • Begin normalizing daily budgets
  • Begin normalizing keyword and target bids

• Advertising External Performance Boosters: Quite often running advertising via Amazon is very successful on its own, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to boost that performance!
  • Share posts or stories on social media channels informing followers of promotion
  • Leverage Amazon Attribution to measure the impact of non-Amazon marketing efforts such on your Amazon product sales.
    • Stella Tip: Seller Central brands can earn on average a 10% kickback on qualifying sales via the Brand Referral Bonus program
  • Secure press or PR before event
  • Utilize loyalty or email lists to inform of promotion

It is imperative for brands to meticulously prepare for any Amazon promotional event to maximize their success. A proactive approach involves optimizing product pages and creative elements to improve visibility and conversion rates. Ensuring sufficient inventory levels and planning for logistical delays is crucial to maintaining stock availability during, as well as after, high-demand periods. Utilizing strategic advertising tactics and key optimizations before, during, and after events can significantly boost brand sales. Additionally, external performance boosters such as social media, press coverage, and loyalty programs can further enhance promotional efforts by driving traffic to promotions. By implementing these comprehensive strategies, brands can effectively leverage Amazon's promotional events to achieve their specific business goals, whatever they may be!